DECREASING POPULATION OF FRANCE 259 



perpetuity of his race through the rearing of children as to defend it in 

 time of war or to pay taxes for the maintenance of government. Any 

 and all measures which shall contribute toward an awakening of the 

 people to the importance of this national duty are worthy of encourage- 

 ment and of adoption. The solution of the problem is not dependent 

 upon external measures and remedies ; it is to be found almost entirely 

 in the moral sentiments and social customs of the people themselves. 

 Zola did not exaggerate when he said : " France will never be depopu- 

 lated unless she wishes to be." The late Emile Levasseur once remarked 

 that it was "truly humiliating to think of a nation of thirty-eight 

 million souls, which by its age, its industry and commerce is one of 

 the wealthiest of the globe and which by its intellectual activity, its arts 

 and its sciences is one of the most capable of enlightening the world 

 and which under republican government has during the last quarter of 

 a century recovered in the European concert the place of a great power, 

 is a nation which, according to the statistics is destined to disappear." 

 Mr. Eoosevelt's warning at the Sorbonne in 1907 that "neither luxury, 

 nor material progress, nor the accumulation of wealth, nor the seduc- 

 tions of literature and of art, should take the place of those fundamental 

 virtues the greatest of which is that which assures the future of the 

 race " made a deep impression at the time it was delivered and has not 

 been entirely without result. It is no exaggeration to say that at no 

 time in the past have so many thoughtful Frenchmen been aroused to 

 a realization of the consequences that must inevitably result from the 

 continued decline of the population. This is fully attested by the 

 organization of societies to increase the population, by the formation 

 of parliamentary groups with the same end in view, by the appointment 

 of parliamentary and extra-parliamentary commissions to study the 

 question and to search for the remedies, by legislative and administra- 

 tive measures of various kinds and by the discussions and publications 

 of scientific bodies and of economists, sociologists and publicists. No 

 one can read the extensive literature to which the discussion of the 

 problem has given rise without feeling that the question is now regarded 

 as a serious and pressing one and that the nation proposes to grapple 

 with it as such. 



