i 4 2 NO STRUGGLE NO SELECTION 



infants must have been proportionally much greater 

 than at the present day. 



Nevertheless, as will become evident when the laws 

 that govern the movement of population are under- 

 stood, the large death-rate in no way acted to keep 

 down or decrease the population of any country, 

 inasmuch as its resultant action was simply to in- 

 crease the number of marriages and to raise the 

 birth-rate in a sufficient degree to satisfy all the needs 

 of the existing labour market. 



I shall now devote a brief consideration to the 

 registered death-rates of the Australasian colonies, 

 British communities whose existence is of com- 

 paratively recent date, which have sprung up under 

 conditions of soil and climate favourable to health 

 and longevity, and which have been guided to their 

 present social well-being by their inheritance of the 

 highest existing civilisation. 



These colonies are destined to be great and power- 

 ful nations, more fortunate than the Mother Country 

 in this respect, that they will not be, as she is now, 

 burdened with many deep-rooted and festering social 

 evils, the result of ages of barbaric neglect and 

 ignorance of man's duty to man. 



In the following table I give the average annual 

 death-rates in 1000 of population with the average 

 life-term in each of the decades 1884-93 and 1894- 

 1903. Their mortalities, as we might expect, are 

 considerably below those that prevail in European 

 countries. 



