THE LAW OF POPULATION 147 



posts of employment are being created which enable 

 young men who enter into occupation of them to 

 marry. It is to the creation of new posts that all 

 the numerical increase of a community is due ; so 

 that the percentage of increase of its population in 

 a decade measures the percentage of increase that has 

 taken place in the number of posts of employment. 



When, again, a community feels the pressure of 

 adverse circumstances, and its sources of industry are 

 being sapped by permanent causes, many posts of 

 employment are rendered vacant by employers being 

 unable to maintain them. The demand of the labour 

 market is thus reduced, and year after year fewer 

 labourers are employed. Accordingly the number of 

 young men who are enabled to obtain employment 

 by succeeding to posts rendered vacant by death tends 

 to grow smaller, and thus the marrying power of a 

 community is curtailed, so that the birth-rate falls 

 below the death-rate, and the population dwindles. 

 The standard of living in such cases tends to de- 

 teriorate, as employers are no longer able to give 

 the wages that were given in more prosperous times, 

 while labourers compete with each other to obtain 

 employment for such wages as employers can afford. 

 Witness the comparative poverty and depopulation 

 that has overtaken Venice, the once proud and opulent 

 Queen of the Adriatic. 



It is obvious that a man cannot enter into the 

 married state unless he possesses means of subsistence 

 that suftice for himself and a wife ; and this subsist- 



