156 NO STRUGGLE NO SELECTION 



marriages produced 306 children, while 70 Scotch 

 marriages produced 296 children. The resulting 

 difference in the fecundity of the marriages of the 

 two countries is that while in Scotland 100 marriages 

 yield 423 children, the same number of marriages in 

 England yields only 392, or 7 '4 per cent, fewer. 



The labour market of the two countries called for 

 an equal birth-rate. An equal birth-rate was accord- 

 ingly obtained. 



Thus neither the fact that the illicit inuioy of 

 Scotland was so much higher than that of England, 

 nor the fact that the fecundity of Scotch marriages so 

 much exceeded that of English marriages, was a factor 

 that directly affected the supply of the labour market ; 

 for, had the relations of the two countries in both 

 these respects been very different, while their 

 respective labour markets called for an equal supply 

 of labour, that equal supply would have been obtained 

 by means of an equal birth-rate. 



The ages at which the different classes of a 

 community enter into the marriage bond do not in 

 any way call for the attention or consideration of the 

 populationist, except in so far as they go to prove the 

 general rule that men marry as soon as they are able 

 to do so. Men who earn their subsistence by the 

 labour of their hands are able to marry at an early 

 age, while, generally speaking, men who earn their 

 living by their brains, or who require to establish a 

 position for themselves, are constrained to defer their 

 marriages to a later period of life. 



