THE LAW OF POPULATION 165 



created a great and sudden demand for a larger supply 

 of labour, that demand will at once be responded to, 

 owing to the reserve of young men that every com- 

 munity possesses. The extent of this reserve may be 

 realised by those who take into consideration how 

 Napoleon, during the last years of his sanguinary 

 career, recruited his constantly depleted armies from 

 the youthhood of France. The result is that the 

 labour market is being constantly stocked with labour 

 filling up its available posts of employment. It is 

 within the memory of everyone how, at the close of 

 the war in South Africa, the Volunteers, who had 

 left their employments at home to serve for a year 

 or two their country abroad, experienced, upon their 

 return, great difficulty in obtaining similar posts to 

 those they had left ; and how, notwithstanding all 

 the efforts that were made in various quarters to 

 procure for them suitable situations, many had for a 

 long time a weary waiting. 



It were a comparatively easy matter to take a 

 multitude of men out of posts in the labour market, 

 for their posts would at once be filled ; but it would 

 be next to impossible to repone them in similar posts 

 after the lapse of a short time. More than a million 

 of emigrants have left the shores of England during 

 the last ten years. Let anyone strive to imagine 

 what would happen if, after the lapse of a few years, 

 half of those who emigrated returned to seek in the 

 English labour market posts similar to those they 

 had left. Some, no doubt, would succeed in obtaining 



