THE LAW OF POPULATION 167 



relative strength of her military force, with the 

 resulting loss of some 90,000,000 of days of labour." 

 He also says : " The number of men on the peace- 

 footing is 320,000." That number of men has been 

 largely increased since the article was written, yet 

 deleterious effects of the abstraction of their labour 

 have been nowhere felt in any one branch of German 

 trade or industry. 



The amount of the labour which the writer imagined 

 to have been lost to Prussia by the segregating of a 

 certain part of her male population from the ranks of 

 industry to discharge military service was fully 

 supplied by younger men, who were by the removal 

 of the others enabled to take their places in the 

 labour market sooner than they would otherwise have 

 done. Thus not one day's labour was lost to any 

 department of industry. Indeed, a great many more 

 days of labour were added in consequence of the 

 absorption of the men into military service calling 

 into requisition a number of workers to provision, 

 clothe, and otherwise equip the standing army. 



The population of Prussia within its present bound- 

 aries was in 1871, 24,673,000 ; in 1903 it amounted 

 to 35,825,000, an increase of more than 45 per cent, 

 in 32 years. This vast addition to her population 

 has been summoned into being by the great extension 

 of her labour market in every department of industry, 

 and it has been accompanied by a far greater than 

 proportional increase in the means of subsistence of 

 the people overhead. 



