174 NO STRUGGLE NO SELECTION 



The birth-rate is even more than the marriage-rate 

 affected by the death-rate, for it is the birth-rate which 

 directly supplies the labour market. In some 

 countries illegitimacy prevails more than in others, 

 and where this is the case marriage is less frequent, 

 partly because it often happens that those who have 

 to support illegitimate children are thereby rendered 

 unable to marry, and partly because cohabitation 

 unsanctioned by marriage not unfrequently takes 

 place. Again, there is growing in some countries 

 the practice, that has long been a characteristic of 

 the French, of married people limiting the number 

 of their children ; and where this practice is beheld 

 growing, we find the marriage-rate becoming elevated 

 without affecting the birth-rate in the degree we should 

 expect. 



Again, the differences that exist between the 

 various peoples in the fecundity of their marriages 

 renders it advisable to measure by the birth-rate rather 

 than by the marriage-rate the effect upon the move- 

 ment of population caused by the death-rate. In 

 every case the birth-rate supplies the labour demand, 

 and never provides a surplus or an insufficient supply. 



Let us now see the effect produced upon the birth- 

 rates of Eussia, Hungary, and Eoumania by their 

 elevated death-rates, and place alongside the results 

 thus obtained the results of the lower death-rates of 

 other countries. 



The table which I now submit contains the pro- 

 portional number of deaths and births annually in 



