192 NO STRUGGLE NO SELECTION 



What I consider as most noteworthy in this table 

 is the small drop in the birth-rate as compared with 

 the great fall in the death-rate. 



In the forty years 1864-1903 the average life in 

 the Netherlands has been lengthened by no less than 

 18 years. Whereas in the decade 1864-73 there 

 died annually 257 persons per 10,000, in the 

 decade 1894-1903 only 172 persons died. But 

 while the posts of employment made vacant by death 

 have thus undergone a great reduction, those created 

 by the expansion of the trade and industries of 

 Holland have become so much more numerous as to 

 raise the natural increase of the population from 10'3 

 per cent, decennially to 1 6'1 per cent., and the actual 

 increase from 9 per cent, to 14 '6 per cent. The 

 commercial and industrial development of Holland 

 may be estimated from the fact that to a population 

 of 3,431,000 in 1863 she in the space of forty years 

 added no fewer than 1,958,000 persons, an increase 

 of rather more than 57 per cent., while the standard 

 of comfort of her people has been greatly elevated. 



If neither trade nor industry had increased since 

 1864, but had remained in statu quo ante, the birth- 

 rate would have fallen in a commensurate degree 

 with the death-rate, and would in the decade 1894- 

 1903 have amounted to 220 births annually to 

 10,000 persons, instead of being, as it was, as 

 high as 322. To so great an extent has the birth- 

 rate been kept up and prevented from falling by the 

 commercial and industrial expansion of the country. 



