CHAPTER V. 

 THE STEUGGLE FOR EXISTENCE. 



BY the operation of the law which I have expounded 

 in the second and third chapters, no surplus 

 population can be produced from the numbers of a 

 community increasing at a more rapid rate than the 

 food supply. Yet so prevalent is the belief that 

 population is always tending to outstrip the means of 

 subsistence, that the eagerness displayed by several 

 European nations to acquire settlements and colonies 

 abroad is justified by the alleged necessity of finding 

 outlets for their surplus population. The justice of 

 this plea is apparently established when, year after 

 year, thousands of men go forth from the home countries 

 to settle in other lands without the labour market 

 suffering any apparent detriment from their departure. 

 I have already explained that this emigration 

 causes no economical loss, apparent or real, to the 

 home country : first, because younger men come forward 

 in sufficient numbers to occupy the posts of employ- 

 ment that were filled, or that would in the ordinary 

 course have been filled, by those who emigrated, and 

 who thus obtain posts that enable them to marry at 



an earlier age than they would have done if no 



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