102 p7-og)-css of Population and Wealth 



This, however, is not to be expected. European emigration 

 would be immediately affected by a European war, which would 

 at once check natural increase, and give new employment to a 

 great number ; so that, instead of emigrants from that source 

 increasing, as they have done for the last thirty years, they would 

 be considerably diminished. Besides, though peace should con- 

 tinue, it is not probable that those emigrants will increase in pro- 

 portion to our increasing numbers, and still less, in the same ratio 

 as heretofore. The increase of their number depends upon the 

 condition of both countries ; and although, when the United States 

 contain one hundred millions of people, they may present six times 

 as many points of attraction as at present, yet it does not follow that 

 Europe will then be able to spare inhabitants to the same extent. 

 So far as England is concerned, Canada, New Holland, and New 

 Zealand may draw off the largest portion of her redundant numbers ; 

 nor can it be foreseen how much our own policy may change in 

 encouraging immigration, when the Western States have attained 

 a density equal to that of the Middle States. 



But will the diminution in the rate of natural increase continue 

 unchanged ; and will it not even augment as the density of popula- 

 tion increases ? 



On this subject, very contrary opinions have prevailed. Whilst 

 some have calculated upon an undeviating rule of multiplication 

 until we have reached 200,000,000 or more, others have maintained 

 that, although our population might continue its past rate of increase 

 until it had reached 60,000,000, a change in that rate would cer- 

 tainly then take place ; as such a population supposes the whole 

 territory of the Union occupied, and all the fertile lands under 

 cultivation. These opinions seem equally removed from probability. 

 The first is satisfactorily disproved by the diminution in the ratio 

 of increase which has already been shown, and which diminution 

 we may rationally expect to increase with the increasing density 

 of numbers. The other hypothesis would arrest the present progress 

 of our population when it has reached 60,000,000, which would not 

 be equal to 64 persons to a square mile on the country now occupied 

 by the people of the United States. But when it is recollected 

 that the unoccupied country west of the Mississipi is yet larger 

 than that now settled, we may presume that, when the population 

 has reached 60,000,000, the whole of the western territory to the 

 Pacific will be more or less settled, and consequently, that the 

 population will then average less than 33 to a square mile ; a 



