28o 



The Review of Reviews. 



WANTED COLONISTS-FOR FRANCE 

 A Palliative against Depopulation. 

 The Annales de Geographic for January published a 

 general summary of recent census takings in various 

 parts of the world. Beginning with France, the popu- 

 lation in 191 1 was 39,601,509, the increase of 34Q.2'>4 

 iniuiliitants since 1906 being less than one per hundred. 



A HIGH DEATH-RATE. 



Writing in the Nouvelle Revue of February ist, M. 

 Jacques baugny draws attention to the movement 

 of population in France in the first half of 1911. 

 Mortality has increased, the birth-rate is reduced, 

 and there is a decline in the number of marriages, he 

 says. Moreover, the number of deaths has exceeded 

 the number of births by 18,000. Compared with 

 Holland, Belgium, England, and Germany, which are 

 less favoured by Nature, France, notwithstanding her 

 temperate and healthy climate, has a higher death- 

 rate. The decline in the population in France, there- 

 fore, is not due entirely to a low birth-rate. 



In order to raise the birth-rate M. Paul Leroy- 

 Beaulieu has suggested the payment of bounties to the 

 fathers of families ! The writer acknowledges the 

 splendid work to fight depopulation of private associa- 

 tions and public aid which have helped poor mothers 

 and rescued abandoned children : and yet the French 

 nice is the poorer by 18,000 souls in the first si.\ months 

 of last year. It is not so much in regions where the soil 

 is arid and less productive as in the more fertile regions 

 that the depopulation has not been arrested. 



TO INCREASE THE RURAL llOPULATION. 



In the harvest months thousands of foreigners cross 

 the frontier for a short season and then return to their 

 own lands. Since this invasion is indispensable, the 

 writer proposes as a palliative to arrest the decline 

 of the rural population that the annual foreign inva- 

 sion he replaced by immigrants invited to settle in the 

 country with their families. There would be no difli- 

 culty about finding them. Every year a million men 

 emigrate from Eastern Europe and the Mediterranean 

 to form colonies in Africa and America. On their \vay 

 to these unknown lands they cross French territory 

 to embark at Havre or Marseilles. How many of them 

 might be tempted to remain ! Poles, Ruthenians, and 

 others would soon acclimatise themselves and replace 

 with advantage in the North of I'Vance the Belgian, 

 (Jerman, and other invaders; wliile the .Sardinians, 

 Sicilians, Catalonians, and Andalusians would make 

 excellent colonisfs for the south. Rude and primitive, 

 but hard-working and not afraid of large families, these 

 races might form an effective barrier against German 

 infiltration. The Slavs would make good soldiers, and 

 the Latins would assimilate tiuickly and easily with the 

 native population. To elaborate and put into force 

 such a scheme of home colonisation needs hut good 

 will and a small capital, while the immigrants recruited 

 from the most robust races might furnish France with 

 the arms which she lacks, and check the invasion from 

 the countries on her eastern border. 



THREE EXPLANATIONS OF EL DORADO. 



In a paper on the quest of El Dorado in the BuUetiir 

 iij the Pan-American Union for January, three origins 

 are given to the story. A roving Indian in 1535 fir>t 

 told the Spaniards the story of the gilded chieftain. 

 The person about to be made king, after a long fast, was 

 obliged to go to the Lake of Guatavita, and offer sacrifice 

 to his god. " After being stripped, he was anointed 

 with a viscous earth, which was then overspread with 

 powdered gold in such wise that the chief was covered 

 with this metal from head to foot." Arriving at the 

 middle of the lake with a great quantity of gold and 

 emeralds, he made his offering by throwing into the 

 lake all the treasure which he had at his feet. After 

 several abortive attempts had been made to drain the 

 lake, quite recently an English company have secured 

 a concession from' the Colombian Government, have 

 completely drained the lake, and found the bottom 

 covered with a deposit of mud about three metres in 

 thickness. It will be necessary to wash this carefully 

 in order to find what treasures, if any, are contained 

 in it. So far only a few beads, ceramic and gold objects 

 have been found. 



According to Padre Gumilla, the word " Dorado " 

 originated on the Caribbean coast. The Spaniards 

 visiting the valley of Sogamoso found that the priest 

 who niade his oblation in the great temple there was 

 wont to anoint at least his face and hands with a certain 

 kind of resin, over which powdered gold was blown 

 through a hollow reed or cane. 



Others declare that the first authentic information is 

 in a letter of January 20th. 1543. from de Oviedo. He 

 tells of a great and powerful prince called El Dorado, 

 near Quito. " This great lord or prince goes about 

 continually covered with gold as finely pulverised as 

 fine salt. To powder oneself with gold is something 

 strange, unusual, and costly, because that which 

 one puts on in the morning is removed and washed 

 oil in the evening and falls to the ground and is 

 lost. And this he does e\ery day in the year. While 

 walking clothed and covered in this manner his move- 

 ments are unimpeded, and the graceful proportions of 

 his person, of which he greatly prides himself, are seen 

 in beauty unadorned." 



Will some American millionaire on reading this be 

 tempted to ad\-ertise his wealth by assuming the 

 El Dorado costume ^ It is to be hoped not. 



Apropos of the now wiilnlrawn circular of the 

 Japanese Government, relative to a combination of the 

 common elements in Christianity and Buddhism and 

 Shinto, may be quoted what Air. Wilfred H. ScholT 

 reports in the MonisI for January : — " Six centuries 

 after the Christian era Buddhist and Christian legends 

 were so mingled in Western .\sia that the Koran 

 absolutely confused the two ; while a little later in 

 Ivistern .\sia a Chinese emperor issued an edict for- 

 bidding the same confusion then prevalent' in his 

 dominions." 



