THE EEGULATION OF NUMBEKS 277 



necessity in itself tend to bring about any over-population. On 

 the contrary, it tends rather to remove the causes which produce 

 degraded social conditions and the consequences referred to above 

 which flow from them. But in other ways European influence is 

 not beneficial. Those customs, for instance, which insist upon 

 the bridegroom possessing a certain degree of skill break down, 

 and unless a more or less distinctly formulated ambition takes 

 their place, there is nothing to ensure that the necessary effort 

 to secure the highest standard of living that is possible will be 

 made. 



That which is common to these races, where over-population is 

 suspected, is the absence of hope and fear alike, of ambition and 

 of a standard of living ; they are contented to subsist on what 

 will just support life. Such conditions are fatal to the attainment 

 of the desirable number. Abortion and infanticide may still be 

 practised, but as a rule only in the presence of absolute need, not 

 as regular customs before the need arises. To the bringing about 

 of these conditions the factors mentioned above contribute, but 

 they probably never represent the whole cause. In these cases 

 we seem always to find that political misfortunes have overtaken 

 these peoples. They have suffered from oppression in one form 

 or another and gradually the old customs have been lost ; hope 

 and ambition have faded from the outlook. In consequence of 

 oppression the mass of the people has by degrees sunk to a degraded 

 condition in which neither the former customs are practised nor 

 is an individual effort, as a rule, made towards the attainment of 

 the best which the skilled methods available, surroundings and 

 so on, make possible. 



It is also probable that there is over-population in Egypt ; 

 it is probable, that is to say, that with the recent increase of the 

 fellaheen population there has been a decrease in the income 

 per head. Any one who has had an opportunity of watching the 

 behaviour of the fellaheen side by side with that of members of 

 some race such as the Somalis cannot fail to have been very much 

 impressed. The fellaheen cultivate one of the richest countries 

 on earth, and they have within their grasp and to some extent 

 within their use a considerable degree of modern skilled methods. 

 At an Egyptian port these men were to be seen at work during 

 the war. From time to time Somalis disembarked with ship- 

 loads of camels. The Somalis live in a country which relatively 



