44 



Mr. Thorold Rogers, in his Six Centuries of Work and Wages, 

 observes : " We learn from contemporary accounts that rapid 

 growth of population followed on the destruction of the Black 

 Death (in England in the' 13th century). It is said that after 

 this event double and triple births were frequent, that marriageJj 

 were singularly fertile, and that in a short time the void made 

 by the pestilence was no longer visible. The repressive check 

 of a high standard of living was removed by the ease with 

 which the survivors could obtain that standard and accumulate 

 from a considerable margin beyond it. ... I make no 

 doubt that the population speedily righted itself, as it has done 

 on many other occasions, when a sudden or abnormal destruction 

 of human life has occurred in a people and the people has 

 a recuperative power." For a consideration of the question as 

 to what conclusions bearing on the economic condition of the 

 people, the increase in the population during the last decade 

 leads to, we must await the publication of the detailed results 

 of the census. It seems, however, to be pretty clear that the 

 normal rate of increase, viz., -8 per cent, per annum, given 

 in the census report of this Presidency for 1881, is much below 

 the mark. Mr. Hardy, in the chapter on the rate of increase 

 of population contributed by him to the report on the census 

 of British India taken in 1881, has calculated the rate of 

 increase for the whole of the Madras Presidency to be '6 per 

 cent, and for the tracts not afflicted with famine, 'S per cent. 

 Between 1856 and 1871, the population had increased at the 

 rate of 1*2 per cent. That this rate must have been higher 

 than the rate which had obtained previously when the country 

 suffered from severe agricultural depression is evident from the 

 fact that the proportion of the population under 20 years of age, 

 that is, born subsequent to 1851, to the total population cen- 

 sused in 1871, was found to be as high as 52| per cent., while, 

 according to the life table, the proportion should have been 

 something like 45 per cent. The increase of population during 

 the last decade has been at the rate of 1-44 per cent, and, during 

 the last 35 years, of -84 per cent, not merely in the non-famine 

 tracts but throughout the whole Presidency. So severe a 

 famine as that of 1876-78 is not likely to occur except once in 

 a century and it would probably be nearer the mark to assume 

 the normal increase of population under present conditions to 

 be not much less than 1 per cent., even making allowance for 

 mortality from droughts and scarcities, such as those that usually 

 occur. At this rate the population will double itself in 70 

 years. This high rate of increase, while showing that the 

 means of subsistence at the present day are more plentiful than 

 in times past^ shows at the same time that the pi-essure of 



