STERILITY OF THE CAPABLES. 



149 



POPULATION, MARRIAGES, BIRTHS, DEATHS. 



We see that from 1867 till 1891 the population of 

 the United Kingdom has increased twenty-five per 

 cent, but that of France has remained stationary. 

 While the marriage-rate the number of persons 

 married per 1000 of the population is about the 

 same in both countries, the births are over fifty per 

 cent, in excess of the deaths in the United Kingdom ; 

 while in France they are but very slightly in excess. 

 It cannot be doubted that, in very large measure, it 

 is due to this relative sterility that France has failed 

 as a colonising power. The French have ever been 

 full of enterprise, and have long desired to establish 

 colonies, but they have in the main been ousted by 

 the British. Colonisation to them has been an 

 ambition, an idea, but not a necessity; to us the 

 alternative has been overcrowding and misery on 

 the one hand, and extensive emigration on the other, 



