738 REPORT— 1901. 



result of the use of continuous statistical records that the questions involved can 

 be so definitely raised. 



As I have stated, it would be foreign to the object of this paper to discuss fully 

 the various questions thus brought up for discussion, but one or two observations 

 may be made having regard to some inferences which are somewhat hastily drawn. 



1. The rate of growth of population of the communities may still be very con- 

 siderable, even if it is no higher than it has been in the last few years. A growth 

 of 16, 15, or even 12 percent, in ten years, owing to the excess of births over 

 deaths, is a very considerable growth, though it is much less than the larger figures 

 which existed in some parts forty or fifty years ago. What has happened in the 

 United Kingdom is well worth observing in this connection. Since 1840 the 

 population of the United Kingdom as a whole has increased nearly 60 per cent., 

 although the increase in most of the decades hardly ever exceeded 8 per cent., 

 and in 1840-50 was no more than 2i per cent. The increase, it must be remem- 

 bered, goes on at a compound ratio, and in a few decades an enormous change is 

 apparent. The increase from about 170 to 510 millions in the course of the last 

 century among European people generally, though it includes the enormous growth 

 of the United States in those decades, when the rate of growth was at the highest, 

 also includes the slower growth of other periods, and the slower growths of other 

 countries. An addition of even 10 per cent, only as the average every ten years 

 would far more than double the 500 millions in a century, and an increase to at 

 least 1,500 millions during the centurj- now beginning, unless some great change 

 should occur, would accorduigly appear not improbable. 



2. Some of the rates of growth of population from which there has been a 

 falling oft' of late years were obviously quite abnormal, I refer especially to the 

 growth in Australasia between 18.50 and 1880, and the growth in the United 

 States prior to 1860. They were largely due to the indirect effect of immigration 

 which has been already referred to. 



The population to which immigrants are largely added in a few years, owing 

 to the composition of the population, has its birth-rates momentarily increased and 

 its death-rates diminished — the birth-rates because there are more people relatively 

 at the child-producing ages, and the death-rates because the whole population is 

 younger, than m older countries. It appears quite unnecessary to elaborate this 

 point. The rates of the excess of births over deaths in a country which is receiving 

 a large immigration must be quite abnormal compared with a country in a more 

 normal condition, while a country from which there is a large emigration, such as 

 Ireland, must tend to show a lower excess than is consistent with a normal con- 

 dition. This explanation, it may be said, does not apply to England, since it is a 

 country which has not been receivina' a large immigration or sending out, except 

 occasionally, a large emigration. England, however, must have been affected both 

 ways by movements of this character. It received undoubtedly a large Irish 

 immigration in the early part of last century, and in more recent periods the 

 emigration in some decades, particidarly between 1880 and 1800, appears to have 

 been large enough to have a sensible effect on both the bij-th-i-ate and the I'ate of 

 tlie excess of births over deaths. This effect would be continued down into the 

 foUov/ing decade, and tlie consideration is iherefore one to be taken note of as 

 accounting in part for the recent decline in birtli-rates in England. 



In addition, however, it is not improbable that therp was an abnormal increase 

 of population in the early part of last century, due to the sudden multiplication of 

 resources for the benefit of a poor population which had previously tended to grow 

 at a very rapid rate, and would have grown at that rate but for the cheeks of war, 

 pestilence, and famine, on which Malthus enlarges. The sudden withdrawal of 

 the checks in this view would thus be the immediate cause of the singularly 

 rapid growth of population in the early part of last century. It is qiute in 

 accordance with this fact that a generation or two of prosperity, raising the scale 

 of living, would diminish the rate of growth as compared with this abnormal 

 development, without afi'ecting in any degree the permanent reproductive energy 

 of the people. 



3. It is also obvious that one explanation of the decline in birth-rate, and of 



