APPENDIX. 447 



and the additional population, instead of gi%'ing additional 

 strength to the country, would essentially lessen this strength, 

 and operate as a constant obstacle to the creation of new 

 resources. 



We are a little dazzled at present by the population and 

 power of France, and it is known that siie has always had a 

 large proportion of births : but if any reliance can be placed 

 on what are considered as the best authorities on this sub- 

 ject, it is quite certain that the advantages which she enjoys 

 do not arise from any thing peculiar in the structure of her 

 population ; but solely from the great absolute quantity of 

 it, derived from her immense extent of fertile territory. 



Necker, speaking of the population of France, says, that 

 it is so composed, that a million of individuals present 

 neither the same force in war, nor the same capacity for la- 

 bour, as an equal number in a country where the people are 

 less oppressed and fewer die in infancy.* And the view 

 which Arthur Young has given of the state of the lower 

 classes of the people at the time he travelled in France, 

 which was just at the commencement of the revolution, 

 leads directly to the same conclusion. According to the 

 Utathtif/iie Ghitrale et Particiiiiere de la France, lately 

 published, the proportion of the population under twenty 

 is almost o%; in England, if increasing no faster than France, 

 it would probably not be much more than gV-t Con- 



• Necker sur les Finances, torn. i. cli. ix. p. 263, 12rao. 



t I do not mention these numbers here, as vouching in any degree for their 

 accuracy, but merely for the sake of illustrating the subject. 1 have reason to 

 think that the proportion given in the Statislique Gcntralc was not taken from 

 actual enumerations ; and that mentioned in the text, fur England, is conjectural, 

 and probably too small. Of this, however, we may be quite sure, that when two 

 countries, from the proportion of their births to deaths, increase nearly at the 

 same rate, the one, in which the births and deaths bear the greatest proportion to 

 the whole population, will have the smallest comparative number of persons above 

 the age of puberty. 'J'hat England and Scotland have, in every million of peo- 

 ple which they contain, more individuals fit for lal)oiir than France, tlie data 

 we have are sufficient to determine ; but in what degree this diUercnce exists 

 cannot be ascertained, without better information than we at present |)Osscss. 

 On account of the more rapid increase of population in England than in France 

 l)efore the revolution, England ought, CirUris pnribtts, to have hn'l llu' largest 

 proportion of births; yet in France the proportion was ^ or J-^-, and in England 

 uuly j'„. 



The proportion of persons capable of bearing arms has been sometimes cal- 

 ctilated at one-fourth, and sometimes at one-fifth, of the whole pojuilation of a 

 country. The reader w ill be aware of the prodigious dilTerencu between the 

 two osiimatcs, supposing them to be applicable to two ditloront countries. In 

 the one case, a population of twenty millions would yield live uiillions ol cllec- 

 tive men ; and in the other case, the same population would only yield lour mil- 



