Law of Population 95 



These tables show to a demonstration the fluctuation 

 of the marriage-rate as affected by the state of the 

 labour market and also by the decline of the death-rate. 

 Where a heightened marriage-rate is not caused by 

 a pestilential mortality or increased emigration, it in- 

 variably signifies a greater degree of prosperity. 



What is most noteworthy in the table is the small 

 drop of the birth-rate compared to the large fall in the 

 death-rate. In the forty years, 1864-1903, the average 

 life in the Netherlands has been lengthened by no less 

 than eighteen years, and if we compare the decade 

 1864-73 with that of 1894-1903, we find that in the 

 former 257 per 1000 died annually compared to 172 

 in the latter. But while the posts of employment made 

 vacant by death were reduced greatly in numbers, 

 those created by the expansion of trade and industries 

 of Holland had become so much more numerous as to 

 raise the natural increase of the population from 10-3 

 per cent decennially to 16-1 per cent ; the actual 

 increase from 9 to 14-6 per cent. The commercial and 

 industrial development of Holland may be estimated 

 from the fact that to a population of 3,431,000 in 1863, 

 she, in the space of forty years, added no fewer than 

 1,958,000 persons, an increase of rather more than 57 

 per cent, while the standard of comfort of the people 

 had been greatly elevated. If neither trade nor in- 

 dustry had developed since 1864, but had remained in 

 status quo ante, the birth-rate would have fallen in 

 commensurate degree with the death-rate, and in 1894- 

 1903 would have amounted to 22-0 births annually to 

 1000 persons, instead of being, as it was, as high as 32-2, 

 showing clearly to how great an extent the birth- 

 rate has been kept up and prevented from falling 

 by the commercial and industrial expansion of the 

 country. 



