84 



Malthusianism and the 



of the inhabitants of Mysore in India, but this proved 

 no permanent check, for within fifteen years, by the 

 natural increase of its people, the population was 

 greater than it had been before this visitation. 



A community may suffer great reduction in its 

 numbers owing to a constant stream of emigration such 

 as is at present taking place from the Mother Country 

 to Canada, or as did take place in former times to the 

 Australian goldfields. But there is no permanent 

 reduction of the population. The labour market in- 

 sists on a certain marriage and birth-rate for' its own 

 necessities ; the stream of emigrants increases these as 

 long as it lasts, but in no way depletes the rates in each 

 case necessary to supply the home-labour market. The 

 emigration from Ireland to the United States in the 

 last three decades of the nineteenth century has been 

 of a different character, as the emigrants were com- 

 pelled by distress to leave the soil owing to the enor- 

 mous depreciation that had taken place in the pecu- 

 niary value of agricultural produce. The margin of 

 profit in the smaller farms had been so reduced that it 

 was no longer sufficient to maintain a family, even in 

 the low standard of comfort that satisfies the wants of 

 the Irish peasant. The result has been that the small 

 farmers have been forced to emigrate, and a redistribu- 

 tion of soil has taken place, so that, as the holders of 

 farms have become fewer the farms become larger. 

 It is a curious fact that this is attended by a marked 

 improvement in the standard of comfort of those who 

 remain. If emigration had not been available to relieve 

 the distress, the remedy must have come, and assuredly 

 would have come from a reduction, to the amount 

 required, of the number of marriages. The marriage- 

 rate of Ireland since 1845 has been greatly below that 

 of any European country. Whereas in the years when 

 its population was going up by leaps and bounds its 



