Of course the increase from 1891 to 1901 was swelled by the addition of the Union of South Africa, etc., but the addition in the second period probably fairly represents the natural increase. The countries which go to swell this increase are those in which small families are the rule, and have rates of increase varying from 11 to 17 per thousand. It is India with the highest birth-rate which pulls down the average.
The population of the world is now probably about 1,800,000,000, and increasing at the rate of 5 per cent. or 6 per cent. in a decade. So our Empire includes about a quarter of the world’s population and is increasing more rapidly than the remainder.
OTHER COUNTRIES
No consideration of this subject would be complete if comparison were not made with the more important nations outside our own Empire. If Imperialist security depends upon numbers, it is relative, not absolute, numbers which count, and our attitude towards the falling birth-rate must depend upon what is happening among our rivals.
France.—The case of France appears to be the chief cause of the fears concerning the declining birth-rate, and she is variously spoken of as “dying,” “becoming depopulated,” “decadent,” etc. In Fig. [9], I have collected the vital statistics for France over the whole period of her declining birth-rate, i.e. from before the Revolution. They show the following characteristics:—
1. France is not becoming depopulated. Her population has been slowly but steadily rising ever since the Franco-German war, both actually and by excess of births over deaths, although in some years the deaths have exceeded the births.
2. The excess of births over deaths in the last decade 1901–10, though small, is double that of the previous decade, notwithstanding that the birth-rate fell from 22.2 to 20.6. It averaged about 48,000 per annum.
3. In 1781–84, before the decline of the birth-rate set in, the birth-rate had the high value of 38.9 per thousand. But instead of this giving a high natural increase of population, the death-rate was no less than 37 per thousand, giving an excess of births over deaths of only 1.9 per thousand—little more than that (1.2) of the last decade.
4. The enormous fall of the birth-rate from 38.9 to 20.6 per thousand, has been accompanied by a fall in the death-rate from 37 to 19.4 per thousand. Thus a fall of 18.3 in the birth-rate has been accompanied by a fall of 17.6 in the death-rate, and only a drop of .7 per thousand in the rate of increase.
