The New Zealand Official Year Book gives the following as the average prices of food for the years mentioned:—
| 1877 | 1887 | 1897 | 1901 | ||||||
| s. d. | s. d. | s. d. | s. d. | ||||||
| Bread | per lb. | 0 | 2¼ | 0 | 1¾ | 0 | 1½ | 0 | 1½ |
| Beef | per lb. | 0 | 5¼ | 0 | 3½ | 0 | 3 | 0 | 5 |
| Mutton | per lb. | 0 | 4 | 0 | 2¾ | 0 | 2 | 0 | 4½ |
| Sugar | per lb. | 0 | 5¾ | 0 | 3 | 0 | 2½ | 0 | 2¾ |
| Tea | per lb. | 3 | 0 | 2 | 3 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 10 |
| Butter (fresh) | per lb. | 1 | 3 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 8 | 0 | 11 |
| Cheese (col'n'l) | per lb. | 0 | 10 | 0 | 5¾ | 0 | 6 | 0 | 6 |
| Milk | per qt. | 0 | 4½ | 0 | 3 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 3½ |
The official returns give the average daily wage for artisans for the years 1877, 1887, 1897, and 1901 as 11s., 10s. 6d., 9s. 9d., and 10s. 3d., respectively.
The weekly rations (the standard food supply for soldiers—Parkes's) purchaseable by the weekly wages for these years respectively are 11.1, 14.3, 16, and 12.4; i.e., the average weekly wage of an artisan in constant employment in 1877 would purchase rations for 11.1 persons, in 1887 for 14.3 persons, in 1897 for 16 persons, and in 1901 for 12.4 persons.
Up to the year 1877, the birth-rate in England and Wales conformed to the law of Malthus, and kept pace with increasing prosperity; but, after that year, and right up to the present time, the nation's prosperity has gone on advancing at a phenomenal rate pari passu with an equally phenomenal decline in the number of births per 1000 of the population.
Now, it is a remarkable coincidence that in this very year, 1877, the Neo-Malthusians began to make their influence felt, and spread amongst all classes of the people a knowledge of preventive checks to conception.