amounted to about five millions, and a hundred years later to about six.
There is no reason to think that under the conditions then existing the
country could have supported a larger number. The birth-rate was kept
high by the pestilential state of the towns, and thus the pressure of
numbers was less felt than it is now, since it was possible to have,
though not to rear, unlimited families. Occasionally, from accidental
circumstances, England was for a short time under-populated, and these
were the periods when, according to Professor Thorold Rogers, Archdeacon
Cunningham, and other authorities, the labourer was well off. The most
striking example was in the half-century after the Black Death, which
carried off nearly half the population. Wages increased threefold, and
the Government tried in vain to protect employers by enforcing
pre-plague rates. Not only were wages high, but food was so abundant
that farmers often gave their men a square meal which was not in the
contract. The other period of prosperity for the working man, according
to our authorities, was the second quarter of the eighteenth century. It
has not, we think, been noticed that this also followed a temporary
set-back in the population. In 1688 the population of England and Wales
was 5,500,520; in 1710 it was more than a quarter of a million less. The
cause of this decline is obscure, but its effects soon showed themselves
in easier conditions of life, especially for the poor. Such periods of
under-saturation, which some new countries are still enjoying, are
necessarily short. Population flows in as naturally as water finds its
level.
It was not till the accession of George III that the increase in our
numbers became rapid. No one until then would have thought of singling
out the Englishman as the embodiment of the good apprentice. Meteren, in
the sixteenth century, found our countrymen 'as lazy as Spaniards'; most
foreigners were struck by our fondness for solid food and strong drink.
The industrial revolution came upon us suddenly; it changed the whole
face of the country and the apparent character of the people. In the far
future our descendants may look back upon the period in which we are
living as a strange episode which disturbed the natural habits of our
race. The first impetus was given by the plunder of Bengal, which, after
the victories of Clive, flowed into the country in a broad stream for
about thirty years. This ill-gotten wealth played the same part in
stimulating English industries as the 'five milliards,' extorted from
France, did for Germany after 1870. The half-century which followed was
marked by a series of inventions, which made England the workshop of the
world. But the basis of our industrial supremacy was, and is, our coal.
Those who are in the habit of comparing the progressiveness of the
North-Western European with the stagnation or decadence of the Latin
races, forget the fact, which is obvious when it has once been pointed
out, that the progressive nations are those which happen to have
valuable coal fields. Countries which have no coal are obliged to
import it paying the freight, or to smelt their iron with charcoal This
process makes excellent steel--the superiority of Swedish razors is due
to wood-smelting--but it is so wasteful of wood that the Mediterranean
peoples very early in history injured their climate by cutting down
their scanty forests, thereby diminishing their rainfall, and allowing
the soil to be washed off the hillsides. The coasts of the Mediterranean
are, in consequence, far less productive than they were two thousand
years ago. But in England, when the start was once made, all
circumstances conspired to turn our once beautiful island into a chaos
of factories and mean streets, reeking of smoke, millionaires, and
paupers. We were no longer able to grow our own food; but we made masses
of goods which the manufacturers ware eager to exchange for it; and the
population grew like crops on a newly-irrigated desert. During the
nineteenth century the numbers were nearly quadrupled. Let those who
think that the population of a country can be increased at will, reflect
whether it is likely that any physical, moral, or psychological change
came over the nation coincidently with the inventions of the
spinning-jenny and the steam-engine. It is too obvious for dispute that
it was the possession of capital wanting employment, and of natural
advantages for using it, that called these multitudes of human beings
into existence, to eat the food which they paid for by their labour. And
it should be equally obvious that the existence of forty-six millions of
people upon 121,000 square miles of territory depends entirely upon our
finding a market for our manufactures abroad, for so only are we able to
pay for the food of the people. It is most unfortunate that these
exports must, with our present population, include coal, which, if we
had any thought for posterity, we should guard jealously and use
sparingly; for in five hundred years at the outside our stock will be
gone, and we shall sink to a third-rate Power at once. We are
sacrificing the future in order to provide for an excessive and
discontented population in the present. During the present century we
have begun to be conscious that our foreign trade is threatened; and so
sensitive is the birth-rate to economic conditions that it has begun to
curve very slightly downward in relation to the death-rate, instead of
descending with it in parallel lines.[23] This may be partly due to the
curtailment of facilities for emigration, owing to the filling up of the
new countries. For emigration does not diminish the population of the
country which the emigrants leave; it only increases its birth-rate.
We are now in a position to enumerate the causes which actually lead to
an increase in the population of a country. The first is an increase in
the amount of food produced in the country itself. If the parks and
gardens of the gentry were ploughed up or turned into allotments, a few
hundred thousands would be added to the population of the United
Kingdom, at the cost of one of the few remaining beauties which make our
country attractive to the eye. The introduction of the potato into
Ireland added several millions of squalid inhabitants to that
ill-conditioned island, and when the crop failed, large numbers of them
inflicted themselves on the United States, to the detriment of that
country. The richest countries to-day are those which produce more food
than they require, such as the United States, Canada, Australia,
Roumania, and the Argentine. (We need hardly say that throughout this
survey we are using the statistics of the years immediately before the
war.) But this state of things cannot last long, for the net increase in
such countries is invariably high, either by reason of a very high
birth-rate, as in Roumania, or because newcomers flock in to enjoy a
land of plenty. Another condition which leads to abnormally rapid
increase is found when a civilised nation conquers and administers a
backward country, introducing better methods of agriculture, and
especially irrigation and the reclamation of waste lands. The alien
Government also gives greater security, without raising the standard of
living among the natives, since the dominant race usually monopolises
the lucrative careers. In this way we are directly responsible for
increasing the population of Egypt from seven millions in 1883 to nine
and three-quarter millions in 1899, an augmentation which, in the
absence of immigration, illustrates the great natural fertility of the
human race in the rare circumstances when unchecked increase is
possible. Still more remarkable is the rise in the population of Java
from five millions in 1825 to twenty-eight and a half millions in the
first decade of this century. The cause of this increase is the
augmented supply of food combined with a very low standard of living, a
combination which is specially characteristic of Asia, where extreme
supersaturation exists in India and China. A third cause is production
of goods which can be exchanged for food grown abroad. This exchange, as
we have seen, is stimulated by the presence of capital seeking
employment. Our large towns are the creation of the capitalist, much
more than if he had populated their depressing streets with his own
children. Fourthly, a reduction in the standard of living of course
makes a larger population possible. The misery of the working class in
the generation after the Napoleonic Wars was a condition of the
prosperity of our export trade at this period; and conversely, the
prosperity of our export trade was necessary to the existence of the new
inhabitants. Capitalism is the cause of our dense population; and the
proletariat would infallibly cut their own throats by destroying it.
It is an important question whether a crowded population adds to the
security of a nation or not. Numbers are undoubtedly of great importance
in modern warfare. The French would have been less able to resist the
Germans without allies in 1914 than they were in 1870. But we must not
suppose that France could support a much larger population without
reducing her standard of living to the point of under-deeding; and an
under-fed nation is incapable of the endurance required of first-class
soldiers. A nation may be so much weakened in physique by under-feeding
as to be impotent from a military point of view, in spite of great
numbers; this is the case in India and China. Deficient nourishment also
diminishes the day's work. If European and American capital goes to
China, and provides proper food for the workmen, we may have an early
opportunity of discovering whether the supporters of the League of
Nations have any real conscientious objection to violence and bloodshed.
We may surmise that the European man, the fiercest of all beasts of
prey, is not likely to abandon the weapons which have made him the lord
and the bully of the planet. He has no other superiority to the races
which he arrogantly despises. Under a régime of peace the Asiatic would
probably be his master. To return from a short digression, we must note
further that a nation with a low standard has no reserve to fall back
upon; it lives on the margin of subsistence, which may easily fail in
war-time, especially if much food is imported when conditions are
normal. It can hardly be an accident that in this war the nations with a
high birth-rate broke up in the order of their fecundity, while France
stood like a rock. The sacrifice of comfort to numbers, which we have
seen to be possible by maintaining a low standard of living, not only
diminishes the happiness of a nation, and keeps it low in the scale of
civilisation; it may easily prove to be a source of weakness in war.
The expedients often advocated to encourage denser population--which
those who urge them thoughtlessly assume to be a good thing--such as
endowment of parenthood, and better housing at the expense of the
taxpayer--have no effect except to penalise and sterilise those who pay
the doles, for the benefit of those who receive them. They are intensely
dysgenic in their operation, for they cripple and at last eliminate just
those stocks which have shown themselves to be above the average in
ability. The process has already advanced a long way, even without the
reckless legislation which is now advocated. The lowest birth-rates,
less than half that of the unskilled labourers, are those of the
doctors, the teaching profession, and ministers of religion. The
position of this class, intellectually and often physically the finest
in the kingdom, is rapidly becoming intolerable, and it is the wastrels
who mainly benefit by their spoliation.
The causes of shrinkage in population are the opposites of those which
we have found to promote its increase. The production of food may be
diminished by the exhaustion of the soil, or by the progressive aridity
caused by cutting down woods. The manufacture of goods to be exchanged
for food may fall off owing to foreign competition, a result which is
likely to follow from a rise in the standard of living, for the labourer
then demands higher wages, and consumes more food per head, which of
itself must check fertility, since the same amount of food will now
support a smaller number. The delusion shared by the whole working class
that they can make work for each other, at wages fixed by themselves, is
ludicrous; a community cannot subsist 'by taking in each other's
washing.' Or the supply of importable food may fail by the peopling up
of the countries which grow it. Any conditions which make it no longer
worth while to invest capital in business, or which destroy credit, have
the same effect. One of the causes of the decay of the Roman Empire was
the drain of specie to the East in exchange for perishable commodities.
When trade is declining a general listlessness comes over the industrial
world, and the output falls still further. There have been alleged
instances of peoples which have dwindled and even disappeared from
_taedium vitae_. This is said to have been the cause of the extinction
of the Guanches of the Canary Islands; but the symptoms described rather
suggest an outbreak of sleeping-sickness.
Paradoxical as it may seem, neither voluntary restriction of births, nor
famine, nor pestilence, nor war, has much effect in reducing numbers.
Birth-control instead of diminishing the population, may only lower the
death-rate. France in 1781, with a birth-rate of 39, had much the same
net increase as in the years before the war with a birth-rate of 20. The
parallel lines of the births and deaths in this country have already
been mentioned. Famine and pestilence are followed at once by an
increased number of births. India and China, though frequently ravaged
by both these scourges, remain super-saturated. Of course, if the famine
is chronic, the population must fall to the point where the food is
sufficient; and a zymotic disease which has become endemic may be too
strong for the natural fertility of the nation attacked, as has happened
to several barbarous races; but an invasion of plague, cholera, or
influenza has no permanent effect on the numbers of Europeans. War
resembles plague in its action upon population. When, as in the late
war, nearly the whole of the able-bodied men are on active service, the
loss of population caused by cessation of births is greater than all the
fatal casualties of the battle-field. A rough calculation gives the
result that twelve million lives have been lost to the belligerent
nations by the separation of husbands and wives during the war. And yet
it may be predicted that these losses, added to the eight millions or so
who have been killed, would be made good in a very few years but for the
destruction of capital and credit which the war has caused. If we study
the vital statistics of a country like Germany, which has engaged in
several severe wars since births and deaths began to be registered, we
shall find that the contour-line representing the fluctuations of the
birth-rate indicates a steep ravine in the year or years while the war
lasted, followed by a hump or high table-land for several years after.
In a short time, as far as numbers are concerned, the war is as if it
had never been. When we remember that the number of possible fathers is
much reduced by casualties, this rise in the birth-rate after a war
offers a strong confirmation of the thesis which we have been
maintaining, that the ebb and flow of population are not affected by
conscious intention, but by increased or diminished pressure of numbers
upon subsistence. If the German people, who before the war consumed more
food than was good for them, have been habituated by our blockade to a
reasonable abstemiousness, we shall have contributed to the eventual
increase of the German people, in spite of all their soldiers whom we
killed in France, and the civilians whom we starved in Germany. And if
our success leads to a greater consumption by our working class, our
population will show a corresponding decline. Emigration, as we have
seen, does not diminish the home population by a single unit; and so,
while there are empty lands available for colonisation, it is by far the
best method of adding to the numbers of our race.
It should now be possible to form a judgment on the prospects of the
Anglo-Saxon race in various parts of the world. In India, Burma, New
Guinea, the West Indian Islands, and tropical Africa there is no
possibility of ever planting a healthy European population. These
dependencies may grow food for us, or send us articles which we can
exchange for food, but they are not, and never can be, colonies of
Anglo-Saxons. The prospects of South Africa are very dubious. The white
man is there an aristocrat, directing semi-servile labour. The white
population of the gold and diamond fields will stay there till the mines
give out, and no longer. Large tracts of the country may at last be
occupied only by Kaffirs. The United States of America are becoming less
Anglo-Saxon every year, and this process is likely to continue, since in
unskilled labour the Italian and the Pole seem to give better value for
their wages than the Englishman or born American, with his high standard
of comfort. In Canada, the temperate part of Australia, New Zealand, and
Tasmania the chances for a large and flourishing English-speaking
population seem to be very favourable, though in these dominions the
high standard of living is a check to population, and in the case of
Australasia the possibility of foreign conquest, while these priceless
lands are still half empty, cannot be altogether excluded.
Even more interesting to most of us is the future of our race at home.
As regards quality, the outlook for the present is bad. We have seen
that the destruction of the upper and professional classes by taxation
directed expressly against them has already begun, and this
victimisation is certain to become more and more acute, till these
classes are practically extinguished. The old aristocracy showed a
tendency to decay even when they were unduly favoured by legislation,
and a little more pressure will drive them to voluntary sterility and
extermination. Even more to be regretted is the doom of the professional
aristocracy, a caste almost peculiar to our country. These families can
often show longer, and usually much better pedigrees than the peerage;
the persistence of marked ability in many of them, for several
generations, is the delight of the eugenist. They are perhaps the best
specimens of humanity to be found in any country of the world. Yet they
have no prospects except to be gradually harassed out of existence, like
the _curiales_ of the later Roman Empire. The power will apparently be
grasped by a new highly privileged class, the aristocracy of labour.
This class, being intelligent, energetic, and intensely selfish, may
retain its domination for a considerable time. It is a matter of course
that, having won its privilege of exploiting the community, it will use
all its efforts to preserve that privilege and to prevent others from
sharing it. In other words, it will become an exclusive and strongly
conservative class, on a broader basis than the territorial and
commercial aristocracies which preceded it. It will probably be strong
enough to discontinue the system of State doles which encourages the
wastrel to multiply, as he does multiply, much faster than the valuable
part of the population. We are at present breeding a large parasitic
class subsisting on the taxes and hampering the Government. The
comparative fertility of the lowest class as compared with the better
stocks has greatly increased, and is still increasing. The competent
working-class families, as well as the rich, are far less fertile than
the waste products of our civilisation. Dr. Tredgold found that 43
couples of the parasitic class averaged 7.4 children per family, while
91 respectable couples from the working class averaged only 3.7 per
family. Mr. Sidney Webb examined the statistics of the Hearts of Oak
Benefit Society, which is patronised by the best type of mechanic, and
found that the birth-rate among its members has fallen 46 per cent,
between 1881 and 1901; or, taking the whole period between 1880 and
1904, the falling off is 52 per cent. This decline proves that the
period of industrial expansion in England is nearly over. It would be
far better if our birth-rate were as low as that of France, as it would
be but for the reckless propagation of the 'submerged tenth,' England
being now a paradise for human refuse, the offscourings of Europe
(170,000 in 1908) take the place of the better stocks, whose position is
made artificially unfavourable. These doles are at present paid by the
minority, and this method may be expected to continue until the looting
of the propertied classes comes to an enforced end. This will not take
long, for it is certain that the amount of wealth available for plunder
is very much smaller than is usually supposed. It is easy to destroy
capital values, but very difficult to distribute them. The time will
soon arrive when the patient sheep will be found to have lost not only
his fleece but his skin, and the privileged workman will then have to
choose between taxing himself and abandoning socialism. There is little
doubt which he will prefer. The result will be that the festering sore
of our slum-population will dry up, and the gradual disappearance of
this element will be some compensation, from the eugenic point of view,
for the destruction of the intellectual class. This process will
considerably, and beneficially, diminish the population: and there are
several other factors which will operate in the same direction. High
wage industry can only maintain itself against the competition of
cheaper labour abroad by introducing every kind of labour-saving device.
The number of hands employed in a factory must progressively diminish.
And as, in spite of all that ingenuity can do, the competition of the
cheaper races is certain to cripple our foreign trade, the trade unions
will be obliged to provide for a shrinkage in their numbers. We may
expect that every unionist will be allowed to place one son, and only
one, in the privileged corporation. A man will become a miner or a
railwayman 'by patrimony,' and it will be difficult to gain admission to
a union in any other way. The position of those who cannot find a place
within the privileged circle will be so unhappy that most unionists will
take care to have one son only. Another change which will tend to
discourage families will be the increased employment of women as
bread-winners. Nothing is more remarkable in the study of vital
statistics than the comparative birth-rates of those districts in which
women earn wages, and of those in which they do not. The rate of
increase among the miners is as great as that of the reckless casual
labourers, and the obvious reason is that the miner's wife loses nothing
by having children, since she does not earn wages. Contrast with these
high figures (running up to 40 per thousand) the very low birth-rates of
towns like Bradford, where the women are engaged in the textile industry
and earn regular wages in support of the family budget. If the time
comes when the majority of women are wage-earners, we may even see the
pressure of population entirely withdrawn. Thus in every class of the
nation influences are at work tending to a progressive decrease in our
national fertility. It must be remembered, however, that at present the
annual increase, in peace time, is 9 or 10 per thousand, so that it may
be some time before an equilibrium is reached. But if our predictions
are sound, a positive decrease, and probably a rapid one, is likely to
follow. For our ability to exchange our manufactures for food will grow
steadily less, as the self-indulgent and 'work-shy' labourer succeeds in
gaining his wishes. If the coal begins to give out, the retreat will
become a rout.