France by nature is one of the most highly favoured countries in the
world. Its climate is genial. Its temperature is so varied that almost
every vegetable, grain or fruit needed for the sustenance of man may
be raised within its borders. Its soil, though not surprisingly
fertile, yet yields abundantly such products as are suited to it. Its
mineral resources, especially in coal, iron, lead, marble, and salt,
are very considerable. Its area is compact. Its facilities for foreign
commerce are unsurpassed. It lies between the two bodies of water--the
Atlantic and the Mediterranean--of greatest commercial importance in
the world. And its people, especially those in rural parts, are
exceptionally frugal and industrious. But France as a nation has not
made the progress in the world that its natural advantages call for.
It has been cursed with expensive and unstable governments and
sanguinary wars. Its upper classes, the natural leaders of its
peoples, are excessively fond of pleasure and military glory, and the
energies of the nation have been much misdirected. As a consequence,
despite its natural advantages, France is losing ground among the
nations of the world. Its national debt amounts to nearly
$7,000,000,000, the largest national debt known in history, being per
head of population seventeen and one half times as great as that of
Germany, six times as great as that of the United States, and much
more than one and one half times as great as that of Great Britain.
But, what is of more serious consequence, the vitality of its people
seems debilitated. For years the annual number of births in France has
been steadily decreasing, while the annual number of deaths has been
more or less increasing. Over a great part of the country the number
of deaths annually exceeds the number of births. In numerous years
this is so for the whole country. The birth rate is the lowest in
Europe. The death rate, while not the highest, is yet higher than in
many other countries. As a consequence of all this the population of
France is almost stationary. During the last seventy years it has
increased only 18 per cent., while that of Great Britain has increased
63 per cent., Germany 75 per cent., Russia 92 per cent., and Europe as
a whole 62 per cent. And even this increase, small as it is, is
largely due to immigration from other countries. Nor is the emigration
of Frenchmen to their colonies or to other countries to be set down as
a sufficient explanation. The French are averse to emigration. At the
present time the number of Frenchmen residing abroad is only a little
more than half a million, while of foreigners residing in France the
number is not far short of a million and a quarter.
[Illustration: France, compared in size with the States of Illinois
and Texas.]