Birth-rate Death-rate Net rate of
increase
United Kingdom           23.9       13.8         10.1
Australia                28.7       11.2         17.5
Austria                  31.3       20.5         10.8
Belgium                  22.9       16.4          6.5
France                   19.0       17.5          1.5
Germany                  28.6       17.3         11.3
Italy                    32.4       18.2         14.2
New Zealand              26.5        8.9         17.6
Norway                   25.4       13.4         12.0
Roumania                 43.4       22.9         20.5
Russia                   44.0       28.9         15.1

It will be seen that Australia and New Zealand, with low birth-rates and the lowest death-rates in the world increase more rapidly than Russia with an enormous birth-rate and proportionately high death-rate.  No one can doubt that our colonies achieve their increase with far less friction and misery than the prolific but short-lived Slavs.  Civilisation in a high form is incompatible with such conditions as these figures disclose in Russia.  The figures for Egypt and India are similar to the Russian, but in India, which is overfull, the mortality is greater than even in Russia, and the same is true of China, in which we are told that seven out of ten children die in infancy.  It has been suggested that the fairest measure of a country’s well-being, as regards its actual vitality, is the square of the death-rate divided by the birth-rate.

It is well known that a decline in the birth-rate set in about forty years ago in this country, and has gone on steadily ever since, till the fall now amounts to about one-third of the total births.  It thus corresponds very nearly to the fall in the death-rate during the same period.  It is also well known that this decline is not evenly distributed among different classes of the people.  Until the decline began, large families were the rule in all classes, and the slightly larger families of the poor were compensated by their somewhat higher mortality.  But since 1877 large families have become increasingly rare in the upper and middle classes, and among the skilled artisans.  They are frequent in the thriftless ranks of unskilled labour, and in one section of well-paid workmen—­the miners.  The highest birth-rates at present are in the mining districts and in the slums.  The lowest are in some of the learned professions.  In the Rhondda Valley the birth-rate is still about forty, which is double the rate in the prosperous residential suburbs of London.  In the seats of the textile industry the decline has been very severe, although wages are fairly good; among the agricultural labourers the rate is also low.  It will be found that in all trades where the women work for wages the birth-rate has fallen sharply; the miner’s wife does not earn money, and has therefore less inducement to restrict her family.  In agricultural districts the housing difficulty is mainly responsible; in the upper and middle classes