Page:Irish Emigration and The Tenure of Land in Ireland.djvu/64

Rh perverse than to stigmatize as a curse the blessing originally pronounced on those who were first bidden "to go forth and multiply and replenish the earth"



Vital Statistics.—France. (See supra, p. 18.)

"The slow rate of increase of population in France compared with that of England may, therefore, be chiefly attributed to a low ratio of births, the result of late marriages and of hindrances to fecundity. Early marriages have the effect of shortening the interval between generations, and tend in that way to increase the population. The spirit and character of a nation alone determine the limit to its numbers; and the increasing power and prosperity of England and her colonies, resulting from a high rate increase of population, have proved the fallacy of the doctrine "that the increase of the human race should be restricted, so that it may not outstrip the means of subsistence." The proportion of deaths to 1,000 persons living in each of the two countries, France and England, was 21·96 and 22·88 in 1853; 23·57 and 21·80 in 1857; 23·18 and 21·63 in 1861; and 21·72 and 23·86 in 1864. In France, in 1854 and 1855, the deaths exceeded the births. The mean after-lifetime, or expectation of life in England, is 40·9 years. In France it is 39·7 years."

Sir G. Lewis on Irish Emigration. (See supra, p. 23.)

"The operation of a system of relief in facilitating the transition of cottier farmers into labourers ought at the same time to be assisted by colonization, and this on as large a scale as the means of the country would permit. The redundancy of the Irish populaticn is so great, that no one measure can in a short time be expected to produce even an approximation to the great desideratum, the maintenance of the peasantry out of wages. An extensive emigration managed by Government, and in