Page:Roger Casement - The crime against Ireland and how the war may right it.djvu/84

 78 greater proportion of females, of children, and of disabled than ever before." (London Magazine.)

The excess of females over males, already so noteworthy a feature of England's decay, becomes each year more accentuated and doubtless accounts for the strenuous efforts now being made to entrap Irish boys into the British army and navy.

If we compare the figures for Germany and Great Britain, and then contrast them with those for Ireland, we shall see, at a glance, how low England is sinking, and how vitally necessary it is for her to redress the balance of her own excess of "militants" over males by kidnapping Irish youths into her emasculated services, and by fomenting French and Russian enmities against the fruitful German people.

Germany 1910: Males 32,031,967; females, 32,871,456; total, 64.925,993. Excess of females, 739,489.

Great Britain, 1911:

England and Wales: Males, 17,448,476; females, 18,626,793; total. 36,075,269. Excess of females, 1,178,317.

Scotland: Males, 2,307,603; females, 2,451,842; total. 4,759,445. Excess of fermalesfemales [sic], 144,239. Total for Great Britain. 40,834,714. Excess of females, 1,322,556.

Thus. on a population much less than two-thirds that of Germany. Great Britain has almost twice as many females in excess over males as Germany has, and this disproportion of sexes tends yearly to increase. We read in every fresh return of emigration that it is men and not women who are leaving England and Scotland. That Irish emigration, appalling as its ravages have been since 1846, is still maintained on a nationally healthier basis the sex returns for 1911 make clear. The figures for Ireland at the census were as follows: