St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1885-01-24
OvERPoPULATION.
Gernany's Yearly Increase S"'Passes
other European Countries.

Germany's Yearly Increase SURPRISES
Other European Countries.
(From the Contemporary Review.)
Germany is growing fast a pre-eminently
industrial country, for which the export OF
its productions is the condition OF providing
the population with food and raw materials,
and a. the same time her population is IN
creasing more rapidly than that OF any other
country. The average yearly increase on
TO- 900 inhabitants since 1881 was in France
26, in Great Britain 10l, in Germany ll3,
notwithstanding large emigration. Inc
population of the German Empire in its
present limits was in round numbers 20, uUO,-
600 in 1916; it is now As, $50, 900, while %
500, 900 have emigrated. This increase re-
suits almost exclusively from the excess OF
births over deaths, while the feeble growth OF
the French population is still partly due 70
emigration, which proves that the increase Oh
wealth is stronger than that OF the people.
Ia Germany it is the reverse, the amount OF
expenditure caused by the acceding numbers
| is not equaled by correspondingly growing
income. In Prussia the number OF those
exempt from all direct taxes-i. e., whose
income did not exceed 925. had risen within
five years by 1.500,000 it was more than y
coo, 600 in 1882; the statistics Of other Ger
tndu SlhLcS SuON siiiilaI iSouiet VIZ nv.
rates have increased everywhere in an alarm
| ing proportion, and the number OF Migrants
and tramps have become a general plague.
Our industrial production suffers from
chronic plethora, its net produce does not
correspond to its immense expansion, still
| less is a real amelioration Of the situation or
the working classes to be discerned. the
supplytof labor generally exceeds the demand;
consequently wages do not rise, and the lower
| strata of the population can absorb compare
| lively little of the mass OF products wnicn are
| daily thrown upon the market, because the
scantiness of their earnings does not allow
them to satisfy correspondingly their wants.
| But in the higher classes, also, all the call
ings are overcrowded, the increase OF acad-
enical students has been abnormal and far
| exceeding the demand, and a considerable
part of this surplus Of trined forces, finding
no employment, perishes or launches into
| adventures In short, everywhere we ind an
enhanced struggle for existence, which en-
genders dissatisfaction and hopeessness,
and furnishes social democracy with fresh
recruits. 1t is this overpopulation which Is
the source of the large German emigration.
True, without it the pressure would still be
stronger, yet the opinion which would con-
slider this outflow as an unmiXed boon is er-
reneous. Germany has comparatively more
children under Is years than any othel
country-16, 016, 045 in population Of 45,'
500, OO0-aud they represent unprotective
elements to be sustained by the rest. With
the emigration it is very different; AS pc
cent of it belongs to persons of 20 to A
wears; thus the same number of emigrant
represents much larger sum OF force of Ia
bour than the corresponding number of the
average population. We educate at grea
expense productive forces in order to lose
them when they are grown to maturity, and
the foreign countries to which they go reap
what we have sown.