The Universalist. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1884-1897, 1897-05-22
A PROBLEM OF THREE NATIONS.

Paris LIE Temps, entitled THE End
of France" takes gloomy view of
the future of that country. M. Ber-
tillon refers to the fact that in France
the birth rate is only % per 1000
while in Germany the rate is 80 and
in England 80, while, moreover, in
France the rate is slowly but steadily
decreasing.
M. Leroy Beaulien, the celebrated
writer on politics and economics,
takes another view of the situation, as
| disclosed by the above statistics, and
compares France with New England
where the birth-rate is still lower
than in France, being only 22sa per
1000. M. Beaulien argues that the
rate of increase is not so important
as the character of the increase, and
that whereas in New England and in
France while the rate of increase is
slow the character is high, whereas in
Germany the greater part of the in
crease is in the lower and most ig-
norant classes. This, however, is
rather begging of the question. 1t
is doubtless true in France also, that
the bulk of the increase in population
is in the peasant and bourgeois
classes, and the difference on this
point is merely difference between
these respective classes.
Canada has also the same problem
of a stationary or decreasing popula-
ton to deal with, and has undertaken
to solve the question by offering
premium on large families. The Ca
madam Government has also just
concluded an arrangement with
firm of Newcastle for fast transatlan-
| tic service for ten years involving an
annual State subsidy of $750,000.
One part of the contract stipulates
that $50 emigrants shall be carried
to Canada on each trip of the four
steamers at the low rate of SIS per
head. This contract, if literally full
filled, will increase Canada's popula-
ton very materially during the next
ten years.
There is, of course, ready expla
nation of this stationary status of the
population in Canada that does not
apply to France, where there is a fine
climate, fertile soil and all the acces-
series of high civilization. In Can
ada, however, these conditions are
exactly reversed. The United States
has pre-empted all the best part of
the North American continent and
there is something chilly in the very
suggestion of Canada. Kipling, in
his recent tariff poem calls Canada
"Our Lady of the Shows" and the
term is felicitous one. Canada, in
its northern boundary, borders on the
region of eternal SHOWS, and its brief
summer, even in the southern part, is
barely long enough and hot enough
to insure crop of the hardest cere-
ais and such as can be matured in a
very short time.
The extremes of heat and cold are
felt in all their excess, varying from
96 degrees to 102 degrees Fahrenheit,
in the shade in summer, to from 20
degrees to % degrees below zero in
winter Spring, summer and autumn
are crowded in the five months from
May to September, and the rest of
the year is winter. All the small
streams are frozen solid from about
the beginning of December to April,
when the SHOWS which have lain sew
eral feet in thickness all winter begin
to melt. A climate, such as this, may
and does nourish rugged virtues, but
it is not one men seek of their own
accord, and it is one great many
leave at the first opportunity. Even
the emigrants Canada has provided
for in her subsidy will probably
drift to the United States as soon as
they are able. In one district men
toned in the debate over the new
Canadian tariff bill the assertion was
made that it had gained only Sc in
population in twenty years, Canada
seems, therefore, destined to an end
less struggle with unacceptable ma
ture and perhaps the only effective
way to increase the population of
that part of the American continent
permanently and rapidly would be
the obliteration of lines between it
and the United States. Even that
might result in only temporary in
crease.
AS to France it would be more to
the purpose if her statisticians and
writer's on economics, instead of
! racking their brains for ingenious