The Montgomery advertiser., 1903-09-13
DWINDLING BIRTH RATE
ENGLISH SPEAKING RACE HAS SOMETHING TO THINK
 ABOUT.
Startling Facts and Figures-states- men of Great Britain Become Dim ly Conscious of Dangerous
 Condition.

arrest of which, he predicted, would bring infinite blessings to mankind yet today everywhere throughout the Anglo Saxon world we find the thoughts of statesmen and publicists turning not to the arrest of the birth rate, but to the far more difficult problem of stopping the decline in it which has set in with om- nious steadiness, and which is now be ginning to menace the predominance of the race.
 President Roosevelt has appealed to American men and women on this head in public address; the great Australian statistician. MT. Coglan, in words of inn passioned truth, has warned Australia of the future before her unless she obeys the old commandment to be fruitful and multiply" and in Enfgland We are be- coming dimly conscious that our hold up- on South Africa depends upon our power to pour settlers into that country, and that with the decline in the rate of in crease in our population, this power is passing away.
 Lafcadio Hearn's Theory.
 The fall in the birth rate in the English speaking countries coincides, apparently, with distinct increase in the peoples of the Far East. The population of Japan, afte~ remaining stationary for 12O years, has recently begun to expand and to ex- pand rapidly. Authorities on China hold that there also of late years the popula- ton Is again advancing, after a long pe- riod Of stagnancy. Is 1t the case that, as Lafcadio Hearn, thinker In the closest touch with the East, has suggested, the Far West has evolved an individual too expensive to live, a being the wants of which are so many that they cannot be satisfied in the intense race competition which is the characteristic of the twen- tieth century world?
 The birth rate in England fell after the great war with France at the opening of the nineteenth century, and in 1888 1t was only 30 per 1000 population. From this point 1t began to rise slowly, and ad- vanced, on the whole, steadily with the advance of British trade. It reached Its eliminating point in the years just after the Franco-German war, which were among the most prosperous known in our trade history.
 It was 35.S in 1872, S6 in 1874. and 3s.4 in 1878. which Is the highest record ever touched since accurate statistics were collected in this country In 1S74-S the average rate for the United Kingdom was 34.3.
 But from 1876 onward a sharp decline set in and this decline has continued al- most uniformly to our own day. From 1873 to 1883, the average for the United Kingdom was S2 2.6; from 1884 to 1888, 31 9; from 1889 to 1893. 29.s; from 1894 to 1898, 9.l, and from 1899 to 1901 28.3. Thus in the period from 1874 to 1901, the decline was per 1000. and the birth rate fell to little more than four-fifths of what 1t had been in 1876.
 Alarming Decrease in Australia.
 Outside Englabd the same phenomenon was noted in one of our colonies to an even more marked degree. In Australia the birth rate has fallen with a rapldity which is positively alarming. The rate was A.9 per thousand in 1861-5; in 1S71-5 1t had diminished to 37.3 and in lSS1-5 this had further shrunk to 352 In 1S9l-5 1t was s1.5, and in 1869 only 27.35, so that 1t was actually below the rate of in- crease in the mother country.
 The loss of birth force in Australia in the last forty years has been no less than 1465, or much more than third of the rate of increase fin 1S61-5. One Australian State now shows a rate of only 25 or but above the rate of France, which is gen. erally regarded as the type of a station ary country. The decline Is great in ey- cry position of life among the poorest and the richest alike, and 1t Is the more extraordinary in that the greatest want Of Australia is a teeming population.
 Canada and United States.
 In Canada. unfortunately, no vital sta- SASNASS dhO SOiiOStCu, dIu It 4S consequently impossible to say what Is happening there. But the same process appears to be at work in the case of the British part of the population. The French popula- ton, however, is said to have large fam flies and to pour thousands of immigrants into the United States, so that we are faced by this paradox-that in Europe the French people do not increase and multi ply, while across the Atlantic they do.
 Tn ha fA1 tata he the native American family has drawn protests from MT. Roosevelt, though no statistics are collected, and here as in Canada, it is impossible to say what Is actually happening. The excess of births over deaths has fallen from 2S per 1000 in 1880 to a calculated total of only 13 in 19O0 so that the birth rate must have declined or the death rate enormously increased which last supposition Is most improba- ble.
 France, Germany and Russia.
 In France the birth rate, except in ab- normal years during or after wars. when nature was striving to undo the handi- work of man, has tended downward, but the fall has not been so marked as in England. though 1t started at a lower level. The French rate was on an aver age 258 for lS74-1S7S. 22.3 for 1S94-1S98, and H.5 for 1S99-19O0, the last years for which the returns are accessible. The drop was thus 4.3 in about the same period as that in which the English rate fell 6. In Italy the fall was 3.2. from figure of 37 in the same period, so that the Italian rate is still much above the English one.
 In Germany, perhaps, our most formid- able competitor in Europe, the decline was AZ in this period, from 40.1 to 35.9, and the German rate is still higher than was the rate in England in 1876. Moreover. in some German States of recent years there has been a sight tendency for the rate to advance. which is most marked in Ba- varia, Wurttemberg and Baden.
 If the Russian figures can be trusted, and they do not come down later than 1897, the birth rate there is advancing. It was ATT in the three years 1S92-1S94, and 49.5 in the years 1S95-1SH This, however. may be due to the fact that nature Is compensating for the loss of life in fam ines in her own peculiar way. But the Russian rate is a very high one, and, notwithstanding a very high death rate, the Russian people is increasing with amazing rapidity.
 Love of Pleasure.
 What are the explanations of the falling birth rate fin the English-speaking coun- tries? MT. Cogh,an suggests, in the case of Australia, that 1t is due to the love of pleasure, and to the deliberate limitation of families His argument seems to be borne out by some very striking facts noted by Mir and Mrs. Webb in their work on ''Industrlal Democracy" They state that there are so many indications that the danger to be apprehended in
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