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Show ENGLAND DEOENEBATING. Striking' Decrease in the Birth Rate in tie Last Ten Years. If an Englishman were told that the social fabric of his country was coming com-ing to resemble that of France more than any other European nation, he would be disposed to be incredulous, writes the London correspondent of the New Yirk Sun. Yet that this is so in important features is clearly shown by an analysis just issued of the census returns of England at the end of the century. These show that it is becoming be-coming more and more a country from which the ' noDulation does not emi- I gra.te, a country whose population in the large cities show an increasing percentage per-centage of other nationalities and a country whose age of marriage is becoming be-coming olfler and its birthrate lower. The loss in population by emigration during the last decade over immigration immigra-tion amounted to only 70,000, whereas in the previous decade it had been 600,-000. 600,-000. The. present diminution of population popu-lation from this cause is less than it has been for forty years. On the other hand, the annual immigration of Russian Rus-sian Jews. Poles, Belgians and Germans Ger-mans is on the increase. The figures also show that the excess of births, over deaths in the last decade de-cade was nearly 500,000 less than if the rate for the previous period had been maintained. The effect of both these conditions would be much more marked but for the decline in the death rate, which has -fallen steadily from 23.73 per 1,000 annually to 19.18 in the past half century. The birth rate thirty years ago showed that thirty-eight children were born for every thousand living, while the last census shows a rate of 31.57. Where the figures for England are more satisfactory than those of France is in the latter's inability to reduce Its death rate. The French birth rate in 1900 was 22.4 and the mortality was 23 per 1.000. France's population stands practically where it did five years ago. It has increased by 350,000 residents, of whom 300,000 are in Faris in a neighborhood neigh-borhood populated by prolific Belgians and other foreigners. In the same five years Germany added 4,000,000 and Russia 8,000.000 to their population. Fifty years ago France was second in population among the great civilized civil-ized states of the world. She. was about equal to Germany and ahead of England. Austria, the United States and Italy. Now she has been passed by all except Italy, which is rapidly gaining on her. |