Page:Little Essays of Love and Virtue (1922).djvu/166

It is, however, in the New World—as in Canada, Australia, and New Zealand—that we find the most impressive evidence of the real criteria of the growth in population set up for judgment on the racial suicide cranks. Canadian statistics bring out many points instructive even in their variation. Here we see not only unusual curves of rise and fall, but also pronounced differences, due to the special peculiarities of the French population, most clearly in the Province of Quebec but also in some parts of the Province of Ontario. In Quebec the birth-rate some years ago was 35, and the death-rate 21, both rates high, and the survival-rate high at 14; recently the birth-rate has risen to 37 and the death-rate fallen to 17, with the result that the survival-rate of 20 is the highest in the world, though it must be noted that the high birth-rate is not likely to last long, since in Quebec, as elsewhere in the world, increasing urbanisation causes a decreasing birth-rate. In mainly English-speaking Ontario the birth-rate is much lower, about 24, but the death-rate is also lower, about 14, so that the fairly considerable survival-rate of 10 is obtained. But we note the highly significant fact that some thirty years or more ago the birth-rate was much lower, about 19, and yet the survival-rate was almost 9, nearly as high as to-day! The death-rate was then at 10, and nothing could be more instructive as to the real relationship