The Evening Star WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 20, 1875.

Evening Star, Issue 3716, 20 January 1875, Page 2

The Evening Star WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 20, 1875.

In the ‘ English Mechanic’ of September 11th is a paper beaded “ Effective Populations.” It is a brief notice of a statistical work by an American writer,

suggesting somewhat novel views of the value of human life as measured by the work performed in different countries. It is not a very romantic view of human destiny to look upon man as a producing and accumulating machine, the value of which is to be estimated by results. But there is an advantage in stripping off the romance of life and viewing it in its sober, every day garb. It is quite possible that not a man or woman living has attained maturity without some adventures that, well told, might fairly be deemed romantic, but it falls to the lot of few to become historically celebrated. The greater part fulfil their appointed duties faithfully, unknown excepting to a limited number of friends and acquaintances, and rank as mere units in a statistician’s calculations. The term “effective population,” as applied by the compiler of the tables, includes the people of a country between the ages of twenty and seventy ; as “in those fifty years each generation not only provides for its own present wants, but also Saves enough to maintain its children up to the age of twenty.” We need not follow the commentator through all the phases of his argument. As a matter of curiosity it may be stated that, adopting this view, which, however, is considered defective on account of its making no allowance for the non-producing classes in European countries, France stands at the head; nextcomes Switzerland; Belgium is third, Prussia the eighth, and England the. ninth. Taking into account the enormous standing armies of some European countries, and “the still more enormous pauper horde ” of England, this arrangement rather represents “the potential than the actual -effective populations.” But when those

are taken into account, not only is the waste of national wealth, in consequence of the withdrawal of classes from reproductive labor, rendered manifest, but the burden laid upon those who do produce is shown to be unjust; for not only have they to acquire and accumulate wealth for those for whom it is their natural duty to provide, but for strangers in blood and their families, whose lives are occupied in spending a portion of their savings. In these estimates the Australian Colo-

, nies are not included, the atatis- , ticia'n having confined his attention ■ -to the old European communities and the United States. The value of them to us is therefore limited to the suggestive character of the investigation. We have more than once had it brought under notice that the productive power of New Zealand, as shown jby the value of its exports, is higher I than that of any country in the world. f The test is not by any means a reliable

one, because, as population increases, the probability is that much of what has been exported will be consumed or manufactured in the country, with much greater advantage to the producers than if they had to seek a foreign market. Two reasons for I our enormous producing power are, however, suggested by the tables. First, there is in this Colony no unproductive class living upon the fruits of the labor of its neighbors; and, secondly, so long as immigration continues, the proportion of producers between the ages of twenty and seventy will be much larger than in any of the countries, the statistics of which have been collated. That this is no inconsiderable advantage to a country may be demonstrated by reference to the actual cost of rearing a working population. Many of our politicians looked very coldly upon the immigration scheme, and even yet find fault with the cost of free immigration. It seems never to have struck them that by importing adult laborers we are really paying a small price for power that has cost their native country a heavy sum. It is assumed that not until man reaches twenty years of age does he, on the average, become an effective wealth producer. It follows, therefore, that in importing adult labor, we are saved all the cost of sustaining, educating, and training a generation. At the expenditure of a few pounds we acquire the value of the outlay of twenty years. But that is not all. Il is not merely the actual cost of rearing and training those who come that has been obtained. They are only a proportion of those who were born, and we are saved the cost of the large proportion that died before' reaching maturity. In England, for instance, of 10,000 children born, only 6,627 reach twenty years of age. Commenting on the fact, the statistician says:—

In the production of dead machinery, the cost of all that are broken in the working is charged to the cost of those that are completed. Thus, if two fail when half finished, for every one that is completed the cost of the finished one is doubled ; and this increase of cost is in proportion to the expenditure which has been made or lost on those that broke down in the process. So, in estimating the cost of raising children to manhood, it is necessary to include the number of years that have been lived by those that fall by the way, with the years of those that pass successfully through the period of development.

Since the whole of our immigration and public works policy is based upon considerations of pounds, shillings, and pence, the course of investigation of probabilities of profit is pointed out by these statistical considerations. The value of unskilled labor and of skilled labor can be estimated roughly when the cost of rearing and educating a human being for twenty years is known. The value of a British private soldier is estimated at £loo—that is the cost to the English Government of training and educating an adult; and it takes no account of his previous twenty years’ eating, drinking, clothing, and educating. If that is the estimated money worth of a soldier, what mast tire value of an efficient laborer or artisan be? A free emigrant to the Colony costs about £l4—that is to say, at twenty years’ old, fourteen shillings ayear. We should think there is scarcely a child reared in New Zealand at a less cost in a family, even if all lived, than five shillings a-week, and as many die the estimate for those who survive may be one-half more ; so that for the cost of the keep of a baby for one year, we obtain the developed and educated power of body and mind of a man of twenty. Even in this view our gain is twentyfold. We need follow the theme no farther : but it must be plain that, well-conducted, the immigration policy contains within itself the principles of success.