THE RESOURCES OF GREAT BRITAIN.

Lyttelton Times, Volume V, Issue 273, 13 June 1855, Page 5

THE RESOURCES OF GREAT BRITAIN.

(From the " Home News"). " The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be." When the first recorded census was taken the Hebrew lawgiver numbered "every male from 20 years old, all that weie able to go forth to war;" and the lapse of thousands of years finds us also concerned to ascertain our military strength. There is no point of greater interest upon wliich we can examine the report of the census taken in Great Britain in 1851, recently completed by the publication of the Age and Occupation abstracts; and perhaps there is no subject upon which these voluminous tables present more remarkable facts. The ages of the population were first returned in the census of 1821; and both then and in 1831 it was found that the number of males under 20 and the number of males above 20 were nearly equal, and this proportion began- to be jregavded as invariable. The army and navy were not then included in the enumeration, but if they had been reckoned the adults were ouly in a majority of 70,000 in 1821, and of 140,000 in 1831. The assumption, however, that this proportion was settled and permanent was disproved by the returns of 1841; and now in 1851, we find the adult males exceeding the males under 20 by no less than 804,211. But this tells us comparatively little, because adults, as a class, of course include the men wbo are nasj their prime ; we must narrow our inquiry.

And now-we get at ft very fextraordinary result Puring the last 80 ,years, while the population uuder 20 has been increasing 37 per cent., the population at the toldier'i age of 20 to 40 ha* increased aboire 60 per cent.; And the mere increase id the number of men of that age at the end of the 30 years hat reached to the amount of 1,226,832, equivalent to a vast army added to the numbers to which the .country had to look in the last great European, conflict. It is very'remarkable that at the commencement of a war which must draw upon this period of life our resources in this respect should be so large and beyond all precedent. It arises in part from a diminished mortality, from fewer of the children perishing before manhood, and more persons living the natural lifetime; but to understand the case fully we must mark the increase of births between 20 and 140 years ago. Mep in the prime of life hare increased faster tfran the rest of the population because the bap<tisms {and probably also ihe births which were nort then registered) in 1811-1830, when, the persons of the age 20-40 in 1851, were born, exceeded the usual rate-r-exceeded, indeed, the baptisms of the last 20 years of the preceding - century by no less than 40 per cent. While they increased only about 9 per cent in 10 years in the latter part of the last century and beginning of the present, they increased 13 per cent, from 1805 to 1815, and 15 per cent, from 1815 to J825. From 1825 to 1835 the increase was only Q per cent., but since then it has risen again, though it is difficult to ascertain the precise ratio as yet, because from 1840 a new , and much more accurate civil registration has been in force, and the .returns cannot with any certainty he compared with the old parish registers. ' . '. : ■Two-thirds of our army are men between 20 and 30 years of age. Here are the numbers .of such meg in Great Britain at three periods in the present century:— „-."'! - 1821 .-■-'" 1841 1851 j; 1,130,266 ... J,635,869 ... , 1,880,588 The number of men in Great Britain in 1851 of the age of 20-40 was 3,1,93,496 :* of the'age 15-40,4,245,126; of the age J5-45, 4,801)900. A. tenth pf the smallest number would* form a force, of above 300,000 men in -the strength and prime of life, and this jf withou\\cbuuting Irishmen, who hare hitherto contributed to the army at least Qne jnan to every two soldiers that' were natives of Great Britaip. If, there were to be a levy from the United Kihgdbin pf one soldier to every 100 people, ji, would supply an army of 277,000. But sorely we can take up the language of Lord Chatham, and s'a.y-r- ------" We shall not want men in a gbqd <?ause." One more set of figures we add for the sake of exhibiting that signjficapt indication of the. condition of a people—the proportion of'the.' productive part of the population to the number of children and aged persons. Taking tlieage from 20 to 60 as. the active period of life, we have this very satisfactorily result:—^ln every 10,000 persons in Great Britain there were,|at ihelhree dates which we took before, the following numbers between 20 aud 60 years of age":—: 1821. 1841. 1851. 4,415 4,692 4,759 Now, these are not statements, got up for the purpose of being paraded before the Czar. The census was taken before heha<J begun to trouble , Europe, and the results, after all, are but such as have been in progress and discernible for years. The knowledge; of them, however, is power, If the Czar has any such analysis of the constituent elements of his empire, he has hitherto kept it secret.