THE POPULATION OF EUROPE

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLIII, Issue 2345, 22 October 1921, Page 1

THE POPULATION OF EUROPE

As the systematic enumeration of populations proceeds, the facts are being gathered that will lead to a clearer estimate of the cost of the war in human lives. France has been hit hardest among the greater nations, if we except Russia, for which, of course, no authentic figures are available. Taking the population as a whole, and including the restored provinces, which were included' in the German census in 1911, the decrease is 5.5 per cent. This is sad testimony to the devastating effect of a conflict in which France buried over a million of her sons; and that loss is all the more serious since, even before the war, the French population was stationary. Other countries which were not beliggerents, or which had comparatively slight war losses, record a slowing down in the rate of increase. Switzerland and Sweden are rather curious examples of this tendency, and eyen the United States has added some millions less to its vast population than in the previous decade. No doubt the arrest of immigration from Europe during the war years has had much to do with this. In Great Britain there is an increase, but it is the lowest registered; lower even than that of the preceding decennium, which was below that of all its predecessors. Taking the population of Ireland at 5,000,000, there are some 48,000,000 persons in the Kingdom, so in point of population it stands second among the organised European States, having left France well behind, and being exceeded only by Germany.