HOW AN EMPIRE GROWS.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 9064, 13 April 1908, Page 3

HOW AN EMPIRE GROWS.

The new Statistical Abstract has just been published, which gives the latest complete statistics for the whole of the British Empire. The Evening News bases the -following article on this Blue Book: "How many fellow-citizens have we in our Empire? .\t what rate do they increase? We can fairly estimate the population of the British Empire at 405,000,000. It grows steadily at the rate of 40,000,000 every ten years. Not evenly in ever country, of course. The birth-rate is higher here, emigration depletes there; a new colony shows a sudden increase, an older country remains nearly stationary. The population of the United Kingdom, given now as 44,000,000, has, despite steady outpouring to the colonies, especially Canada shown a rapid increase during the last six or seven years. Three millions have been gained since 1901, and only three millions was the average in- • cease for periods of 10 years before. But West Australia leads the way! And triumphantly, too. No other portion of the Empire has grown anything like so rapidly. From 29,000 in 1881 to 49,000 in 1391, to 184,000 in 1901, to 261,000 at the present day. That is an advance which showo health and vitality indeed. Victoria has gained less than 100,000 in the last 16 years. New Zealand has made a vigorous spurt in the last few years, and now probably, just touches the .million mark. Canada is vigorous enough, with its steady increase of over 600,000 since 1901, it total population now being practically 6,000,000. Rhodesia speeds on at a rate of half u million per decade; Ceylon gives similar progress; Natal has now well passed the million mark. In the Mediterranean the story is still one cf progress: Malta from 184,000 in 1901 to 206,000 to-day, Cyprus from 237,000 to 250,000! Not rapid growth, certainly, but old countries cannot move as quickly as new. There increase is one of birth-rate, fiot immigration, and birth-rate is always handicapped to SQHIQ extent oy the drain of the young abd adventurous to other countries in search of wider spheres of activity. Gibraltar's vagrant and floating population is on the downward grade. In 1901 it wa3 20,000, now it is but 18,624. So far the note is of vigor! In the colonier, that is, which are being fed by the Mother Country, und where industry is developing.- But what of those where immigration tells less? What of those where climate ceases to be friend and becomes enemy? Increase, too, but less marked, less instinct with energy. In Northern Nigeria there is a slight decline. On the Gold Coast a rise from 1,400,000 to 1,700,000 between 1901 and 1907 is hopeful compared with that of barely 13,000 in the previous decade. Of the West Indian Islands, Trinidad is the largest and the most prosperous—so,ooo in five years is a sign of that, the figures mounting from 255,000 to 306,000. twice the rise of previous years. Mauritius, on the other hand, is almost stationary round the 375,000, and has remained so, with but increase of odd thousands per decade since 1891. Before that date, curiously, the rate of increase was much greater. Fiji has lost since 1881, though the loss is not large. Only in strange and distant corners of the Empire does the note of decline sound insistently. Steadily does the population of St. Helena —desolate home of romance—fall year by year. The 4,500 of 1881 is but the 3,500 of 1906."