FRANCE'S PERIL.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 3019, 16 October 1908, Page 3

FRANCE'S PERIL.

V STEADY DECLINE fiST NATIONAL BIRTH-RATE. The steadily progressive decline in the birth-rate of France is a •.subject of constant inoccupation ;among political economits. C.ertainly a statistical review of the situation published in a recent issue of "Opinion," by M. de Foville, member of the Institute and president of tjie Academie de 3 Sciences Morales et Politiques, accentuates the national gravity of the question. The latest figures prove that France as a nation is slowly but surely dying. In 100 years the birth-rate has fallen from 32 per 1,000 to 19.7, and at the present moment, for the first time in history, and in France alone among nations, the deaths exceed the births. Since the, twentieth'century began the decline has continued at the following alarming rate: —Excess of births over deaths, 1902, 84,000; 1903, 73,000; 1904, 57,000; 1905, 37,000, 1906, 27,000. Last year, 1907, zero was reached and passed. There were 20,000 more deaths than births. The official returns are 794,000 and 774,000 under these respective heads. The word "depopulation," M. de Foville points •out, is, therefore, no exaggeration. Is it, he asks, the beginning of the end? At this rate France will soon be 'ripe for invasion. It is the only fate' awaiting a country which is capable of supporting 80,000,000 inhabitants •and is content with half that number. In 1875 the population of Germany surpassed- that of France by €,000,000; it now exceeds it by over 20,000,000. In another twenty years there will be two Germans for every Frenchman* without counting the sons of the Fatherland scattered all over the globe by emigration. "Thus France," concludes M. de Foville, "is marching with quickened step to her doom."