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236 ECONOMIC INQUIRIES AND STUDIES
Buf, while our position relatively to France appears
to have thus changed enormously to our advantage,
we have further to consider that whereas at the be-
ginning of the century, and even as late as twenty-five
years ago, we had no rivals in the business of coloniz-
ing or of over-sea Empire, the position is now alto-
gether changed. One of the greatest changes is made
by the rise of the German Empire and its recent dis-
position to go into the business of colonizing and
holding possessions abroad. Germany, from being an
aggregate of divided states with a population of less
than 20,000,000 at the beginning of the century and
with no- prospects of colonial ambitions, has now be-
come a united empire with a population of between
50,000,000 and 60,000,000, nearly one-third of which
population has been added to it by the natural increase
arising from the excess of births over deaths during
the last twenty-five years. If, then, we have gone
ahead of France, it is to find at the end of the term
that a new power has arisen with which we may have
to deal, and a power more formidable than France.
Russia, in the same way, which was almost out of
the reckoning as a world-power at the beginning of
the century, and which, even twenty-five years ago,
was hardly in a position to interfere with us in any
part of the world, has developed very rapidly by means
of its railway extensions and otherwise, and is now a
great power with a growing population touching the
British Empire in India and touching our interests
in China and elsewhere. This power also has a popu-
lation of r 30,000,000, mainly a white population, and
the addition to the numbers since 1870 appears, from
the official statistics, to be close on 60,000,000, an
enormous increase if we consider it to arise mainly
from the natural increase of population and not from
annexation. Possibly part of the increase is apparent,
being explained by the improvement in the method
of taking the census; but there is no doubt as to a
huge increase. I should not consider the growth of