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THE STATISTICAL CENTURY 275
which is already in reality the most powerful single
state in the world, will be generally recognized as such.
By 1930 its population will, probably enough, be ISO
millions, as compared with about 90 millions of Euro-
pean race in the British Empire. with about 80 millions
In Germany, and with the numbers not so much in-
creased, compared with the present, in other countries
of Europe. Russia may then, perhaps, have a popula-
tion close upon 180 .millions, but the units unequal to
those of the United States. As the century advances.
Illoreover. Russia will probably be surpassed even in
population, and the pre-eminence of the United States
will be unquestioned. Other nations like France will
have fallen still more into the background, and inter-
national politics will be more and more limited to the
affairs of what are already the four great powers-the
United States, United Kingdom, Germany, and Russia.
In all this let' it be repeated there is no attempt at
prophecy. It is merely a bare statement of what must
be, assuming the continuance for- a generation or two
only of the present conditions as to the growth of popu-
. Iation and wealth in the countries referred to. Should
the assumption fail, however, this will of itself imply
other changes of a remarkable kind. Population can-
not stop growing at the prodigious rate of last century
or something approaching it, without a great deal be-
sides happening of an astonishing nature. Looking at.
past experience, however, the probabilities are entirely
against a speedy check to this growth.
The most serious problem will, of course, be whether
the di1emma stated by Malthus, and which has been
rather put aside for a century in consequence of the
occupation of new lands by the growing European
populations, will, at length, become an urgently practical
question. Sir W. Crookes's paper at the British Asso-
ciation two years ago, though it was not without defects,
may be taken as evidence that the idea cannot be easily
got rid of. It is simply impossible not to wonder which
of the two forces-the growth of population and the