Page 362 - clra62_0019-(GIPE)

354 ECONOMIC INQUIRIES AND STUI¥ES
Thus, while the excess rate was as high as 2 I to 28
per J ,000 before 1860, it has since fallen to one of 13
only, or about one-half. Whatever validity may attach
to the method of calculation, the real facts would no
doubt show a change in the direction of the table-a
decline· in the rate of the excess of births over deaths
from period to period. The decline in the growth of
population is thus not merely the direct effect of a
change in immigration, but is' connected with the birth
and death-rates themselves, although these rates are
of course indirectly affected by the amount and propor-
tion of immigration. It would be most important to
know what the decline in the birth-rate is by itself,
and how far its effects on the growth of population
have been mitigated or intensified by changes in the
death-rate j but United States records generally give
no help on this head.
Dealing with Australasia in the same way, we have
the advantage of a direct comparison of both birth and
death-rates and the rate of the excess of births over
deaths. This is done in the following table:

Birth-Rate anri .Death-Rate and Rate of Excess of Birtlzs over .Deatks
in Australasia for unriermentioneri Years.
[From Mr. Coghlan's statistics.]
Excess of Births
Birth-Rate. Death-Rate.
over Deaths.
1861-65 41.92 16·75 25.17
'66-70 39. 8 4 15.62 24. 22
'7 1 -75 37·34 15.26 22.08
'76-80 36,38 15.04 21·34
'81-85 35. 21 14·79 20.42
'86-90 34·43 13-95 20.48
'9 1 -95 31.5 2 12·74 18.78
'96-99 27·35 12·39 14'9 6

Thus from a high birth-rate forty years ago, Austral-
asia has certainly gone down to very ordinary birth-
rates, lower than in the United Kingdom and in