The new Census of India reveals the fact that the
popula- tion of the Empire is 285,000,000, or thirty millions more than in 1881. Of this increase, 3,000,000 is due to conquest, Upper Burmah coming for the first time into the calculation, and probably as many more to the gradual dying away of the objection felt in many districts to any enumeration of women in the census-papers. The figure given, however, is pro- digious, showing as it does that at least a fifth of the human race resides within the peninsula, and that it increases by 12 per cent. in every decade,—that is, will, if the rate continues, be within fifty years 500,000,000. The rate will probably decline, though statists know little of the law which regulates increase of population ; but it seems certain that we shall soon be face to face with the Chinese problem of a population too thick for the means of easy subsistence. In China the cor- rective is the occurrence of gigantic famines ; but in India we shall try to prevent them, and though Indians are not lazy, they have not been drilled by Nature for centuries into abnormal industry. The Chinese have, and though they strike for wages, never protest against hours.
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