2 JULY 1910, Page 11

The annual " Statement Exhibiting the Moral and Material Progress

and Condition of India" was published on Tuesday, and deals with the year 1908-9. The most interesting information contained in it is perhaps statistical. It is difficult to calculate the exact population, which at the Census of 1901 was 226,409,600, but the number of births registered in 1908 was 8,554,427, and the number of deaths 8,653,007. The death-rate was 3811 per thousand, or 1.03 higher than in the previous year. On the other hand, the number of deaths due to plague has enormously decreased, falling from 1,315,892 in 1907 to 156,480 in 1908.