portion of the population of English, Scotch,
Irish, and all other nationalities with the total population of the
province, now and thirty years ago. In 1871 it was 21 per cent; in 1901
it was only 19 per cent. The decrease of the Anglo-Saxons may here
appear to be small, though it must be remembered that thirty years is
but a short period in the history of a nation; but it is significant
when we bear in mind that the English element has here been constantly
reinforced by immigrants (who, as the experience of the United States
shows, are by no means an infertile class), and that such reinforcement
cannot be expected to continue in the future.

From Australia comes the same story of the decline of Anglo-Saxon
fertility. In nearly all the Australian colonies the highest birth-rate
was reached some twenty or thirty years ago. Since then there has been a
more or less steady fall, accompanied by a marked decrease in the number
of marriages, and a tendency to postpone the age of marriage. One
colony, Western Australia, has a birth-rate which sometimes fluctuates
above that of England; but it is the youngest of the colonies, and, at
present, that with the smallest population, largely composed of recent
immigrants. We may be quite sure that its comparatively high birth-rate
is merely a temporary phenomenon. A very notable fact about the
Australian birth-rate is the extreme rapidity with which the fall has
taken place; thus Queensland, in 1890, had a birth-rate of 37, but by
1899 the rate had steadily fallen to 27, and the Victorian rate during
the same period fell from 33 to 26 per thousand. In New South Wales, the
state of things has been carefully studied by Mr. Coghlan, formerly
Government statistician of New South Wales, who comes to the conclusion
that the proportion of fertile marriages is declining, and that (as in
the United States) it is the recent European immigrants only who show a
comparatively high birth-rate. Until 1880, Coghlan states, the
Australasian birth-rate was about 38 per thousand, and the average
number of children to the family about 5.4. In 1901 the birth-rate had
already fallen to 27.6 and the size of the family to 3.6 children.[100] It
should be added that in all the Australasian colonies the birth-rate
reached its lowest point some years ago, and may now be regarded as in a
state of normal equipoise with a slight tendency to rise. The case of
New Zealand is specially interesting. New Zealand once had