In France, the excess of births over deaths, in recent years, has grown more and more minimal. From 108,229 in 1881, this surplus descended steadily to 44,772 in 1888. Thus the physiological growth resulting from the surplus of births over deaths having decreased by more than half, even by more than four sevenths, in the space of nine years. In 1888, out of 1000 inhabitants, for 23.09 births there were 21.9 deaths. The surplus of births over deaths is thus currently 1.19 on 1000 per year. 

In 1888, for 827,867 deaths, there were 807,720 legitimate births and 74,919 illegitimate births. As observed by Mr. Vannacque, "without counting natural births, the French population would be declining."

As weak as the excess of births over deaths is in France in general, it is important to note that this is only the case in half the départments. Of the 87 départments, 43 present a surplus of deaths over births, 44 present a certain growth by the surplus of births over deaths.

To such a small physiological growth by the surplus of births over deaths, France can add a growth based on the surplus of immigration over emigration. In 1886, the census allowed us to confirm the presence of 1,115,214 foreigners. They represent a proportion of 2.9 of 100 inhabitants. The addition of the migratory surplus to the physiological surplus of 1.19 births over deaths per 1000 inhabitants is enough to explain the weak overall growth of our population. According to the narrowing margin between 1881 and 1886, this grow would only be 3.22 per 1000 inhabitants annually.

We can see how negligible this growth is when, with Mr. Leroy-Beaulieu, we compare it to that of 6.7 in Italy, of 7.5 in Austria-Hungary, of 8.4 in Belgium, of 10.1 in Denmark, of 10.2 in the Netherlands, and finally of 12.9 in Russia. In 1875, in the German Empire, out of 1000 inhabitants after a deduction of 1.8 for emigration, the population growth is 1.00. In Prussia, although the surplus of births over deaths is 13.3 out of 1000, from 1872 to 1881 after an enormous emigration of 197,118 individuals between the censuses of 1875 and 1880, the growth of the population is 11.93 for every 1000 annually. In England, the surplus of births over deaths, after having been 11.1 per 1000 from 1878 to 1880, is of 13.7 per 1000 from 1881 to 1888.

As a result, the English nations is growing 11 times faster than the French nation.

The conclusions that Mr. Lagneau pulls from this work are as follows:

In France, out of  1000 married women between 15 and 45 years old, there are 19 legitimate births annually. There are only 3 births per marriage.

Illegitimate births tend to increase. They are at 8.5 per 100 total births in France in general; but it goes up to 28.15 per 100 in the large urban agglomerations like Paris. Instead of 8.5 per 100 like in France, illegitimate birthrate in England is 4.8 illegitimate births per 100 births in general, close to half as many.

Our legitimate birthrate is negligible, not due to actual infertility, but by voluntary limitation.

Actual organic infertility seems to be about 1 in 10. Sometimes it is congenital, sometimes it comes from a uterine disease from the first childbirth.

Often it is due to syphilis, which, some 70 times out of 100, kills the product of conception, before or shortly after the birth.

The voluntary limitation of the birthrate comes from the natural desire of parents to assure their children's situation is at least as happy as the one they themselves have experience.

The increasing illegitimate birthrate comes from the singleness prolonged by military service; to the insufficiency of protections for young girls, often seduced an abandoned; to the ease of extra-legal relations in urban agglomerations; to the numerous, sometimes onerous, formalities required by marriage, especially when one of the future spouses is of foreign origin.

From the first alarm signalled by Mr. Lagneau, sociologists have been troubled by this grave question. Each has searched for a more or less plausible explanation for this depopulation and at the same time indicating the remedy.

Syphilis was first blamed, as with Mr. Lagneau. Yet, syphilis tends to diminish more than to develop; its effects, moreover, become less and less severe, and are easily averted. Then, they invoked alcoholism; but does this provoke infertility? The question has not been clarified. It is not enough, furthermore, to indicate a cause, even if it is the right one; one must also indicate the means to suppress it. The General Council of Finistère recently expressed the wish to combat the progress of alcoholism. It is a wish that is totally platonic and hardly practical; one might, perhaps, prevent public drunkenness; but that which might be called chronic drunkenness, that which intoxicates by small doses day after day, which does not produce public scandals, how can that be combatted?

The decrease of religious sentiment has also been invoked. But, in our "fin de siècle" era, people no longer believe in interventions of the Holy Spirit.

Finally, particularly of late, they have lashed out against single people. Outcry against single people: they are the root of all evil! Mr. Delaperrière published a brochure against the incorrigible and cursed race, and proposed to encourage large families with a bonus whose fees will be paid by single people. He supports his thesis with arguments that are very sentimental, but not particularly convincing:

"In Sparta, for example," says Mr. Delaperrière,

women could grab hold of single people, drag them naked into the Temple of Hercules, and inflict a sever correction on them. Plato called for them to be slapped with a fine. In Rome, under the Republic, laws imposed a fine on single people, without consideration of exceptional circumstances; thus, after the Siege of Veii, Camillus forced the single men to marry the widows of the citizens who died defending the fatherland. Later, Augustus promulgated laws preferring for all jobs married people over single people; at the same time, Roman children who had three children were exempt from all charges; single people paid for them; there was still the Papinian law that disinherited single people. In Canada—an example we love to cite, because it is a country populated by the French race—bachelors are tracked, and forbidden from hunting, fishing or even commerce; their lives are made as miserable as possible.

In France we also find precedents, though milder ones, it is true, and much less vexing: article 23 of the decree of 13 January 1791 placed single people, with regard to taxes, on a higher level than their rent; the decree of 20 February 1793 reduced by half the support given to them in the case of harm or calamity; the law of 7 Thermidor Year II increased by one quarter the contributions of single people over the age of thirty; the law of 3 Nivose Year VII raised by half the imposable value of their rent. It was the Hovas who first saw the single person as a public danger; they inscribed in their Constitution an article declaring an unmarried man a minor. We should not be humiliated to be offered an example from a tribe from Madagascar that we subdued by force: the Romans, who were worth as much as us, were great because they knew how to borrow inventions or customs that seemed excellent from conquered nations.

The idea of a tax on single people is not new, and it even seems to have supporters among our active legislators. But will it pass from the theoretical to the practical domain? We hope not. When it comes to a search for a remedy to an ill that depends on a social state, it is the social state that must be modified; it is the original cause that should be targeted and not the consequences; the single person is nothing but a result.

(More to follow)

Dr. P. Vernial

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