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TSE STATE OF PARTIES.

THE POSSIBILITIES OF WAR..!

I A RADICAL IN THE HOUSE.…

THE CHURCH. !

! SPAWNING FORCE.

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SPAWNING FORCE. The Census papers have been distributed, and on the 15th of April the population of England will, for the ninth time, be accurately numbered. The public looks to the result only with patient curiosity, for it has leanit to regard an increase of population in every decade as a matter beyond the region of speculation. Yet nothing can be more certain than that the increase of is the greatest of political questions, or that there is no law known which should justify us in expecting the increase as a risht. Indeed, judging from the analogies on which such law should be framed, the Anglo-Saxon race ought to be ap- proaching its term of increase. Already it has certainly excelled every other existing pure race, except the Chinese, and probably every race which has ever held power on earth. 1. We say the increase is the greatest of political ques- tions, for though dominant races are not the only tribes which multiply, every race seems hitherto to have increa«eo dnring the period of its advance, and declined or remained stationary after its decline. The Greeks, from the dawn of their civilization, began to swarm off from their little hirth- place, till, fifty years after tho death of Alexander, Greeks had filled the islands of the Mediterranean and populated Asia Minor, where the sinew of the people of. the countries we now call European Turkey, were the dominant race ana city population in Eg-ypt, and the wairior class of Persia ruled in Bactria over a great kingdom, and founded all the Mediterranean colonies which rose into great cities Their rate of increase, if we may judge in the ab gence of statistics, must for some years have been as rapid as our own. Suppose it had gonc on till the Greeks were a numerous as the Chinese The population of Rome and Roman Italy increased, in the fwe of devastating wats, throughout the whole period of the Republic, perhaps later, for though the Emperors complained that Romans were wanting to fill the armies, they as colonists stamped their language, laws, and municipal habits deep upon the surface of tho world. The rise of Mahomedanism must have been accompanied by a sudden increase in the prolificness of the Arab tribes, for though it is probable that the usual estimate of the population of Arabia is absurdly below the truth, yet tribes unmistakably Arab in lineage are now found from the Riff to the moautains of Armenia. Suppose the multiplica- tion had continued, and Arabs had spread as they expected over the whole earth. So, too, the Turks, originally a clan, multiplied to about twelve iiii'.lions, and it is because the ( spawniug force is gone that the Turkish empire is perishing, as Lamartine said, of want of Turks. We are accustomed to think much of the qualities of our race, but of what avitil would its capacities have been but for this mysterious power of reduplication, which enables us to btiil,,l tui,-hty states with the mere surplus of our population, bupi-ose England had, during modern history, remained five millions strong or suppose the multiplication had ceased even in 181-5, and we were left to maintain the terrible struggle for independence with fewer people than Prussia or the Hun- garian kingdom. 2. There is no conceivable reason why we should not have been left, for, amidst a wilderness of theories, the ouly law discoverable is the total absence of law. Why should a race stop short at a given point. The instances we have quoted above would point to the idea that the vital energy which produces conquest produces also an increase of num- bers. But the facts are wholly opposed to that belief. The Irish, before emancipation, while still one of the crushed races, multiplied liku flies. The serfs of Russia increase as fast as freemen, and the negroes of the South faster than their lords. This last instance is not conclusive, for we do not know how far the increase is in the mulattoes, who may share the energy of their sires, but it is still fatal to the theory of the link between dominance and multiplication. The common belief that the presence of means of subsistence will account for increased numbers is equally disproved. Irishmen, as they approached starvation, multiplied faster, and all aristocracies, who are of necessity well fed, die out. Why, besides, should England with fifteen millions multiply while it did not multiply with five ? Civilization, we have said, seems contemporaneous with increase; but the French stand in the front rank of civilization, and their increase has stopped. They gain by conq iest, but England adds a new Savoy to her population every year without it. Why, moreover, should there be no increase among the Je-vs after their dispersion ? They were not an effete race, but out- lived the bitterest if their persecutors. Suppose, after their dispersion, they had multiplied at the Anglo-S^ axon rate. They would now exceed in number the whole existing po- pulation of the earth, and the history of the world would have been changed for ever. Yet why should Jews not mul- tiply as well as Sclaves or Saxons ? We shall be toid that there are moral considerations. Well, the, negroes, among whom there is almost promiscuous intercourse, multipl) faster than the Puritan population of Connecticut, and the Chinese, the wost race on earth, have grown from a tribe into a third of the population of the world. Why do races, again, which ha*e once grown, stop growing ? 1 here is no natural law compelling nations to stop at a nllmber, as men stop at rieven fed of height; for the Chinese are fix tiiiiu, as numerous as the most numerous of civilized tribes. Sup- pose there had been three hundred millions of Greeks, or Roman citizens, or Fi enciiinen -wL! would add bnglishmon, but that we are still increasing at a rate which, if it con- tinues, will make us in 1900 one hundred and twenty millions, and in 1940, less than a hundred years hence, more numerous than the whole population of Europe, Rus- sia included. Forty years more after that, a space of time less than the reign of the four Georges, would make us five hundred millions and, in all piobibility, sole masters of the"lohe There are plenty of means of subsistence, rill temperate America, North and South, as England is filled, and it would hold the whole, and leave great regions for still wider expansion. That any such increase is likely we do not believe, but that it should be even possible is a poli- tical fact, to which all European complications, and qua re!s, and aspirations are the merest trifles. Thre is  ground on which to deny or affirm the spec?aion me Athenian, the noblest human being who ever appeared upon the earth's surface, has died out. The Cliirleti,, ^ulldd have been missed just as much as a rat, has inereaei1 to three hundred millions. If he, why not the AUn"gllo o-iS 5, ixxoonn, who owns already all and who m?u?ltip?lies ?in ? al?t ?- who owns already all climates, and who p Spectator.

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WEEKLY CALENDAR.

I SOUTH WALES RAILWAY.

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SOUTH WALES, MIDLANDS, & NORTH…

I VALE OF NEATH RAILWAY.

LLANELLY, LLANDILO, LLANDOVERY,…

I TAFF VALE RAILWAY.

NEWPORT, ABERGAVENNY, & HEREFORD…

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