19世紀欧州における人口の急増
人口増加はとてもゆっくりであった。18紀はやや高い増加率を示した。しかし,19世紀になると,とても驚くべき変化が起こり,人口増加率は,おそらくかつてなかったような高い比率(高み)に達した。1066年には,イングランドとウェールズには,一平方マイル当たり26人の人がいた(人口密度)と見つもられている。1801年には,この数字は153人に上がり,1901年には561人に上がった。 このようにして,19世紀の(1世紀)間の絶対増加数は,ノルマン征服(時)から19世紀初頭にいたるまでの増加数のほぼ4倍である(となっている)。しかも,イングランドとウェールズの人口の増加は,事実の姿(絵図)を十分に伝えていない。というのは,その期間中,イギリス民族は,以前は少数の未開人しか住んでいなかった,世界の広い地域に植民しつつあったからである。(was peopling large parts of the world) |
Chapter XVII: Population, n.5Christianity, wherever it was believed, put an end to all checks upon the growth of population except continence. Infanticide was, of course, forbidden ; so was abortion ; and so were all contraceptive measures. It is true that the clergy and the monks and nuns were celibate, but I do not suppose that in medieval Europe they formed so large a percentage of the population as unmarried women do in England at the present day. They did not, therefore, represent any statistically very important check upon fertility. Accordingly, in the Middle Ages, as compared with ancient times, there were probably a larger number of deaths caused by destitution and pestilence. The population increased very slowly. A slightly higher rate of increase marked the eighteenth century, but with the nineteenth century a quite extraordinary change took place, and the rate of growth reached a height which it had probably never attained before. It is estimated that in 1066 England and Wales contained 26 persons per square mile. In 1801 this figure had risen to 153; in 1901 it had risen to 561. The absolute increase during the nineteenth century is thus nearly four times as great as the increase from the Norman Conquest to the beginning of the nineteenth century. Nor does the increase of the population of England and Wales give an adequate picture of the facts, for during that period the British stock was peopling large parts of the world previously inhabited by a few savages. |