to THE SHADOW OF THE WORLD’S FUTURE 
Despite the fact that we are compelled to recognise 
how little we know of the details of Man’s history, 
there are certain things that stand out significantly. 
One of these is the progress of his numbers. The rate 
of their increase has been amazingly slow. In recent 
times, both in America and in Australia, this rate has, 
for populations of moderate size, attained to 3 per 
cent. per annum. The world as a whole, however, has 
never reached anything like such a rate, during the 
periods at least for which there have been accurate 
records. On the other hand, the numerical increase 
has been very slow indeed. Such a fact commands 
our attention, for. if we are to grasp the meaning 
of rates, and envisage them in their proper perspective, 
we have to realise what they imply for the future of 
the race. 
When we think merely of individual families, the 
rate of 3 per cent. per annum may not appear large as 
a measure of its increase. To grasp its significance it 
will be sufficiently near the mark to suppose that for 
every 1000 persons in the population about 126 are 
married women between the ages 15 and 44 inclusive, 
the important range of the reproductive ages of 
womanhood. If then the deaths per annum amounted 
to 12 per thousand, the annual increase would have 
to be 42 per thousand for the annual rate of increase 
to be 3 per cent. Thus for the increase to be by 
births alone, each of the 126 child-bearing women 
would have to bear a child about every three years, 
on the average. In the case of healthy women this, 
of course, is not the physiologically possible limit, but 
it is, nevertheless, a high frequency. As a whole the 
world is not growing at anything like the rate of 
3 per cent., and, as far as one can judge, that rate 
never was attained. 
One perforce asks: ‘ At what rate has the world’s 
population increased in the period during which it has