increasing efficiency of food-production, combined with colonisation of
whole virgin continents, has for generations given the apparent lie to
Malthus' mathematical statement of the Law of Population, nevertheless
the essential significance of his doctrine remains and cannot be
challenged. Population _does_ press against subsistence. And no matter
how rapidly subsistence increases, population is certain to catch up with
it.

When man was in the hunting stage of development, wide areas were
necessary for the maintenance of scant populations. With the shepherd
stages, the means of subsistence being increased, a larger population was
supported on the same territory. The agricultural stage gave support to
a still larger population; and, to-day, with the increased food-getting
efficiency of a machine civilisation, an even larger population is made
possible. Nor is this theoretical. The population is here, a billion
and three quarters of men, women, and children, and this vast population
is increasing on itself by leaps and bounds.

A heavy European drift to the New World has gone on and is going on; yet
Europe, whose population a century ago was 170,000,000, has to-day
500,000,000. At this rate of increase, provided that subsistence is not
overtaken, a century from now the population of Europe will be
1,500,000,000. And be it noted of the present rate of increase in the
United States that only one-third is due to immigration, while two-thirds
is due to excess of births over deaths. And at this present rate of
increase, the population of the United States will be 500,000,000 in less
than a century from now.

Man, the hungry one, the killer, has always suffered for lack of room.
The world has been chronically overcrowded. Belgium with her 572 persons