165), "The industrial progress of the country (France) has been very great.

Fifty years ago, the production of wheat was only half of what it is to-day, of meat less than half.

In almost every crop, and every kind of food, France is richer now than then, in the proportion of 2 to 1.

In all the conveniences of life (if food be the necessaries) the increased supply is as 4 to 1, while foreign trade has become as 6 to 1." In a remarkable table prepared by Mr.F.W.Galton, and quoted by Mr.
Sydney Webb in "Industrial Democracy," it is clearly shown, that, while the birth-rate and food-rate (defined as the amount of wheat in Imperial quarters, purchased with a full week's wages) gradually increased along parallel lines between 1846 and 1877, the former suddenly decreased from 36.5 per thousand in 1877 to 30 per thousand in 1895, the latter increasing from .6 to 1.7 for the same period.
The remarkable thing about the facts that this table so clearly discloses is that with a gradual increase of the means of subsistence from 1846 to 1877 there is also a gradual increase in the proportion of births to population.

But at the year 1877 there, is a very sudden and striking increase in food products, and the purchasing power of the people coincides exactly with a very sudden and striking decrease in the birth-rate of the people.