1831–41, 14.58 per cent. These rates have only been approached in one subsequent decade—that of 1871–81—which included several years of the highest prosperity on record, when the rate was 14.5 per cent. The rising tide of vitality revealed by statistics is in keeping with the observations of the French traveller Louis Simond, quoted by Professor Smart, in 1810–11: 'I have found the great mass of the people richer, happier, and more respectable than any other with which I am acquainted.'"
Increase of population is not, of course, a wholly satisfactory test by itself. It is, in fact, maintained by some Malthusians that increase of population is a sign of a low state of civilization, and a low standard of comfort, and this contention is to some extent supported by the well-known fact that the birth-rate shows a tendency to decline among those classes whose circumstances are most comfortable and whose standard of life is highest. Nevertheless it is something for Capitalism to claim that it has enabled so enormous an increase to take place in the population of the country, in which modern Capitalism and the modern Industrial system first opened their keen young eyes,
