At once the birth rate began to rise and the death rate to fall.
There was talk of all countries putting bounties on children to increase the birth rate, but it was laughed to scorn by the arithmeticians, who pointed out that China was too far in the lead in that direction.
Destroy, as you have threatened, you United States, the ten million coolies we have forced upon your shores--why, the amount scarcely equals half of our excess birth rate for a year."
There was no combating China's amazing birth rate. If her population was a billion, and was increasing twenty millions a year, in twenty-five years it would be a billion and a half--equal to the total population of the world in
It is true, three Chinese were killed by the tubes dropping on their heads from so enormous a height; but what were three Chinese against an excess birth rate of twenty millions?
By careful selection they rear only the hardiest specimens of each species, and with almost supernatural foresight they regulate the
birth rate to merely offset the loss by death.