InpIA may in some respects be compared with China, both being celebrated as amongst the richest and most thickly populated countries in the world. The area of the two is besides almost identical, that of China being computed at 1,300,000 square miles, that of India at 100,000 more. The climate of the two for the most part approximates though in India, except in the extreme northwest, there is no such severity of weather as occurs in China. Both countries, moreover, have large rivers forming alluvial plains, and moreover both are inhabited by an industrious people. We might, therefore, not un) naturally, look forward to a very similar number of inhabitants in each.
Both profess to have made complete tables of the population—India in this last year, and China some fifty years earlier. We publish in another column the Indian tables of the census taken in January 1870. From these it will be seen that the number of inhabitants is calculated at 241 millions. From the time when we went to school, it has been impressed on us that the population of China, with a slightly Jess area, was at least one-half as much again, or from 360 to 380 millions. Now it may be the fact that the alluvial plain of the Yangtsze is peopled more thickly than any portion of India; and with it we may join the basin of the Canton river and the rich district about Ningpo. India has nothing similar to show. A large portion of the delta of the Ganges is covered with jungle, and is so pestilential that no human beings inhabit it. Much of the lower course of the Indus again is through a sandy desert. But with these two exceptions, there does not seem to be any reason to believe the population of China to be the denser of the two. The population of Kiangsu, embracing the alluvial plain of the Yangtsze, is put down as approaching 800 inhabitants to the square mile—an amount, even under the favourable circumstances of the case, almost incredible. The neighbouring province of Anhwei, consisting of low mountains or undulating plains of loess, never half cultivated, is put down as supporting upwards of 700 per square mile. Chehkiang, a region of hills, was said to support more than 500, and other provinces in an almost like proportion. It is perhaps possible that some few peculiarly favoured spots may have been able to support this dense mass of human beings, but the unanimous accounts of visitors to the interior have shown us that, generally speaking, the Chinese system of agriculture was little calculated to make the most profitable use of the soil. Anhwei, which is conspicuous in the lists for its high population, is a notable instance. With the exception of a small portion South of the Yangtsze, the greater part of the province must have been always thinly peopled. The inhabitants never learned the art of really cultivating their undulating plains; a few wretched patches of rice in the bottoms were often all the signs of cultivation to be seen for long distances, while the rolling plain of loess, admirably suited for grazing or for the ordinary cereal crops, was left neglected and useless, Bad government in China, as bad government in Ireland, did foster the crowding of the soil by a redundant population, only to be ree duced by famines or insurrections; but the 380 millions, we are justified from our present knowledge in stating with confidence, never existed except in cooked official returns. What were the reasons for the exaggerated statements we can only conjecture, but there is good reason to attribute it to the same cause which leads to the present evils of the Empire. Population was in some measure considered to be mixed up with the ability of the administrating officer. If a Mandarin returned a lower total than his predecessor, he got rated for his inefficiency, while honours and emolument awaited the man the population of whose district had increased. As there was no more exact check in those days than in the present, over official returns, they were naturally made to suit the requirements of the moment, and a misstatement once established had to be increased in geometric ratio by future incumbents, to prove their ability equal to their predecessors. Looking at the subject by the light which recent in-
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.