ABSTRACT
T HE background of population changes, which are the strong-est immediate determinant of the total supply of labour, hasalready been sketched.! There were downward trends in the rates of general mortality from about 1870, of births from about 1880,and of infant mortality from about 1900. The combined result of these trends was to slow down the natural increase of the population after 1880, while still keeping it high enough to cause a large absolute expansion of numbers, and to begin, about 1890, a gradual increase in the proportion of people in the most economically productive age groups. These were conditions which could be expected to provide plentiful labour for an expanding economy and, in the last twenty years before 1914, opportunities either to expand more rapidly or to give more attention to increasing the comfort and amenity of life.
