Burma: Census of India 1901 Vol. I - Khamkoo

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REPORT ON THE CENSUS OF BURMA. . \Q
CHAPTER II.
The movement of the Population.'
31. In his Grundriss sum Studium der Politischen Oekonomie Professor
„ , . Conrad tells us that the causes which regulate the
Factors regulating the move-
, , ,- , n ,, p x
ment of the population,
movement of the population \pevolkerungsbeweguiig)
may be classified as follows : (i) Marriages-and divorces,
(2) Births, and (3) deaths, which may be called the " natural " factors, as opposed
to the " social factors," (4) immigration and emigration. While admitting
that, strictly speaking, marriages indubitably constitute a social factor and contribute
indirectly only to an actual increase in population, he prefers to classify them
with the other natural factors rather than treat them on the same footing as the
phenomena connected with the alteration of habitat, to wit immigration and emigration.
When dicussing the movement of the population of Burma we may leave
the first of the three natural factors (marriages and divorces) entirely out of consideration
and therefore need not go into the merits of the somewhat academic question
of whether marriage should be treated as a natural or as a social factor. All
that is required in the present chapter is to bear in mind the essential distinction
between the natural and social factors, and to keep it clearly in view when examining
and attempting to analyse the movement of the population of the province.
An enormous tract of country that had never been previously enumerated was
brought within the scope of the 1901 operations. It follows, therefore, that a comparison
of the Provincial total of the 1901 census with that secured at the 1891
enumeration yields no result of any particular value. The operations that are just
over dealt with nearly twenty-four lakhs more people than had been numbered ten
years before, but this figure is, of course, no real measure of the growth of the
population of the province during the interval. We know, however, that population
has been increasing steadily during the past decade in Burma and that, as a
general rule, the inhabitants of a given area were more numerous iri 190 1 than they
were ten years before. We may further, for all practical purposes, treat Burma
proper, that is excluding the Shan States and the Chin Hills, as an area which, in
extent, is the same now as it was ten years ago. Within this area the population
has risen from 7,722,053 to 9,252,875, or by rather over a million and a half, and
it is now necessary for us to try and form some estimate of how much of this
increase of 19*8 per cent, (which, it is interesting to note, is 7*6 per cent, higher
than the decennial rate of increase in England and Wales during the same period)
is due to the " natural " factors referred to above and how much to the " social."
The matter is of special interest in Burma which more than any other province
of the Empire owes its annual increment to extraneous sources.
32. The estimate can at best be rough, for not only is the registration of the
two forms of migration defective, but even that of vital
The natural factors.
statistics is as yet in its infancy in the province. Up
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till recently neither births nor deaths were registered in the rural areas of Upper
Burma. Deaths are now recorded in the majority of these areas, but births are
still unregistered. Save in the case of Christians, marriages are not registered at
all in any portion "of the province and in any case for the purposes of our rough
estimate they may, as I have already said, be left entirely out of consideration. So
far as they go, however, the figures may be instructive. Let us first take Lower
Burma, where vital statistics have been duly recorded for a reasonable number of
years. The total number of births and deaths registered in the Lower Province
(including Thayetmyo, but e'xcluding Salween and Northern Arakanj, during the
ten years 1 891- 1900, are as follows :
Births ... ... ••• •" i)336 '
Deaths ... — ••• — — i>°56>735
According to the above figures the increase in the population during the
decade (leaving immigration and emigration out of the question) should have been
to the extent of 303,626, whereas the actual increase in population from 1 891 -to