A GROWING NATION.

Auckland Star, Volume LXII, Issue 143, 19 June 1931, Page 6

A GROWING NATION.

The latest population statistics for Italy show that the birth-rate, though falling slowly, stands at a high level compared with the rate recorded in other European countries. Italy's birth-rate is over 25 per 1000 of population, while the rate per 1000 for England and Wales, according to the last estimate, was 17, for France 18.6, and for Germany 20.1 per 1000. It may be added that the Australian birth-rate is about 21 per 1000, and the rate for our own country 20 per 1000. Italy thus ranks high among the progressive nations whose numbers are expanding with considerable rapidity. Since 1927 its population has grown from 40,800,000 to 42,100,000, and, considering the relatively small size of the country —its area is only 114,000 square miles, or a little greater than that of New Zealand — this represents a considerable degree of congestion. This internal pressure accounts for the annual migration of Italian workers to other European countries to secure employment, and for the more extensive and permanent migration of millions of Italians to the United States, the Argentine and Brazil. It accounts also for Italy's attempts to secure a foothold in Abyssinia, on the Red Sea littoral, in Tripoli and in other portions of the African continent to find room for her surplus millions, and also for the belligerent tone that Mussolini has adopted toward Yugoslavia and Greece when they have opposed Italian expansion in the Balkans. The facts that we have, noted are ominous. For a nation growing rapidly in numbers, conscious of its strength, and anxious to secure not only adequate room for its i people, but a position as a colonising and Imperial Power consistent with. its political rank and standing, may easily be induced to take a line in international affairs incompatible with the Avorld's peace.