PLENTY OF ROOM.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue 201, 25 August 1937, Page 12

PLENTY OF ROOM.

AFRICA'S OPEN SPACES. . \ COULD SUPPORT 2,300,000,000. JOHANNESBURG, July 20. The geography of settlement In Africa was the subject chosen by Professor J. H. Wellington, of the Witwatersrand University, for his presidential address to section B of the Science Congress in Windhoek. With its population of some 135,000,000 (in 1923), or little more than ten to a square mile, Africa compared, he said, very favourably with Europe, which had an average density of about 132 to the square mile, but its density was greater than that of Australia with just over two to a square mile. Professor Wellington said that the birth rate in Egypt was among the highest in the world. Some authorities considered that in view of the climatic character of the earth's regions, Africa had a population capacity of roughlv 2,300,000,000—a potential capacity of s*o per cent more than the present total world population. Another authority, Fischer, on the other hand, based his estimate on the area of lands needed for individuals of various "standards of life." The population capacity thus determined was considered by Fischer to be 1,650,000,000. On a rather different basis, including conditions of climate, resources and location, another authority, Griffith Taylor nß^" ed the opacity of Rhodesia to be 40,000,000 and not 14,000,C00. t