U.N. Urged To Halt Population Growth

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29366, 19 November 1960, Page 13

U.N. Urged To Halt Population Growth

(Rec. 10 p.m.) NEW YORK, November 18. A group of 172 leading persons from 19 countries, including 39 Nobel prize-winners, today urged United Nations action to help limit the world’s rapidlyexpanding population.

They , warned that unless the earth's population and resources were balanced, “there is in prospect a dark age of human misery, famine, under-education and unrest which could generate growing panic, exploding into wars fought to appropriate the dwindling means of survival." •- Thesr plea for action was contained in a “statement of conviction about overpopulation" presented to the United Nations Secretary-General, Mr Dag Hammarskjold The report was handed in by a committee of the signatories headed by the British biologist and writer, Sir Julian Huxley, and the president of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America. Mr Cass Canfield.

Mr Dean Acheson, Mrs Eleanor Roosevelt, the President of the World Bank, Mr Eugene Black, the poliomyelitis-vaccine discoverer, Dr. Jonas Salk, the historian. Arnold Toynbee, and the author. John Gunther. At a press conference. Sir Julian Huxley told reporters that the signatories of the statement were not making any suggestions about how to limit population “That is for the United Nations,’’ he said.

Referring to population growth as a factor in the work of various United Nations agencies, he cited the example of a recent malaria control campaign in Ceylon. Because it had successfully eliminated a fatal health menace. Ceylon might well find herself worse off than before due to the increased oressure of population, he said

The statement urged the United Nations “to take the lead in establishing and implementing a policy designed to limit population growth the world over—in order that human beings everywhere may grow on a qualitative rather than on a merely quantitative level, and in order that they may be assured of the opportunity to develop their highest capacities. and to enjoy individual freedom. the advantages of education and public health, privacy, abundance. security, and the beauty and wonder of the world.”

The signatories included Lord Boyd Orr and Lord (Bertrand) Russell. Somerset Maugham and Andre Maurois. President Mohammad Ayub Khan, of Pakistan, two former United States Secretaries of State. Mr Sumner Welles and