The Press FRIDAY. AUGUST 30, 1974. Population conference

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33626, 30 August 1974, Page 8

The Press FRIDAY. AUGUST 30, 1974. Population conference

The deliberations of the World Population Conference, which will end today, were marked more by political invective than by constructive debate about how to solve the problem of matching the growth of population to the world's resources. The prescribed goals of the conference were to reach a common understanding of population problems and to approve a world plan to control the growth of population. Many feared before the conference opened that, because attitudes to population questions have political, ideological, and moral overtones, these goals would not be reached. They were not reached.

The more developed nations urged that any world programme must emphasise the reduction of the birth-rate through the use of direct methods of birth control. An improbable coalition of „ome Latin American and African countries, the Soviet Union. China, and the Vatican argued against this contention The representatives of these States maintained that the problems arising -from the pressure of population on resources could be solved as effectively by economic development of the poorer nations and by an international redistribution of wealth. They claimed that if excessive consumption and waste in the rich nations were checked, population problems would appear dramatically less pressing. They also said that, because population growth rates fall as standards of living rise, redistribution of wealth, on an international scale, would contribute to a decline in the birth-rate in those countries whose population is already pressing hard against resources that can be won from the land and sea. The developed nations were accused of urging population control because the alternative course of changing the structure of the world economic system would require sacrifices of the developed countries which they were unwilling to make. The representative of the United States at the conference admitted as much when he said that the United States would not cut back on its consumption of food and raw materials.

To some extent the evidence supports the argument that redistributing the worlds wealth

would do as much to solve the world's population problems as would campaigns to persuade the world's poor to practise birth control, which were tried in the 1960 s with only limited success. The president of the World Bank (Mr R. McNamara) recently suggested that helping peasants and small farmers in the developing countries to produce more was as important as directly curbing population growth through birth control programmes. Chinese representatives at the conference were the most vigorous in arguing against any policy to encourage countries to adopt direct measures to curb the growth of their population. They claimed that the population problem would be solved if “ imperialist ” Powers did not exploit the poor countries. The Chinese made their political point at the cost of obscuring their own considerable achievement in controlling population. China's own experience is a convincing demonstration that both social and economic changes and family planning programmes on a large scale are needed if population growth in the poorer countries is to be slowed to a rate at which it can be matched by increases in productivity.

Almost without exception, the participants at the World Population Conference used it as an occasion to press solutions ■which served the short-term political and economic interests of the countries they represented. They did not use it as an opportunity to propose solutions which would serve the interests of coming generations, or even members of this generation who are suffering because the improvements in productivity have, in some countries, already lagged far behind the growth of population. When the dust has settled, it may become apparent that an exchange of views took place which will inspire such solutions at future meetings. The conference should at least have impressed on those who think birth control is the best answer to population problems that the problems cannot be solved simply by tolerating abortion or requiring that contraceptives are freely available to the prolific poor.