EUROPE'S TOO MANY MILLIONS.

Dunstan Times, Issue 3465, 14 April 1930, Page 2

EU ROPE'S TOO MANY MILLIONS.

Ail Europe will be as crowded as the suuways m any great city, it the population increases m tne next iUU years at rue present rate. t\o individuals, but wlioie nations will be in the straphanger class. An tne result will be rivalry —perhaps another titanic war. Ims is the fiiue conclusion of some Herman scientine observers, who declare that even now tne continent of Europe is overcrowded. The perpetual increase of Humanity, says vvougaug von Eengerke in the Eeipzig li.ustnste Zeitung, is little affected by a tall in the birth rate in tins or that country. Even to-day, lie tells us, signs of the overpeopling of Europe are to be found § jn the nercer struggle for existence. No one, lie comments, can look far forward to the addition of so many I more human beings in Europe without a feeling of dismay. Comparing that continent with the rest of tne world as to population, this German authority informs us that to-day about 1,y5U,u00,UUO people dwell upon the earth. They are distributed,' he adds, as follows (area measured in kilometers) : People Area Europe 625,006,000 9.000,000 America 147,000,000 52.000,(XX) Asia 1,030,000,000 43,000,000 Alrica 140,000,000 30,000,000 Australia ... 8,000,000 8,000,000 “These figures show plainly that* our old Europe is the second most densely populated continent. Ahead of it comes Asia with her immense mass of mankind. America, Africa, and Australia are, however, the least populated, and afford room for many millions of people still. “If we consider the holding capacity of the single continents, we arrive at the ensuing ligures;— “Europe has to-day 625,000,000 people, and could make room for some 1,500,000,000. The corresponding ligures are for Auierical47 ;3300, Asia 1,030:1700, Africa 140:2300, Australia 8:700. “There might accordingly be housed in Europe 875,000,000 more people, in America the enormous additional total of 3,153,000,000, in Asia, on the other hand, only 670,000,000, in Africa decidedly more, that is to say, 2,160,000,000. and in Australia 692,000,000. But if m some 100) years the inhabitants of Europe find themselves “all dressed up with no place to go,” we read then, the inhabitants of Asia, on the other hand, will have to meet the same problem much earlier. It is. very likely, we are then told, that the question of where to hveg as affecting the population of whole continents, will precipitate grave political and social transformations. Who knows, the query is'put, whether the coming centuries may not bring a return of the tremendous migrations of man such as transplanted •whole civilisations in the remote period liefore the Christian era? This contributor to the Illustrirte *Zeitung goes on t(| say;— “It is to-day practically impossible to foretell the political balance of power in Europe a hundred years or a hundred, and fifty years from now. In all probability, under the pressure of an ever-swelling mas* of mankind, a policy of reason and of vital interests will clear a pathway—a policy not paralysed by party aims and dogmas, but taking into account the imperative demand for survival of 625 millions of people, or yet more. “The individual European Powers will hardly be able to do otherwise than open their colonies up to the surplus human element, and that indeed without regard to the nationality of the settlors. This necessary safety-valve, in the interest of all European humanity, will have to be opened in a hundred! years. It will determine the main ■'lines of world politics. “For the moment England is . the nation with the greatest colonial possessions. America. England’s rival, already deliberately pursues the policy of barring the ever-swelling stream of emigration from the European Continent in order to leave room enough for her own population. “In like fashion proceed England. Era nee. and Holland—in a word, all other nations with colonial possessions so far as regards permission to the subjects of an alien country to establish settlements within the limits of such dependencies. If in another century this selffish idea, persists among the separate governments concerned, grave war developments are inevitable.” Wc are then asked to think ahead about one hundred to one hundred and fifty years, when from 1,350 to 1.500 millions will inhabit the European Continent. At this remote period in the future, the Asiatic turmoil of nations is still greater and “amounts to a chronic peril lor the peace of Europe.” /Slill keeping onr eyes fixed on the distant future, this writer continues: “The cities grow into gigantic concrete stone piles, covering a tremendous area of ground looking like huge honeycombs. Every auxiliary in the way of food, of technical engineering and of science is employed to yield this human flood its daily bread. ’Every square mile of European soil is brought into requisition and exploited. and still all tin's barely suffices. Conditions of existence grow still more ]iain fill. “At last, under the frightful pressure. Llie safety-valves into the colonies of the single nation are opened. A great portion of the mixed population ol Europe streams over the whole globe. ‘ The resultant keener penetration of all continents by Europeans will in a lew decades effect a marked leveling of civilisation throughout the globe.”