OVERCROWDING THE WORLD

Evening Post, Volume XCV, Issue 23, 26 January 1918, Page 10

OVERCROWDING THE WORLD

WILL IT MEAN AN ARMAGEDDON ?

Are there worse times in store for the world than even those in which we are now living? Mr. H. Or. Hutchinson, writing in the Quarterly Review, invites us to believe that the moment of extreme 6tress has .by no means fallen upon humanity. Ho foresees what he terms the "real armageddon," when the world becomes so congested with humanity that the people have to war against each other for a foothold. Is that time within measurable distance? From an examination of statistics Mr. Hutchinson draws the conclusion that the world will bu congested with humanity in something less than two centuries hence. It has been estimated that the earth can maintain a population of 6,000,000,000, a total which will be reached about A.D. 2100, at the present rate of increase. That estimate is generally endorsed by a number of census and rate-of-increase figures, drawn from different sources. Moreover, if it be only approximately correct, it would still seem to point to a situation in the near future such as man has never been faced with, in all the ages of his history. What will that congestion mean for our descendants in no very remote degree"? . •

"When a man of energy," writes Mr. Hutchinson,. "finds himself so cumbered and crowded to-day that there seems to bo no room for rlim in his own, little island, he emigrates. That is his solution of the crowding problem, but it is a solution which, unless the unforeseen should happen, must fail us about the year 2100 A.D. No longer will the European, for whom the old world- has no place, be able to say, 'I will go overseas. 'There is space for me." Only two centuries at the most will pass and there will _be no room for him. He will find footing, if at all, in a new land only on the condition of thrusting out from it— that is to say, thrusting to his death— some previous inhabitant. Is not the prospect sufficiently appalling! "Humanity, as it would seem, may expect something like two centuries of respite before congestion becomes worldcomplete ; yet, with every increasing generation, the stress must grow tighter. And during those centuries, in what manner, we may ask, will man proceed with his evolution? Changes there will be, no doubt, but in one elsential matter we may be very sure man will not change. There will be no modification, worthy of entering on the final balancesheet, in that which we commonly term his human nature. Despite all the cruelties of the present war, it is unthinkable that white men could now enjoy the spectacle of those gladiatorial shows in which the Romans had delight. The very fact that such a crime as the sinking of the Lusitania horrified the whole world, indicates a world-wide advance, and quickening of the lvumane sentiment; but that progress is riot set at a pace that will effect a modification of any importance in the brief space that remains. SCIENTIFIC INVENTION AND INFERNAL MACHINES. "Very greatly swifter is the pace of scientific invention, and the development of every specie of infernal machine. It is indeed conceivable, though whether it is a conception, to afford comfort may be more than doubtful, that the next century or two may see the discovery of some death-dealing influence or force such as Bnlwer Lytton imagined in his Vril—that fatal electrical emanation which a child could wield, and which could carry death illimitably. It was as it were a wireless telegraphy of deadly voltage. The imagination shudders at the prospect of such a power in the hands of a being so utterly unfit to be entrusted with it as man, even to-day, is proving himself. It would be a stultifying conclusion indeed of all man's conquest of world forces if he were finally to employ them in the total destruction of human life upon the planet. Terrific and' catastrophic as such a conclusion may be, it is not beyond the horizon of sane philosophy. Then, with the stage so swept, the drama of evolution might conceivably recommence from the opening scenes to work itself out anew, towards who , shall say. what similar or what widely different conclusion ?"

"We do not need to travel so far into the region of conjecture so speculative, though still perfectly possible, to foresee a future that will try the steadfastness, the courage, the organisation, the self-control and every, highest quality of humanity as they' have never before been tried. To-day we are filled with wonder at the madness and the wickedness of Germany, which has thrown more than half the world into misery unspeakable in a war wholly unnecessary. War in 1914 was in no sense a necessity for Germany, for t the German, if crowded in his native country, had but to cross the sea, and there was ample room for him. In every land he found a_ footing, and well knew how to maintain it. With the passage of another century and a-half that free footing will be his no longer. He and every man going from his own land will need to fight in order to gain a place in another. What is to be the issue? Can we question but that it will be war, bitter war, war not of a nation's choosing, but thrust almost of necessity upon nations, war to conquer the very leave, the room to live? Conceivably it is possible that, should the nations perceive the imminence of an invention such as that Vril fluid already 1 noticed, they might; impose upon themselves a self-denying ordinance, prohibiting its use, breaking up the mechanism of its manufacture even as machines were destroyed as illegal engines by the wisdom of the rulers of Erehwon. That, is a possibility, though recent experience does not encourage the hope of an adherence to any ordinance of the kind. The proved disposition of warring humanity is, rather, to avail itself of the most diabolical mechanical and chemical agents that science can contrive. It is manifestly vain to build high hopes on any tenderness or mercy in our poor human nature, or to expect any change of heart ...in so short a time." • . ' THE BATTLE TO THE STRONG. "The battle, then, the inevitable battle, can hardly fail to be to the strong. It looks as though that nation or that race which is most populous, .most prepared, most ruthless, is the nation that will win, and will possess the earth. The preliminary skirmishes, it is to be presumed, will be not so much in the nature of any battles of giants as of the pitiful destruction of the lower racea. More and more will, the white man thrust the man of colour—no matter what' the hue—out of his rights ac fellow man. Gradually he will be shifted altogether from the scene, to make way for the more serious drama in which the best-equipped and strongest mtions -will compete for final domination. I

"It is increasingly likely, as locomotion and communication become easier, that the lordship of a. world thus :educed in its dimensions will fall into the hands of one solo authority. - It seems almost certain, that we have to foresee the strongest nation dominating;, decimating, finally exterminating all those that are weaker,. until that nation itself shall' eventually replenish the whole habitable surface of the globe. What then? What are we to find when we once more turn the page? That the struggle which has so far been for national predominance and possession has to to.l<o on itself airs."trioidal character —..brother fighting.

brother for a-living space upon the earth. It is'difficult to see how it can be otherwise. Out- of the welter what is to issue forth? What modus yivendi in the form of a strict regulation of the birthrate to match the deathrate will the world masters then contrive, so that conditions may not be altogether intolerable? .These are questions to be asked; it, is for them, not for us, to find. the answer. More than enough for us to realise that before such an extreme of congestion can be reached life as we today, envisage and enjoy it will long have ceased to bie- worth, living. The 'open space,' 'the lungs of the cities,' will have been claimed for the inexorable necessity of building a dwelling upon them years before. Either that, or man must become again a race of trog-. lodytes, living beneath the earth, in a manner more or less prefigured by the life in the great prepared trenches separating the battle lines to-day. Dwelling beneath the earth, and growing his foodstuffs upon its surface, man for a time may cheat the fate with which the world congestion threatens him. It can but delay for a brief while the supreme hour. Save for a cataclysm which will destroy terrestrial life as fatally as any development of the Vril, or some such power of human device, a new man will be able to find place on the earth only on condition of thrusting another off it. That, as, far as his life on. earth can take him, is the destiny towards- which man manifestly is moving. Well/ indeed, might Huxley-say that evolution promises us no millennium. TWO LESSONS. ' ,"It is a destiny from which two lessons, at least, are no less manifest than the fact itself. The first 1 is a lesson which may point man more emphatically to the recognition that his ultimate destiny, the destiny which really; matters, is not an affair of this earth at all. If, this were all, then evolution, far from being on the road tow.ards a millenium, would be an age-long journey, to., no goal at all, a .means towards no end. A few may still, in spite of clear vision of the terrific stress that has to come, believe in tlie ultimate perfectability of- man upon this earth. They are souls endowed with a patience and long-sufferance that is passing marvellous when we. consider that Neanderthal man was already so far advanced in thought as to hold., distinct views of an after-life, and when we consider, beside that curious picture, the. long space, which seems to separate hu-' inanity from perfection., to-day. . With that comparison in mind, the .believer in terrestrial. perfectability must appeal to most of.us.as a being gifted with an optimism -which -we can but admire, which. We can never hope to rival.

"And with a future so immediate arid so in^itably spread before their eyes, we may yet hear people .speak with smug complacency of the. course .of the. world, after the' present war, as if humanity's development, were to continue on it under precisely the, same conditions., as. in the past, .when man-, was fulfilling his destiny of replenishing the earth. They are blind, as it appears, to the obvious, the necessary • and the very drastic changes'in the circumstances when that part of his fate shall, hay* been accomplished and he shall proceed to the next and infinitely shrewder problem of ■ his life on an already fully replenished.earth. It is not an amusing prospect. But what would be amusing, were it not pathetic, is the talk of the 'general disarmament' and of the . 'abiding peace' .which- are to be among, the natural consequences, of the satisfactory, termination of this war. Such talk is rife, and, pitiful as it seems, there are such talkers who. believe in what' they say. More pathetic still, in days of a hot very, remote future, will, be the fate of our people if they and. their rulers allow themselves to be hypnotised by. the sugegestion of this smooth folly, if they..fail.' to realise £he situation towards which' humanity is most inevitably, working, fail to prepare for .the dire clash that is absolutely bound to come.' '