A NEW ASPECT

Evening Post, Volume CXXII, Issue 85, 7 October 1936, Page 11

A NEW ASPECT

EMPIRE MIGRATION

DECLINING BIRTH-RATE

LONDON, October 6. ' The "Morning Post," in a leader on migration, says:—

"Hitherto it has been customary to speak of the necessity for filling the empty spaces in the Dominions from our own surplus, but the moment is approaching when the Empire will be compelled to x-eview the whole problem in a new light, because in a very few years, so far from, having a surplus, we shall ourselves be suffering a decline in population. ;i "Can Britain therefore afford to suffer an additional diminution through migration lest her man-power resources become dangerously weak? In other words, ought we to encourage renewed migration until our birth-rate shows a sustained and substantial rise? You can fill up the Empire only out of a continuing surplus, and now that no surplus is being produced either in Britain or in the Dominions, the problem has begun to wear an entirely different aspect. "Clearly the solution is more babies,' and that subject ought to engage the anxious attention of any future Jn> Iperial Conference." .$■