Grey River Argus THURSDAY, April 12, 1928. THE FUTURE OF THE RACE.

Grey River Argus, 12 April 1928, Page 4

Grey River Argus THURSDAY, April 12, 1928. THE FUTURE OF THE RACE.

A warning that the coloured races are destined, ere long', to overcome the whites in a. bloodless victory, is the burden -of an arresting article by the famous economist, Sir Leo Chiozza Money, of which a synopsis appears in the cables to-day. The propaganda and practice of birth control he holds responsible for the undeniable fact Unit in the great, majority of white countries population is regenerating at a constantly falling rate. There isi he

declares, no hope of a check 1o this process. . In a spirit apparently of pessimism, he urges that the only means of avoiding the loss of world leadership is for the whites to teach the other races the practice of birth restriction. AV het her by force or peaceful suasion this is to be done, he does not say, but whether the coloured-peo-ple will accept the birth control “gospel” is a question rather open in the meanlime. It is true that in Britain, for instance, the birth rale has fallen to little more than 18 per thousand; that it is still declining in France; that it has begun markedly to fall in Germany, and in Hungary and other countries, with a noticeable exception in the case of Italy; but the fall is not so great among whites m Europe as it is in America. where the most rapid rate ot births is that among the negroes. In Australasia and Canada, the rate is also falling steadily’ and so far as that part of his ar’ gument goes, Sir L. Chiozza Money is on a sound base, but even though, as he says, the whites now compose only one in every three of the world’s people, it is doubtful whether the rate of increase among the coloured races is so very rapid, as he would suggest As a matter of fact, statistics, so far as they are available, indicate that the percentage increase of whiles is decidedly greater than that of other peoples. Where the economist’s argument applies, however, is to that period comprehended by the time since birth control began to dominate the while race. There are in Britain four million cases where, according to statistics, there are two or fewer of a family to marriages, and in half of these eases there is no family at all. This is approaching the French average. Moreover, where the coloured race are in touch with whites, it is probable the impact has actually hastened their increase, and this point is in favour of Money’s forecast. He predicts a cessation very soon of European emigration, and says that coloured workers will need to be imported, instancing the development in Africa, by France of a large coloured population within its areas, as well as the preponderance of I nearly six blacks to each white in | South Africa. It is probable, as I already suggested, that, due to thi' advent of whites, the blacks are to-day increasing at the Cape' and thereabouts far more rapidly than they did before the white's -i came. The whites actually in t

’crease the coloured people’s means of subsistence by belter production, transportation ami conservation methods. This fact will yet be illustrated in the ease of the Chinese, if it is not already in the ease of the Indians. Assuming a continuance of the tendency which -Money expects to stagnate the whites, his argument would seem incontrovertible, but it is probable that tendency itself will be checked by common sense, as well as by economic changes designed to remove poverty and the fear of want from the European masses in all countries. Another cablegram to-day contrasts the view of those who, like Parson -Malthus, over .130 .years ago, fear the whole human race is outrunning the possible means of subsistence, with the calculations of a great statistician, who prettv effectively proves that where there is the will there is the way to maintain twice the world’s present population. It is certainly not going to be the niggardliness I of Nature, or the failure of the food crop which may lead to the subjection of the whites to other races, whether yellow, black, or any other colour, but rather the failure of the human crop in the future. It is therefore the duly of the European world to see conditions are readjusted so that the economic arguments advanced by birth controllers, for restricting the increase of the working elas1 ses will no longer hold water. If the wealthy elements in older countries wish to render emigration advantageous, they will follow up the human exodus with a backing of capital for industrial development, such, for instance, as Australian statesmen now stipulate as the condition precedent for the successful colonisation by Britain’s surplus population of th? empty spaces needing irrigation and development in other directions. American capital has scaled tariff walls in many countries, starting industries inside of them. and British capital could do likewise, instead of seeking just the very places where it rapidly increases the coloured races, as i,i Asia during the past century, as well as Africa. The ostensible argument foi birth control is economic, but :t is nevertheless noteworthy that m practice the standard of living does not furnish the key to it. because the best-off classes are the leading birth controllers. No doubt, what Devas, an other noted economist, calls tiie

“tifler-Uhnslian” philosophy »:' tiie day is the basis of this social phenomenon, which, however, is not new, since it coincided with Ihe period so finely depicted in Gibbon’s “Decline and Fall” of the greatest empire of antiquity. History is evidently tending ' j repeat itself once more.