TOPICS OF THE TIMES

King Country Chronicle, Volume XXIX, Issue 4771, 12 November 1935, Page 4

TOPICS OF THE TIMES

Asia's Teeming Millions. "In the great esigma of the future fortunes of the human race no factor is more important than the rate of increase of population in different parts of the world," says the Daily Telegraph. The calculations which were put before the British Association show a trend of development with potentialities demanding the most careful study. In Britain the population, now almost stationary, must be expected within the next 10 years, if present tendencies continue, to enter upon a steady decline. But a low birth-rate is not confined to Great Britain. In Western Europe, the United States, the Dominions, the old commandment to increase and multiply is no longer obeyed. Meanwhile the teeming millions of Asia are more fruitful than ever before. The British raj has stayed the ravages of plague, pestilence and famine in India, and the result is that her population has increased by a third in 60 years, by 34,00,000 in the last 10. Japan has for some time past recorded a yearly increase of from 800,000 to 1,000,000. We have no such exact statistics for China, but in spite of the disorder by which she is beset it is reasonably certain that her 420,000,000 of people are fast adding to their numbers. What hew measures in the coming years of this century will suffice to solve this Asiatic problem?"