POPULATION.

Lyttelton Times, Volume XCV, Issue 10918, 28 March 1896, Page 2

POPULATION.

TO THE EDITOR. Sir,— Respecting the population question I should much like to know what answer the advocates of Malthusian or other checks have to make to the following awkward query:—Assuming their theories and practices adopted, would not the future diminution of the human race only occur among the civilised and educated portion? As it would he impossible to influence or imbue the hordes of coloured or semi-civilised nationalities with those views, they would, in course of time, simply occupy the room vacated as it were, for them. I may make my meaning plainer by an a.d ahsnrthim illustration. Let us imagine a garden half stocked with flowers’and half with weeds. The flowers decide that they will limit their natural increase ; not so the weeds; which therefore in the course of a few years, would possess an ever-increasing area of the garden, till the flowers were choked out of existence. —I am, etc., J.J.M.

TO THE EDITOR. Sir, —Another of the errors of Malthus was where ho said that the poverty in European countries was caused by overpopulation, that is, that they were really pressing- upon the means of subsistence. The Eomans, during the Roman Empire, understood the matter of population much better than Malthus. They did all in their power to increase the population of every province under their rule, and maintained that no country could

he over-populated, and that no country could develop its resources unless thickly populated. Take any progressive country in the world and study its statistics, you will • find that invariably the wealth of that country increases at a much greater rate than its population. In no country in the world can it be said that its people are naturally pressing upon the means of subsistence. Artificially there are always a portion of them in poverty, but not because there is not enough food to feed them. Take England for instance. It is said that a tenth of the people are submerged in hopeless poverty, and hundreds die of want and starvation. At the same time, in London, where perhaps the greatest poverty in the world is to be seen, 10,000 warehouses are glutted with food and other products, 10,000 vessels loaded with food, &c., are afloat and crowding into the London Docks, great difficulty is experienced in disposing of their cargoes at anything like a piying price. Merchants cry out that over-production is ruining trade and commerce ; producers cry out that they cannot dispose of their productions because the world is over-crowded with them. And iix the face of all this, and much more of the same sort, there are some who have the hardihood to stand up and say that there is not enough in the world for the people to eat. Malthus says that povei’ty is one of the cheeks on the increase of population. He is about as correct in this proposition as in all his others. Poverty never has been a cheek, but has always been the means of unduly increasing it. Hugh Miller has pointed out that this law' not only holds good in the animal, kingdom, hut also in the vegetable. Any organism placed in distressing circumstances has its fecundity increased enormously. Any plant placed in too rich soil loses its fecundity. Likewise animals which have a glut of food and luxuries become more or less sterile. The above is a practical fact recognised and acted upon by breeders at the present time, and no theory. Poverty is no check, as history has abundantly shown. Ireland, during the last century, has suffered as much from poverty as any country has done, and yet in the midst of it she has increased more, much more, than other countries more favourably situated. I am, Ac,. D. NALERIA.