NORTHERN ADVOCATE DAILY WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 28, 1928. “RACE SUICIDE”

Northern Advocate, 28 November 1928, Page 4

NORTHERN ADVOCATE DAILY

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 28, 1928. “RACE SUICIDE”

Registered for transmission through the post as a newspaper.

Signor Mussolini has written for the Fascist review, " Gerarchia,” an article on the very general phenomenon, especially in European countries, of the steady diminution of the birthrate. The article was widely reproduced by the Italian press on Sepember 26. It is a philosophical disquisition, in which Signor Mussolini returns to the favourite occupation of his earlier days as student and thinker, and quotes Hegel and other German writers. Among them is Oswald Spengler. author of the book well known to students, "Untergang des Abendlandes” (The Decline of the West) who wrote a preface to the pamphlet of Dr. Richard Korherr entitled "The Decline of Births is the Decline of Nations.” Signor Mussolini declares that this work, which contains some errors as regards Italy, is, by its exposure of false science, of the dangers of nations devoting themselves only to pleasure and the gratification of the senses, with an absolute disregard of the Biblical precept, "Increase and .multiply,’’ bound to have a world-wide echo. Signor Mussolini says that the demonstration of the German author that diminution of the birthrate has for its consequence in the first instance diminution of power, and in the second instance leads to the decline and death of nations is unassailable. The causes of this malady and death lie in what maybe called urbanism and metropoiisin, as stated by Dr. Korherr. At a given moment cities grow marvellously and pathologically, not by their own virtue, but from outside aggregation. The more cities increase and* expand the more sterile they become, "The progressive sterility of the inhabitants,” says Signor Mussolini, "is in direct relation to the rapid and monstrous increase of the city. Berlin, which from 100,000 inhabitants a century ago, has risen to a population, of 4/100,000, is the most sterile city on earth. It has the lowest quotient of births which is not compensated for by the diminution of deaths. A metropolis increases by the influx of the rural population, but hardly has it increased when its fecundity diminishes. The country becomes deserted, but the desert soon extends to the cities, which are taken by the throat and throttled. Their trade, their industries, and their seas of houses and walls of concrete and cement are not able to avert the catastrophe. The city dies, and with it the nation that has not the youth of new generations to compensate it will also die. It becomes inhabited by an old and decrepit population, and a new and fresh race is bound to cross the abandoned frontier.” The distinguished 'writer deals in a striking manner with the colour question, and expresses the opinion that "All the white races of the West may become submerged under the coloured races, which increase and multiply at a ratio unknown to us. Blacks and yellow are now at the gates, strengthened not alone with their fecundity but also by their race consciousness and their dreams of the future. Meanwhile the white peoples of the United States have but a miserable percentage of births, which would ibe oven worse without the admixture of Irish, Italians, and Jews. The negroes of the United .States are ultra-fecund, reaching to 14,000,000, or one-sixth of the population of the republic. There m a groat quarter in New York called Haarlem of which the population is exclusively negro. A great riot broke out there last July, which after a whole night of conflict and bloodshed, was finally controlled by the police,

who found themselves opposed by compact masses of negroes. Signor Mussolini then goes on to ask: “Does not a united China of 400,000,000 signify something in the future of the West? What does Russia’s increase signify for the rest of Europe? The most industrial and commercial nation of Great. Britain calls on her scientists and her statesmen to bring about a ‘back to the soil’ movement. But how can the numerous millions of Londoners massed in that metropolis retire to the country 1 ? London grows, but is depopulating the English countryside.” The same gloomy picture Signor Mussolini gives of France, Belgium, and Switzerland. The so-called law of Malthus is no longei; taken seriously anywhere. That the quality may be a substitute for the quantity, and that a lesser population means a higher standard of living, are equally false theories. Signor Mussolini rebukes the easy optimism of those Italians who believe thlat the evil is not so great in Italy. Reviewing the statistics of several cities, particularly in Northern and Central Italy, he says that the decline in the birth-rate is very serious also in Italy. In conclusion, he states that the demographic laws he is introducing may have but a partial and limited effect.