THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 2, 1927. FOOD AND FOOTHOLD.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19731, 2 September 1927, Page 10

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 2, 1927. FOOD AND FOOTHOLD.

The meeting at Geneva of the first International World Population Conference is an event of great promise. It is called to investigate a question of immense importance, one that has a practical bearing on every phase of to-day's outlook in national and international affairs. A generation or so ago this question had no more than an academic interest. It mattered little then in lands where e}bow-room was scant that the peoples of the world were continually increasing, for there were open spaces elsewhere to be occupied. Emigration was an easy remedy for congestion, and men of all colours and creeds could choose where they would go to escape the competing pressure of-their fellows. In a short space of time the situation has completely altered. Policies of restricted entry have become the vogue. Some countries have barred their doorn altogether against some peoples. The day for easy flight from economic hardship has gone. An attempt has been made to organise within the British Empire the flow of its people from congested to relatively undeveloped areas within its own borders, in order t© solve one national portion of the problem. Success in this has been but partial. Even were it complete, the solution would be effective only for a time. Within the vast bounds of the Empire conditions are not immutable. They will never be. What may serve to meet the need of today may require revision on a morrow not far distant. There remains, besides, the larger problem that the wide world must face, sooner or later, the larger problem within which Britain's cannot for ever be a thing apart. If other peoples be stirred to frenzy by want of outlet for their increasing populations, the Empire may be sorely beset by a compulsion to yield space to them. Plan they never so wisely for the present, the nations may be constrained to revise radically the principles and methods now deemed satisfactory and sufficient. Thought about these things leads inevitably to the need for accurate investigation. Policies, to be of any service, must be based on data scientifically collected and scientifically handled. Statistical inquiry must precede all else of any worth in the question's broad discussion. Nor is it enough that the collation of data should interest some only of the world's peoples. Nothing less than a study of the question on a universal basis can suffice. The departure now being made at Geneva meets these requirements. A scientific approach is being made to the problem, and a fully international discussion is sought. In the last resort that problem must be stated in a mathematical form, having regard to rates of increase in the world's population in different countries and their optimum density in ' those countries, as well.as statement of the present position. The point of optimum density will be affected | by the productivity of the earth. This, like the total area available for occupation, has limits beyond which even the most sanguine forecast, enj couraged by such developments as j the more efficient application of science to agriculture, storage and transit, cannot safely go. Broadly stated, then, the problem is that of finding food and foothold, in an ! earth of limited size and capacity to support human life, for a rapidly multiplying population. Professor East's statement that at the present rate of increase the earth's population will reach 5,000,000,000 within a century, and that this is the utmost number it can sustain,, is arresting. It is known that in some countries various checks to increase have served to slow its rate, and that in many others a similar slowing may take place : but the estimate is not extravagant. There will also probably proceed an acceleration of productivity in food supplies ; but it is possible to arrive at a workable allowance for this, in order to gauge its compensating influence. There is ample justification, when all is considered, for giving the outlook the most careful international study. There are certain factors tending to accentuate the need to face the question. One is the increasing attention being given to hygiene, particularly in directions calculated to stem the ravages of endemic and epidemic scourges. These in olden time made such serious onslaughts that countries were decimated at fairly short intervals. The removal of this likelihood, by the world-wide organisation of preventive medicine and sanitary science generally, will assuredly take away a check to congestion once remarkably prevalent. Another check is equally certain to be minimised —that of infant mortality. Attention to child welfare is fast becoming the rule, and its service, like that of an enlightened ministry to adult health, is bound to accelerate the. rate of population's increase. Of at least equal interest is the modern world's campaign of peace. War in | the past has taken terrible toll of ! human life, and so deferred the acute arising of the problem now being considered. It may be long before the dream of a warless world is fully realised : but the dream has come to stay. The Great War has left a disquieting aftermath, but in its harvest there has been gathered

a resolve, shared more or less by all peoples, to outlaw such strife. Even a partial realisation of the dream will tend to quicken the rate of human increase. It is claimed for some of the latest devices of war that they will achieve their end at a lessened cost of life. Their effect, if it be as stated, will have the same tendency. So may _ pass out of human experience one of the most potent influences against the multiplying of mankind. These considerations prevent a summary dismissal of Professor East's forecast. Humanitarian sentiment, gathering strength with the years, is set. upon providing safeguards for life, and so, strange as it may appear, is hastening the necessity of contemplating a new peril to the life it seeks to protect —that of insufficient food and foothold for humanity's enlarging family. Already there are social, economic and political situations of difficulty created here and there by the sporadic emergence of the peril. Ere it become a universal hazard it otight to be faced.