WORLD'S POPULATION.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20990, 29 September 1931, Page 9

WORLD'S POPULATION.

INCREASE IN THE EAST. FEARS FOR THE FUTURE. DISCUSSION BY SCIENTISTS. By 1 elesrraph.—Press Association—Copyright. (Received September 28. 8.45 p.m.) LONDON, Sept, 27. Tlie debates at the meeting of the Brit ish Association yesterday ranged from the origin of man to the problems with which he is faced owing to bis having overcrowded certain areas of tho habitable globe. litis led several speakers of international repute to make significant utterances regarding the vital importance of scientific birth control, not only to secure eugenic stock, but to curb the possibility of the dangerous swarming of Asiatics over other territories, although it was confessed that the hope of applying such a remedy was remote. The speakers did not all agree with the facts and tlie deductions from them. Nevertheless notable contributions were made to contemporary scientific thought. Pessimism on tho whole predominated. Dr. E. W. Mac-Bride, professor of zoology. Imperial College of Science, said the day of judgment was within appreciable distance. Professor Lancelot Hogben said that perhaps in 2.0C0.000 years human beings would be reproduced by multiple births. Women would bear twins and triplets, and then would not waste more time in producing large families than men now spend in playing golf. Dr. F. A. E. Crew, professor of genetics, Edinburgh University, said that as birth control could not bo imposed on their surging Oriental competitors, they miirht ultimately be pushed out of Britain's Imperial territories. But among the British people there were types suitable for almost every environment. Migrants after a physiological elimination could be advised to seek particular places, instead of going to a land the advertisements of which offered the most rapid financial gam. The man whose increased skill gained him higher wages would be prudent enough to limit his family, said Dr. MacBride. but it was delusive to try to teach wage-earners prudence by overpaying them. It. was their duty, he added, to apprise poorer citizens of the methods of birth control available to educated people. Painless sterilisation was tho only remedy for the man who continued to produce children, m utter indifference, relyins on the dole for his upkeep. If thev were to maintain a vigorous race, that is the end to which they must come, otherwise tlie word English would cease to possess its former significance.