NOTES AND COMMENTS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20992, 1 October 1931, Page 10

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

CANADA'S TEN MILLIONS. Preliminary returns of the Canadian census taken in June show that the population of the Dominion is approximately ten millions. In 1871, when the first decennial census was held, it was 3,689,257. There was a steady increase during the next 30 years, but in 1901 it was still only 5,371,365. During the present century, however, the progress has been very much more rapid. Immigration has populated the West, and increased production has made possible that industrial development in the Eastern Provinces which has been the most striking feature in the economic history of Canada during the present century. Each of these factors has contributed to swell the census figures. They rose from 5,371,365 in 1901 to 7,206,643 in 1911, and 8,788,483 in 1921, and now in 1931 they have reached approximately the ten million mark, making Canada the equal in population of the Argentine Republic. Toronto shows an increase of over 20 per cent, in the ten years, and is now a city of 627,582 inhabitants; but in Vancouver, which has now a population of 245,300, the increase has been over 50 per cent.; and Winnipeg shows a growth from 179,087 to 217,587. THE TITHES PROBLEM. Much of the discontent with the payment of tithe is the direct consequence of the replacement of the large landowners by the owner-farmer, Country Life remarked recently. Tithe has been one of the responsibilities incumbent on tfie land and one of the burdens which the tenant and the townsman forget that the landlord has carried. Since, however, it is the Socialist and Liberal Parties who seek to eliminate the landowner, it is for them to devise how his responsibilities are to be met when he has successfully been eliminated. It is undoubtedly hard that individuals should be penalised for the mistaken policy of Governments, but that is where mistakes come home to roost. The stabilisation of tithe in 1925 greatly reduced the amount which would have been payable to-day had the previous rate, based on a fifteen (or even a seven) years average of corn prices, been still in force. The alternative to the disestablishment of the Church seems to be ;i transference of tithe from agricultural to built-up lands, for (he burden is unduly heavy on agriculture in its pres ent forlorn condition. In the Middle Ages it was fitting that the only sure form of property should maintain the Church. To-day it is manifestly unjust that the countryman should pay in pounds for the same—indeed, often a less adequate—vice for which the townsman pays in pence.

PACES IN MANCHURIA. The influx of Chinese immigrants into the three northernmost provinces of China is one of the major and most obvious factors of the very complicated Manchurian problem, a correspondent of tho Times wrote recently. Had it not been for their industry and their astonishing power of undercutting and overbreeding all competitors, this vast and once empty territory would have been an outlet for the teeming population of Japan. But it is not generally realised that there is an important and increasing Korean minority, estimated by some European and Japanese authorities at over a million souls, by others at more than a million and a-half, and that there are districts in Southeastern Manchuria where Koreans form a majority of the population. And these Koreans, with few exceptions, are Japanese subjects. There are various explanations of this influx. Korean political exiles and their foreign friends aver that it is due to dislike of Japanese methods of government. Chineso and pro-Chinese propagandists assert that the Korean farmer is being encouraged to emigrate into Manchuria in order at once to strengthen the Japanese position there and to provide vacancies in Korea for Japanese immigrants. There is another and simpler explanation —the natural attractiveness of a still half-settled country, fertile and increasingly prosperous, to the inhabitants of overcrowded or mountainous regions in Korea.

BRITAIN'S OVERSEAS ASSETS. A new survey was made by the Economist recently of Great Britain's holding of long-term investments abroad, in view of a hint by the Chancellor of the Exchequer at the possibility of realising some of those resources in support of the pound sterling. The conclusion of its calculations was that investments having a total nominal value of £4OOO millions were worth, at prices quoted at the end of July, about £3140 millions. These figures comprise commercial share and loan capital, and Government and corporation loans. "Jf an attempt were made to dispose of any considerable proportion of the total, the price would inevitably be driven down," the Economist remarked. "For perhaps one-third of the total, the market is extremely restricted and practically confined to this country. On the other hand, to measure the value of so large a portion of the world's total capital by reference to the distress prices prevailing at the moment clearly conveys no conception of its real worth. Nor is it to be imagined that any large fraction of it would be disposed of in present circumstances. . . . While a substantial portion of our capital overseas could only be disposed of with difficrlty and at great sacrifice, Great Britain still possesses enormous mobilisable resources which, in the event of an extreme crisis, might be made available (as a great quantity of them were during the late War) to support our exchange. In spite of the depreciation, which the slump has wrought in them, British overseas assets are still far more than sufficient to rule out of the question any such immediate threat to our international exchange position as Germany and other debtor countries have undergone in the past few months."