THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 15, 1936 A WARNING FOR THE EMPIRE

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22524, 15 September 1936, Page 8

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 15, 1936 A WARNING FOR THE EMPIRE

By Commissioner David Lamb of the Salvation Army have been uttered grave words about the outlook for the British Empire. They were addressed to the British Association, a fact reminiscent of his appearance ten years ago before the Royal Colonial Institute (now the Royal Empire Society) to speak on "Our Heritage—the Empire," after his return to England from an Imperial tour of 52,000 miles. Then his theme was migration and settlement, and it was treated with expert knowledge of overcrowded industrial areas in the Homeland and under-populated areas in the Dominions; now it is the prospect of a stationary population in the Empire and the consequent risk of national decline and decay. An intense and intelligent patriotism has always characterised him, and with this has kept pace an unusually keen appreciation of international problems. No man is more entitled to a hearing when the scientific aspects of population trends are discussed, and none has better right to an opinion on means to overcome the dangers he foresees. In the decade that has elapsed since he expounded, in ways afterwards taken by Professor Stephen Leacock and others, the need for a redistribution of the Empire's people, a new phase of the Imperial problem has emerged. No longer is the question one of varying densities of occupation in the several areas of British territory, but one of so serious a check on its total natural increase that the future existence of the Empire is imperilled. In the course of last year this altered incidence of risk and need began to be seriously noted. Lately, with particular reference to Great Britain, it has had impressive emphasis by social statisticians, and New Zealand, along with other oversea territories, has been revealed as sharing the disturbing experience. The figures are so convincing that nobody calling attention to them can be declared an idle alarmist.

Within the next ten years the population of Britain is expected to rise to its peak and then fall. 1 By 1976 it may fall as low as 33,000,000 —it is now about 45,000,000. If emigration were to begin shortly at its old rate, the total would fall by 5,000,000 before 1940. The Times, accepting these estimates as reasonably calculated from all available data, says "such figures reveal tendencies which no Government can afford to ignoije. It may be objected that forecasts are unreliable; the answer, is that official forecasts made after the census of 1921 were found in 1931 to be only 0.13 per cent out. And, if the experts disagree, that is all the more reason why their efforts should be co-ordinated, their conclusions tabulated, and the consequences of present tendencies made clear to the public. . . . Look at it as we may, with approval or alarm, the time is in sight when our population will be stationary. It is a dramatic moment when a race stands still." The chief factor in this prospective turning of increase into stagnation and decline is a marked fall in the birth-rate. This, even if going no lower, means (to take one significant deduction) that by 1960 there will be in Britain 1,000,000 more women over 60 and 1,000,000 fewer boys under 14. The point was strikingly presented in May last by the warden of Toynbee Hall, Dr. J. J. Mallon: "At the beginning of the century there were in Britain seven persons of under 15 to one person of over 65; now these two classes are approaching equilibrium ; if present tendencies in social habit continue, in another 40 years this country will have little more than 1,000,000 adolescents where now it has 2,500,000; in the future greybeards will predominate." When attention is turned elsewhere, it is found that British territories in the New World are not likely to redress the unfavourable balance in the Old by an increase in their white population. A slackening growth in some of them is accompanied in others by an actual decrease. And Commissioner Lamb's warning, based partly on this fact, is given a deeper significance by the yearly increase in the population of the world by 20,000,000 outside Europe; Asia growing and Europe dwindling. "It is a dangerous moment," says the Times, "for the British race to stand still." Japan's crowded masses, it ought not to be forgotten, cast a shadow over the Pacific. Her natural increase has fallen somewhat, but while it remains at more than 800,000 a year and while 437 Japanese are crowded to the square mile—a density much greater than Germany's—a potential menace exists for British lands relatively empty. In two European countries a paradox is, presented—complaint of lack of space for their people and an urging upon these people to breed. Germany and Italy are both in this case, and they are countries whence emanate influences inimical to peace. It is a situation demanding serious survey. Commissioner Lamb has apparently spoken in terms of social science rather than of war, but when foreign national leaders use the language of force, numbers and expansion it behoves an Empire possessing vast empty spaces to consider the gravest possibilities. No academic contention that a reduction of numbers will produce a higher standard of living for those that remain can avail against the practical risk of what Commissioner Lamb describes as " steadily increasing pressure of population elsewhere."