SURPLUS POPULATION

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18512, 24 March 1922, Page 5

SURPLUS POPULATION

BRITAIN’S BIG PROBLEM. MIGRATION INADEQUATE. LONDON, March 11. Mr Harold Cox, writing in the Sunday Times, says that Empire migration schemes are entirely inadequate to overcome the greatest British problem, that of overpopulation. The population of England and Wales increased by 7,000,000 during the years 1891 to 1911. The absence of potential fathers partly checked the increase during the war, but since the armistice the numbers have been increasing rapidly. The excess of births over deaths is well over 1000 daily. This is the hard fact which is confronting migration enthusiasts, combined with the rapid constriction of the British overseas markets, due to improved foreign competition and dear coal, which adds to the gravity of the problem, making it essential to reduce the present population by many millions. * Everybody, thinks Mr Cox, would welcome a substantial reduction through overseas settlement, but besides the ditticulties mentioned a great proportion of England’s urban population is absolutely unfitted to undertake rural work. The dominions, moreover, as far as Australia is concerned, possess a powerful Labour Party, which is opposed to further immigration, and will not even allow English sailors or engineers to be employed on the Commonwealth liners. In order to overcome this opposition Australian statesmen have assented to the British Government’s proposal to raise a huge loan in London for railways and irrigation, development that will provide work for Australian trades unions as well as for immigrants. The prospect, however, is unattractive to the British investor when he remembers that several past Australian railways have been built for political purposes, and run at a dead loss. Doubtless there is room for an immense further development of Australia’s agricultural resources, continues the writer, but the Australian people themselves are little inclined to develop them, for the last census showed that 2,338,000 live in the fiv? capital cities out of the total population of 5,437,000. Mr Cox concludes by doubting the wisdom of spending a single penny. An Empire migration scheme, he thinks, will only mean additional taxation, without diminishing the ever-increasing slum population.