A TERRIFYING PICTURE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20381, 12 April 1928, Page 9

A TERRIFYING PICTURE

STARVATION FOR HUMAN RACE.

THE EARTH BECOMING CROWDED

(United Press Association.)

(By Electric Telegraph—Copyright.) LONDON, April 11. (Received April 12, at 0.15 a.ra.) A terrifying picture of the human race dying of starvation in the near future is conjured up in statistics published to-day. It is stated that the earth’s population has increased by 100,000,000 during the last 15 years, and the prophets of doom base their calculatibiis on:—(First, the possibilities of increasing the population to an unlimited extent; secondly, the cultivatable surface of the globe is strictly limited. Excluding wars, famines, and pestilences, it is just a matter of simple arithmetic to prove that mankind might crowd the whole planet within a measurable period. Although the increase of the population proceeds far slower than is potentially possible, it is nevertheless continuous. Some sav we are already near the limit of production, and that the possibilities of extending the food-producing areas are practically exhausted. That is the grim side of the picture. Sir Henry Rew, ex-Govemment Statistician, reassuringly asserts that the forecasters of early starvation have based their calculations on terms of wheat and have overlooked the fact that four-fifths of the world’s population depends on other kinds of food. “Thirty years ago,” Sir Henry Rew says, “ the president of the British Association declared that practically no more land was available for wheat, yet within a decade 50,000,000 acres were added and there have been further additions since. ' None of the vast wheat-exporting countries—Canada, the United States, Argentina, Australia, Russia, and India, ranking in this order —have yet utilised all their land suitable for cropping. Professor Russel] Smith contends that the United States and Canada ar e good for an increase of probably 1,000,000,000 bushels per year, while the only limit to Siberia is a drought. Only 10 per cent, of the Australian area is utilised, while 92 per cent, of Chile is not utilised.

“If it came to a pinch.” Sir Henry says, “ mankind would purify the tropics of deadly fevers and clear the jungle for wheat, and irrigate the whole of the continent of Australia before it would sit down to starve.” —United Service.