POPULATION

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22609, 28 June 1935, Page 10

POPULATION

DOMINION'S FUTURE SOME ECONOMIC PROBLEMS So many figures lose their significance unless they can be placed on a per capita basis, and if accurate figures are lacking comparisons such as those of death rates between different cities and all other per capita comparisons for portions of the country lose much of their value, said Dr E. P. Neale in an address on population to members of the Auckland Economic Society. The population census of New Zealand was due next year, and there had been no numbering of the people since 192(5, at which time there was considerable displacement of population because of synchronisation with the holding of the Duuedin Exhibition. It was true that the Dominion's records of births, deaths, and external migration were so accurate that successive census takings showed that the current estimates of population made from time to time on the basis of the last census were highly reliable for the country as. a whole. It was not, however, possible to secure any records of internal migration except rough tallies of interisland passengers, and in the absence of a census the Government Statistician could do no more in estimating portions of the Dominion than make an educated guess based on such vague criteria as the excess of dwellings erected over dwellings demolished. In practice such educated guesses often proved wide of the mark, and were not deemed sufficiently reliable to be used as the basis of such processes as the periodic repartitions of the country into electoral districts. RECENT LOSS OF POPULATION. "We in New Zealand are so accustomed to rapidly increasing populations that there is a danger of overlooking that such increases cannot go on indefinitely," said Dr Neale. " Obviously if population continued to increase indefinitely in time there would be standing room only. Actually it is quite normal for new countries to lose population on migration balance in times of depression, and such conditions occurred in New Zealand from 1888 to 1891 and again from 1931 onwards. The fact is that economic conditions in new, undeveloped countries exercise a more powerful influence both inwards and outwards on migration streams than do conditions in more old and highly developed lands."

Under present-day conditions an increase in production corresponding to an increase in consumption could normally take place only when, accompanied by a parallel increase in capital. Apart from improvements in the technique of production there was only one way to produce some new kind of consumers' goods without increasing the total volume •of capital invested in economic life, and that was by suspending the production of other kinds of goods, which resulted at least temporarily in a lowering of the standard of living of part of the population. CONSUMERS' GOODS.

It was often erroneously assumed that the demand for goods depended on the size of the population. The demand for consumers' goods was in fact directly dependent upon the national income, and it was clear that an increase in the demand for consumers' goods could take place only if there was a similar increase in the national income. It was the purchasing power of the population which, by itself increasing, made an increase in consumption possible, and it was obvious that an annual income of £2OO can cover an annual expenditure of at most £2OO regardless .of whether its owner had to support 13 children or two or none at all. Since children do not bring money with them into the world, an increase in their number cannot in itself bring about an increase in the total consumption until those children reach production age. No one, for instance, would seriously affirm that the total volume of demand in the New Zealand market would be immediately greater if double the number of babies were born during the next fivp years, except insofar as the infants' needs were satisfied out of the earnings of producers by reducing local savings and relying more on overseas supplies of capital than previously. It is true, however, that if the country were definitely under-populated from the standpoint of securing the maximum per capita income (or welfare) having regard to the present conditions of the arts and equipment of production—as was Britain after the Black Death, or New Zealand at least until the end of the seventies —then in the long run such an increase of population would tend to increase the- national income. THE FUTURE.

A stationary population might be expected to produce relatively more consumer goods and less producer goods than a growing population. In other words, a stationary population would be able to devote more of its productive effort to the satisfaction of present wants without creating a shortage at nil with respect to its per capita supply of capital. The need for new capital to meet the requirements of a growing population and to improve productive methods was so imperative that if there were no surplus profits (savings) the economic system would soon break down.

In the future New Zealand would not be able, as she was in the past, nor would she need, to construct public works on an elaborate scale in the anticipation that increased population would speedily tax them to capacity, and in the hope that a heavy burden of debts bequeathed to future generations would be eased on a per capita basis by reason of ever-expanding populations.