DECLINING POPULATION

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23005, 7 October 1936, Page 9

DECLINING POPULATION

THE POSITION IN BRITAIN NEW ASPECT OF MIGRATION LONDON, Oct. 6. (Received Oct. 7, at 0.5 a.m.) The Morning Post, in a leader on migration, says: "Hitherto it has been customary to speak of the necessity ~." filling the dominions' empty spaces from our own surplus, but the moment is approaching when the Empire will be compelled to review the whole problem in a new light,' because in a very few years, so far from having a surplus, we shall ourselves be suffering a decline in population. Can Britain therefore afford to suffer additional diminution through migration, lest her man power and resources become dangerously weak? In other words, ought we to encourage renewed migration until our birth rate shows a sustained and substantial rise? You can only fill up the Empire, out of a continuing surplus, and now that no surplus is being produced either in Britain or the dominions, the problem has begun to wear an entirely different aspect. Clearly, the solution is more babies, and that subject ought to engage the anxious attention of any future Imperial Conference."