STRUGGLE FOR SURVIVAL.

Taranaki Daily News, 24 September 1924, Page 9

STRUGGLE FOR SURVIVAL.

COLLAPSE OF CIVILISATION

Sydney, August 28.

When the world’s population overtakes the capacity of tbe earth to produce food, in about 200 years’ time, the human race will be reduced to a literal struggle for existence. This i.s the opinion of Professor Launcelot Harrison. of Sydney University, expressed in a lecture recently, and while none of us will be on earth then to take part in Ibe ugly little scramble for a crust, the professor’s views are interesting. In the struggle, he says, those who survive will be the ruthless, the unscrupulous, and the lower strata of the moral fabric.

The 1 per cent, of people -who are, in essence, responsible for our present condition of advancement will lie deposed, and with them will collapse what we know as civilisation, according to Professor Harrison. Another cause operating to bring about our extinction is the possibility of some dread epidemic laying us all low before our bodies have time to generate anti-toxins. These things,-says Professor Harrison, may lead us to wonder why we allow the world to be filled by an ever greater population, without thought of the consequences. and most of it recruited from the lower grades of society.

“The average of mental capacity, tht professor says, “as judged by brain dtvelopment, at the present time is below that of Uromagnon man. wh.) lived tens of thousands of years ago. • s ( roniagnm civilisation disappeared with the race, leaving no descendants, so may our civilisation disappear.”