World Population

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 74, Issue 230, 29 September 1931, Page 7

World Population

SCIENCE CONGRESS VIEWS ASIA’S TEEMING MILLIONS [By Telegraph—Press Association —Copyright) LONDON, Sept. 27. Yesterday’s Science Congress debates ranged from the origin of man to the problems with which he is faced owing to having overcrowded certain areas of the habitable globe. This led several speakers of international repute to make significant utterances regarding the vital importance of scientific birth contro’, not only to securo eugenic stock, but to curb the possibly dangerous swarming of Asiatics over the other territories. Though they confessed that the hope of applying such a remedy was remote, the speakers did not all agree with the facts and the deductions therefrom. Nevertheless, notable contributions were made to contemporary scientific thought. Pessimism on the whole predominated, Professor E. W. Mcßride declaring that the Day of Judgment was within appreciable distance. MULTIPLE BIRTHS WORLD IN TWO MILLION YEARS. Received Sept. 28, 5.5 p.m. LONDON, Sept. 27. Perhaps in two million years human beings will be reproduced by multiple births, Professor Lancelot Hogben told the Science Congress during the discussion on birth control. Women bearing twins and triplets then would not waste more time producing large families than men now spend playing golf. Profesor Crew said that as birth control could not be imposed on our surging Oriental competitors, we might ultimately be pushed out of the imperial territories, but among British people there were types suitable for almost every environment. Migrants, after a physiological examination, could be advised to seek particular places instead of going to a land whose advertisements offered the most rapid financial gain. The man whose increased skill gained him higher wages would be prudent enough to limit his family, said Professor Macßridge, but it is delusive to try and teach wage earners prudence by overpaying them. “It is our duty,” he added, “to appraise the poorer citizens of the methods of birth control available to educated people. Painless sterilization is the only remedy for the man who continues to produce children in utter indifference to relying on the dole for his upkeep. If we are to maintain a vigorous race that is the end to which we must come, otherwise the word ‘English’ will cease to possess its former significance.”