America’s Pressing Problem.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XL, Issue 13, 28 March 1908, Page 13

America’s Pressing Problem.

A pessimistic picture of America’s future is sketched by Mr. James J. Hill, one of the American railway magnates, in the current issue of the “National Review.”

He looks forward over four deeades, and estimates the probable increase in papulation. Allowing moderate calculations for increased birth-rate and immigration, he arrives at the following figures:— Population in 1910 .... 95,248,895 „ „ 1920 .... 117,036,229 „ „ 1930 .... 142,091,663 n „ 1940 .... 170,905,412 „ „ 1950 .... 204,041,223 The problem which Mr. Hill presents is how these people are to be fed. “Within forty-four years,” he says, “we shall have to meet the wants of more than two hundred million people. Jn less than twenty years from this moment the United States will have 130,000,000 people. Where are these people, not of some dim, distant age, but of this very generation now growing to manhood, to be employed and how supported? “When the searchlight is thus suddenly turned on, we recognise not a mere speculation, but the grim face of that spectre which confronts the unemployed, tramping hateful streets in hope of food and shelter.’* The remedy Mr. Hill sees in a “back to the land’* poliey. These are his Words:— “The country needs more -workers on the soil. Not to turn the stranger a-way, but to direct Mae to the farm instead of the city; not to wateh with fear a possible increase of the birth-rate,

but to use every means to keep the boys on the farm, and to send youths from the city to swell the depleted ranks of agricultural industry is the necessary task of a well-advised political economy and an intelligent patriotism.” Mr. Hill declares that the timber and mineral resources of the country are fast being depleted. By 1950, be declares, America will be approaching an ironless age, and by the same date all the best and most convenient coal will have been consumed.

“Again,” he urges, “a profitable husbandry is the very fountain from which all other occupations flow, and by which they are nourished into strength.” JU J»