villages these are the social units that exert the greatest influence in the affairs of a country. Towns exist only as centres of political administration and entrepots of trade, but the destinies of a South East Asian country lie in the hands of its peasant farmers. The social structure just described was very well suited to the size of the population in South East Asia, over a long period of its history, but this is no longer true. Over the last century the population has grown enormously, both by natural increase and by immigration. There has also been an increase in the area cleared for human settlement; but newly cleared areas are largely given over to the production of cash crops such as kapok, rubber, tea, coffee and sugar, or are the sites of extractive industries producing tin, wolfram and petroleum. Therefore there has not been an increase in the area under food crops corresponding to the increase in population. Nor has the food been procured elsewhere with the profits from the plantations and mines, because those profits did not go back into the countries that produced them, but to the European nations that held all the South East Asian states, excepting Thailand, under their political control until 1947. The fact that Europeans—British, French, Dutch and Americans—were in political control of South East Asia (again excepting Thailand, which provided a convenient buffer state between French and British colonialisms), is partly responsible for the rapid growth of population during the last century. To exploit the resources of their colonial possessions efficiently, European rulers found it necessary to replace the feudal anarchy which had existed before their advent with strong central administrations. To ensure a relatively smooth and predictable flow of colonial raw materials to the factories at home, it was necessary to control, if possible, the periodic devastation of the labour force by famines and epidemics. The natural checks on population increase being temporarily abated, the populations of South East Asian countries grew enormously in a relatively short period of time. In passing, it is interesting to note that the birthrate of Asian populations is no higher than that of New Zealand, and considerably lower than that of the Maori population of New Zealand. Since the Asian death rate is much higher than the New Zealand one, it follows that the actual rate of natural increase of population is lower in Asia than it is in New Zealand. What makes Asian population figures so staggering to the West, is that the total populations to which they apply are so very much larger to begin with—180 millions increasing at the rate of 8 or 9 per thousand each year, against New Zealand's 2 millions increasing annually at the rate of 15 or 16 per thousand. Having established the reason for recent increases in South East Asia's population, and the In the jungle, where irrigation is not possible, rice is grown dry and carefully cultivated. (Malaya U.K. Information Service.) fact that a previously satisfactory ration between population and food producing areas no longer exists, it is possible to examine the consequences. These can be summed up in a single word—poverty. But to understand South East Asian poverty it is necessary to have some measure of its magnitude. One convenient yardstick is national income per head, because this gives a rough idea of how much is available to provide each member of a community with food, clothing, shelter and social services such as education, medical attention, transport, and a measure of social security. In the U.S.A. national income per head is in the region of $2000 a year, in New Zealand it is about $1000 plus, but in South East Asia it ranges from $25 to $60. Again, food intake is a famillar measure for comparison. Allowing for differences in food habits and the balance between the components of different