World population

Press, 10 February 1986, Page 12

World population

Sir,—One agrees with Mark Sadler for once. Despite the E.E.C.’s proposed dumping of 60 per cent of its surplus food, the potentiality of human fecundity would populate the stars. If population, already outrageous, is not controlled, first by moral restraint, as Marx-Engels counselled, then wars, famine, and pestilence will do the job and relatively soon, as is very evident now. This population explosion is subtly encouraged by Shylock marketing and military economic dominance actively blessed and supported by its obscurantist philosophical appendage — religion. Even living under the most socialist or utopian conditions, as for instance Marx’s stateless state, population, unless decisively curbed will, in the words of the clergyman Malthus (17761834), outstrip the means of subsistence. In fact the present criminal rate of unproductive exploitation of the Earth’s very finite resources causes despair as to the mentality of the fastspeaking demagogues whom the masses elect to represent them.—Yours, etc., W. D. COLLINS. February 6, 1986.