POPULATION AND FOOD.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXII, Issue 5197, 17 November 1877, Page 1 (Supplement)

POPULATION AND FOOD.

(From the Standard, August 22.) The migratory principle is essential to the advancement of the human race, and whilst it affords a means of relief to an overcrowded community, it benefits all by the encouragement it gives to commerce. England has sent forth fleets of emigrants in years gone by, and the descendants of these people are now helping to maintain our Home industries and our commerce by the trade they carry on with us. England is nourished by her offshoots, and the mother country is benefited by her sons and daughters who have grown up under other skies. Dr. Farr shows us how to bring all this down into the region of statistics. The Malthusian doctrine wool.l discourage marriage, and beyond that would even discredit sanitary improvement. If it be a dangerous thing for men to multiply, the process must be equally pernicious, whether it be by birth and preservation. If the banquet be sparely supplied with food, not only are, fresh guests to be deprecated, but those who are at the table must not sit too long. There are certain savage tribes who kill off their old people, on the principle that it is inconvenient to feed them. Seemingly it is a relief to an overburdened population that some form of zymotic disease should interpose and carry off a few thousands of the people now and then. If already we are pushing each other’s elbows, and treading upon our neighbor's toes, the sooner some of us go off the scene the better. But such teaching as this is as unsound as it is inhuman.