Mankind Will Move Into Wild Jungle Spaces

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 44, 14 May 1927, Page 14

Mankind Will Move Into Wild Jungle Spaces

Population Growing Beyond Food Supply MAKING WASTES HABITABLE

Starvation —war —or subjugation of the tropics! Since the dawn of civilisation the tropics have held a lure for the white people of the globe. The warm climate was most desirable. The prolific, unfailing productivity of the soil held promise of a never-ending supply of food. But the jungles, defended by an army of insects a thousand times more dangerous than the reptiles and wild animals which appeal to the imagination, have held the white man at bay (says a writer in an American exchange.) At last white civilisation is beginning to feel the pressure of increased population and lack of food supply and a world movement towards the tropics is under way. Florida, though not actually in the tropics, is being pictured as a land of promise where many crops may be grown throughout the year—where living conditions are ideal. To the scientist this movement to Florida may be significant of an attempt to readjust population and the failing food supply as well as universal desire to escape the rigours of colder climate. Expansion Inevitable These alternatives—starvation and war or subjugation of the tropics—must be faced within a few generations. In the last century the population of the world has doubled, to-day is roughly 2,000,000,000, and the limits have already been reached in many places, according to Professor "Wellington D. Jones, of the University of Chicago.

“With the present standard of living and our present knowledge of how to use the earth there is not room for many more people in Central and Western Europe, India, China, Japan, Java and perhaps restricted areas in Eastern United States, from Southern New England to Chesapeake Bay, between the sea and the hill country to the west,” said Professor Jones.

“Rising in the minds of many intelligent leaders in all the countries of the world is the gaunt spectre of starvation, because of the fact that population is increasing faster than the food supply. This spectre is sardonically pointing to the squalor and poverty and filth in many lands where the struggle for existence has forced the very lowest standard of living. And that spectre is suggesting that similar degredation is waiting the people of the Western World unless they begin now to make plans for the unborn generations.”