Lowering of Birth Rates or Facilitated Migration'

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 185, 26 October 1927, Page 1

Lowering of Birth Rates or Facilitated Migration'

Problem for the Nations PROFESSOR JULIAN HUXLEY, discussing the, problem of the increase in world population, expresses the opinion that the United States, Canada and Australia have the same right tQ demand that countries such as Japan and Italy should lower their birth-rates, as those countries have to demand that under-populated lands should throw open their doors. By Cable. —Press Association. — Copyright.

Reed. 9.5 a.m. LONDON, Tuesday. JJROFESSOR JULIAN HUXLEY, in an article in the “Evening Standard,” asks: “Are we overpopulated?” He examines the reports of the Geneva Population Conference and emphasises the rapidity of growth of population, that biologically speaking is effected even by a small ratio of increase. "This has an immediate bearing on immigration. We might hear of Japan or Italy claiming the right that underpopulated countries like the United States, and still more, Canada and Australia, should open their doors, instead of making ingress difficult or impossible; but if the barriers were

removed the spaces would be filled in 50 or 100 years instead of 200 or 300. “Migrating countries merely get rid of their surplus, and would be as overcrowded as before. After the speech of Mr. Thomas at Geneva, I think we all realised that the United States and Australia had the same right to demand that these countries lower their birth-rates.” —A. and N.Z.

At the World Population Conference in September, Mr. Thomas, the Labour secretary of the League of Nations, advocated the establishment of an international organisation to handle migration, in order to avoid the conflicts that arose out of the question. He considered it necessary to -settle whether people had the right- ©produce beyond their own economic resources, and whether it was right to conserve land which was not producing the maximum.