THE RACE FOR POPULATION.
Dr Arthur, M.L.A., president of the Immigration League of Australia, read a paper on "Imperial Emigration and its Problems," to the Rr.yal Colonial Institute, last month. "In the race for population," he pointed put, "the British Empire ia being left behind. The 55 millions or so of Anglo-Saxons who live under the flag increase slowly—all too slowly—not mu:h more than 700.000 annually, while Russia adds 24 millions, Germany a million,-the United States at least 1J millions and Japan 750,000 to their number every year. And all over the whtie portions of the Empire the birth-rate is steadily falling. It is certain, humanly speaking, that the future is to those nations that can claim the largest number of subjects. Big battalions and mighty navies are for those people that can afford to pay for them. It is greatly a matter of revenue, and revenue in modern industrial States depends upon the number of taxpayers and upon the burdens that they are prepared to shoulder. The Government of a country that to-day permits large numbers of its citizens to leave their native land for foreign shores without question or concern is guilty of a wanton and suicidal disregard of the future welfare of the community whose destiny has been left in their hands. And yet this stigma attaches to the rulers of England, who for the last 100 years have watched apathetically the British streaming away in countless multitudes to a country where, though the same language and the same customs prevailed, the children were trained to an indifference to or even hostility of thought against the Motherland. During the last 100 years about eight million British subjects have emigrated to the United States, and their descendants must now number , at least thirty millions. Even then England possessed illimitable ,territones in Canada and Australasia and South Africa—lands that were crying ou* for men to develop them and make them truly part of the Empire." Dr Arthur pleaded that the stream of emigration should be diverted to Britain's oversea dominions, and that every encouragement should be given by the Imperial and colonial authorities to this end.
Permanent link to this item
Hononga pūmau ki tēnei tūemi
https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/WAG19090702.2.8.4
Bibliographic details
Ngā taipitopito pukapuka
Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 9532, 2 July 1909, Page 4
Word count
Tapeke kupu
357THE RACE FOR POPULATION. Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 9532, 2 July 1909, Page 4
Using this item
Te whakamahi i tēnei tūemi
Stuff Ltd is the copyright owner for the Wairarapa Age. You can reproduce in-copyright material from this newspaper for non-commercial use under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International licence (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0). This newspaper is not available for commercial use without the consent of Stuff Ltd. For advice on reproduction of out-of-copyright material from this newspaper, please refer to the Copyright guide.