EMPIRE MIGRATION

Wairarapa Times-Age, 29 December 1938, Page 3

EMPIRE MIGRATION

DANGERS OF OVERPOPULATION

(To the Editor.)

Sir, —Permit me to point out a few facts that Mr Amery in his article on migration and Empire population has left out, for very obvious reasons. We will take it for granted that he is right when he says Canada and Australia have only got about three inhabitants per square mile and New Zealand 15 per square mile. Does that prove that these countries are short of population? What country in the whole world can support a larger population than it can feed, house and clothe comfortably? Canada is an icy wilderness, scarcely fit for wild animals, let alone human beings, except in a few favoured districts. Little or no work can be done on the farms in winter, and therefore the farmers pay no wages, but just board their hands during winter. zlfter the war, when the slump came, over 200,000 farmers threw up their farms and went to the States. Millions of dollars have to be spent every year for relief work. Would it not be a crime to dump immigrants into a country as overpopulated as Canada? The gold and far too much of the grain produced in Canada has to be exported every year in return for a receipt for debt owing abroad. South Africa is classed as a complete debtor in spite of the millions’ worth of gold she produces. The natives are happy if they can get one meal a day, and out in the country a loin-cloth does for dress. The negroes do most of the work on the farms. What chance would a white worker have there?

New Zealand, the finest country of them all, sends 70 per cent of the food she grows out of the country, in return for a receipt, for debts . and imports. The Year Book says that only from ten to twelve per cent of the population finds work on the land —thanks to imported machinery, which ought to be made here. In 40 years the public debt has increased from £5O per head of population to £2OO per head. At the same time the population has doubled. That is to say, debts increased twice as fast as the population. Why? Two wars and the necessity to find relief work for the unemployed were the main factors in the rapid increase of debt. In other words, over-population increases instead of decreases debt. Let me add that in India, with its teeming millions, there is a famine costing millions of human lives every time there is a drought. Four or five such famines have occurred during less than 30 years. The mass of the population is living on famine lines the whole time.

Japan with its 70 millions, quoted by Mr Amery as a shining example of what population a small country can carry, has been financially ruined by war and over-population. A few years ago, when the rice crop failed in the north, some 50,000 young girls were reported to have been sold into slavery by their' parents to save themselves from starving. What is there more dangerous for the prosperity of a nation than a too dense population? Most of the wars, famines and pestilenies have been caused by it. —I am, etc., HANS C. THOMSEN. Masterton, December 27.