Population and Policy
Fades d'Asie. By Etienne Dennery. (Armand Colin. 15 frs.) BECAUSE it is impossible in the world of 1930 to separate the political from the economic aspect of population questions, the League of Nations has hitherto let well alone. Yet there are signs that the slumbers of the indifferent may soon be rudely awakened, and many of the questions raised at the World Population Conference last year will be pushed into the front rank of political problems. The facts are fairly well known, their implications cannot be too often explored, and by the side of the invaluable data supplied by the International Labour Office here are three books, of unequal value, none of which, however, can be disregarded.
The danger spots of which Professor Thompson writes are those areas which reveal a greatly different population pressure as measured by the relation of people to resources ; e.g., the Western Pacific, the Indian Ocean, and Central Europe, par- ticularly Italy. We can all agree with him—and the point is taken up by the other two authors—that it is not the absolute pressure of population on resources that is dangerous, but the fact of this differential pressure becoming generally known. Australia and India are the obvious examples. Professor Thompson, from his academic observation post—he is Director of the Scripps Foundation for Research in Population Prob- lems, Miami University—has no patience with governmental policy or popular clamour in Australia to-day. He contends that, for all the precocious urban development, Australia could support with food from its own soil—in the temperate 7.one—forty-six times its present population ; that she should admit agricultural workers from Germany, Italy, and the Slav countries to make up for the shortage of British agricul- tural workers : as for tropical Australia, he proposes the importation of coloured labour on contract to develop the territory, under the direction of Australians.
The author devotes many pages to the possibilities for settlement of an increasing number of Indians in the lands of Kenya Colony, " extending inland perhaps a thousand miles," and also Madagascar. Demographic pressure in Italy he would relieve by providing special facilities for Italian immigrants in Iraq, by prevailing upon Australia and South Africa to modify their immigration policies, and by the transference to Italy of the Mandate for Syria.
Now in principle Professor Thompson is quite right. Certainly
"the question whether political control entitles the holder to prevent economic exploitation by people who have need of new resources will be asked with increasing frequency."
And again, given that the voluntary alienation of territory is contrary to all the practice of the modern governments, yet this dog-in-the-manger policy is "simply the expression of a false national pride." Yet somehow, with democracy in its present state of education—and this applies to Professor Thompson's own country as much as anywhere—there seems in the near future little likelihood of the common-sense solution through international co-operation of
" the nations possessing a surplus to canvass the needs of nations with a deficiency, and to make such adjustments of territory and resources as seem reasonable in light of all the facts."
That will come—with the increasing " deflation of nineteenth- century Imperialism." For the moment, we can only trust to a growing publicity of the economic needs of nations— through Geneva—and to the gradual winning through of the notion of birth-control, " one of the great discoveries of mankind."
Mr. Wilkinson, of Melbourne, has nothing of great value to say on the general question, but his thesis is plain. He says :—
" Overseas migration, is not the solution to the over-population of continents. The necessary readjustments will be a matter of bringing food to the people, and not of bringing people to the food."
And he cites the undoubted fact that the migration of 100,000 Asiatics to Australasia
" would have little effect in reducing overpopulation in Aida, but it would demoralize everything in Australia and Now Zealand."
Of the White Australia policy he would have us believe that it is not so " insular, one-sided, selfish, and unreasonable as is customarily charged. On the basis of an average increase in population of 2 per cent. per annum for the past ten years, he argues that there is only a comparative limited area of agricultural land available for settlement ; that on account of credit and the need for security for the investment of capital, Australia must perforce go slow, and that this policy protects the homes and lives of so many European women ! Some of his statements such as this are a trifle disingenuous, but he puts up quite a good case, and we like him when he condemns roundly the accepted label of his country's policy— a portent of that very " Imperial-mindedness " which is Professor Thompson's bugbear, as also the boastful advertising. of the great " potentialities " of Australia—and the flaunting of its allegedly superior standards of living.
M. Dennery's book deserves notice, not least because it is such excellent reading, a compliment which can hardly be paid to the other two books. Its sub-titles, " Sur-population japonaisc," " Expansion chinoise," and " Emigration indi- enne " indicate the essence of his narrative. In each case lie chooses the mot juste, for the Japanese do not make good emigrants—whatever be the development of the country their problem is plainly one of over-population ; the Chinese are bound to expand, they provide the human clement for a Manchuria developed by Japanese capital and plant, they swarm as traders in Indo-China, as workers in Malay. The Indians, like the Japanese, are not naturally emigrants, they arc so by force of circumstances, though not they, but the Indian politicians are conscious of this question of this question of population in regard to the national economic policy. M. Dennery is not bothering himself about problems, but we may take some comfort from his contention that in Asiatic coun- tries the birth-rate is bound to slow down as economic needs increase, and higher standards of living are demanded. The book is dedicated to M. Albert Kahn, founder of the Bourses aulour du monde, which, as this book illustrates, represent one of the most valuable forces in present-day civilization.
Previous page
