IN VIEW OF A DWINDLING POPULATION
ON another page a Special Correspondent of The Spectator examines Japan's outstanding problem— that of a rapidly expanding population and the prospect of an additional 10,000,000 persons seeking work within the next fifteen years. Our own problem fifteen years hence will be of the opposite diameter. The birth-rate is falling: Population will soon be declining. Many of those who haVe been disposed to welcome birth control are beginning to be uneasy about the effect it may have on future population and national power. The view that a large and increasing population, so far from being a source of strength, may be an embarrassment, has possibly been overstated. May it even have been dan- gerously overstated ?
Estimates of future populations can only be made on the hypothesis that forces which are operating now will continue to operate in a predictable way. That is as much as we need to know, for it means that instead of moving blindfold in a certain direction we may be able to modify the forces that are operating. An estimate made by Miss Grace Leybourne in a recent number of the Sociological Review was based on the assumption that the mortality rates will remain much as at present, and that the birth-rate will continue to decline during the next ten years and will then be stabilized. Upon these reason- able assumptions it is concluded that the population of Great Britain will increase slowly for a few more years, and will then decline. In 1941, when it will already have fallen, it will be the same as in 1931, namely, a little over 44,830,000 persons. In 1951 it will have fallen to 42,671,000. In 1976 it will be no more than 32,711,000. Such is the situation that is predicted, leaving emigration out of account, and any new counteracting measures that may be deliberately adopted. The changes will not only be changes in totals. The age distribution also will be altered. The percentage of children will steadily diminish, whilst that of the old will increase. The pro- portion of children under 15 will be halved ; that of persons over 65 will be multiplied by 21. Until 1951 the proportion of persons between 15 and 45 will increase, and will be nearly half the total in 1951 ; after that it will diminish. In 1976 there will be more persons over 45 than under.
These figures are certainly startling. Long accus- tomed to consider that numbers are an index of power if not actually of national greatness, we cannot contem- plate a 'reduction of the population by twelve Millions in the next forty 'years without some misgivings. Since a simaar. process will be taking place at varying rates over most of western and central Europe, we have to contemplate a situation in which the European races will be rapidly dwindling in numbers wliiNt the eastern races, and especially the Japanese, will still be multiply- ing. But if we are thinking of the question in terms of national power, - it is obvious that the latter can no longer be _ measured in- mere man-power for fighting purposes. The strength of an army in the field is to a great extent the power of its equipment. If we are thinking of national greatneSs either in terms - of fighting power or economic power, what counts most in these days is national productivity.
And clearly numbers alone are not the only element in productivity. Our two million unemployed add nothing to national production. If the unemployed were withdrawn from the total population, the nation, from the purely economic point of view, would clearly be no worse off ; we are constantly casting about for means of escaping the embarrassment of surplus popu- lation by reducing hours or even desperately limiting the work of the machine. Before forty years have elapsed it is possible that machinery may have enabled a million men to do the work done today by ten millions. In the future, power of the cruder kind (economic or military) may not be that of multitudes of men but multitudes of machines.
But as we approach the " planned " State there are other matters besides our power in relation to other nations which would have to be considered in the light of the population problem. Production would have to be planned for a diminishing number of consumers, housing schemes devised with a view to a re-distributed population, demanding, twenty years hence, not more houses, but better houses. The health of the young would have to be more carefully considered than ever, in view of the fact that children would be a diminishing proportion of a diminished population, and would there- fore be increasingly precious.
There is also one particularly interesting feature in the forecast which happens to be more reliable than any other. During the next seventeen years the proportion of persons between 15 and 45 will be steadily increasing, reaching 47.4 of the whole. In that period we may expect, in spite of the presence of an increasing number of elderly people, that the prevailing mentality of the nation will be a youth mentality. We have, therefore, this short period before us in which to count upon an unusual manifestation of national vigour and enterprise. But later the proportion of elderly people further increases, till in 1976 more than half the population will be over 45, and an elderly mentality will give its characteristic to the national life. There will be more .old men of 65 and over than children under 15.
Facts such as these ought to be studied when we consider propaganda for the expansion or limitation of families. But it is evident that any conclusion we may come to will not be governed by mere numbers alone. Apart. from the fact that it appears to be highly unde- .sirable that the unlit should multiply whilst the most fit do not, there is also the question of aiming at the preserva- tion of the right proportion of persons of each age, and that would not be consistent with any continuous fall in the population, though it would be perfectly consistent with a stabilized population. Such matters are hardly likely to be settled by Acts of Parliament. This country will not be prepared for Mr. Huxley's " Brave New World " within the 'next half-century. But as soon as a strongly marked movement in a given direction occurs, shown in diminishing population figures • or a distressing fall in the number of children at school, it will certainly be followed by a corresponding organization of opinion. And nothing could be better than that it should take the form of intensive propaganda to • reduce infant Mortality; to improve the nurture of young 'children and to provide healthier conditions for boys and girls at school. And " birth control " would come to mean what the words say, not merely a checking of births, but control capable of being exercised with discretion, in such a manner that children would neither be recklessly produced nor selfishly avoided. -
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