Population•• time to multiply
With the report of the Royal Commission on Population already overdue, but with the continuing cacophony of the birth prevention lobby still ringing in our ears, it is time to look again at what has laughingly been called Britain's population policy, Lord Houghton was the first senior government figure who, from hig position in the last Labour government, argued strenuously for the adoption by government of a detailed strategy for the control of the population. Subsequently, in Mr Heath's government, Mr James Prior, when Leader of the House, took on the job of Minister of Population — a Popular, rather than a statutoryposition. He went about his duties in a much more low-keyed fashion than Lord Houghton — who once had to be severely rebuked by the Prime Minister for what seemed to Mr Wilson (and to many others) a warning that, unless people controlled themselves, a government would someday be obliged to adopt very strong measures to restrain them from breeding. But there was no doubt that various ministers in governments of both parties were agreed on the principle that births Mist be stabilised if not reduced: this is a central canon of liberal politics in Britain today a. ild.even Sir Keith Joseph — though for rather different reasons — has appeared to give it Ins support, not least by continuing, when he was Secretary of State for Social Services, government grants to the Family Planning Association.
It is not necessary to go again into the business of Orwellian prediction of what would happen to life in a state where the government of the day had taken it upon itself to decide how many children a citizen should or should not have. It is, .._ratber, our pose to deny that there is any truth in the liberal proposition referred to earlier, that is, any truth in the proposition that births in Britain need to be either stabilised or reduced. Rather, we believe, the reverse is true: both the decline in the birthrate and the white emigration of recent years have been warnings of a national decline ahead even more serious Tan we endure at present. Especially at a file when little enough is being done, uespite statutory provision, to reduce coloured immigration, and even reverse the flow, anything other than a policy designed to encourage an increase in the POpulation is risky if not potentially disastrous.
Britain is, of course, an under-populated island. France, following the well thought out policies of M. Michel Debre and General de Gaulle, will be in a position within a generation to exploit the advantages of a growing population industrially and economically. Britain, if present trends continue — and even more if governments continue to show even the present fairly muted support for the bird* prevention lobby — will be facing ruin — though not, admittedly, from this cause alone.
There are other, wider, and perhaps less palpable considerations. A good deal of heartlessness has already entered our national life with the emergence of the life-denying birth prevention movements, and the life destroying abortion lobbies, not to mention the as yet ineffective euthanasia groups. Narrow, cramped and , life-hating bodies such as these, especially when they are assisted by powerful media support, help to spread, even if they do not think they are doing so, a moral sickness through a society. A national desire to restrict population growth is a form of national death wish.
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