American drama -- 20th century; American essays -- 20th century
A heavy European drift to the New World has gone on and is going on; yet
Europe, whose population a century ago was 170,000,000, has to-day
500,000,000. At this rate of increase, provided that subsistence is not
overtaken, a century from now the population of Europe will be
1,500,000,000. And be it noted of the present rate of increase in the
United States that only one-third is due to immigration, while two-thirds
is due to excess of births over deaths. And at this present rate of
increase, the population of the United States will be 500,000,000 in less
than a century from now.
Man, the hungry one, the killer, has always suffered for lack of room.
The world has been chronically overcrowded. Belgium with her 572 persons
to the square mile is no more crowded than was Denmark when it supported
only 500 palaeolithic people. According to Mr. Woodruff, cultivated land
will produce 1600 times as much food as hunting land. From the time of
the Norman Conquest, for centuries Europe could support no more than 25
to the square mile. To-day Europe supports 81 to the square mile. The
explanation of this is that for the several centuries after the Norman
Conquest her population was saturated. Then, with the development of
trading and capitalism, of exploration and exploitation of new lands, and
with the invention of labour-saving machinery and the discovery and
application of scientific principles, was brought about a tremendous
increase in Europe's food-getting efficiency. And immediately her
population sprang up.
According to the census of Ireland, of 1659, that country had a
population of 500,000. One hundred and fifty years later, her population
was 8,000,000. For many centuries the population of Japan was
stationary. There seemed no way of increasing her food-getting
efficiency. Then, sixty years ago, came Commodore Perry, knocking down
her doors and letting in the knowledge and machinery of the superior food-
getting efficiency of the Western world. Immediately upon this rise in
subsistence began the rise of population; and it is only the other day
that Japan, finding her population once again pressing against
subsistence, embarked, sword in hand, on a westward drift in search of
more room. And, sword in hand, killing and being killed, she has carved
out for herself Formosa and Korea, and driven the vanguard of her drift
far into the rich interior of Manchuria.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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