Newark evening star and Newark advertiser. [volume] (Newark, N.J.) 1909-1916, 1913-02-13
On Board the
Good Ship Earth "
By Herbert Quick
The Noah Family and the Multiplying
Animals
By Herbert Quick
Animals

in China. Mining of fertilizing rocks
may increase crops, and bring In ex-
hausted and denuded acres. Japan,
IL all lands UP to a slope of fifteen
degrees are brounght under tillage,
may add So per cent. to her farmed
acreage, and thus allow an increase
of population to a hundred millions
But no discovery of science can SO
far as can be seen take from the
soil what is not in it, nor enable ag-
riculture to make food of anything
but plants fed from the plant food
In the soil. So that poverty is sure
TO recur, if the present birth rate
of these nations keeps up, no matter
IL the whole earth were theirs. They
are, not made poor by their op
pressors, but by their birth rate.
It might be possible to make some
show of denial of this as to the
Japanese; for they have most OF the
paraphernalia of Industrial robbery
and exploitation. But in the Hoang
IIo valley of China, and especially
in such fertile areas as the Chengtu
plain, where from three to four thou
sand people live on each square mile,
the law of Nautilus is in stark, plain,
full operation.
Are not these people in some way
robbed?" I asked of Professor E. A
Ross. 1.-THE percentage of production
which goes to non-producers" said
he, cannot be more than 2 or per
cent" Wipe out even that leakage
into parasitic hands and the birth
rate would restore poverty in its
original awfulness in year. In his
book, 1.-THE Changing Chinese he re-
peats this. Nor" says he, sis the
lot of the masses due 10 exploita-
ton. In the cities there is sprink-
ing of rich, but out In the province
one may travel for weeks and see
no sign of a wealthy ciass-no man
sion or fine country place, no equip
age befitting the rich. There are
great stretches of fertile agricultural
country where the struggle for eX-
istence is stern and yet the cultiva-
+ owns his land and implements
and pays tribute to no man."
The long strife with nature for sub
sistence has stripped off even the
parasite from the shoulders of these
sober. honest and thrifty men. There
Is no surplus on which the nonworker
can live. Farming is SO perfect thai
even the greatest agricultural expert
of our time, the late f. H. King,
could see no way in which Our science
can materially help them. Our best
agricultural practise seems barbarous
comparedIwith theirs. IL good farm
ing, good soil, feverish and unremit-
ting industry practical freedom from
taxes, and the enjoyment of prac-
tically all the produce of their labor
could keep them from poverty, these
people would not be poor. Yet they
are so poor that eight out of ten of
their children die in infancy. The
land cannot support the increase.
So, while we need not yet lay any
of our western poverty to pressure of
population. we should remember that
! this awful evil seems to be approach
! ing. Our population has grown from
| IS, 200, 600 in 1870 to $4,000, 600, Japan's
| in the same time from 33000,000 to So
900, O00 Russia's 73,0O0000 to 160,000,000.
Germany's from Al 900, 600 to 64,000,00o,
Great Britains from 31,000,000 to 49,
| OoO. 900. Italy's from &c, 600, 900 to $4,000
| 900. Austria Hungarys from 35,0o0,00
| to 81, 900, 000 while even France, whose
population increases more slowly than
that of any other nation, has grown
/ from 36,00O000 to 100000.
| The urge to multiply bears man on
to the same goal, apparently as the
sparrow and the worm-to the exc
haustion OF subsistence. DR.. w. j.
MCGEE has made calculations that in
Al -lx,A1 v- Tinted
States will have acquired popula
ton of a billion--and reached the
limit The limit means conditions ike
those in Chengtu. Let the passengers
on the good ship Earth consider these
thingsi s
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