New-York tribune., 1920-10-17
Millions of People Cannot
Live Unless the Former
Standard Is Restored
Insists New York Banker
Industry Outstrips Food
Manufacturing Centers Have
Grown Far Faster Than
the Rural Districts
By Frank A. Vanderlip


connection with the whole modern age
Is believe, embraced in two lines of
statistics. The two which | have in
mind, and which seem to me to be of
such enormous significance as to be
fundamental to nearly, if not ALL of the
great questions of the day, is a COM
parison of the population of the world
to-day with what it was single life
time ago. In 1850 the population of
the world was, roundly, a billion. To-
day it is something over 100000 900.
There has been an increase of 70 per
cent in seventy years. In the stretch
OF one full lifetime the world has added
to its numbers three fourths as many
people as heretofore existed
1t is true that the figures of world
population are, in some instances, little
more than estimates. A perfectly ac-
curatc census of the world might show
some variance from the figures / have
quoted. Those figures are accurate
enough, however, to serve as basis for
relative comparisons. 1t is, therefore,
probably a reasonably accurate state
ment to say that there are 700 100000
more people in the world than there
we're seventy years ago.
The causes which have contributed
to this remarkable growth of the hu-
nan family are obvious. In part they
may be found in those principles
enuAciated by Nautilus when he pro-
pounded his pessimistic views of the
future of human society. He declared
that the human, in common with all
other forms Of life, tended to increase
until the members pressed on the
means Of subsistence. Malthus miscal-
culated the possibilities of the devel-
opment Of the means of subsistence
but there was truth in his general
principle.
Increased production of the means Of
subsistence is what made this increase
Of population possible. In the main
She development Of the modern indus
trial era has taken place during the
period since 1850.
In the m modern sense the organization
of industry, the development of land
transportation and the provision OF
rapid, cheap and regular ocean freight
services have come in that period. The
results haev been, Of course, Of the
most far-reaching Importance. Not
only was mans ability to produce
manufactured articles greatly in
creased, but the increase became SO
phenomenal that, in spite Of the rapid
xrowth in population, the production
of manufactured goods per capita was
doubled and doubled again, until now
he figure is not far from 500 per cent
increase compared with scventy-tivc
years ago; that is, each person has at
present five times the amount Of manu-
actured goods that we're provided in
the comparatively primitive society
existing in the youth of those people
who may still look back over the span
Of long life. The increase in manu-
factured articles has been so great that
there has been little check in the in
crease of population from lack in
manufactured goods. This industrial
development in turn made possible a
vast increase in the production Of food
Transportation opened the almost un-
limited agricultural resources Of the
Mississippi Valley, the plains of the
Argentine and the llimitablc fields of
Russia.
The system of modern industry and
the specialization in human labor
made possible the development OF great
industrial nations. Cheap manufac-
tured goods stimulated food produc-
tion. Population increased rapidly
but not more rapidly than did the pro-
ducton of food This increasing popu-
laton was able to support itself with
steadily increasing food standards by
exchanging its manufactured goods for
the excess food production of the more
newly developed and less thickly set
tied countries. This resulted in the
development of great industrial areas
whose population outgrew the means
of food production in their localities
and, in the case of Europe. grew fa1