The Key West citizen. [volume] (Key West, Fla.) 1879-current, 1946-06-04

length. her leaders plan to pro-
wide higher living standards and
modernized agricultural methods,
improving health conditions and
the food supply. This will lower
the death rate. while her birth
rate, one of the highest in the
world, remains as it is unless
something unforeseen happens.
The rice paddy civilization
which has burdened all of east
ern Asia with a population it
can barely support will find
the infusion of western culture
mixed blessing.
Rice, babies and death. They're
the essence of the problem. Many
babies, little rice, millions of
deaths.
Rice Needs Hands
To cultivate paddy rice many
hands are needed. The farmer
must have a large family to help
him. The family must be kept to-
gether in a close-knit unit, rooted
to the land. Stability, permanence,
unchanging customs, the sacred
Importance of rice and the land
on which it grows-these are the
dogma of rice paddy civilization.
Thus, DR.. Irene B. Taeuber, of
Princeton University's Office of
Population Research, and other
scholars explain the high birth
rate-about As per 1000 per year.
b Death, too, is profligate in its
reaping-about 80 persons out of
1000 dying each year. Gin the
UNITED States the death rate is
100 per 1000 per year, and the
birth rate is 215 per 1000, giving
an annual rate of increase of LOG
per 10000
Influence of the West
Floods, famines, epidemics and
internal wars have taken in some
Years tens of millions of Chinese
lives. But western culture brings
more food production, a modicum
of sanitation and medical care, q
degree of civil order and security.
, This means greatly reduced death
rates, while the babies swarm in
as fast as before.
If the Chinese population is
now 400.000.0o0 tneither Chi
nese nor American scholars do
more than guess at it, DR.. War
rem S. Thompson. a recognized
authority. estimates it probably
will reach 609.000.000 by 1890.
/ This assumes there will be no
increase before 1850, on account
of the war; that China will have
half 1ndia'S rate Of increase be-
tween 1850 and 1860, and that the
rate of increase will equal India
OH per 10000 after. 1860.
I Food Can Never Catch Up
! No matter how fast the Chinese
/ increase the rate of food produc-
ton, they will never catch up.
The more food is provided, the
more persons there will be to eat
it.
Industrialization might be
, the answer. say DR.. Taeuber
and some other analysts. De-
velop industries and gather the
people into large cities. for the
birth rate always has decreas-
ed as countries because indus
| trialized.
But the hitch there is that birth
rates decrease so slowly. Japan's
birth rate did not decline appre-
clably until after five or SIX dec
AIDES of industrialization. The
population of Europe increased
SeVen-fOld in the course of three
centuries of economic transforms
ton.
Experience of England
In England and Wales the
birth rate did not decline until
after century of industrializa
ton and INFLAMMATION. 1t is not
reasonable, say the experts, to ex-
pect a decline in the Chinese birth
rate until the end of the TWEEN
tieth century.
If the situation is to grow
infinitely worse before it gets
better. what will become of
China's people?
DR.. Thompson grimly predicts
that 'the level of living will de
cline and death rates will rise tc
the point where the rate of in
crease will diminish, that increas-
ing hardship rather than a de
Ginning birth rate will bring about
the adjustment of numbers to re-
sources"