392 
second figure based on Indian stand- 
ards. 
In relation to the third assumption 
we should note the existence of such 
views as those put forward by the late 
Prince P. Kropotkin,’® who could see 
no limits to the productivity of the 
land and claimed that the food pro- 
duction of England, and other coun- 
tries, could be easily doubled by the 
application of intensive methods of 
cultivation. Such an increase would, 
however, more than double the labor 
cost of the products and so tend to 
lower the standards of living. It is 
true that agricultural productivity can 
be increased by such expenditure of 
labor and capital, and still more by 
the application of the results of 
scientific investigation into its prob- 
lems. Many optimistic forecasts have 
been made; but I know of no data 
sufficient to justify even an intelligent 
19 P, Kropotkin, Fields, factories and work- 
shops, London, 1898, and several later 
editions. 
ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1948 
guess at the limits of such productivity. 
It is clear from the estimates here 
given that the world, as a whole, is 
capable of supporting a population 
much more numerous than that which 
it carries today. ‘The immediate prob- 
lems of overpopulation are limited to 
some few areas; and the present-day 
pressure of population *° is not against 
the limited resources of the earth but 
against the various barriers, natural 
and artificial, which hinder access to 
those resources. Yet the fact that the 
size and natural resources of the earth 
are fixed and limited ensures that its 
human population cannot increase 
indefinitely. With our present powers 
of production the world may be able 
to support three times its present 
population in reasonable comfort. 
But if the present rates of increase are 
maintained that number will be reach- 
ed in less than a century from now. 
20 C. B. Fawcett, Pressure of population, 
in the New Commonwealth Quarterly, 
London, January 1943. 
