596 



NA TURE 



[October 20, 1923 



The population of Australia stands to that of Japan 

 as about one to ten. The Japanese are a patriotic as 

 well as an advanced nation, and claim eciuality with the 

 white nations from patriotic motives. It is evident, 

 therefore, that a strong reinforcement of Rritish 

 1)M|. Illation is needed to maintain the doctrine of a white 

 Ausualia. For the same reason New Zealand also 

 needs emigrants, since Australasia is strategically one. 

 But what are the needs of Great Britain ? There 

 is a school which teaches that we should be strategic- 

 ally safer if we had no more people than our farms can 

 feed, which would be about one-half of our present 

 population ; that we have passed the number which 

 can ever be supported here in comfort ; and that 

 additions to the population would deteriorate its 

 quality by packing the slums. The same school 

 contends that emigration, by taking the best and 

 leaving the worst, will produce a disgenic effect in 

 the home country. The conclusion is that the salva- 

 tion of Great Britain can only be ensured by a drastic 

 reduction in the size of the working-class family. The 

 strategic argument used by this school is out-of-date, 

 as the proper plan of campaign for a combination of 

 Powers bent on breaking up the citadel of the Empire 

 is not naval blockade but aerial bombardment, and 

 what the country now needs for its defence is a great 

 development of technical industries and therefore a 

 large population. A rural Britain would be quite 

 unable to defend itself. 



The economic argument shows too little apprecia- 

 tion of the permanent commercial advantage of our 

 geographical position. As soon as the world gets 

 again into its stride, conditions in Great Britain will 

 improve, and thereafter each increase in the popula- 

 tion of the world outside will provide more work in 

 this country since our geographical position is un- 

 surpassed for rendering economic service to other 

 nations. 



The common notion that we are packing the slums 

 is contradicted by the census. Taking the case of 

 the Metropolis, not only is central London less closely 

 peopled than formerly but the five rural counties 

 round London contain a million residents who were 

 born in London and have spread out into the country- 

 fied surroundings. 



Neither does the census support the loose asseru :; 

 that the towns are unable to replenish their populat: i 

 without fresh blood from the rural districts. 1 • 

 projM)rtion of London residents who are London-I' 

 has steadily increased throughout the last fortv v< 

 and the birth-rate in towns is as high as in rural 

 even when corrected for the effect of migration i.< v .. . i i, 

 them. Happily, also, the opinion formerly current 

 that the townsman was deficient in morale was refuted 

 by the War, in which our urban regiments showed a 

 sustained valour which has seldom been surpa.s < <! 

 in the long annals of military hi.story. 



The contention that .selection for emigration uill 

 leave us only the worst, ignores the essential considera- 

 tion that the best youngster for the Dominions is not 

 necessarily the best for the Home Countr)-. Here we 

 need lads with sufficient business tenacity to resist the 

 restlessness of youth quite as much as the Doit>'»^''"'^ 

 need those who have a taste for frontier life. 



The unequal distribution of men and wohm . 

 between Great Britain and the Dominions limits t! < 

 marriage-rate and consequently the total birth-rate 

 of the British throughout the Empire in a way to which 

 no other nation is equally subject. The excess of 

 women in Great Britain cannot, however, be wholly 

 paired in the Dominions unless the exodus of men to 

 the United States be largely re-directed to our own 

 lands. 



Now that the limitation of the family is year by year 

 determined more by choice and less by chance, it i^ 

 important that all should know the size of family which 

 is necessary for increase of the race. Taking account 

 of the present age of marriage and the number of deaths 

 before that age, I find that a general preference for the 

 family of three would not quite maintain our numbers 

 in Great Britain even if all migration ceased. If, 

 therefore, the size of family be universally decided by 

 choice the number of the race cannot be maintained, 

 far less increased, under present conditions unless these 

 who enter into matrimony cherish the ideal of a family 

 of four children. Upon this, more perhaps than upon 

 any other factor, depends the continued efficacy of the 

 British Empire for guiding backward races, enlarging 

 international commerce, and restricting the range of 

 war. 



The Sun and the Weather. 



A RECENT article by C. G. Abbot and his colleagues 

 of the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observator)' 

 (Washington: Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci., vol. 9, 1923, No. 6, 

 p. 194) directs attention to a remarkable decrease in the 

 amount of heat radiated by the sun during 1922 and 

 the early months of 1923. This amount, the so-called 

 " solar constant," has been well below its average 

 value since the beginning of April 1922. No such 

 outstanding sequence of low values has been found 

 since the beginning of observations in 1905, and if the 

 sun's variation influences terrestrial weather, 1922 and 

 the early months of 1923 ought to show this influence. 

 If the temperature of the earth's surface were deter- 

 mined directly by the amount of solar radiation, this 

 long-continued deficiency would give rise to a general 

 fall of temperature by 2° or 3° F. Owing to the com- 



NO. 2816, VOL. 112] 



plexity of the atmospheric circulation, no such simple 

 direct response is to be expected, but we may reasonably 

 look for anomalous weather, and in fact the winter 

 of 1922-23 appears to have been unusually disturbed 

 in North America. In different districts there were 

 extremes of both heat and cold, drought and rainfall, 

 and the authors remark that " while it is far too early 

 in the study of the relations of solar radiation and 

 weather to state that the extraordinary' solar change 

 caused the unusual winter weather, it does no harm to 

 draw attention to both." 



If we turn to Western Europe, we find similar dis- 

 turbed conditions, especially in the north, while the 

 Arctic Ocean has been characterised by low pressure 

 and abnormally high temperature. The coincidence 

 with low solar radiation may be remarked, but it is 



