412 CONFERENCE OF DELEGATES 
3. New Zealand : 
Area of National Parks 4 : . 4,500 sq. miles. 
Population . ‘ ; 13 millions. 
Park land per million inhabitants : . 3,000 sq. miles. 
It is admitted that Canada and New Zealand are still in the infancy of 
their development; yet such an increase in population as would bring 
their Park allowance down to the U.S. figure, is not reasonably in sight. 
In the case of the U.S. itself, while the population is undoubtedly still 
increasing, so is the area of the National Parks, and that at a more rapid 
rate than the population, the details being these :— 
Increase 1920-1930. Increase 1920-1932. 
U.S. Population 16 per cent. 19 per cent. (estimated). 
U.S. National Park 27 per cent. 53 per cent. 
There is therefore no good reason for anticipating any fall in the Park 
allowance figure already given for the U.S.A. 
4. The State of New York, considered as a separate political entity, 
offers, however, the closest possible parallel to Great Britain. Its area, 
its population, and the density of its population, though smaller, are all 
of the same order of magnitude as those of Great Britain. It has one very 
large city, and generally is highly urbanised, 84 per cent. of its inhabitants 
being classed as urban. Its inhabitants have the same rights in the National 
Parks proper as other U.S. citizens, but, in addition, it owns and administers 
State Parks with a total area of about 3,700 sq. miles, which for a population 
of 123 millions, gives for each million inhabitants an area of 295 Sq. miles. 
If we take the lowest of all these figures, namely that pertaining to the 
whole U.S., 161 sq. miles per million inhabitants, as the minimum which 
an enlightened regard for the claims of posterity can allow us to contem- 
plate as our ultimate objective, we should have for Britain’s 45 million 
inhabitants a total area of 7,245 sq. miles. The policy of the present 
generation might be restricted to a figure of, say, 
6,000 sq. miles. 
It may be noted that this is 7 3 of the whole area of Britain ; the State Parks 
of New York State extend ib zz of the whole area of that State. 
OBJECTIONS. 
The Report of the Committee on National Parks (1931) objects to 
comparisons with the United States on the ground that Britain is ‘ small, 
densely populated and highly developed, and has relatively little land which 
is not already put to some economic or productive use.’ These objections 
do not seem to be well founded. The size of a country is in itself quite 
irrelevant to the issue, except in so far as it affects accessibility ; and in 
that respect it tells in favour of the smaller country. Again, its high density 
of population is all in favour of a large reservation for Britain ; the greater 
the density the more completely urbanised will the general aspect of the 
country be, and the greater will be the need of the population for occasional 
contact with Nature in its pristine beauty. The relatively smaller area in 
Britain not already devoted to productive use is relevant only if it involves 
an absolute lack of areas of sufficient size and natural beauty to serve as 
National Parks, and to that point we shall now address ourselves. 
