To Improve the Breed

In London last week, His Majesty's Stationery Office released a 289-page document, the long-awaited report of the Royal Commission on Population. The London Economist called it "one of the great state papers of this generation."

The report, compiled over five years at a cost of -L-200,000, contained some startling specific proposals which were probably less important than its broad analysis of population prospects. In its analysis, the report punches holes in two myths, one old, one new. The prewar myth was that Britain's birth rate would continue to decline, causing a drastic drop in Britain's population. The postwar myth was that Britain's tight balance of payments position required a drastic reduction of population by emigration ("With world supremacy gone, 40,000,000 people can't live on this little island").

The commission sees little chance of a sharp birthrate decline, believes that Britain's present 49 million population will drop only to 45 1/2 million by 2050. The commission does not regard this prospect as calamitous. To the neo-Malthusians, who assert that the world population is outrunning its food supply, the commission report makes this answer: "The danger that a shortage of foodstuffs entering the world markets may continue indefinitely to the serious detriment of countries whose populations have outstripped their own agricultural resources cannot, we think, be rated higher than a possibility . . ."

The report recognizes that while a sharp reduction in Britain's population would reduce its need for imports, Britain's ability to export would also be reduced. "It would be premature to assume that the balance of payments problem will necessarily constitute a serious argument against a moderate increase in numbers."

The report is also concerned with relative reproduction trends of various groups within the population. It accepts evidence that intelligence is inherited. Consequently it views with some alarm the fact that less intelligent families reproduce at a higher rate than more intelligent families. To combat this trend it proposes two forms of government action: 1) using the National Health Service to give more birth control information to the lower income groups, and 2) tax exemptions and other incentives to encourage the professional classes to have more children.

Except for Roman Catholic opposition on the detail of birth control information, the report was received last week with general acclaim in Britain. It has cleared the air of alarmist thinking, avoided absurd excesses of "population planning" (see cut) and made a start toward public policy on a problem that faces many nations--how to induce the more intelligent groups to have enough children to reproduce themselves.

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