A Dog in the Manger

Abstract

After the First World War, the unequal distribution of the world’s people became a matter of heightened international concern. In a world desperate to avoid the horrors of another war, differential population pressure—the fact that some parts of the Earth’s surface were crowded to bursting while others were virtually empty—was identified as a (or the) major cause of international conflict. To secure world peace, a more equitable distribution of population was considered necessary, and the less populous nations were entreated to find some way of accommodating the needs of the crowded multitudes of the world. These arguments were voiced in the newly formed League of Nations; by international non-government organizations such as the Institute of Pacific Studies; at global conventions such as the 1927 World Population Conference; in universities and parliaments around the world; in scholarly tomes and popular newspapers. Population and migration were not mere domestic concerns but matters of pressing international moment for on them hinged crucial questions of peace and war.¹