IS POPULATION GROWTH DESIRABLE OR UNDESIRABLE FOR JAPAN?
President de Gaulle hopes that France will have a hundred million people. People are for him the most important form of industrial and political capital. Dr. Bruno Hecht, Minister of Youth and Families in Western Germany, aims to raise family allowances high enough (70 marks per month for every child after the fourth) so that Germany can catch up with other European nations which are in the forefront of a “Family Renaissance.” America’s net reproduction rate is now as high as it was in Japan in the peak year of 1948. But in Japan people desire a reduction of population. Many say that the nation would be better off with only 40 million. Dr. E. Ackerman of Chicago University said in 1948, after completing a survey, that only if the nation holds its population at about 80 million can it hope to maintain a balanced economy and enjoy a moderate standard of living. (7) Few seem to realize what such a reduction of population would do to Japan. For example, to hold the population even at 97 mi
