Free The Lost Massey Lectures by Thomas King

requires no urgent action. Education is important; no one would argue for a moment against its further development. But it does not remove the prime barrier to advance. 9 The social structure is, as everywhere, imperfect. But the claims of non-functional groups and the absence of reward for those who have function are also not the decisive barrier to advance. One is spared the delicate task of recommending the right kind of revolution.
    In these countries the simple fact is that too many people struggle to make a living from too few resources. As a further consequence, little can be saved to enlarge the capital base—factories, power plants, transport—by which production is increased. Theobvious remedy is to provide resources for immediate consumption if these are patently insufficient, to provide capital for expansion of existing agricultural and industrial plant, and, most urgently, to limit the number of people who must live from these perilously scarce resources.
    Translated into specific measures, this means that all feasible steps must be taken—by encouraging individual savings, encouraging the retention and reinvestment of earnings, and by judicious use of taxation—to mobilize internal savings. The amount so made available will almost certainly be small. The country has the cultural resources to use considerable amounts. This is the meaning of the common statement that India, Pakistan and Egypt have large absorptive capacity for capital. So external capital assistance in generous amounts is of great importance in this Model.
    The social structure of these countries makes poverty comparatively democratic. For a very large proportion of the population, accordingly, consumption will have a larger claim on resources than saving for capital formation, for this consumption is coordinate with life itself. This not only sets limits on what can be squeezed out of these economies for investment, but it also emphasizes the value, in these countries, of direct consumption assistance, such as the food provided by the United States under Public Law 480, provided, of course, that it is not a substitute for domestic effort to increase food production.
    It is obviously important that capital, being scarce, be used effectively. This means that there must be a plan which establishes priorities and an administrative apparatus for carrying these priorities into effect. The administrative and technical resources from the wide cultural base make such planning feasible. It is both less essential and less feasible in the other two Models.
    It is of the highest importance in this Model that the nexus between poverty and the birth rate be broken. A high birth rate isa common attribute of poverty, but it is in Model III countries that action is most urgent. For years, men of modest foresight have been warning that, in the future, the dense populations of these lands would press alarmingly on the means for supporting them. Now the future has come. This is the meaning of the food riots in these last years in India.
    It would be wrong to wait on more studies or a better contraceptive. Research on population has already been used to the limit as an alternative to determined action on birth control. Whichever contraceptive is now most practical must be provided in adequate quantity at the earliest moment to every village and with every possible encouragement and incentive to its use. Results must be measured not, as now, by pamphlets issued, speeches delivered and conferences attended, but by what happens to the birth rate. The moral choice is no longer between contraception and children, but between contraception and starvation. The provision of food from abroad—and by a long supply line that might be cut with disastrous consequences—is justified if it enlarges consumption for an existing population. It is not so easy to justify if it induces a Malthusian increase in population with the result that people are as hungry as