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By the year 2001, assuming that present rates of growth continue, the population of the Western Hemisphere will have grown by 42 per cent since 1981. In real numbers, this means an increase of 263 million people, 38 million of them in Canada and the United States, and 225 million in the Caribbean Basin and Central and South America. In 14 years, therefore, North Americans will be outnumbered by South Americans, by a ratio of two to one.

According to contributors to Population Growth in Latin America and US. National Security (Allen & Unwin, 8 Winchester Place, Winchester, Mass. 01890; $34.95), edited by John Saunders, such a surge in population south of Key West and the Rio Grande would have serious implications for the United States politically, economically, socially, and strategically. According to most projections, the Latin American nations will be incapable of tolerating the pressures generated by enormous population increases; their industries will be unable to absorb the vast expansion of the labor force, and their agricultural sectors will fail to meet the new demand. The result will be exaggerated social tensions and economic inequalities, which in turn will offer the Soviet Union increased opportunities in the region. And, of course, there would also be a greater-than-ever assault upon the borders of the North American nations (the United States especially), as economic and political refugees by the millions seek to establish themselves within the prosperous giants of the North.

CW

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Chilton Williamson Jr.

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By the year 2001, assuming that present rates of growth continue, the population of the Western Hemisphere will have grown by 42 per cent since 1981. In real numbers, this means an increase of 263 million people, 38 million of them in Canada and the United States, and 225 million in the Caribbean Basin and Central and South America. In 14 years, therefore, North Americans will be outnumbered by South Americans, by a ratio of two to one.

According to contributors to Population Growth in Latin America and US. National Security (Allen & Unwin, 8 Winchester Place, Winchester, Mass. 01890; $34.95), edited by John Saunders, such a surge in population south of Key West and the Rio Grande would have serious implications for the United States politically, economically, socially, and strategically. According to most projections, the Latin American nations will be incapable of tolerating the pressures generated by enormous population increases; their industries will be unable to absorb the vast expansion of the labor force, and their agricultural sectors will fail to meet the new demand. The result will be exaggerated social tensions and economic inequalities, which in turn will offer the Soviet Union increased opportunities in the region. And, of course, there would also be a greater-than-ever assault upon the borders of the North American nations (the United States especially), as economic and political refugees by the millions seek to establish themselves within the prosperous giants of the North.