ABSTRACT
Yet the regulation of the relation between population and territory is of tremendous importance for a nation’s existence. Indeed, we can justly say that the whole life struggle of a people in truth consists in safeguarding the territory it requires as a general prerequisite for the sustenance of the increasing population. Since the population grows incessantly, and the soil as such remains stationary, tensions perforce must gradually arise which at first find expression in distress, and which for a certain time can be balanced through greater industry, more ingenious production methods or special austerity. But there comes a day when these tensions can no longer be eliminated by such means. Then the task of the leaders of a nation’s struggle for existence consists in eliminating the unbearable conditions in a fundamental way, that is in restoring a tolerable relation between population and territory.
