Volume 65: Macarthur-Onslow correspondence, 1846-1929: No. 521
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The gloomy forebodings of Sir William Crookes have not been fulfilled. At a meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science held in Bristol in 1898 (which the writer attended), Sir William Crookes drew attention in his Presidential Address to what he called the Wheat Problem. In the course of his discussion of the facts he produced something like a serious sensation by the statement: "England and all civilised nations stand to-day in deadly peril of not having enough to eat. As mouths multiply, food resources dwindle. Land is limited in quantity, and the land that will grow wheat is absolutely dependent on difficult and capricious natural phenomena."
He predicted that the starvation point would be reached about 1931. The advancement of science has removed that point many years ahead, and with further advancers we can face the future without apprehension.