Speech by Prince Charles Draws Criticism - June 17, 2010

A controversial comment at the end of a recent speech by the Prince of Wales has drawn the criticism of demographers as well as experts on the writings of C.K. Chesterton and C.S. Lewis.  The speech, which was given during a ceremony marking the 25^th anniversary of the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies, of which the prince is a patron, was primarily focused on Islam and environmentalism.  What has caused a stir is his closing afterthought.

The focus of the speech was a call for a return to “tradition.”  His thesis was that such a move would combat the West’s “rapacious desire for continuous economic growth” and the “mechanistic and reductionist approach to our scientific understanding of the world around us.”

However, just before ending his hour long speech, he said that there was “one final issue I have to mention.”   He continued “Wherever you look, the world's population is increasing fast,” he said. “It goes up by the equivalent of the entire population of the United Kingdom every year. Which means that this poor planet of ours, which already struggles to sustain 6.8 billion people, will somehow have to support over 9 billion people within fifty years.”  The Prince then told those gathered that  they must “face up to the fact more honestly than we do that one of the biggest causes of high birth rates remains cultural” - an apparent reference to the high birth rate amongst Muslims.

Steve Mosher president of the Population Research Institute and an expert on demographic issues was not impressed with the Prince or his comments.  Mosher quipped “Prince Charles should stick to matters that he's good at, like handing out awards at cricket and polo matches.”

His next comments had the same effect on experts on Chesterton and Lewis.  Charles concluded his speech by quoting Chesterton as saying that “real development is not leaving things behind, as on a road, but drawing life from them as a root.” He also mentioned C.S. Lewis’ famous statement in Mere Christianity, that “sometimes you do have to turn the clock back if it is telling the wrong time” and “going back can sometimes be the quickest way forward.”

Dr. Dave Beresford, an entomologist at Trent University in Peterborough Ontario and an expert on G.K. Chesterton who writes for the Chesterton Society’s Gilbert Magazine, told LifeSiteNews.com that, “To quote Chesterton in support of any population control program is entirely misleading.” In fact, said Beresford, Chesterton's writings are chock-full of compelling arguments against population control, a fact of which Prince Charles seems to have been wholly unaware. 

Beresford is convinced that Chesterton would have been appalled to be invoked in a speech on population control.  “Chesterton’s major contribution to social criticism is his argument against population control. That is possibly his most significant contribution,” said Beresford.

In 1925 Chesterton wrote an introduction to Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol in which he said that “The answer to anyone who talks about the surplus population is to ask him, whether he is part of the surplus population; or if not, how he knows he is not.”

Elsewhere, in an essay titled Social Reform vs. Birth Control” Chesterton argued that it is typically the wealthy elite who are interested in promoting population control as a solution to poverty, often simply as a means of avoiding dealing with the more difficult root problems that lead to poverty.

Beresford reiterated that “Chesterton dedicated his entire literary output to celebrating the goodness of life and to fighting against ideas such as population control.”

In reference to Prince Charles’ remarks, he said, “It’s unfortunate that one of the chief beneficiaries of a modern industrial economy and thus one of the wealthiest people in the world has recourse to an old-fashioned trick of blaming the poor for all the world's ills.”

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