“I think I do,” Vorgens said, “but I’d like to hear your opinion.”
“The reason goes back more than a century, to the time when we were still dominated by the Masters. You see, the Masters saw to it that we remained a static nationOur population was fixed at about 500 million, and we never rose much above that figure.”
“Yes, I know,” Vorgens said.
“In those days,” Clanthas went on, “Shinar fed not only itself, but all the worlds within fifteen light-years of our planet. We were not prosperous, of course, but we were in equilibrium with the rest of the Masters’ domain. We knew what to expect, from one day to the next.”
“And then the Terrans came.”
“Yes. The Terrans crushed the Masters and liberated Shinar. We were suddenly thrown on our own devices. For a while, everything continued as it had always gone. But something important had changed. Slowly, at first, nd then with explosive speed, our population began to grow. When I was Merdon’s age, Shinar had two billion people; now we have three billion.”
“And it is difficult for you to feed yourselves,” Vorgens said.
“Not yet difficult, but that day is fast approaching. However, we must use all the food we produce to feed ourselves. Practically nothing is left for export. Our trade with the other worlds around us is dying, and we are becoming a bankrupt nation. That is the underlying reason behind the people’s resentment of the Empire. The installation of the food processing plants was merely the trigger. They already hated the Terrans, because they were becoming overcrowded and pauperized, under the Empire.”