BIRTH-RATE COMMISSION.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume XXXIX, Issue 9460, 25 November 1918, Page 8

BIRTH-RATE COMMISSION.

The National Birth-rate Commission was instituted and given official re- ■ cognition in 1913; after sitting for • two and a-half years, hearing many I witnesses and reviewing a great quan- ! tity of statistic evidence regarding the : decline of the birth-rate in Great Britain and other European countries be- ' tween 1811 and 1911, it published a : noteworthy report, together with a considerable part of the evidence i taken by it. The report showed that 1 the birth-rate of England and Wales had fallen from <36.3 per thousand population in 1876 to 23.8 in^ 1912; that the decline occurred alike m town and country; that it was most marked among the prosperous classes; that it was more than could be accounted for by the decline in the marriage rate, together with the later age of marriage which characterised the later deI cades of the period • examined. The ! same period shows a decline in the mii fant mortality rate, but this is insuffiJ cient to counterbalance /the lowering lof the birth-rate. The Commission i noticed that the higher, survival rate lof the children of- the well-to-do still I left the descendants of these classes in a minority compared with the de-! scendants of the manual labourer classes. They were unable to detect any adverse on the birth-rate of the higher education of women, except in so far as this tended to postpone marriage. The Commission considered that voluntary limitation of families is widely practised, among tho middle, upper, and industrial classes. An addition to the report, signed by the majority of the Commission (and, it may be added, by all its women members) expressed the opinion that ''within this country a larger population could subsist with a higher standard of living than obtains among the masses," and recommended certain economic reforms, the establishment of a minimum wage, insurance against unemployment, further State aid in education, and better training as likely to increase the birth-rate, and urged the importance of improving the survival rate by greater care of both infants and mothers. . The future sittings of the" Commission will inquire further into these and. other economic remedies for a falling birth-rate, and the influence upon birth-rate of venereal disease and increased industrial employment of married women; they 1 will inquire into tho causes and prevention of illegitimate births; they will deal with the possibility of co-ordinating their inquiry with those of the Depopulation Commission in France and of the Paris Faculty of Medicine, and the United States Federal Child Welfare Bureau. We have too long been content to rely upon the reduction of infant and child mortality to counteract the talling birth-rate, but even before the war it was evident that the mentally and physically fittest of., the nation were leaving so few descendants that they were failing to keep up their numbers, and observers constantly 'pointed out that economic measures might check this decline, or considerations of a moral nature be brought to" bear with success upon the mistaken prudence which prompted late marriage and small families. The inqu?y which the National Birth-rate Commission is taking up is of the very highest imixirMince. and its progress will be watched with anxious care by jill patriotic English men ana women.