BIGGER FAMILIES

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 61, Issue 5, 17 October 1940, Page 3

BIGGER FAMILIES

STATE ENCOURAGEMENT. SUGGESTED IN DUNEDIN.. (Per Press Association). DUNEDIN, October 16. The view that a special Ministry of State should be established with the object of giving every encouragement to a return to the four and five-chil-dren family was expressed by Professor C. E. Hercus, Dean of the Otago Medical Shcool, in an address delivered at the annual meeting of the Dunedin branch of the Plunket Society to-day. Dr. Hercus reviewed population and birth-rate trends in New Zealand in recent years, and declared that the present position of the declining birth-rate was the most serious problem, apart from the war, that the Dominion had to face.

Everywhere he had gone during his recent tour abroad, Dr. Hercus said, he had been impressed by the importance with which the health of the mother and child was regarded. It was little use having splendid institutions to safeguard the mother and child, however, if children were not being born, and there was nothing so arresting in the whole of New Zealand’s social history as the tremendous- fall in the birth-rate since 1870, and later since 1918, although there had been a very slight rise in the last year. That did not tell the whole story, however, for it had to lie remembered that, in addition, there would he fewer women going into the child-bearing period in 15 years’ time unless the position xvas aided by migration. But England’s birth-rate was also declining and, moreover, the people showed no desire to migrate. “There must be a substantial increase in the birth-rate, even to keep us where we are,” Dr. Hercus added. “The Maoris are improving their birthrate in spite of terrible infantile mortality, and even with the many adverse influences to which they are subject their natural rate of increase is healthy. That suggests that, admirable though the efforts of the Plunket (Society are, even if you could do the impossible and save every baby, you would still not have touched the fundamentals of the problem. I am asking for four and five children, not one and two, and unless we get it we are up against the biggest problem New Zealand has ever faced.”

There was nothing biologically in New Zealand against a healthy population growth, Dr. Hercus said;, yet in 1886 there were 2009 more children in the primary schools of Otago than there were to-day. The modern way of living, flats, the high cost of living, etc., conspired against an inciteasing population, and one extreme disadvantage was that a great many New Zealand mothers were seriously overworked in the domestic field. No society was better equipped than.the Plunket Society to raise the status of the domestic worker, and lie hoped the time would come when there would be a. body of women, similar to Plunket nurses, going about the homes helping mothers in their domestic duties, and generally giving the domestic worker a better standing in the community. He thought the State should be prepared to subsidise the domestic worker in the same way as it subsidised the doctor and the Plunket nurse. “I suggest, however,” Dr. Hercus concluded 1 , “that the final solution lies in the recognition of spiritual values in: the widest meaning of the term. There must be a restoration of the social prestige of a. large family, of the joy in parenthood, ,of pride of race, and an understanding that we have a great responsibility to carry on the torch to the next generation, which should have the right to be healthy aud productive.”