The Evening Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and Echo. MONDAY, JULY 1, 1901. THE FALLING BIRTHRATE.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXII, Issue 154, 1 July 1901, Page 4

The Evening Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and Echo.

MONDAY, JULY 1, 1901. THE FALLING BIRTHRATE.

For the came that lacks assistance, Tor Che wrong that aaeds Kuisianec-, for the future in the distance, and the good that tto ouu do.

The letter of the Dean of Ripon to the London "Times," to which our cables have just referred, will rouse public interest anew in the population question. In 1898 and 18&9, the commercial statistics for Great Britain show that trade was brisk, employment regular, and wages high. Such industrial conditions are always accompanied by a rise in the marriage rate: and 1899 was no exception in this respect to the general rule. But the vital statistics for 1899 show that

the increase in the marriage rate was not followed by anything like a. proportionate increase in the number of births. On the contrary, the steady fall in the percentage of births which began 25 years ago seems to be accelerating. In 187S the number of births per 1000 of the population in England was 35.6; in 1899 it, had sunk to 29.3 per 1000, which is, the lowest birth rate yet recorded for England.

Considering all that is supposed to be implied for the social and national welfare in an increase of population, it is not strang-e that this startling evidence of a movement in the opposite direction should have roused

.grave apprehension and alarm among the most thoughtful and earnest of English publicists and statesmen. Yet there are some facts which may serve to modify the gloomy conclusions which most men will be inclined to draw from the figures we have quoted. In the first place, England is not a solitary instance of this tendency of the birth rate to decline, In almost all civilised societies this same characteristic is becoming more and more pronounced. France Is, of course, the extreme instance; and there the population problem has engaged public attention for the last two centuries. Even in America, in many of the States, the older families are. dying out, and. the population, in spite of the favourable conditions of life, is not increasing in %h$ same proportion as

heretofore. Bui the most striking illustration of this tendency is to be I found in the Australasian colonies. ! Coghlan's viiaJ statistics for Australia .show that within the last decade! the proportion of births per 1000 of i the population has decreased in a very large degree. ] Jet ween IB'JO and ISO!)

the fall was from 117.15 to 27.3 in Queensland, from 35.3 to 27.1 in New South Wales, and from 33.6 to 26.7 in

Victoria. But the evidence to be gathered from the statistics of our own colony is even more start liny. 1" ISSiJ Ihere were in New Zealand 19,009 births, or an average of ■•"i.o per 1000 of the population. j Since ISS7 in spite of a large gross increase in population, the number of j births has never reached 19.000, though lin 188-1 it attained its maximum of 19.54 G. By ISS9 the number births per 1000 was only liO; by ISO.") it was 20.7; in 1H99 it was :t:>A. This is not only the lowest birth rate for the Australasian colonies, but considerably lower than the rait- which is causing so much comment- in Knghnd. The statistics of 1900 show a slight improvement, j the rale for that year being !25. GO. In ISSI in New Zealland there were 5.72 births for every marriage in the previous year. In 1899 the proportion had fallen to 3.40 births. In Victoria the corresponding figures fell from 4.9 in 1880 to 4.05 in IH9S; and in New South Wales the same figures varied from ."> in ISSO to 4.1 in IS'.KS. So far back as 18H0. New Zealand had the highest birib rate of all the Australian colonies— 40.78; but now the position is reverse.!. It must, of course, be borne in mind that the influx into New Zealand of a large number of immigrants of i adult age between IS7O and 18.S0 j served to swell ihe birth-rate !to an abnormal ratio. Whatever may be the cause of ihe world-wide decline in the rate at which population h/is hitherto increased. there is no doubt that these colonies, and more especially our own islands. | are (specially subject to these mii fluences. It is generally assumed that a rise in the birth rate, that is, a natural

increase in population, is a condition necessary for a country's continued prosperity. Within certain limits this is undoubtedly true. Uut we must remember that in a thickly peopled country where the struggle for life is already very keen, a large ac-

cess of population may be a source of weakness and decay. An additional

child in a family already on the verge, of destitution is not greeted as a gift from heaven; an additional million wage-earners, forced into a space already fully bold by labourers at a minimum wage, will do little to promote the industrial prosperity of the community. The increase of population which creates wealth by exploiting natural resources hitherto neglected is a potent factor in national development. But in Europe and America it maybe that this present diminution in rhc rate of in-

crease represents to some extent a

reaction from the reckless improvidence and ignorance that marked the condition of the labouring classes half a century ago. The spread of education has revealed to all classes the criminal foil}' of those who bring into the world large families without any reasonable prospect of supporting them. In over-populated countries the submerged masses of ill-conditioned men, women and children, physically and morally degraded, who ace the despair alike of statesmen and philanthropists, were largely begotten in this way.

When this much has been conceded, however, everything is said that can be urged in moderation of the feeling of apprehension with which any progressive x'Ommunity, and especially one like ours, where a great and fertile, country is very thinly peopled, must view a wide-prevailing indisposition to rear children. We fear that an enervating love, of luxury and an unwillingness to accept the reasonable and proper responsibilities of married life is the real cause of the declining birth rate, and unfortunately while little restraint is placed upon the multiplication of the imprudent and unfit, the decline in the average family is mainly observable among those classes who intellectually and physically are best fitted to survive. This unquestionably constitutes a. national danger, although happily statistics up to the present do not prove that it has reached such a point either in Great Britain or the Australasian colonies as would warrant us in regarding the decline as offering a very serious menace to the progress of the AngloSaxon race.