A BIG PROBLEM.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXIX, Issue 153, 27 June 1908, Page 7

A BIG PROBLEM.

The latest return of the Registrar-Gen-eral for England and Wales, like all its recent predecessors, shows for the year 1907 a birth-rate of only 26.3 per 1000 inhabitants, which is the lowest recorded, and less than three-quarters of that reached 30 years ago. This steady decrease in the fertility of the race is one of the most portentous facts of the day. Whither it tends no man can tell. There is even much dispute as to whether it | makes, on the whole, s for good or for j evil, and whether, and at what points, it is possible ot desirable to check it. The fall in the birth-rate, whatever its ca,uses or its consequences, is not a question for a few countries alone. It is common to almost the ■whole of Western Europe and to settlements from the same stock in other parts of the world. Of 29 principal cities for which figures are available, -Dublin, Belfast, and St. Petersburg alone show no significant change of the birth-rate in the -last 20 or 30 years. Nearly every Continental and Colonial capital shows a fall greater—often considerably greater —than that in London. In Berlin, for instance, the fall has been over 30 per cent as compared with London's 18 per cent; in Brussels and in Sydney it has beem over 36. These figuree are for towns alone. The fact which they illustrate is, however, by no means confined to towns. Rural districts show an analogous decline, though generally less in degree. Whatever may be in store for England through the diminished birth-rate ie in greater or less degree in store also for all the other countries on the same plane of civilisation. The same forces appear to be at work, and, it may be added, began to make their appearance at much the same period everywhere. In nearly all the leading countries of Europe—with the exception of France—the decline set in about 30 years ago. In (nearly all, of course, its influence has been greatly modified by a contemporary decline in the death-rate, and can no doubt, with improvements of sanitation and hygiene, he modified still further. Yet there must be limits to this lowering of the deathrate The crucial question is whether there will pTove to be amy limits to the decline of the birthrate. Is the process one which will in due course be checked by any natural or economic laws? Can it be affected by any changes of human law or institutions, and, if so, is it desirable to check it at this or at some subsequent point? These are questions which will have to be seriously considered in the near future.