THE NEED FOR MORE POPULATION.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXIX, Issue 234, 30 September 1908, Page 6

THE NEED FOR MORE POPULATION.

. < (By Surgeon-Captain R. H. BAKEWELL * M.D., A.M.S.) \ i I hare been so long trying to rouse up the New Zealand public to the necessity for defence that I cannot bnt feel ' pleased to find that at last they are becoming a little scared of their abso- j lutely defenceless condition. The hand- . ful of Permanent Artillery men—not j half a fair-sized battalion all told—and the slouching, untidy, round-shouldered, , undisciplined men in khaki would merely have to surrender to any force a foreign enemy might send against us. As for j the volunteers, until they are completely j reorganised, properly drilled, and subject to proper discipline, the money . spent on them might just as well be j thrown into the Pacific. But, were our permanent force and , volunteers all we could wish them, were j every man fit for military service in the field duly enrolled, drilled, and incorpor- , ated in a regiment, were all the sub- ; sidiary services properly organised, and | a . system of transport were the medical treatment for the- sick and ■ wounded arranged for, and all our troops . called out regularly as army corps for ; manoeuvres, even then, although we might make a fight for a time, and even , defeat a raiding expedition of a few i thousand men, We could not put in the : field one-fortieth of the number of men < that the only foes we have to fear can send against us. We possess certain advantages, inasmuch aa we can grow i all the food we "require, and produce ; all the tools, machines, and clothing that aro absolutely necessary. But, to do i this, we must deduct all the workmen I required from our army of defence, and so weaken it. A large number of our i able-bodied men must be kept from service in the field, for agricultural work, and to attend on the sheep and cattle. , Another large batch will be required for the service of the railways. Another for the manufacture of the ordinary tools, which we shall not be able to import, and yet again some hundreds will be required for the repair of arms, the manufacture of ammunition and of cloth, ing, tents, and other requisites for the men on active service. What we require is a much larger i population, and yet our population in- N creases very slowly, and our birth-rate is about the lowest in the world. Now, in the consideration of this question, it is, above ail things, necessary to clear our minds of cant. The . cant that has been talked and written about New Zealand is enough to sicken a pig, if a pig could be made to understand English. From that shocking piece of blasphemy, "God's Own Country," which was borrowed by the late Mr Seddon from the United States, down to the lying detai 1 -. of life on a country farm, given to p.ir.rae.t poor unfortunate agriculturists who have managed to scrape v together a few pounds to come to New Zealand, the whole atmosphere reeks of cant. It*liave been in this colony 35 years and more, and only in two instances have I known anyone who brought money here, take it away again without losing the whole or the greater part. One of those cases was a man who had been living in California for &S yte'ari;' ! i l 'A_''wa.s still an Englishman. He'came here with a good many thousand pounds, and intended to set up the fruit-canning' industry, for which he thought the climate admirably fitted. "But." as he explained to mc, "I went among those thick-headed farmers in the North, and tried to persuade them to join mc in the enterprise, but I found that they expected mc to take all the risk, bear all the first expenses and losses, and they were to have all the profit, when the profit came. So I'm back to San Francisco by this afternoon's steamer. And," he added, "I am taking all ray money back with mc." We do not encourage immigration, rather we put all sorts of impediments in the way. Asiatics are virtually prohibited, except Chinese, who have to pay a poll-tax of a hundred pounds each. Nobody is allowed to come under any agreement as to pay or salary, although nobody but a fool would come without such an agreement, unless he came prepared to invest money in some established business. Nobody must come who is consumptive, although the climate of New Zealand is acknowledged to be most favourable for the amendment or recovery of consumptives. The great object of the governing class here is to keep islands which would amply feed and clothe twenty (millions *>f people, for the exclusive use and enjoyment of one million, and to prevent anyone from landing who does not belong to the capitalist class. Of course, he does not long remain one of that very odious class—the N.Z. governing class takes good care of that. Slowly, in spite of every hindrance by legislation, the population increases because we have about the lowest death-rate in tbe world. Taking the last twenty years our death-rate does not average 1 per cent, per annum. Even the death-rate of Children under one year of age, perhaps the best rough test of the healthiness of a population, does not exceed 79 per thousand annually—the lowest recorded in the civilised world. The nearest approach to that of New Zealand is Norway, where the death-rate is 90 per 1000. The death-rate of infants under one year in England and Wales Was 150 per 1000 —nearly double that of this colony. Tho death-rate of Chile was 326, of Russia 268, of Austria 224, of Scotland 126, and of Ireland 103. These calculations are based on the returns of births and deaths during the 10 years 1895-1904. Our death-rate is probably now a little lower. When we contrast the total number of births during 1906, which was 24,252, while the total deaths the same year of infants under one year was only 1506, we can easily see where our increase of population proceeds from. The marriage rate in New Zealand exceeds that in any of the Australian States, except Western Australia, and it also exceeds the rates of the German Empire, Austria, Hungary, England and Wales, France, Scotland, and Ireland, which is the lowest of all, being only 5.3 per thousand. Yet Ireland used to be the country par excellence of youthful and prolific marriages. All this would be very encouraging, and would ensure our keeping ahead of other States or nations, if we were all starting "at scratch." Unfortunately, the foes we most dread, and those who are most eager to obtain possession of unoccupied territory, have had at least 40 centuries' start of us. They are brimming over with the poorest, hungriest, and most industrious people on the earth. They can live where we can starve. They can save and prosper on incomes that would not keep us from rags and starvation. *_hey are very intelligent. No one -who thinks abou* the pressure these Asiatic populations mußt put on their rulers, a pressure which is only relieved by pestilence and famine, can doubt what the result must bo, unless we fill

up here with a irtiite li>»--L population at tenfold the ratTS?** doing at present. Even if there voluntary restriction of births « M the birth-rate were to reach _nT___S it did 30 years ago, rate were to double itself—even a^ 8 should not increase fast enough to tact ourselves from the Japane* ?£ Chinese, G r the Germans. ' What we require is a laree ™W > assisted immigration, giving frw ™ °1 of land to all who paid"their as was done in Auckland pSM tnct many years ago. We want nedS to come as they did in the early sew? by hundreds of thousands; we should 5 ready and willing to take poor Z& very poor people of decent characterkS ' we should establish village settWeS making them on good roads, and m«_ S , to our older If the backblock people had decent roSi and could get their produce to n«rt2 at a reasonable rate, they would boo. absorb a large number of new settW The Old Country ought to contribute! she would save in old age pensions t have neither time nor space to devehm the details of such an scheme, but I am sure it might be nm, aged and made a success, if we onlyw the right men on it. We want anC with General Booth's power of admin_. tration and organisation, but he mutt also be endowed with General Booth', powers of expenditure and control At present we have patent before m that we have millions of acres of unoi tivated land, that we have not the poni lation to cultivate it, and that theOH Country has four times as many peopU resident in her boundaries as she hu food to supply them with, and that in. stead of relieving the Old Country, aad at the same time increasing the prodtto. tions of our own soil, we are doing evem thing we can to obstruct the immi<Ttti» |of everybody except capitalists. | Arthur-street, Onehunga, September 27, 1908.