SLOW GROWTH.

Auckland Star, Volume 55, Issue 62, 13 March 1924, Page 4

SLOW GROWTH.

' In the monthly Abstract of Statistics '■ just to hand there is printed in handy 1 form a table giving the vital statistics for the last ten years. The most important feature of this table is the fall in the birth-rate, which in 1914 was 25.9!) ' and last year was only 21.95. In 1920 there was a noticeable rise in both the marriage rate and the birth-rate, due to demobilisation, but since then the birth-rate has steadily fallen, and the marriage rate is also lower than it used to be. Omitting the war and post-war years, we have to go back to 1901 to find a lower marriage rate than that of 1923. The seriousness of the birth-rate can best, be judged if we make this comparison, that in 1914, with a population smaller by 193,000 than that, of last year, 371 more babies were born than in 1923. Against the low birth-rate there is again a lower death-rate, and a rate of infantile mortality that is the second lowest, on record. Nevertheless the rate of population increase is too small for a country of this size and possibilities. The yearly increment is decreasing. Taking the end of year figures, the increase for 1920 was 30,430, for 1921 32.131. for 1922 25.431. and for 1923 23.836. In the year before the war it was 32.035. In face of these figures what is to be said for the Government's policy qf immigration J I