POPULATION PROBLEMS

Auckland Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue 302, 21 December 1937, Page 6

POPULATION PROBLEMS

FAMILY SUBSIDY SYSTEM.

(To the Editor.)

I am to some extent in accord with the opinions of your correspondent "Uncle of Twentv-Three*'" but do not think that women "look down" on mothers of several children. On the contrary, they envy them. The matter of desire is as natural to the childless couples as to the pa rente of several offspring. It is absurd to class a man a "brute"' because his acquiescent partner presents him with a numerous family. In order to encourage the birth rate. I agree that every mother who needs help from the State should be granted a liberal subsidy, to be determined according to the familv income. This system would surely greatly minimise abortion, as it would, per se, allay "anxiety as to the additional expense of rearin" children. I have advocated a bachelor tax for many years, but it is manifestly absurd to suggest taxing spinsters, who in nearlv everv case remain unmarried through no fault of "their own. It would be unreasonable to tax childless couples, in most cases due to physical conditions beyond their control. Since this" vital discussion has to be approached from so many complex viewpoints. I feel assured that each country must work out its own population problems, but to my mind the logical conclusion, imprimis, is to tax the bachelor (after, say, 25) up to the amount that it would cost to maintain a wife decently, which lie could still avoid by marriage. AUDI ALTERAM PARTEM. Tn the correspondence column "H.H."' says that he was much impressed by the article hv "Forthright"' under the heading "Youth Despairs."' And he goes on to say that in the article he found the answer to his situation, "unemployment," which is to seek employment overseas. But how does that square with "'ForthrightV' advocacy of immigration? Does not each see that given any set of general social conditions —and it is fundamentals and not a few details or degrees I am here concerned with—under which there is unemployment. no matter what the population way be between a sparse one and the full carrying capacity of the country, there will be little alteration in the proportion of unemployed, rich or poor, young or old. sick or well, weak or strong mentally or physically? It is just a matter of taking any multiple you like and applying it to each section and the aggregate. And the conditions are not the making of this Government, for the unemployed were with us long before it took office; in fact they have l>een slowly but surely increasing since before your birth, and are prominent in every country but Russia. That is overseas: would vou like to go there, WALTER SCOTT.