DEPOPULATION.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 275, 13 August 1908, Page 8

DEPOPULATION.

FRANCE AND IRELAND. TAXES ON CITIZENS WITHOUT CHILDREN. For some years past the arrest in tho growth of tho French population has been causing a good deal of uneasinoss. Ten years ago Mr. J. E. C. Bodley, in his masterly book on Franco, made several references to tho subject. "The frugal caution of the peasantry is depopulating France," ho told us; its population has scarcely increased since our Australian colonies were constituted"; '111 Marly three-fourths of the departments of France tho population is decreasing." In tho last decade things have got worse in this rospect, says tho "Irish Times."

20,000 Mora Deaths than Births. Last year's statistics show that thero wero registered neaHy 20,000 more deaths than births. This is not a feature out of tho common. It occurred some ten times during tho last century, but in four of thoso cases it was duo to somo special causo, such as war or an outbreak of cholera. The seriousness of tho present statistics is that thero is no special causo to bo assigned for them; they are merely -tho culmination of a tendency which has long been observable. It is not surprising that they have seriously alarmed the country, and have lent additional importanco to the labours of tho Commision on Depopulation that is now sitting at the Ministry of the Interior. Thero is very little doubt about tho causo of tho diminution. It is chiefly due, as Mr. Bodley said, to "tho frugal caution of the peasantry" induced by tho operation of the law of inheritance, which "has caused such an excessive subdivision of landed property that peasant proprietors meet the inevitable difficulty by limiting the number of their children." The Church end. tho Birth-rate. This tendency may have been strengthened by the breach between Church and State' in France, for it has been observed that the regions. where a normal birth-rato is maintained aro those where the teaching of the Church is most heeded But.it is mainly tho result of economical causes, which are also operating, though at present with loss marked ! effect, in our own and in other countries.

Not long ago we could contemplate with detached interest the falling-off in the French It is no longer possible for us to do so. We have become linked with our neighbour by ties which, if they are less rigid than those of a formal alliance, are perhaps all' tho closer because of their comparative elasticity.. Everything, therefore, that affects tho strength and prosperity of France is of intimate concern to the people of tho United Kingdom.

Tha Irish Decline. That the falling-off in. the population Is as serious a factor in France as it is in Ireland wo do not suggest for a moment. Thero is all the differeneco in tho world beitween a by emigration, • leavskims of tho cream of tho population, leaving an undue .proportion of the weaklings and tho worn-out, and a decrease which may leave what may be called tho effective elements in the race almost as numerous >as ever. In tho one case not only are the people going, but their loss is permanently diminishing the reproductive power of tho raco; in the other case there is an artificial restriction which, by a change of ■ law or habits, may be at any time Temoved, when tho natural tendency of a population to increase may again be expected to . assert itself. Unless, however, that change takes placo within a comparatively short' period it will bo impossible for France to maintain tho position in Europe which she has so long enjoyed; still less for her to develop an Imperial policy in her colonies and in Morocco,

M. Pigot'a Proposals. Whether the proposals 'put forward by M. Pigot, the President of he Commission to which reference has''b(&ii made 'above, will be accepted by the French Legislature, and whether, if accepted, they would lead to tho desired result, are questions which must be left to the future to decide.

M. Pigot' suggests, and the Commission ondorses the suggestion, that; a ■ special tax : should bo imposed on ' 'citizens without children," and that fathers of families should have their taxes lowered in accordance with tho number of their children- "The idea is not altogether a new one," says tho correspondent of the "Times" at Paris. Indeed it is not. It is just about as old as tho Christian Era, for it will be nineteen hundred years next' year' since there was passed at Rome the Lex Papia Poppaea.. Under this a candidate who had several children was preferred to one who had fewer, and freedmen who had a certain number of children were excused from some of the ordinary obligations to the State.

Setting Up a Nursery. There ■is a • good deal to be said on general principles for the proposal that fathers of families should bo granted some remission of taxation in proportion to the number of their offspring. It may bo questioned, however, whether the imposition of a special tax on childless citizens would, have the desired result. The tax would have to be of positively tyrannical dimensions before it would induce the kind of persons who have hitherto evaded parental responsibilities to face the trouble'and expense of setting up a nursery. A more successful, way of arresting the decline in population would be to alter the law of inheritance. Somo day it may come to'that, if the falling-off becomes much more marked. But so conservative in these social matters are the majority of the French electors'that at present it "would probably be easier to v carry even M. Plot's proposals..