PLEA FOR HIGHER BIRTHRATE

Dominion, Volume 37, Issue 118, 14 February 1944, Page 4

PLEA FOR HIGHER BIRTHRATE

Danger Of Empty Spaces ASSOCIATION SUGGESTS SOLUTION The opinion that New Zealanders had deliberately left their rich country underpopulated that they anight enjoy the highest standard of living in the world is expressed toy the Wellington branch of the Dominion Settlement Association in a resume of its report on the natural increase of the population. To the end stated, says the report, immigrants had been kept out, even British. This could not have been done

but for the protection of the British Navy. So there was the anomaly of the British taxpayer paying for the New Zealanders’ protection while they used that protection to keep out the protectors. In the years between the wars the British Government, says the report, had asked New Zealand repeatedly to take British migrants and settle them on waste lands. Britain offered to pay the expenses of transport, to take back the misfits, and at the same time warned that empty spaces were a danger to tho maintenance of peace. Though New Zealand’s own birthrate was falling, she had the temerity to refuse. They must not blame Governments for this. The people were definitely aud vociferously against an influx of immigrants. They had now come face to face with the fact that the shrinking population not only offered no future, but had become a danger to their very existence. The community was vaguely aware of it, but seemed little disturbed. The Pacific was swarming with dark races, most of whose countries were overcrowded and their soil outworn. What view must they take of the empty spaces of New Zealand? Moreover, it had been estimated that if the present rate of decline was not cheeked, the population of New Zealand at the end of this century might not be much larger than it was in 1840. The people had to be roused to prevent this catastrophe, not the Government.

No democratic Government could take many steps ahead of public opinion. It seemed that at all cost New Zealand must improve her own birthrate. Europe no longer had teaming populations anxious to migrate even if the door was open to them. New Zealanders must depend on themselves—they must increase their own birthrate. This, the association suggested, could largely be done by making motherhood attractive. Every form of labour —male and female—had succeeded in getting protection and help from the State save only for the labour of bearing and rearing children. A girl working in a factory was protected in wages, hours and conditions, but if she married she might be doomed to work in poor conditions for 12 hours a day at no wage at all. Was a woman earning . a salary likely to give it up for family life that held such risks? Motherhood Endowment. If children were the most valuable asset of the Dominion, the producing and rearing of them should be the best remunerated’ of all Services. Motherhood should be the best-paid occupation or career a woman could take up. The as? sociation proposed the granting of .a motherhood endowment large enough to cover the whole expense of a child’s upbringing—an allowance which would amount to economic independence for the mother without reference to the income of the husband. This was not proposed solely for the benefit of women. Men would gain by it just as much. They might marry early and be relieved of the responsibility that so often deterred a man from marrying at all. The present basic wage for a man was based on the support of himself, wife and two children. Would not a scheme be immediately possible whereby any increase in the award was regulated solely by the number of children —no children, no increase. The falling birthrate must

not be blamed on the parents. The economic machine had been geared to achieve great results. Everyone who worked was immeasurably better off than in the past, except the parent. Unless means could be found to provide parents with the same leisure and standard of comfort that they would have, enjoyed had they refused ’parenthood no improvement could be expected. It was not sug gested that women should not take up careers, but if they chose motherhood they must not have the dice loaded against them financially. Motherhood was also a career and should be made the most attractive of all.