[PRESS ASSOCIATION.] "URBANITY AND NATIONAL DECAY."

Evening Post, Volume LXXXI, Issue 20, 25 January 1911, Page 3

[PRESS ASSOCIATION.] " URBANITY AND NATIONAL DECAY."

LECTURE BY DR. FINDLAY. DUNEDIN, 24th January. Dr. Findlay, in a lecture on "Urbanisation and National Decay/ before

the Eugenics Society to-night, said, in connection with fertility of the unfit, that the modern tendemy to drift into towns was largely accountable. Nearly 77 per cent, of the population of Britain, lived in cities and towns. In New Zealand a few years ago the rural population exceeded the borough population, but to-day the position was reversed. In all large cities the birth-rate was maintained mainly by the least fit. Jn the poorer part 'of 'Berlin there were 214 children to every 1000 married women; in the richest parts 121. In London the difference was about the same. He desired to mark three things — (1) That the birth-rate was dwindling fastest in the cities. (2) That the reduced rate is chiefly maintained by the fertility of the le»st fit. (3) That the population of New Zealand is steadily drifting to the town and cities. The prospect justified the bold statement that for them the future meant either eugenics or extinction. One family of defectives in all its branches prolific would in a few years cost us in asylums, gaols, and homes some £20.000. Two imbecile girls had produced 15 illegitimates, and every one of these would be dependent during their whole lives on the State for everything, including ultimate burial. Among the suggested eugenic remedies was the new marriage law, which would prevent juvenile marriages. Specifically the State should cardinally aim (1) to keep the people on the land and (2) to enforce and -assist the most approved method ot town planning. Land for settlement must be found, and country life must be made more attractive. If this country was to rise to greatness it must check agents of degeneration, and promote those that would improve the physical and menta- 1 qualities of the people.