"RACE SUICIDE" IN FRANCE

Evening Post, Volume XCV, Issue 23, 26 January 1918, Page 9

"RACE SUICIDE" IN FRANCE

For half a year the French Academy of Medioine has been deliberating upon a report drawn up by Professor Charles Richet on behalf of a special committee appointed to enquire into the problem of depopulation in France. No decision has as yet been announced, but it is thought probable that in xma form, or another, the Academy will recommend endowment of motherhood by tho State.

For Profes3or Richot is disinclined to accept some ol the more popular explanations of the falling birth rate. He is doubtful even of the common -belief that the extraordinary decline in Franco is in any_ considerable measure duo to the inheritance laws providing tor the division of property, for whereas tho fall of the birth rate has been particularly remarkable only_ in tho last 40 years, tho law to which it is so often attributed has been ifc iorco fo* mori> than & century.! Moreover, it is observed iii classes th&t h«,vfc no property to bequeath, and are therefore not subject to the law in question. As to the supposition that the waning influence of the Church is an important factor, Professor • Richet points out that though among tho Bretons the birth rate is realtively high, yet it is very low in other communities no less religious. Nor does he believe that much importance can bo attached to tho migration from country to town, tho truth being that in somo districts the urban birth rate is actually higher than the rural. On one point ho agrees with the great majority o£ observers —namely, that in France, as elsewhere the decline is attributable: <in the main to voluntary and deliberate birth control, dictated, perhaps, by more exacting standards of social comfort and a growing disinclination among women to devote the best part of their lives to rearing children. A desire to take a larger share in activities formerly monopolised by men is doubtless an important consideration,but Professor Richet belicve3 that the expense involved in rearing children is the most important of all, the cost of a child up to the age of 15 averaging, according to his estimate, about one-sixth of the father's annual earnings. \\. is for this season that he believes tho State must sooner or later pay those who undortako to provide for the perpetuation of the race.—Now 'York Tribune