LIVING CONDITIONS

Evening Post, Volume CV, Issue 142, 16 June 1923, Page 13

LIVING CONDITIONS

10 ME EDITOR,

Sir,—Just a word in reply to "Young larent, whoso letter appeared in this evening s -Post." It i s indeed shocking Uiat on an average income, (presumably live, to six pounds v per week) one should bo forced to-try and rear a family. Does it ever strike such people that our fathers and .mothers, who made this Dominion what it is for us, brought up often nine to eleven children on what would now be equal to about four pounds per week ? But them they wore not afraid of hard work, and did not want to always wear silks and yelour and feod their darlings on chocolates and ico creams, nor dress them in beaver hate and kid. gloves. They wore contont with neat, warm, tidy clothes, three good meals a day, not much meat or cake or luxuries such as are. found on every-da-y tables nowadays. It's true enough that what is wrong with people nowadays is the cost of high living. As to educational advantages, if'youngsters have average ability and any grit at all they can earn free education to the University. As an instance: I know a family of nine whose mother never had more than 30s per week for all expenses barring rent, and out of these nine children there are some real good citizens, two of whom bear University degrees three of whom were teachers in our State primary schools and one in a secondary school, two more were well-trained nurses, one more a missionary. Three- daughters now married have provided their parents with 20 grandchildren. If all these, only averago folk who aro not afraid to work are not. occupying positions of usefulness,' then tell me who is.

The causes operating to bring a roduc- , w°n in the. birth-rate are not economic- at all, but moral. Until we get back to the standard of the New Testament, and especially of the Sermon on tho Mount there is no hope of a selfish, lazy, pleasure-lov-ing; fashion-following generation doing their duty to tho country. Every healthy couple with an income of six pounds per w-!t v?. 1} d Tory Ivell roar five children. With little, mora we have six, and intend to have more, and as far as I can sco our kiddios aro as comfortably clad and well led as tho pampered ones and twos in our neighbourhood. To bo sure, we have no money for pictures and such like entertainments. If folks have no home let them do as othera havo done-scrapo a deposit out of their little luxuries for a while, and get a, roof over their heads. Personally, I would live in a tent before I would be dictated to by house-owners as to the number of children I must bring. Ihis miserable business of wanting the Government to.wet-nurse people, out of the public.purse, who are too selfish to help themselves, is a mark of degeneracy It is not reasonable economy that makos women old before their time, but the mad rush to have as fine a home and as flash clothes as the next-door people. Be content with plain clothes and food and plain living m every way, and the birth-rate won t worry you, even if it's nine or ten m your home. And if your neighbours think you're old-fashioned, show them tho true way to live full, useful, and happy lives. Poor sticks of oak furniture and rags of silk and velvet and celluloid dolls for tho one spoiled darling of the home are the gods many women make- to worship and slave for, and what lasting pleasure do they bring? Nothing to equal the love of boys and girls growing up to bring credit and honour to their parents to repay tho toil and sacrifice- oF roaring them; while often tho pampered onfl or two bring shame- and disgrace on their friends, for the simple" reason that they have only seen selfishness and pleasuroseoking- in their own homes, and know nothing of tho grand ideals of duty and self-denial. The lesson we all need to learn is "that life h more than moat ajid th» body more than raiment."—l am etc., I

ANTI-BIRTH CONTROL.