BIRTHS AND HEALTH

Evening Post, Volume CXIII, Issue 128, 3 June 1927, Page 6

BIRTHS AND HEALTH

In recent comments upon tho falling birth rate in New Zealand we pointed out that, while this teudoncy mvist bo viowed with, concern, there were other facts which made it loss alarming. A similar view is taken by a correspondent who writes of now problems of population,in the Lister Centenary Number of "Tho Times." The writer points out that, while the birth rate has been falling steadily for forty years, the death rate^ and the infant death rate havo falien side by side with it. Thero has been a definite movement towards longer life —"Back to Methuselah" in Mr. Bernard Shaw's phrase. One consequence is that : the averago ago of the population has risen steadily, and to-day tho proportion of young children in Great Britain is only about 60 per cent, of what it I was 80 years ago. This in itself tends to produce a population less and less under the domination of youth—gradually growing older and, seemingly, less capable of hard work and high endeavour. But against this tho writer quite properly sets the fact of improving health, which is seen not only in longer life but in better life. The man ;of forty to-day, it is pointed out, is, genorally speaking, fitter, keener, stronger, and y"ounger. Youth also is healthier, and so is childhood. From cradle to grave both men and women lead more effective lives and impose, ! even in childhood and old age, fewer burdens on their fellows. These are facts which should not bo overlooked. When we measure by the standards of fifty years ago we should remember that they are not fixed standards of quality. The problem of the falling birth rate cannot be ignored, but it is not the only measure of the national capacity.