HEALTH AND UNEMPLOYMENT.

Evening Star, Issue 21519, 18 September 1933, Page 8

HEALTH AND UNEMPLOYMENT.

It says much for the new social legislation and the growth of knowledge that last year, despite the depression and widespread unemployment caused by it, Britain was healthier than at any former time in its history. Sir George Newman, Chief Medical Officer of Health, who announces the cheerful tact in his annual report, is at no loss to give the reasons for it. People are learning more, ho states, about the art of living, and, mainly through better housing, increasing sobriety, and the extension of public medical services, the death rate from tuberculosis has fallen from 9.2 per 10,000 to 6.9, and in the case of pneumonia from 14.9 to 11.3. Especially notable is the decline ‘in tuberculosis, that disease being accepted everywhere as an index of nutrition, especially among children. The conclusion drawn from the figures is that there has been little or no undernourishment in Great Britain; in those areas where reduced earnings would have been naturally most conducive to that result, measures of assistance, which for some years past have been m practice, have sufficed to stave off the peril. The health record of New Zealand has been much the same during the time when unemployment has borne hardest. For the year 1931-32, despite the Hawke’s Bay earthquake, which caused 260 deaths, the crude death rate fell to 8.34 per 1,000, a figure beaten only by the record low rates m 1924 and 1925. A -new low record was made by the infant mortality rate—32.ls per 1,000 live births, and that figure fell further last year to 31.22. The mortality rate from tuberculosis, which was already the lowest in the world, fell from 4.55 per 10,000 to 4.27 in 1931. There is some evidence that, apart from the worst pressed, people tend to be healthier when money is short than when they are too prosperous. Except, perhaps, when a queen carnival is in progress, they rush about less; they can bo content with plainer food; and their health benefits accordingly.

The, outlook which is beginning to trouble Great Britain is that ot a gradually falling population, threatened by the persistent decline in the birth rate, a phenomenon which, at a higher level, is common to New Zealand. The time when births will no longer offset deaths in Britain will begin, if present trends should bo continued, in seven years from now, and the failure to plan for that new ora was the subject of a warning given recently by Professor A. M. Carr-Saund-cra, who holds the chair of social science at Liverpool University. Tho

population 01 Great Britain, ho pointed out, had boon increasing for centuries, and nearly everybody supposed that the increase would continue at least for his lifetime. Nearly all planning, whether by official bodies or private companies, had proceeded on this basis, and the industrialist thought in terms of an expanding market. But, whereas in the last century the average annual increase was well over 1 per cent., it was now only 0.3 per cent. The birth rate had been falling for half a century, with the result that the number of children below school-leaving age was declining—the peak having been reached before the war. Consequently the relative proportion of elderly persons was increasing, which meant an increase in the crude death rate. In fact, the death rate would frequently exceed the birth rate, and the population would cease to increase by 1940 and subsequently decline. “ There is a complete failure to appreciate this situation,” Professor Carr-Saunders added. “ I have seen regional plans which visualise a growth of population during the next half-century which is arrived at by projecting into the future the growth of the past fifty years. This merely results in adding a complication to the problem of planning, already complex enough, which is wholly baseless. Again, it is, I understand, the case that certain corporations have actually planned for an increase in water supply based on estimates of this kind, and that in one case at least large expenditure has been incurred to supply a population with water that will never come into existence. Already in planning schools attention is being paid to the coming decrease in the number of pupils. But in planning housing development very little attention has been paid, it seems, to the change in the size of family and to the increasing proportion of elderly couples whose children have grown up and have left home. There is no aspect of administration where the size and constitution of the probable future population ; n safely bo left out of account.” More of Britain’s production will have to go abroad, as the home demand for it is slowly reduced, arid the sociologist has cause to speculate how ideas of government may bo affected as the average ago of the community becomes higher. There are those who maintain that a smaller population will solve the unemployment problem and increase standards of living, all round. But others consider it doubtful if unemployment on the present scale is a sign of over-population, and it has even been stated as conceivable that a fall in population may mean a decline, and not ah increase, In economic standards.