The Evening Star SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 10, 1940. DECLINE OF POPULATION.

Evening Star, Issue 23497, 10 February 1940, Page 10

The Evening Star SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 10, 1940. DECLINE OF POPULATION.

Timect arid thought-provoking was the address entitled 1 How Nations Die,’ given by the distinguished visiting physician, Dr Halliday Sutherland, on Thursday evening. From time to time New Zealanders and British people in general have been warned of the dangers of a falling birth rate and failure adequately to fill those big open spaces included m Empire territory. Widely, but all too vaguely it has been agreed that “ something should be done about it.” So far signs of a practical awakening have been barely perceptible. Our people are too prone to the indolent and careless living so sharply criticised by Dr Sutherland—the indolent living created by the comforts of civilisation and by methods of birth-control in opposition to Nature’s laws. The visiting lecturer, who has obviously mode a close study of statistics, the accuracy of which cannot be disputed, stated that, although New Zealand’s population had doubled since 1899, the natural increase during the first 36 years of this century had been but 147,015, which, on a percentage basis,, represented a pronounced decline. Since 1900 the crude birth rate each 1,000 of the population had receded from 26.34 to 17.29 in 1937, and the number of children each 1,000 married women of child-bearing ages had fallen from 246.2 to 136.6 in 1936. For this state of affairs Dr Sutherland does not hesitate to blame the use of contraceptives and the practice of abortion. In the light of the findings of the commission that recently investigated abortion in the Dominion his charges in this respect cannot be refuted. It is well known, however, that during the last. half-century the crude birth rate of every European country has also declined, in most cases in a very marked manner. The rate for England and Wales was 33.5 per 1,000 of the population for the -period 1871-75, and had declined to 18.8 in 1924. Evidently, writes one British authority, there has been a decrease in the fertility of married women, and this has been the chief factor in bringing about the decrease in the crude birth rate. He adds, significantly enough, that the dei dine must b© due in small part only to the increasing age of wives and that it began at a time when widespread propaganda was launched in favour of family limitation. Another of his findings is that the decline has been least in Roman Catholic countries where family limitation is discouraged. Statistics for Asia are notoriously untrustworthy, but, in view of the decline in so many European countries, there is something perturbing about estimates which disclose an annual increase in world population. This can only mean that increases are taking place outside European nations. According to Dr Martin Gum pert, a German physician and author, the people of Germany are by no means enjoying the vigorous good health attributed to them by the Nazi propaganda machine. Although no right-think-ing person will feel disposed to rejoice oyer misfortunes by way of ill-health which afflict an enemy people, it may in some measure he a comfort to hear from Dr Gumpert that Hitler is failing in his object of building up a race of supermen who will dominate the earth. He writes: “ On the whole, after sis years of ‘ health-giving ’ Nazi rule, the general mortality rate has risen considerably. Some 80,000 more persons die annually in the new Germany than in the old. This fact is the more striking because for the last fourteen years every other country in the world except Colombia, Egypt, and Greece shows a decline in the mortality rate. The German death rate has increased for nearly every age group, but particularly for the levels of one to 15 years and 20 to 45. Every form of compulsion at the command of the State has been mobilised to increase marriage and propagation heavy taxation of bachelors, privileges for large families, public distinction for mothers, and provision of credits for marriages. Yet marriages receded from 12.2 per 1,000 in 1934' to 8.9 per 1,000 in 1937, and the present birtlj rate is 9.5 per 1,000 ,

lower than is needed to keep the papulation at its present level.” The British Empire, however, should he more concerned with its own welfare. This Dominion has been convincingly warned by Dr Sutherland against the dangers of race suicide. His remarks should not be allowed to fall on deaf ears.