THE BIRTH RATE.

Feilding Star, Volume XXIII, Issue 119, 16 November 1901, Page 2

THE BIRTH RATE.

9 • Some of our New Zealand contemporaries are wailing over the decreasing birth rate, and asserting that notwithstanding our advantages of climate and other benefits our roll, is steadily coming to the point of being stationery. No doubt that is an evil, but it is one which finds its own remedy. Now, in finding an artificial cure for this very same evil we are told by an exchange that Servia is in trouble with an epidemic of marriages, and a consequent undesirable inetease in the population. It appears that tbe cause of this remarkable state of affaire \a traced to the system of marriage banks fcwn4ed as an encouragement to thrift, bu( which have proved to have quite an opposite effect. The young men and maidens oi Servia begh? paying into these institutions at an early age on the promise of a premium on marriage. Immediately a small sum has been accumulated, the desire for marriage grows overwhelming, with the result that the first offer is snapped up. In consequence, prematurely early and unhappy marriages are general. The matter has now reached such lengths that it is seriously troubling the Government, flbd tbe »4>^Vilit/ of alolfsUlus

these banks, which are held to be the root of the evil, is being debated. From this it will be seen that it is better to avoid any artificial means whatever in cases of this kind.