STERILISATION URGED FOR WELFARE STATE

Greymouth Evening Star, 29 November 1949, Page 5

STERILISATION URGED FOR WELFARE STATE

LONDON, November 28 (Rec. 1 p.m.).—“The time .is quickly coming when sterilisation of the unfit will have to be essential in our social organisation,” said Dr E. W. Barnes, Bishop of Birmingham, addressing a Rotary Club luncheon. He said: “Such sterilisation may well be a complement of the Welfare State.” • Dr Barnes continued: “The goodliving, honest, hard-working classes must be preserved, whether rich or poor, but we must get rid of the slovenly, vicious, idle masters in the community.” “Virtually Bankrupt” .Unfortunately, he said the Welfare JState was only too likely to encourage their increase. The Welfare State was a great achievement and would doubtless be followed elsewhere, but social reforms created new situations in which new and sometimes troublesome problems arose.

Britain, he said, was becoming over-populated. The task of buying more food from overseas was more difficult for a virtually bankrupt country. “We look like being permanently the paupers of the English-speaking world,” he said. “We need.to restrict our population. The people must be educated to have smaller families and we must have medical-ly-controlled sterilisation, of the grosser forms of unfitness.’ Dr Barnes added that many were beginning to think that medicallycontrolled euthanasia for defective infants should be an element in our social policy. He had met mothers of .such children who were thankful when death brought release. Smaller Families Replying to questions, Dr Barnes said he referred to sterilisation of the unfit—the 6to 10 per cent, who were mentally below par. Large-scale sterilisation of good citizens was an absurdity and because of that he spoke of the necessity for educating people to have smaller families. Britain’s moral prestige was such that, if they set an example to the world, other races, when they saw the necessity for it, would follow.