ROY OR GIRL BABIES

Matamata Record, Volume XIX, Issue 1742, 25 June 1936, Page 2

ROY OR GIRL BABIES

A 50-50 PROPORTION A distinguished visitor to New Zealand declared in an interview last 'week that Nature had helped Fiji in a difficult period by adjusting the ratio of girls born compared with boys. There were now 70 girls born in Fiji to every 100 boys. At present mankind is unabje to adjust the ratio of the sexes. We can only guess at the forces involved in the matter. Experience, however, does seem to indicate that Nature, in her own quiet way, brings forces into operation to restore the balance when it is disturbed. Taking the world as a whole the proportion between the sexes is as near fifty-fifty as does not matter. For some reason which is not known some countries produce more girls than boys and other countries do just the reverse. In New Zealand, excluding Maoris, • some 960 girls are bom to every 1000.; boys. In Britain, in normal times, about 1080 girls are born to every 1000 boys. It Japan 980 girls are born to every. 1000 boys. It will be seen that without any observable Teason the proportion varies in all parts of the world. Great War Example. What forces are involved to restore the; fifty-fifty sex ratio balance when it is disturbed by outside influences are not yet known. All that is known is that when. for some reason or other a large proportion of one sex is eliminated Nature does step in and arrange ; for more babies of that sex to be born. 1 This was noticeable in Britain after the Great War. j: By the end of the war and for ten or twelve years after more boys were '

born than is normal. Between the f years 1919 and 1930 Nature arranged ' that nearly a million more boys were ! born than girls. This has ensured;} that the man-power losses sustained in the war by Britain, approximately a million, were made good within the next ten years. ( . It will be, seen that in a country like J Britain, where the normal ratio is 1080 I female births for every 1000 male j births, the Great War succeeded in re- ! versing the ratio, producing in 1919 j 1060 boys for every 1000 girls. By the ! year 1929 the proportion had fallen to 1040 boys to 1000 girls. A Chemical Source. Although it is not known how Nature arranges- to make up losses in any given sex recent experiments , seem to indicate a line of investiga- 1 tion. The 1 change appears to have basically a chemical source. It has been noticed that hard times, poor food, starvation, and nervous tension tend to produce in the human race a preponderance of boys. Soft times, on the other hand, produce a preponderance of females. If war increases the male births, peace, and particularly decadence, produces a nation almost entirely girls and women. In parts of Bolivia such as Chiquitos, where profound peace has been enjoyed for untold years, nine girls are bora to every boy. The result has been that the men have degenerated. The women run. the community. Women do all the I hard work. It would seem that Nature has reduced the supply of males 1 to such limits that unless a few were j still required for the procreation of girl babies no males at all would be born. Similar results have been observed among other communities, as far apart as India and the Pacific, where similar community conditions have prevailed.