Babies Best "Immigrants"

Manawatu Times, Volume 62, Issue 68, 22 March 1937, Page 7

Babies Best "Immigrants"

Encourage Young Parents COUNTRY’S BIRTH RATE. Ter Press Association. INVERCARGILL, Last Night. ‘ ‘The most disquieting and depressing feature of our national statistics is the fall in the birth rate,” said the Minister of Health, Hon. P. Fraser, in his address at the opening of the new hospital yesterday.” That our birth rate should be kept as high as possible is important at present and of immense importance to the future of the country.” There was at the present time a great deal of discussion about the necessity for a bigger population, and various suggestions had been made about a renewal of immigration. Steps would certainly have to be taken to secure a bigger population for the Dominion, but not until New Zealand’s economic life had been so arranged as to absorb all physically fit workers. Nor could there be any argument about the fact tfiat the best “immigrants” were babies born in our own land and born of healthy, vigorous and intellectual parents —parents such as we have in our own young men and women. “Young parents should be encouraged to have children,” the Miuistei said, and with this as one of its objectives the Government was anxious that the maternal mortality rate of the Dominion should be the lowest on earth and that motherhood should be made as safe and as free from pain as possible. To further this aim a committee had now begun an extensive examination of the maternity service of the Dominion with a view to taking steps, wherever necessary, to make it the most efficient service that could be obtained so that the best informed, most scientific and most skilled care and attention could be at the disposal of mothers of the Dominion.