TEE BIRTH-RATE IN NEW ZEALAND.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XL, Issue 12194, 13 February 1903, Page 6

TEE BIRTH-RATE IN NEW ZEALAND.

Dr. Yatsima, a Japanese social sciene* specialist, has lately been, travelling in this colony, and lias been /interviewed by the New Zealand Times ot the subject of the birth-rate. We give tome extracts front his statement: — /

" Yqu wish to know why your country which is progressing in wealth and com' fort, should be cursed with a decreasing birth-rate. This as the riddle of the Sphinx, which faces all progressive nations. I fear I shall not prove to be the CEdipus who will solve it, but 1 will tell you all I know. Have you ever kept canaries? I did one*, when I was a little boy. I fed them till they were so fat that they could hardly Imp on to the perch, I thought to make them happy, and hoped they would breed, but they did not. When I left home they fell into less careful hands, and became thin, and were often hungry. On my return, I found x family of young canaries. These things show the universal law tersely expressed in the Persian proverb: —

'A full belly, a bed of roses, and an empty cradle.' ' A higher standard of comfort, abundance of food, more leisure, are good things, bat roses have thorns, and the rose of fatness bears the thorn of sterility. In every nation which is softening under the influence of wealth, luxury, and idleness, prevention is widely practised. The chief causes of this are. firstly, on the part of the man, an unwillingness to reduce his family to » position in which his finances will be unable to afford accustomed comforts, and to bring into the world children for whom he thinks he will be unable to provide suitably; and, on the part of the woman, an increasing shrinking from the actual pains of childbirth, and from the penalties of a curtailed social life. There is no evidence, that women are inferior, mentally or physically, to their fore-mothers, or are less well adapted to the offices of procreation and maternity; but increased luxury and self-indulgence bring increased sensitiveness to pain, diminished fortitude and an intolerance of 'res angusta domi. ■ Every faddist has recommended his own nostrum as a panacea—the single-taxer the prohibitionist, the land the priest, the physician, the capitalist' the labour agitator. Some of them are silly enough to talk of legislation. No legislation can force people to breed against their will; and the inspector, so dear to you New Zealanders, would here be more useless and offensive than usual. The press ; and the pulpit might do a great deal, by leading public opinion to practise 'plain living and high thinking,' to reprobate luxury and idleness, to regard a large' family as a crown of glory, and the parents thereof as true patriots.' Alas, how often, does bread and butter choke the voice of ethe counsellor. The Legislature should see that more care is taken of the children, and especially of those- love-children, who the fruiS of untrammelled natural passion', albeit unsanctioned by the narrow rule of society, are perhaps the nation's best asset. Why should parents have the right so to treat their children that one out of every 15 does not attain the age of one yew? Surely 'parental right' is a fetish which may work much evil. Again, your aged citizens are pensioned, and rightly so. Why do you not similarly provide for your children, the hope and promise of_ your nation? Encouragement to procreation might be given by granting a subsidy to every child, to be doubled in cases where the family exceeds five in number. Above all harden your children, teach them the virtues of fresh air, hard beds, cold water, and self-denial. Show them that the purpose of life is not to live for themselves alone, nor only to make money, and to 'get on,' but that the higher life is to live for "the welfare and happiness of others. Commercialism and altruism are almost incompatible, vet the latter is the touchstone of life. With its factories, its competition, its crooked ways, and its money bags, commercialism fosters the worst side of a nation's character, and destroys its physique by encouraging town life. With dwindling physique and decaying morals, no town-living nation will en* dure.

"The surest sign of racial decay is a waning birth-rate. Your great British nation, like an ancient and hoary oak, spreads its branches wer the whole earth, but deep into its very vitals bores and bores the worm of luxury. By the unsparing hand and rigid rule of a Lycurgus, but in no other way, could its doom be averted. The wood must be hardened that the worni may die. You look upon us as barbarians, unfit for admission into your country, but the sons of my nation, hardened by war and adversity, and tempered in the fires of poverty, are even now gazing forward to the time when your decadent star shall have set. Possibly, if you read your riddle aright you may avert your threatened doom. Who knows