EUGENICS OR EXTINCTION.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLVIII, Issue 14587, 25 January 1911, Page 5

EUGENICS OR EXTINCTION.

THE DRIFT FROM COUNTRY TO CITY

[by TELEGRAPH.—FIIESS association.]

. Dxtnbdes-, Tuesday. '"'■"' Dn, Findlay, in a lecture on "Urbanisation and National Decay" before the Eugenics

Society to-night, said nearly 77- per cent, of the population of Great Britain lived in cities and towns. In New • Zealand a few years ago the rural population exceeded the borough population, but to-day the position was reversed. In all large cities the birthrate was maintained mainly by the least ' fit. In the poorer parts of Berlin there were 214 children to every: 1000 married women; in , the richest parte, 121. In London the difference was about the same. He desired to mark three things—(l) that the birth-rate was dwindling fastest in the cities, (2) that the reduced rate was chiefly maintained by the fertility of the least fit, (3) that the population of. New Zealand was steadily drifting to the towns and cities. The prospect justified the.bold statement that for them the future meant .either . eugenics or extinction. One family of defectives, in all its branches prolific, would in a few years cost us in asylums, gaols, and homes some £20,000. Two imbecile girls had produced 15 illegitimates, and everyone of these would be dependent during their whole lives "on the State for everything, including their ultimate burial. Among the suggested eugenic remedies -was a new marriage law, which would prevent juvenile marriages. Specifically .'the State should cardinally aim (1) to keep people on the land, (2) to enforce arid insist on' the mostapproved method of town planning. Land for settlement must be found and country life must be made more attractive if this country was to' rise to greatness. It must check the agents of degeneration and promote those that would improve the physical and mental qualities of the people.. _