THE OUTLOOK FOR FRANCE

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1610, 7 January 1903, Page 69 (Supplement)

THE OUTLOOK FOR FRANCE

"What do I think P. Well, it is very simple. 'lf the excess of the death rate over the birth rate continues to follow the present average, before twenty years are over France will have ceased to exist/* This was the alarming opinion, expressed by Dr Jacques Bertillon, director of the Statistical Service of the city of Pavi<v +f> a visitor who had called for precise information on the subject, as it is already well known that matters in this respect have been going from bad to worse, in spite of Senator Plot’s energetic campaign against the depopulation of the country. This authority, added that he meant what he said, and was not using a figure of speech. "I consider,” he continued, "that the situation n»a never been so serious as has been the ease during the past year or two. as the evil, notwithstanding all the efforts which have been made to. cure it, is only becoming more pronounced.” Then he went into sober statistics. Was there a remedy? How, he concluded, could there be one when the law set itself resolutely i& lay every possible burden on large families. Custom duties, the octroi, a number of taxes—including the blood one—• were all grave detriments to the increase of population, for every Frenchman waa officially invited in his own interest and in that of his posterity to keep it down. Sc explained Dr Jacques Bertillon, that if the law were modified affairs might improve. But there are other reasons which no change of this sort can affect. The rural districts are being deserted for the towns, where large families are a practical impossibility, as, even if they can he fed, they •sannot be lodged, while, again, most people pi efer ease and amusement-to a struggle and responsibilities. As, for the country, there is a manifest reluctance on the part of landed proprietors, large or small, to see their estates or farms subdivided, as must happen if they have several heirs. Ambition, indeed, has a good deal to do with all this, as families want to rise and not to fall into decay. ■ All this is really a case of quality versus quantity, and the chances are that the tendency which ia creating so much patriotic anxiety will grow to an even more considerable extent rather than diminish.