A GRAVE NATIONAL PERIL

New Zealand Times, Volume LXXI, Issue 4310, 20 March 1901, Page 4

A GRAVE NATIONAL PERIL

It is :ui important step towards the remedying of an evil when its existence ;s rtce.gnised; and on the principle that ‘‘Qm s’cxcuse, s’cccuse,” it is presumptive evidence that a certain condition of j things is portentous and dangerous ivnen I champions arise to defend, explain and! apologise for such condition. All lovers : of British expansion will therefore hail ; ?. ieh some -arisfaction the appearance in 1 this country of apologists tor the practic; I ' of artificially limiting the reproduction; of the human species—a practice that; appears from statistics to bo widespread and growing. In tho 3,larch number c i tre ‘ New Zealand Illustrated Magazine” there appears a paper from the pen ol Mr W. G. McDonald dealing with what lire author describes as “The Extinction of tho Colonial/' The writer proceeds to combat tho “pessimistic despair” of men like 31 r Janies Ashcroft, who regard tho decline, in the colonial oirth rate as appalling. There is in Mr McDonald's article a tone of affected contempt for those who deplore tho “adoption of mechanical means to prevent fertilization,’' although tho writeir avers that lie dees not intend “to treat the subject, in a spirit of levity.'’ If we pass over such inaccuracies as speaking of the emu as an extinct bird indigenous to New Zealand, and attributing to Browning what is Ino to Pope, tho paper may be pronounced meritorious from a literary point of view. After reciting in tcn.cs of unbelief tho predictions that a declining birth rule must have the effect of reducing in numerical strclngth “the nation that has conquered one-sixth of the globe,” Mr McDonald hurls a gibe at the statisticians who in every country are “confidently' estimating the importance and predicting the survival of populations from their quantity' and- rale of reproduction alone.” He accepts the Spencerian dictum that advancing evolution must be accompanied’ by declining fertility', but he fails to remember that the famous philosopher recanted something of this former deduction ; and that generalisation, like many' of the assertions of old l economist's, will not stand the light of latter-day political and social science.

We cannot imagine, neither docs Mr Herbert Spencer attempt to explain, what the'evolution of mankind will lead to : hut the history ’of the world is all against the formula that this “advancing evolution/’ as manifested by a declining birth rate, is- a race-preserving process, by which individual )ife is heightened and maintained. . As was the ease in ancient Romo, so is the condition cf France to-day. A decline in rcpreductivity might have, meant “advancing individuation,” but it was certainly a. form of racial deterioration. With a declining birth rate .Rome became effeminate, weak, degraded, immoral. Tho French, onco the most cultured l of people, are ■ sadly deteriorating. France is scarcely able to maintain her numbers, and the state of her morality is proverbially and statistically low. If, a higher state of “individuation” and of national life is tho result of artificial restrictions on reproduction, and if that were the object sought for, how comes it that tho French Government, realising the weakness of the nation, is offering premiums for the purpose of encouraging an increase in the size of families? Morality, refinement and culture are not necessarily attributes of a people whose birth rate is declining. The employment of artificial means to bring about the decrease cannot surely bo other than an incitement to immorality and the degradation of the marriage state. If the. most cultured people ami the most capable, as far as worldly endowments-are concerned, had the largest families, we might expect the postulate to hold good that the race was undergoing a process of betterment or attaining a higbelr standard of “individuation.” The, least cultured have invariably the largcht families, but thenlives are doubtless none the loss moral. Mr McDonald supplies us with matter to establish that statement, and thereby destroys his own argument. Tho writer tabulates the birth rate per thousand of tho population, as 1 under :

He then proceeds to say that it would be “a mistake to infer that thei tendency towards sterility is as rapid as the foregoing figures seem to show; for about the same proportion of illegitimate children is horn year by year.’’ “If, then/’ ho concludes, “the abovel rate is a natural rale, the cause that ig operative in the one case would not be absent in the other.” But Mr McDonald is altogether wrong. Illegitimacy in Australasia has gradually increased ■ while! the birth rate has declined. In 1881-85 (vide Mr Coghla’n’s “Seven Colonics,” p. 377) the proportion per cent, of total births was 3.901 of illegitimates. , For the period 1896-99 the proportion was 5.61. "In all the colonies,” Mr Coghlan says “illegitimacy is on thd increase.” Indeed, so far is Mr McDonald in error, that we venture to affirm that large families are rather an evidence of morality than otherwise. In Ireland, for instance, ■where' families are largest, illegitimacy is lowest. It is quite correct to say that the - gradual raising of the standard of comfort is the chief cause of deferred or late marriages, but it is absurd to affirm that morality and comfort are absent where! marriages are early and the people arc comparatively poor. Neither is it conducive to morality to teach that only certain people should be allowed to marry. It is many years since Grant Allen promulgated similar doctrines, but no one took him seriously; and, although Mr McDonald has presented a phase of the question with a degree of plausibility and literary merit, his deductions are erroneous and his conclusions misleading. As tho more enlightened statesmen and thinkers of France deplore the stationary condition of the population in that country, so those among us who contemplate seriously the declining birth rate and its concomitant evils in -Australasia may be pardoned if they regard it as “a grave national peril.” . \

Ouecusland New South 'Wales .. 3890. 1899. 37.15, :i. r >.::G 27.31 27.10 West Australia 34.85 30.64 Victoria 33.60 26.71, Tasmania 33.40 25.98 South Australia 33.25 25.51 New Zealand 29.44 25.12