THE BIRTH-RATE.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 14281, 1 August 1908, Page 14

THE BIRTH-RATE.

Sir,—The agent for Ihc liquor sellers, in a letter in your correspondence columns lately, assert..*! that thy absenc© of liquor licenses was responsible for a diminished birth-rate. He has t»en repeatedly asked to allow the conncction between the two things, but, of course, cannot. Next, the iN'ew Zealand returns and Otago figures were published in official memoranda: whon, lo! the birth-rate in Dunetlin was shown to have decreased three times a 6 much as that of Maine! Koine driven to bay, the Licensed Victuallers' Association's a#ent then assarted, "" The plague has reached Dunedin right enough! it is tho agitation for no-license here that is responsible." According to him, the agitation for no-lioenso has decreased the birth-rate three times as much as nolicense law in operation. But again he does not attempt to ehow the connection between tho two things: ho cannot. Sir, thee© ravings are an insult to the citizenship of the 190,000 no-license voters of Now Zealand; and they are a slur upon tho intelligence of the community, in his presuming upon its acceptance of such staff. But a, furtlier fall awaits the liquor representative. In tho letter from your own correspondent in Scotland, publislied in your issue of July 27, reference is made to tile decline of the birth rate in Sootland, showing that the births for 190? were 3131 below the total for 1806, and 3556 Ices than the average annual number for each of the previous five years. The whole paragraph in the letter is a most interesting one, showing the results of much research on this topic; and it puts completely ont of court, such childish statements as we have been listening to lately from tho went of the Otago spirit merchants and liquor sellers. This gentleman must now cut a very sorry plight; unless, of oourse, lie asserts tliat it is the cffcot of the projected British Government's Licensing Bill that has caused tho deoreaaa of tho birth-rato in Scotland! If he do© that, will he also tell us what effect the fumes of the whisky consumed in Uunedin hare upon the inhabitants of Mara!—l am, etc.. July 28. An Elector. Sir, —Someone writing; in your columns a few days ago under the name of "Woodlander " gives a typical example of the common sense and patriotism of a certain crowd who try and dominate over and i tyrannise ordinary natural citizens. " Woodlander" states that the illegitimate births of New Zealand aTe only about 1100, when the figures of your paper a. few days ago gave these as 1157, and if we allowed for a wider basis than registry they must be well over 1200, or 5 per cent, of total births. Continuing his remarks, he states that if the Church and tho Nolic'ense party could manage to exterminate these awful immoral babies they would reduce our abundant overflowing birth rate by 20,000 in the next 34 years (in reaJity it would be nearer 30,000), and, in effect, he adds, with the smug pnrblindness of all agitators against everything natural and human, that surely no one could think of censuring these moral St. Anthony*; for consummating so monstrous a slaughter of future -British citizens. Then, as a partial excuse for eliminating the supply of babies that are at present the only meaus of keeping our birth rate above a mere stationary, or, worse, decreasing level, ho explains his doctrine by declaring that doubtless these helpless infants must grow up scoundrels. Then, j us a last touch of logic, he fetateß that we all know that men and women when under the stimulant of intoxicants do things that in their sober_ (and moral) 6enses they I would not think of doing. So, as a reverse of his doctrine, one may think that there should be hope for the British race yet if people will only continue to be merely human and have their "failings." 1 —I am, etc., Woodchopper, '■ Dunedin, July 30.