BIRTH STATISTICS.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18874, 29 May 1923, Page 7

BIRTH STATISTICS.

COMMUNITY'S HEALTH UNDERMINED.

AN OUTSPOKEN CRITIC. . (Per United Press Association.) . WELLINGTON, May 28. The If on. W. H. Briggs, chairman of the Venereal Diseases Committee, in ,a statement referring'to the Bishop of Willochra’s charges regarding the chastity of the women of Now Zealand, says it was not until the bishop, by a mistake very natural to one not accustomed to handling statistics, drew a too-sweeping inference from the figures that any public discussion 61 this particular paragraph of the committee’s report tool; piaco. He suggests that it is unfortunate that correspondents in the public press on the subject'seem far more anxious to comment on the arithmetical slip made by thebishop than to help him to rouse the public, conscience in regard to an evil which is not only undermining the physical and moral health of the community, but is threatening the very foundations of society. “Let there be no mistake about the matter,’’ says he. “It is almost impossible to. exaggerate the seriousness of the evil.”' . The committee, in compiling the statistics, did not pick ouj; any particular year, but took a series of years, which is generally recognised as the proper course. It so happened that the period they took (1913-21) covered the war period, and it was possible that some of the sexual laxity shown .to exist might be attributable to the excitement and unsettleraent associated with war, but making every allowance the condition of affairs disclosed was such as to give the gravest concern to every lover of this young country who had any regard for its social and moral welfare. .Witness-after witness, doctors and social workers and others, testified to the growing laxity of young people and the evils resulting therefrom. In order to eliminate the; possibilities of exaggeration the committee asked for exact figures and found that in the period 1913-21 there were 10,84-1 illegitimate births registered, but that out of 33,755 legitimate births occurring within one year after marriage, there were no fewer than 12,235 which occurred within the first seven months after marriage; and which therefore might be safely considered to have been conceived before marriage, “Those figures,” he added, “are beyond dispute. It must be observed, moreover, that they comprise only instances in -which extramarital intercourse was followed by a living jssue. Surely, in the face of these facts, it is futile, if not absolutely criminal, to quibble about percentages or to charge anyone who refers to so grave a menace as making an attack on the chastity of the women of New Zealand.” THE AMENDE HONOURABLE. BISHOP’S RETRACTION. AN INCORRECT DEDUCTION. WELLINGTON, Ms- 28. The Bishop of Willochra states .-—With regard to the interpretation I put on a statement made in the report of the Committee of the Board of Health, I naturally regret that I made a seriously incorrect deduction as to what that statement really meant, but the pleasure that I feel that things are not so bod a? they seemed far outweighs any personal mortification at being misled. At the same time I feel {hat the original statement of the committee was very liable to misunderstanding, an’d has, as a matter of fact, been very widely misunderstood. After all corrections have been made the statement of the Board of Health—that 28 per cent, of all first births are cxtra-maritally conceived—is sufficiently alarming, and demands the attention of all Christian people. It must not he forgotten that this 28 per cent, of all first births takes no account of the rise 'of contraceptives by unmarried women—a point by no means to bo ignored.