W.E.A. LECTURES

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23202, 28 May 1937, Page 14

W.E.A. LECTURES

WINTER SCHOOL CONTINUED - MARRIAGE AND THE FAMILY The Workers' Educational Association and the Association for Country Education continued the winter school at the University yesterday. In the morning Professor R. W. Souter lectured on "The Economic Struggle in Relation to the Family." Malthus, Dr Souter said, had studied questions of population increase as a phase of economics related to marriage and the family. He had contended that population tended to increase-far more rapidly than means of subsistence. The checks on increase were vice and misery; later he added moral restraint as a check, and urged the advisability of comparatively late marriage. The poor were the cause of their own poverty, through the multiplication of their offspring. Nature punished those who were too prolific, and people need not worry. Malthus was naturally regarded as a monster in those days, but perhaps he had only stated the harsh facts of his time. In his day his theory/had been very popular, and his critics had been little heeded. Population theories seemed to change with conditions. Marx had introduced new ideas regarding population. The pressure Of poverty.was due, not to limited productive capacity but to maldistribution of income and consequent developments of capitalism; Unemployment, it was argued, involved increasing unemployment. The neoMarxists said this tendency was checked for a time by expansion of trade and investment in the noh?capitalist world, but a reaction was bound to come from this, and the disaster, it was argued, was only being delayed. Socialism was offered as the cure. At present, with the apparent excess of farming production, the theory of Malthus regarding imminent shortage of food was not of much interest, but it might become important in the'future. Among problems that had to be studied in connection with population were family allowances, immigration, trade competition with countries of different standards of living, and distribution of raw materials and power. An effort was being made to work out a formula of " optimism" or best population. The best number was held to be one which would give the highest standard of living to every, individual. But such a conception and aim bristled with difficulties...•',i;...' In a practical sense the modern ability to limit families artificially. of special interest, Dr Souter concluded. It was difficult to say how far.greater economic security would induce people to have more children. A heavy percentage of unemployment was not necessarily an indication of overpopulation: it might be the reverse.'- . THE REMAINING SESSIONS The remaining sessions Of. the school are as follows: „ . ■ - To-day, 10 a.m., at the Home Science School: " Beauty in the Home " (illustrated), by Miss A Bowbyes; at Allen Hall. 2.30 p.m.: "Marriage and the Family Under Fascism," Mrs W. N. Benson, with tea provided by Mrs Benson's class; 8 p.m., round-table on "Marriage and the Family" iArchdeacon Whitehead. Mr G. A. Alley. Mrs S. M. Park). ■ . To-morrow, 10 a.m.: ■" Modern Writers' Views on Marriage and the Family" (Mr G. T. Alley); 8 p.m.. at Allen Hall: Social and dance, burlesque short pby, -Cupid Rampant," by Arts and Drama Class. Sundav. 2.30 n.m.: "Marriage and the Family in "Russia" (Mrs Peter Milne).