“DECAY OF PARENTHOOD”

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23225, 24 June 1937, Page 6

“DECAY OF PARENTHOOD”

NEW ZEALANDER’S FEARS (From Our Own Correspondent) . r LONDON, May 19. Fears for what he describes as the * decay of parenthood ” and the alarmIng decline of Britain’s birth rate are expressed by Father N. H, Gascoigne, a New: Zealander, in a letter published by the Catholic Herald. “Itds my/firm conviction—a conviction that grows stronger the longer I

remain in this country—that the real menace to England, and therein to the Empire, has its origin, not upon the banks of the Rhine in German rearmament, nor even in the poison of Communist propaganda, but lies in the country itself,” he writes. “ One cannot allow birth control to go on unchecked and hope to escape the consequences. Man has never yet, however advanced he has become, successfully contended against the dictates of the Almighty and the natural law. There will be no exception in the twentieth century. “ History has an alarming lashion of repeating, itself. ... I have lived the last two years in Italy, and I have

seen placards in the streets of Rome with a map of Italy, and upon it the average number of children to a family and beside it the map of 'England and the corresponding number of children in an English household. There is surely no need for me to say which country had the greater averageinnuendo is often more powerful than affirmation. “Further, I have just completed my second visit to Nazi Germany, and one cannot view those thousands upon thousands of physically-fit Hitler youth as I have seen them in their camps, end regard with equanimity on return to England the fact that in her rearmament programme England has so far

brought forward no effective reply to the Hitler youth of Germany or Mussolini’s Ballila and Young Fascist!. “There is some talk of an Imperial youth rally at the Coronation, but there seems no appreciation in this country of the vital importance of looking to the nation’s youth as the dictators are, for the carrying on of the inheritance that is now ours, but may not be ours in the future. Is it illuminating to know that in my country up till 1931, in which year the effects of the depression caused strict economy even in defence, that New Zealand's youth were compelled by law to attend their weekly parades and their annual comps? And I fed I am voicing only

the truth when I say that with but rare exceptions we did not regard that as an imposition, but part and parcel of our duties as citizens. “Nor can one who has seen conditions in Fascist Italy and ' Nazi Germany fail to note the contrast on visitting the Pincio Gardens in Rome on any afternoon and see them literally swarming with happy children; or read of Herr Hitler's legislation for increasing the size of families, of Stalin’s recently receiving and honouring the parents of large families, or finally read of Japan’s enormous natural increase. “One may say against all this—what encouragement is it for an English mother to rear children to be slaugh-

tered? 1 reply that it is better to take measures to increase that birth-rtae. and thus ensure that England in the future will not only be able to enforce a peace on the world by the strength of her air squadrons and other services, but will have the youth to man those squadrons and therein hope to avert a world calamity. By those means, an English mother is far more likely to avert the horrors of ipii-1018

from overtaking what now seems the rule—the only child. England is not going to help stave off another world calamity by armaments alone —she needs man-power as well. “Let the Government take measures to render illegal the distribution of birth-control propaganda, and the ease with which contraceptives can be procured. Further, if we must live in flats, then let the Government see to

it that the absence of a family is not a sine qua non of the renting of those flats. Again, in the cases where the weekly wage does not allow of a larger family, let the Government allot a subsidy to each child. Further, let us have something patterned on the New Zealand system of post-war years, when every youth has one hour per week of military instruction and one week’s camp a year." ; ■ -