THE ABOLITION OF THE BABY.

Otago Witness, Issue 3025, 6 March 1912, Page 88

THE ABOLITION OF THE BABY.

FRANCE ONLY LEADS THE WAY. THE CIVILISED WOULD IN PURSUIT. It has begun to bo realised that the coffin is gaining on the cradle almost all over the civilised world Nearly everywhere in European-speaking countries less ahd less, babios are being born; the birth-rate, in fact, is shrinking so fast that the doctors are not able to make the death-rate shrink proportionately. It is the condition of France that lias drawn people's eyes to a state of things which is spreading throughout Europe, America, and Australia anyway, and perhaps throughout the wholo world. A couple of years ago the French birth-irate fell to the level of its death-rate; that is, us many people died every year as were born; the population of France stood still. Since then things have grown even worse; the number of Frenchmen has oogun actually to diminish. At the present rate the time is in sight when France will be no more a nation Malfchusians, who put ""quality" before quantity, may tlion solace themselves with the idea that the diminishing remnant are more highly developed; the childless, superman might moralise on that as he dug his own grave. FRANCE ALARMED. Frenchmen became alarmed; a commission was appointed to find out the extent and causes of this decline. The commission i'noLuded 75 of the greatest names iti France. But, halfway through, it ceased its work suddenly; there scorns to have been an attempt to hush the whole thing up. Mr 0. C. Beale, who was then preparing for his text book on the subject, "Racial Decay," had the greatest difficulty in getting sight of tlie commission's papers. Their conclusions were disheartening enough. Attempts wore made to awaken France to her danger. Newspapers were, taking tne matter up. For instance, the Paris Matin, of October, 1909, printed under tho headline, "Depopulation, Our National Scourge," a photograph of seven German soldiers in uniform; and in tho middle of the group the father and mother of the seven, the father also in uniform. " A German family," the Matin remarked with pathos—" All soldiers !" That photograph must have wakened many memories of Alsace and Sedan ENGLAND WAKING UP. But it is oasy to show that Franco has only led along a way which even England and her colonies seem to bo following. Mr Bealo's book makes this clear by diagram. From the period 1876-30, he shows how the lines standing for the populations of both Engiand and France dip steadily downhill, the only difference being that England's line was higher at the start, and is higher even yet. lint, on present indications, England seems to be catching up to France. Englishmen have, however, been to some extent waking up to the fact that to them also less and less children are being bom. In November last an influenattended conference on public morals and race regeneration was held in Westminster Abbey. The following motion, moved by the chairman, the Bishop of Durham, was unanimously carried : "That this conference desires to draw the attention of the C'huroh, Parliament, the press, and the public to the facts and tendencies of the national lite. a-, iiadioated bv the fulling birth-rate, the continuous and widespread sacrifice of infancy and childhood, tho multiplication of mental and moral degenerates, tho lowered standard of parenthood, and the disintegration of tho home and family life." LAPDOG OR BABY? The two roots of the evil, said Sir Victor Horsley at this conference, were the woman of the smart set, who cherished a lapdog instead of a baby, and the woman of the slum.';, who found a refuge in the publio house from the evils of her environment. The effects of dirty literature were also discussed, and of tho conspiracy of silence into which many parents enter toward* their children on matters of life and birth. A month before this conference the Bishop of London snokc out strongly against the gigantic evil that, it is now almost everywhere admitted, causes the birth decline. " There is no wealth but life," the Bishoo quoted from Rufikin, and he added figures to show how tho stream of new life is thinning over Britain. The Lambeth Conference, he reminded, had spoken on thematter with no uncertain voice, and, for himself, ho could only repeat what he had said six years ago: "It is as completely proved as anything can bo that the cause of all this is the deliberate prevention of conception ... It is all part of the miserable gospel of comfort which is tho curse of the present day," ho continued; and, aftei honouring Roman Catholicism for its attack upon this evil, he summoned against it all the forces of the Church. LOWEST RECORDED RETURNS. The farther' racial decline proceeds the faster it seems to go. Striking instances of that a«! the Fronch and British population or, rather, depopulation—figures for 1911. Thov have caused something like a sensation. They show that for the first sir. months of the year there wore in Fratice 14.00') fewer births and 26,000 more deaths than il'uing tho corresponding period of 1910. and a net diminution'in the French population of 18,270. If it were not for Brittany, where the decadence lias not so much spread, the condition of Franco would l>e worse still. But with England, too, affairs are bad enough; the English returns for the third quarter of 1911 show an astonishing decline. For the three montlis ending September 50, in 1908, 1909, and 1910 "tho excess of births ovor deaths was about tho same—from 123,000 to 124,000 But for tho corresponding quarter of 1911 tho figures sank to 81.000. A decrease for

these three months of 30 per cent. lo something to take notice of. The births registered in this quarter were in the proportion of 24.4- annually per thousand of the population; thev Were, that is, 2.9 per thousand below Ihe mean birth rate m the preceding third quarters. These returns are the lowest on record for the same period since the establishment of civil registration. IN THE COLONIES. Of couibc, however wise doctors may grow, they can only postpone the sge of death. The birthrate may decline until no more babies are born, but you can't make people live for ever. So that the fact that in England, and still more in Australia, wo have a low death rate cannot avail us much. A little book ("The Declining Birth Kate"), by A. Newsholme, M.D., M.R.C.S , gives a comparison of rates of natural increase in a number of countries, including some Australian States, between 19C1 and 1905, as compared with their rate of increase between 1881 and 1655. Tho comparison is rather alarming. The greatest decline is in the case of South Australia, whose rate of natural increase waa only 13.7 in the second period, as against 23.8 in the first. In the same time it is shown that New South Wales has sunk from 22.0 to 15.5, and Queensland frcm i 7.3 to 15.3, while the German Empire has increased from 11.7 to 14.4. England and Wales have sunk from 14.1 to 12.1, and Scotland from 13.7 to 12. Another table in the name book gives a comparison between a number of countries' birth rates in 1881 and in 1901, making allowanco for the age distribution and proportion of married and unmarried women in the populations compared. Taking the 1881 birth rate for the countries in the table as 100, the corrected birth rates would work out at 103 for Ireland (the highest on the list), 99 for Austria, 91 for Italy. 90 for Prussia, and 87 for the wholo German Empire, 86 for France. 85 for Scotland, 82 for England and Wales, 81 for New Zealand. 75 for "Victoria, and 63 for New South Wales! This table, of course, is useful only to show how the birth-rate in these countries has fallen (or. in the case of Ireland, ri«on) ; it doe.? not show the positions at which those countries stand now. " Corrected " data cannot be obtained for the years after 1901. But it does show the trend of tilings. CAUSE AND REMEDY. And the cause? What the Bishop of London said has been repeated in otner words by many inquirers: The decline in the birth-rat© is caused, (not by immorality in tho more ordinary sense of the word, but by " the limitation of ohild-bcaring among married women." The study of friendly sooiety " lying-in benefits" has been often quoted in oyidonce of this, but there a.re so mainv evidences. Just as an instance, the Philadelphia Record quotes a Baltimore clergyman, who said that of 272 couples whom he married, 128 remained without issue, 85 bad one child each. 51 had tuo children, five had three, two had four, and one had six. Can racial decav bo stopped, once it hegins? Or is all Europe to become Russian, and tho rest, of the world to be spread over with brow« and black and yellow? Many say there can be only one answer to that question. But, after all, certain evils may mark only particular stages in a nation's history, and, at the worst, there is always tho chance that the selfish, the race-murderers, may be eliminated, bred out. —Sydmey Daily Telegraph.