ENGLAND’S POPULATION

Stratford Evening Post, Volume III, Issue 348, 1 May 1935, Page 8

ENGLAND’S POPULATION

A FALLING BIRTHRATE “CHEERLESS PROSPECT,” COMMENTS TIMES' ARTICLE Once again the figures of the Regis-trar-General heart witness that, as a people, the English are growing older, says the Times. The birth-rate for last year remains low; the death-rate is lower still. Consequently the “average age” of Hie population is rising. There arc fewer children; there are more old men and old women. It is a cheerless prospect, but there are mitigating circumstances. The infant death-rate, for example, is the lowest ever recorded. It was 59 per 1000 live births; in the five-year period 19011905 the rate was 138 } the lowest recorded until then. The death-rate again has been falling steadily. It was IC.I per 1000 of the population in the 5-year period 1901-1905; last year it was 11.8, which is only 0.4 above that for 1930—the lowest ever recorded, reduction in the death-rate has occurred at earlier rather than at later years., so that it is youth ami early middleage rather than old age which has been saved. When the fact is set side by side with the saving of infant life fears of a progress into national |lcerepitudo are allayed. Indeed, it says much for the health of the people, for their courage and for their selfsabrificc that the years of gloom have been also the years of the greatest saving of infant and child life. Health courage and- self-sacrifice arc qualities of youth, or, at any rate, of the young in spirit.

Nevertheless, the nation’s crad

les are growing emptier, continues the Times article. The birthrate last year Was 14.8 per 1000 of the population. In the 3-year period 1900-1902 the rate was 28. C per 1000. Thus in 23 years the rate has been cut in half. This is a fail without parellel so far as is known in the history of-this or of any other country. Many explanations have been and are being offered, including the view that fertility rises and falls in waves. If it is assumed that a period of rising fertility is also a period of greater activity of mind and body, the industrial ago has been accounted for. But the evidence in support of this hypothesis is not very convincing. It would seem that fertility bears a relationship to the standard of living and to the religions and moral ideas by which minds are- dominated at given times. There is some support also for the view that in periods of depression birth-rates tend to fall, not only because hope is diminished. but also because wages are lower. Wages were very low in the early years of the 19th century, but the birth-rate remained very high and the population increased in spite of a high death-rate. These ■ however, were years of rising hope and of undimmed faith in “progress.” It may be therefore that, when better times arrive, the birth-rate will rise once more.