Primate's Warning

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 72, 16 June 1927, Page 1

Primate's Warning

DECLINING BIRTHRATE “ONLY ONE RESULT!” 'J'HE Primate, Archbishop Averin, was responsible at the annual meeting of the Auckland branch of the Plunket Society yesterday for a serious note of warning in reference to New Zealand’s declining birth-rate, “The distressingly low birthrate in New Zealand is not sufficiently realised,” declared the archbishop, who said he was seriously alarmed as to the position. “If this kind of thiug goes on,” he declared, “there can only be one result. The relative positions of the peoples of the earth will be materially changed and altered.”

It was essential that New Zealand and Australia should possess a considerably increased native population. This was essential for the preservation and well being of both countries.

“This is needed, and needed very much,” the archbishop emphatically declared. “What is the use of talking of a ‘White Australia’ or a ' White New Zealand’ when the birth-rate is so alarmingly low?” Attention was again diawn to the fact that New Zealand and Australia were surrounded by countries anxious for an outlet for their teeming populations. A PATRIOTIC WORK

“Therefore I regard the work of the Plunket Society in saving child life not only as a great humanitarian effort, but an essentially patriotic one of much importance,” said the primate.

Although he was quite aware of the difficulties in connection with the propagation of the unfit problem, said the archbishop, he really thought this subject should be tackled m a serious manner.

“New Zealand is a young country, and excellent for the purpose of experiments in this di-ection,” he declared. “Small -is we’ are, l think we might be able to do something to overcome this problem.” The propagation of the unfit and of the defective, said Archbishop Averill, was a serious menace in our community.