MORE POPULATION

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 53, Issue 3813, 25 September 1936, Page 8

MORE POPULATION

WHAT IS BEHIND IT? Soviet Russia is already glorying in a rapidly rising birth rate while births in capitalistic countries are declining, is framing a complex programme for further increasing the population which is certain to have momentous consequences (writes Harold Denny from Moscow to the New York Times). The programme has two principal features: to prohibit or, at least, radically to restrict abortions, and to provide for the increase in births, which will inevitably result, by an elaborate network of maternity hospitals, nurseries and playgrounds, and by pensions for mothers who bear above a certain number of children.. The first filature will really revolutionise personal relationships, and it has aroused more consternation than the public discussion of the projected legislation reveals. Abortion, which is now legal and performed free of charge by State-paid practitioners, has been almost the universally-employed method of birth control —other methods being only in their infancy here. It has permitted freedom —that does not at all mean general promiscuity—in personal relationships which has excited the admiration of many foreign liberals. This freedom, of course, is much abused, but it has not prevented the creation of happy, devoted, and even conventional families, as this correspondent knows from being in their homes. During the past year or two the Government has been fighting the abuses of the easy marriage system, partly by legislation, to hold fathers strictly responsible for children. Higher Rate Urged. A year ago the Soviet began urging a higher birth rate to develop the country, which, though now it has 173,000,000, is so vast in expense, is so rich in its yet untouched resources, that it could maintain a population of many times the present number. Now for the first time the Soviets are proposing to coerce the people into having more children. The commission which framed the projected law boldly took the attitude already adopted by Fascism of denying that there is any separation between private and public interests, declaring that marriage in the Soviet Union is not merely a personal affair of individuals, but a matter of public concern, proclaiming it the duty of women to raise children for the State. Yet many women even here protest privately that it is really their affair whether or not they will have children. ■The increased birth rate aimed at by the projected law will give. the Soviet Union within a generation an enormous reserve of man power available both for industry and for military service. But that fact alone is insufficient to explain so revolutionary a change in Soviet life as planned. Even at the present rate of increase the Soviet Union will have 300,000,000 inhabitants by the end of the eighth Five-Year Plan—in 1968. Nurseries Planned. Any war which could threaten the Soviet’s existence would have occurred long before the children contemplated in the new law could be of service. So rapidly is the Soviet strengthening itself that within a very few years it will be invincible to any conceivable coalition against it. A greater motive than the desire have been taking a certain quantity for ever great man-power appears to underlie the new project. It is found in the provisions for the expenditure of thousands of millions of roubles creating a vast network of children’s nurseries, playgrounds, kindergartens, and, in statements for women workers, it is emphasised in the official press that here the rearing of children is not the burden it is in capitalist lands. Here the State takes care of children while mothers work. Women need only to beai’ them, give them a place to sleep, and feed them. They will spend most of their years in nursery schools and playgrounds conducted by State agencies.