BIRTH RATE DECLINES

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 55, Issue 3928, 19 July 1937, Page 5

BIRTH RATE DECLINES

“MORAL ANARCHY” AT THE ROOT. DR DORIS GORDON'S VIEWS. Another shot in the attack on the abortion evil was fired last Wednesday, when 300 members of the Wellington League of Mothers packed the St. John Ambulance Hall to hear an outspoken address from Dr Doris Gordon, of Stratford, on the causes and implications of New Zealand's steadily declining birth rate. After the address the Dominion president, Mrs C. G. White, moved: “That this meeting of the League of Mothers, Wellington province, realising the need for prolonged and searching study into factors leading to social evils in New Zealand, requests the National Council of Women to devote a whole session at its annual conference to discussion of the same.” This was carried unanimously. “Forgive me if r speak frankly,” said Dr Gordon, “but we have for too long kept a polite silence upon things about which it is difficult to speak. This policy for the last 25 years has left an open field for many pernicious influences such as: (1) Ultra pornographic type of literature; (2) commercial exploitation of sex impulses; (3) blatant advertising and sale oi articles at swindling prices; (4) indiscriminate selling of so-called contraceptives to all ages, and the selling of .abortifacient drugs and goods; (5) turning of public opinion from the ideal of a happy home consisting ot four or five children. HOME LIFE THREATENED. “The primary purpose of my address is educative, for education must precede social reform. 1 want you to grasp the extent and secret ramifications of the evil, that is threatening home life in this Dominion. It is entrenched behind financial interests and its temptations extend through all ranks of society. Because I discuss deficiencies in our <3 year old law on the subject, do not believe that I think overhauling of the law is a general panacea. People are not made moral or altruistic by Act of Parliament. The letter of the iaw is dead unless there is a public opinion to obey it. “A spirit of moral anarchy is abroad in New Zealand to-day, and it must be faced and fought by the people themselves. Our legislators cannot do it for us. Moreover, in a democracy it is unreasonable, for the minority to clamour for amended legislation. The only logical thing to do is to build up slowly and methodically an overwhelming vote of sane and clear thinking citizens so that those who govern will feel impelled to legislate accordingly.” The problem required the exercise both of male and female lines of thought, continued Dr Gordon. She urged league members to impress upon their men folk the necessity for a conference of men’s and women’s organisations to formulate plans for a systematic campaign. All progress was doomed, all expansion futile urn less the process of dry rot in the cradles of New Zealand could be arrested. Dr Gordon then dealt with some of the moral issues arising from the modern flight from the family. From the economic aspect, she said that a united volume of public opinion could demand a readjustment of social allowances, so that healthy males should not be "coddled" in unemployment camps, but turned out to work as other men did to support themselves. The revenue thus saved could be diverted to such things as training school health camps for domestic workers and the judicious allocation of adequate children’s allowances. Older people might think it sounded callous to demand payment from the State for having children, but one had to remember that 40 or 50 years ago the money a man earned was largely his own: He did not have to work a month or six weeks for the States as he did now. There were today healthy people who were willing to have families of four or five children if only they were not “taxed" right and left to support the feckless and incompetent,” declared Dr Gordon. INDIVIDUAL ENTERPRISE KILLED. “A long continued policy of State interference with individual enterprise culminates to-day in top heavy legislation nullifying the old maxim that ‘if a man will not work, neither shall he eat.’ Individual enterprise is killed with restrictions. So the anomaly arises that idle men are guaranteed food and apparently cigarettes while the self-supporting tax-rid-ren citizen cannot afford the primordial luxury of mankind—children. What is most important to the future of New Zealand: Cushioned sustenance and ideal old age pensions, or a vigorous army of young children?” The question of adequate housing and of family allowances, or their equivalent in relief from direct taxation, for parents of more than two children, should be studied by the best brains in the country. The problem was not one for political tinkering; it was a matter for all good citizens to study fearlessly and then remedy, no matte;’ how painful or hard the process. As long as a father and mother had to live in two rooms with a southerly aspect, and keep house bn 30s a week after paying rent —this was an actual case—it was unreasonable to expect the modern couple to beget more children. Dr Gordon also examined the evil from the educational .angle. In mod ern schools, she suggested, a system that encouraged intense personal am bition was substituted for the oldei idea of service and self-sacrifice upon which enduring personal happiness and the prosperity of a State could v.lone be built. TANGLED PROBLEM. The cocktail habit and sd-called “smart” behaviour were other influences affecting the birth rate. Contraceptive clinics conducted by quacks and unlicensed persons presented a tangled problem, and there was need for a law which was more in line than the present one with enlightened public opinion. Dr Gordon strongly urged the league to study how to fight the social evils at the root of the falling birth rate. She hoped the National Council of Women would investigate the problem over a period of some months, to get a representative and fair understanding. In moving a vote of thanks, Dr Elizabeth Bryson said that for some reason or other there was actually deve-

loping, not only in New Zealand, a race of women who had lost the natural desire for children. On behalf of the audience, she deplored the state of affairs in connection with abortion and the falling birth rate, which was revealed in the report of the recent Government Committee of Inquiry and the investigations of Dr Gordon. She gave assurances that the league would continue with renewed zeal to uphold the sancitity of marriage, the purity of family life and the duty and honour of motherhood.