A DEFINITE DECREASE

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 60, Issue 4232, 17 January 1940, Page 5

A DEFINITE DECREASE

DOCTOR PEER ON POPULATION. “ In regard to our population question, I would point out that it is in a very serious position, and I can illustrate that by quoting briefly three facts,” said Lord Dawson of Penn in the House of Lords. “ First, we are at the present time failing to replenish ourselves to the extent of 24 per eent, and that has been going on for some time. If you take one hundred women through the whole of their reproductive life, if our population is to be maintained they must produce in girl babies enough to replace the population. One hundred women mus’t produce one hundred girl babies among them. That just keeps it level. In 1881 those hundred women were producing one hundred and fifty girl babies—too many, no doubt, under our present circumstances. By the beginning of this century they were just replacing themselves, and now those one hundred women are produing only sev-enty-six. There is a fact nothing can alter. We are not replenishing ourselves.

In 1921 we had 12,000,000 children under 15 years of age at school. By 1951 we shall have only 6,000,000. “ How can a nation go on prospering and being great with such a steady decline in its youth and its production of children ? “ I do not believe this question is insoluble. There is no nation in the world like the British, who will undertake the reform of a thing if it is once convinced it is desirable, and as far as making it desirable that is a matter of propaganda.”