THE BIRTH RATE

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 63, Issue 4462, 11 August 1941, Page 2

THE BIRTH RATE

LARGE FAMILIES URpED. “The rate of German birth-rate fell continuously from the high level of 25.9 in 1920 to its lowest point, 14.7, in 1933; rose abruptly in 1934, the first year in which the Nazi influence could tell, and by 1938 had risen by more than 30 per cent., and had recovered all the ground lost since 1926. During the same period the rates fell heavily in all other European countries. There has been a small upward rise in England and Wales since 1933, but the rate in 1937 was the lowest in Europe, with the exception of those in France (14.7), Sweden (14.3) and Austria (12.8). When Hitler took control, the police closed birth-control clinics, and the advertising of contraceptives or the means of terminatingpregnancy was made a penal offence. Financial aids—marriage loans, lumpsum grants, family allowances, concessions to large families in regard to taxes, reductions in railway fares and school fees, etc.—were given to parents. Since a number of different factors have been put into operation more or less simultaneously, it is not possible to determine with certainty which has been the effective or the most effective cause of the big rise in the German birth-rate. In view of the experience of all other countries, it seems reasonable to believe that the economic advantages granted to families would not, by themselves have produced any material result. The appeal to patriotism is the new and striking feature in the German efforts. In no other country except Italy has such emphasis been placed upon the positive duty of the people to bear large families?’-—Dr. W. A. Brend, in the “Nineteenth Century,” London.