UNOCCUPIED COUNTRY.

Taranaki Central Press, Volume IV, Issue 384, 16 March 1937, Page 5

UNOCCUPIED COUNTRY.

Danger Confronting New Zealand. Palmerston N., March 16. "There are those who believe that New Zealand will never be asked to send another expeditionary force overseas. I hope that prophecy is correct, but I would not consider it an Impossibility* declared MajorGeneral Sir Andrew Russell in an address on migration and defence. An unoccupied country was obvidusly a danger, he said. It Was a liability and its people's one chance was to show the world that they had ■ a • right to it by using it. No one nation had any more right than an individual to monopolise thousands ot Eacres ot unused land. It was not Teasonable to suppose that the birthrate would naturally increase in New ‘Zealand, and consequently they would ’Trave to tall back on inimfgratlon as an immediate and practical proposition.

Many placed their faith in the League ot Nations as an Instrument

ot collective security, said Sir Andrew, Th© League had shown Itself to be a broken reed, but that did not mean active discouragement. It was not the outward husk that mattered. The League was only a shell, but the principle underlying It was the covenant to which all could remain faithful and which was supjtorted by the present Government. Collective security called for collective action, and those supporting the former principle could not sit on their own doorsteps ahd give only their moral support to the latter. They must take their -share.

Discussing the decline in the Dominion’s birth rate, Sir Andrew said that in 1881 one child was born to every three married women between the ages of 25 and 45' In Ififf st wae one child to every five married women, and in 1935 one child to every thirteen married women. Twenty-four per cent, of the marriages of today were childless. 19 per cent produced only one child, another 19 per cent two children, 1G per cent three children, and 22 per cent over three children. The last two classrs (38 per cent) gave 54 per cent of the total births. Limitation of Families. The rate had dropped from 41 pet 1000 in 1880 to 16 per 1000 in 1335. ¥et there Wire more fit .a '-neo per IHO ■of the population than there were 20 years ago. They were not bearing children., and he "did -tot blame them. It would not appear that

the economic question was the stumbling block to an increase in the bi.-th fate, because those with the best finwere only too often the ot®s who limited their fani'iTTes. It was a grave question as to wbether the quality of the children born wsr "not in a decreasing ratio and that those less competent and less capable were bearing the most children. He would offer no comment on that.

It was no use thinking we could bold New Zealand with the present ridiculously email population.