BIRTHRATE PROBLEM

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLIII, Issue 20668, 5 March 1937, Page 9

BIRTHRATE PROBLEM

DRASTIC MEASURES IN ITALY United Press Association—By Electrio Telegraph—Copyright (Received March 4, 9.25 p.m.) ROME, March 4. A Government communique says that after listening to Signor Mussolini’s report on the birth rate, the Grand Council approved the following seven point programme: (1) That preference be given to fathers of large families in the matter of employment; (2) That a policy of family wages be instituted, making incomes proportionate to the burdens of families as a whole; (3) The revision of the present measures for encouraging large families so as to ensure a steady standard of living for such families; (4) The institution of marriage loans and endowment insurance for young workers: (5) The establishment of a national association, the members of which shall be fathers of large families; (6) The revision of the provincial communal boundaries in order to suppress communes where the aged declining population no longer needs the benefits of public institutions; (7) The creation of a central organisation for the control of the propagation of the Government’s policy for a higher birthrate. The Council solemnly recorded: “The birthrate problem being a problem of life, its continuation is really the problem of problems, for without life there can be no youth, military power, economic expansion or secure future for the Fatherland.”