ALARMING FALL IN BIRTHRATE

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLIII, Issue 20899, 1 December 1937, Page 7

ALARMING FALL IN BIRTHRATE

FULLEST FACTS DEMANDED

MINISTER’S STATISTICS CHALLENGED

MR HERBERT’S RECOURSE TO VERSE

United Press Association—By Electric Telegraph—Copyright LONDON, November 29.

The Minister of Health (Sir Kingsley Wood) in moving the second reading of the Population Statistics Bill, paid a tribute to the efficiency with which New Zealand and Australian information drew attention to the alarming fall of the birth-rate in Great Britain. If the decline continued at its present rate, the population would fqll to 35,000,000 in 1970 and to 5,000,000 in a century. It was essential to obtain the fullest facts and and information to enable the preparation of a constructive policy. New Zealanders and Australians, like the English, would be the first to resent unnecessary investigation, yet a year’s fully and freely answered questions would enable the compilation of accurate fertility statistics.

Mr A. P. Herbert challenged the Minister to name any part of New Zealand or Australia where people were asked for records of a former marriage, particulars of former issue, whether a child were illegitimate and other questions tending to incriminate parents, or likely to result in legal proceedings. Sir Kingsley Wood asked for time to consider this question. Mr F. W. Pethick-Lawrence, in moving the rejection of the Bill, declared that Labour did not object to attempts to secure better vital statistics, but the Bill gave the Minister too wide powers to initiate inquiry. Mr Herbert went on to say that a great deal of nonsense had been talked about precedents in New Zealand and Australia. He took the trouble to ring up every AgentGeneral in London. There was no justification whatever for saying that the questions the Minister contemplated were accepted either by New Zealanders or Australians.

“I do not suggest that the Minister is consciously misleading the House,’’ he said, ‘but I categorically suggest that his advisers have misled him. I take a serious view of the situation.”

Mr Herbert concluded his speech with a witty poem by way of peroration, the refrain to each of the eight verses ran: “And everybody wondered why the population fell.’’ Despite the growing opposition on non-party lines, the Bill was read a second time by 197 votes to 125.