DOMINION BIRTH-RATE

Timaru Herald, Volume CLVI, Issue 22935, 4 July 1944, Page 6

DOMINION BIRTH-RATE

Sir, —I read with interest the recent findings of a committee set up in Wellington to study the falling birthrate and the crime of abortion. The committee suggests that heavy penalties should be exacted for this murder of the unborn child, and also that a moral campaign be instituted. All the emphasis seems to be on moral issues. In my opinion the issue is far from being a moral one; it is purely economic. There are many of these problems which we appear to attack from the wrong quarter. Take our Ally, the Soviet Union, as an example. Prior to the Communist Party taking control, the population was about 160,000,000. At the time .the Nazis attacked Russia the population was bordering on 190,000,000. There had been roughly an increase of 1,000,000 yearly under the Soviet system. Everybody knows now, or should know, that with the change in leadership came better conditions, better wages, unemployment was banished, and economic security was guaranteed to every genuine worker in Russia. In New Zealand is our economic future assured? Where are the homes for the young people to rear our future generation? Where is the practical help that every expectant mother needs and should have?—l am, etc. FAMILY MAN.