THE BIRTH-RATE PROBLEM

Observer, Volume XXIV, Issue 27, 19 March 1904, Page 2

THE BIRTH-RATE PROBLEM

Why Not a Tax on Bachelors?

ON all sides we hear an outcry about the decline in the birth-rate.

Statisticians have demonstrated it in convincing calculations and learned treatises ; politicians and editors gravely deplore the decadence in the national stamina which they deduce from the proved facts, and bewail the consequences to the future of the country if the human animal does not multiply himself at a faster rale than he has in late years been willing to do ; preachers wag their heads in the pulpit in solemn deprecation of what they take to be disobedience of a Divine injunction ; our old friends " Constant Reader" and "Pro Bono Publico " are writing illuminating letters to the press ; and doctors have given their theories as to the means by which the falling-off has been brought about. The heads of households, who are the people thus talked at, listen to all the pother with mingled concern and amusement, and no one gets any nearer to the solution of the problem.

And yet the question is one that affects every one of us, and delicate as it is in some of its phases, it will have to be tackled in a practical way. In all the discussions no body has made any proposals which go to the root of the matter. In the last resort the difficulty is one of pounds, shillings and pence. It has been said by the learned lecturers and writers that the modern love of ease disinclines fathers and mothers to the trouble and inconvenience of bringing up large families. Probably that is one of the factors in tha matter, but it is not the only one. Paterfamilias has to face the fact that the maintenance of his household has materially increased in late years, and who will blame him if he hesitates to increase the numbei' of mouths he has to feed, and the number of backs to be clothed and feet to be shod ? Lower the cost of living, and the population question will soon settle itself.

If men and women owe it to the State to keep the cradle moving, it is for the State to give them some encouragement in the matter. How is this to be done? It is a problem worthy of Mr Seddon's vigorous mind. Let him take it up with the energy he has given to State coal mines and State tire insurance, and other daring innovations. Obviously, one of the best ways of relieving the family purse is through the medium of taxation. It is the heaping up of the. Customs duties upon the necessaries of life that has increased the cost of living. Here, then, is one means of making the rearing of families less burdensome. Lower the cost of living to the family man, and there will be something accomplished.

But Mr Seddon will reply thai he must have revenue, and that if he remits Customs taxation he must get it in some other direction. Has he considered the possibilities of a tax upou bachelors? The bachelor is the privileged member of the community now-a-days. Considering him in the lump, he contributes comparatively little to the national exchequer. He pays for his own food, raiment and tobacco in the same proportion as the householder, but there his responsibilities end. Certainly, he escapes iightly in comparison with the man blessed with a quiverful. It is the bachelor who enjoys the greatest advantage from the

enlarged earnings of the trade unionist — another big item, by the way, in the increase in the cost of living— for as soon as he is a competent workman he stands on the same footing as the head of a family. Also, it is he who has most money to invest on the totalisator, and in other forms of gambling and pleasure-seeking. The bachelor is a mine of wealth that the Colonial Treasurer does not seem to ha\e thought of exploiting. He is the person who can be made to help in staving off what we are told is a national danger. And he will hardly be so unpatriotic as to squirm under the process.