The Wanganui Chronicle. "NULLA DIES SINE LINEA." THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 26, 1925. POPULATION GROWTH

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXII, Issue 19247, 26 February 1925, Page 4

The Wanganui Chronicle. "NULLA DIES SINE LINEA." THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 26, 1925. POPULATION GROWTH

Great Britain’s birth-rate in 1924 is expected to prove the lowest on record, 1 and the London Times foresees a sta- ' tionary and ultimately declining popu- f lation in the United Kingdom. Taking the birth rate by itself, such a *" prophecy would seem to be justified J when wc compare a British birth rate q of 33.5 per thousand for the year 1883 v with an indicated 19 per thousand for the current year. The picture chan- t ges considerably when corresponding i death rates are taken into account. At 1 the, Williamstown Institute of Politics k last summer it was pointed out that r the population of the world had increased one and a half times in the nineteenth century in spite of the fact , that over a large portion of the earth i this was a period of declining birth ■ rates. The answer is, of course, that : the death 101 l has also been sinking. , Russia before the war had a birth rate ' of about 45 per thousand, as compared 1 with the American rate of 24.3 per thousand in the year 1921. But the corresponding Russian death rate was ! 27 per thousand, as against America’s : 1.1.6 per thousand in 1921. With a • birth rate exceeding America's by 21 per thousand, the Russian margin of natural increase was only 17.4 per ■ thousand, as against our 12.7 per ■ thousand. Great Britain, therefore, would not seem to be imminently threatened with depopulation. In the conservation of life, which is largely the conservation of child life, Great Britain can claim to have been doing as well as almost any other country, even though her standard of living is considered to be lower than that of the United States. The British death rate in 1921 would appear to have been something less than 13 per thousand, as against, the 11.6 per thousand in the American registration area in the same year. It. is thus a question, hold1 ing true for other countries than Great Britain, whether even a drastic practice of birth control will retrieve the balance against continual progress in cutting down the mortality rate, provided there is such progress. The usual statement that, the birth rate and the death rate rise and fall together is true in the main, but shows at. least one notable exception in the. case of France. In that country, the classic instance of a stationary population, the result has not been brought about by an unusually low death rate I matched against an unusually low i birth rate. By the standard of high jor low mortality France is au ex- '• I tremely backward nation. In 19211 the French birth, rate was somewhat less than 22 per thousand, as against 22} for England and Wales and 24.3 for the United States. But in that same year the deaths were nearly 20 per thousand, as against 13 per thousand for Great Britain and 11.6 per thousand for the United States. Stated in absolute figures the contrast is even more striking. Lu 1921 the. births were: England and Wales, 848,814, and I France, 850,000. The deaths were: England and Wales, 458,629, and Fiance, 696,000. With virtually the -nine number of births on both sides of the (‘hannel. there wore nearly 210,000 more deaths in France. Even allowing for the heavier after-effects •if the war in France, the conclusion is unavoidable that France has not made gratifying progress in cutting down mortality. In part this would be i'ue to the practice of nursing out children among the. French middle •lasses, against which Brieux has vehemently protested in “Maternite.” Il:e fact that France, is a far less inIma rialiscd nation than Great Britain seems to refute the popular idea as to the relative health conditions in town I and country.