LOW BIRTH RATE

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 84, Issue 191, 15 August 1940, Page 10

LOW BIRTH RATE

DOMINION’S DANGER CRITICAL SITUATION DOCTOR URGES ACTION CHRISTCHURCH, Aug. 12. “The population figures show that our foundations are being undermined. The true rale of natural increase is barely sufficient to maintain the population and stabilisation of numbers, while later a more or less rapid decline in population confronts us. The situation is critical and disquieting.” These views were expressed by Dr. C. E. Hercus, Dean of the Medical Faculty in the University of Otago, in his Wilding Memorial lecture in (Christchurch. “Our national survival is threatened,” Dr. Hercus said. “An underpopulated country, rich in undeveloped natural resources, has a population in which the number of children is decreasing, and the proportion of able-bodied persons becoming relatively smaller, with an increasing proportion of aged, people. Healthy growth can still be restored if the average family can be raised from the two-child to a four or five-child pattern. Difficulties to be Faced. “Simple as the solution appears in theory, in practice the whole structure of our modern social life conspires against us. Many people who are conscious of the implications of the present low birth-rate are not prepared to demand or support a national policy, largely because they cannot see any practicable solution. With a full knowledge of the immense complexity of the subject, we ought to examine it in the light of what other countries, faced with a similar problem, are doing the possibilities of implementing a positive policy for this country. I think that the situation is sufficiently important to warrant the appointment of a Minister of the Crown with a portfolio and a department which would include a division of education and research. Indeed, as the situation is as critical, if less dramatic, than the present war, I am not sure that a Population Cabinet, akin to the present War Cabinet, should not be created.

“If the policy of this Ministry were to follow the lines of the democracies of France, Belgium and Sweden, or of the totalitarian States of Germany and Italy, it would consider whether the introduction of repressive measures is advisable. Judging by the lack of success in other countries of measures designed to suppress birth control by imprisonment and lines, I think that they will be well advised to adopt more positive measures. Prohibition in this field promises to be as ineffective as in the case of alcohol.” Economic Measures. Outlining what he thought should be the functions of such a Ministry, Dr. Hercus said that the measures it might introduce would be both economic and educational. The economic measures would be directed toward removing as far as possible the economic advantages at present enjoyed by the unmarried, the childless, and the people with one or two children. Generous family allowances, income tax reductions, Government and local body employment preferences, house rent reductions and State and local body housing schemes, all graduated according to the size of the family, would at once be put into operation. The sales tax, which, however useful it might be to a Government anxious to obtain in a painless manner the maximum amount of taxation, would be at once cancelled, pressing as it did on the large family. Disquieting Figures.

Reviewing the Dominion's rate of population growth, Dr. Hercus said that since 1920 the rate had slackened, until in the year 1934-35 it reached the lowest level yet recorded in New Zealand. The average annual increment for the last ten years had fallen to half that of the previous decade, the actual figures being as 15,000 to 30,000. One of the greatest difficulties in the problem, with its immense social and economic implications, was the inevitable gradualness of the change. The teaching profession was well aware of what was happening, Dr. Hercus said, but the public gen-

erally was slow to appreciate it. In the valuable official reports of the Government Statistician, attenti n was drawn year by year to ‘‘this extraordinary social phenomenon.” Unfortunately, those reports were not read by the average citizen.