THURSDAY, JULY 9, 1908. DRY ROT, AND OUR INDUSTRIES

New Zealand Tablet, 9 July 1908, Page 21

THURSDAY, JULY 9, 1908. DRY ROT, AND OUR INDUSTRIES

§N last Monday our - Minister pf Labor- <-the >. Hoii. ; J.-'A- Millar) touched— .upoii", a social--' problem < that is going to give. as "ipahy' a'J heart-ache to -.the .statesman' and' patriot of the future as "it is giving to the anxious - -mojalist- ■t>r\/tlie=> present*- : In, the course of~ --- . a .*reply • -to ' "deputaitiqii ' " .of '. Waterside Workers in Wellington "Mr. Millar sai4 in "part :— . . '.' \ *_„--'" -.'-"' J ' Unless we in New Zealand do-something- towards- a • natural increase .in qur population, it< wilL'b.e. a.~ serious matter. You 'will-- "realise that I have not been idle, v because in my annual repprt,_whi.Qli.. will-be- down foe-

fore long, yoji^WUl see figriies that, .will".- siliiply stagger - you, on account of the decrease in the number of children of a given age attending school. It will be impossible to keep up the industries of the Dominion -unless we maintain , the population. When I found that the figures stand as they do, it quite startled ' me. T have taken the records of the past ' sixteen years,' and the decrease in -the birth-rate-,' and then" went" into the. annual increase of factories and industries generally, and marked . out, the number of men required there, etc. It would be impossible to maintain these industries without a natural increase in the population. The school figures I obtained from the Education Department's reports. ,It is a very serious matter indeed, and if the country has to .depend, upon immigration, well, it is a poor^ country, although I realise the value of good immigrants. "This matter, no doubt, has its solution. . . Ere long the present Government, or some other, will have to deal with the matter, and in a practical way. We are face to face with the problem, and we will have to deal with it in the best possible manner '.

" Government might do much by extending in the right direction the_ provisions of the legislation against the introducFion of opium. The medical profession, too, might effect much by setting its face more universally against the neo-Malthusianism of our day, instead of yielding (as we fear it sometimes does) a criminal compliance with the whims of a corrupt and paganising society. A Catholic preacher in Toledo (U.S.A.) said some years ago in the course of an appeal to the profession :—

•It were better to be a Herod in the judgment, with the blood of innocence and the shrieks of motherhood crying for vengeance, than one of those who sought nature's secrets to compass its ruin. We stand in the gloom of a great sorrow, witnessing the convulsion of a nation inconsolable for the death of many sons. Every arm is raised and every form bends forward to shield from even the insults of diplomacy the land that is liberty's forever. But he would be a viper coiled in the country's breast, who would confine patriotism to the exigencies of war, and in time of peace poison the manhood of an unsuspecting land ; and should ever the profession, this great profession of medicine, prove faithless to its trust, that day shall mark the ruin of the people that shall witness its decadence '.

Wo do not, know what is the ' practical way ' in which the Government is to deal with this menacing evil of race suicide. But there is only one ' best possible manner ' of dealing with it— namely, to induce people to retrace their steps to the Catholic teaching and Catholic principles in regard to the sacrosanct duties and obligations of the married state. The school,

the home, the newspaper, " the pulpit— all are needed for this great moral and patriotic work. That ,way alone lies the true remedy. And mere "bachelortaxing and family-fi onuses, and such-like quackhead remedies are no better than spraying a cancer with lavender-water or dosing cholera-morbus with blue pills.