THE NEED FOR POPULATION.

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 841, 13 June 1910, Page 8

THE NEED FOR POPULATION.

Sir—The crying need of New Zealand is population (vide our lato Governor's speech), and we have, as usual, the invariable- nostrums to cope with the failures of the people to supply the state vacuum. "Maternity 'homes" and "some measure of support for threo months after confinement" is the .Government's remedy. From other, sources are suggested lowered doctors' fees, Stato nurses, etc. All about as useful as might reasonably be expected under the circumstances. As a resident of 30 years hero, and a family man of limited means of the so-called middle-class, may I be allowed to glance briefly first at the main causes of the failure in the birth rate to supply the population needed, and, secondly, to suggest the most necessary and vital remedies?

May I say in commencing I do not credit the Government with such futility of conception as their imagined "remedies" would lead us to believe. The Government knows perfectly well what are the truo causes of the lessened birtli rate, but prefers, for . party purposes, to suppress its knowledge of them, and to put forth remedies it knows to bo futile. The greatest pause of tho fall in the birth rate is undoubtedly land monopoly, coupled.with its inevitable concomitant, the rise in land values. Every pound 'added to the purchasing price of an acre of land (except it is added to its "uso" value) makes it more difficult for the man of averago means to buy that land, or to rent it. It, therefore, limits the number of thoM> able to make u living off it. Again, a man holding 1000 'acres of first-class land may, it is true, bo making u good living from it, and giving use 'to employment; but if ten families can maintain themselves on the samo area in comfort, he is not permitting as many to live off tho samo area as otherwise would bo tho case. This (as everything must oomo from the soil) reacts prejudicially on tha towns, making employment scarce, and limiting population thero in consequence. If this is true of tho man of 1000 acres, how much more is it true of tlio mini of 1(1,000 or 50,000' acres? In its influence in limiting population, tho Government may truly be said to bo ono of tho worst sinners. Its Land for Settlement Bill enabled tho Government to borrow money (at some £93 for every £100 obtained) on the security of the Dominion, placing tho burden ■ on the necks of the workers, for tho benefit merely of the land monopolist (who has in many cases obtained fancy prices for bis land) and a more handful of farmers.. Tho Government's action at once forced up land values, and it is still raising them. Every £1 so added to agricultural land reacts detrimentally on the birth rate Ijj limiting tho possibilities! of tho man of limited means acquiring .land, and, in addition to relieving tho pressure in the towns, supplying the means whereby tho population in tho towns may be supported. In the two cities land monopoly, by raising rents (for which rise no value is given by the owner) limits population by raising the price of commodities, and by making it more difficult every year for the man of average means to raiso a family in decency and comfort. Other contributing causes in high rents are municipal extravagance, and tho demand for greater comforts, but these are, compared to land, monopoly, minor causes., While then (in the middlu class) twenty years ago, £200 a year was considered ample to rear a family on, £300 a year will now .scarcely suffice, such is tlio rise in values, rents, and tho standard of comfort. Other predisposing causes to a diminished birthrate are the impossibility of obtaining domestic help, and the consequent serious strain imposed on the mother thereby ; tho competition of women with men in office work, perhaps one of tho most serious aspects of our hateful commercial system, and ono which if not coped with must ultimately nienaco tlio existence of tho race; and perhaps tlio fact that the race is slowly adopting itself to its changed environments, rendering women susceptible to troubles known to the medical profession, a feature which has not yet, I think, been touched upon. The Government again, while rendering life service to the used.

of population, in every act and deed negatives its assertions. The huge addition to tho national debt smco it has- held office, its lavish .distributions of borrowed money upon unproductive works, and spectacular Dreadnought extravagances, and £1000 contributions to Whitehaven relief funds, givo a flat donial to the Government's assertions of its desire for a "full cradle." Every £1 so added to the national debt makes tho lot of the married man still harder, makes clothing, boots, and shoes, aud rent still dearer, adds to tho strain (already near to breaking) of tho housewife and mother, makes it ever more difficult to bring up a family in decency and comfort. 'J'hcso arc then, some of the main causes of tho lessened birthrate, and .its Failure to cope with the need for population.

The remedies are by no means simple. A graduated land tax, returning to the peoplo tho values created by the people, and breaking up land 1 monopoly, is the first crying necessity. The pressure of taxation would be speedily relieved, both by the revenue so obtained (now pocketed hy the monopolist and speculator) and by the settlement that would at, once take place on the lands so opened up. No system of taxation could easily be devised more iniquitous than tho present system of taxing people, through the Customs, on their clothing and necessaries, or one. which, while cunningly concealing from the taxed their annual contribution to the revenue, presses more hardly on those least able to bear it. Had a rational system of State .ownership of land, or of taxing land values on the graduated system, been adopted thirty years ago, we need have had no national debt, and no duties to pay our interest thereon. We could have been self-sup-porting in every sense of the- word. Other and minor remedies are: (a) the adoption by the unions, and enforcement, of the principle of the same wage (and a living wage) for bath men and women clerks and employees, thereby cutting at the root of the cheap "girl" labour supply; (b) the adoption by the State of some means of lessening the pressure on large families by some such measure as obtains in tho Methodist persuasion, of a bonus for every child; (c) where thought fit, by aid to a mother for six months after confinement (three is far too short), and possibly by attendance by doctors appointed and' paid by the State, at fees well within the reach or all. But these are, after all, but temporary expedients Give tho people access to cheap land, and the papulation trouble will soon ho a* thing o'f the past. Land monopoly is tho real live enemy to the health and prosperity of the nation. —I am, etc., X; Ngaio, Juno 9, 1910.