RACE-SUICIDE: A GRAVE PROBLEM

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 14, 11 October 1917, Page 6

RACE-SUICIDE: A GRAVE PROBLEM

Sir,—The statistics 'published in your columns on Monday relative to the mm\. ber of men liable, if physically fit, for service in the Second Division call for the serious consideration of all who can have any claim whatever to pass for statesmen. .The classification of the Second Division should surely open-the eyes of our political leaders and parties as to what the future of the child and of the family in this Dominion is" to be. Think of it, ye statesmen, who have for years made the conditions of life lor the family jreU-iiigh intolerable! The grossly ■ inequitable taxation of'the necessaries of life and the exploitation of such: necessaries tolerated by our so-called statesmen for a generation or more account, there can be no doubt, for the lamentable pass to which things have come in. the Dominion in the matter of home-making and nation-building. The Second Division statistics disclose *' painfully sad condition of things. Is it credible. that over 20,000 out of 106,000 married men liable for tervice iu the Second Division have not attained to the dignity of paronthoodP Is it credible that 21,000 more have but a singLe child to adorn the home? It can . be clearly demonstrated (from the statistics)- that, as a result of the legislative ineptitude and'incompetence..of our so- > called and would-bo statesmen, the child is likely, in the not-very-remote future, to become as extinct as the dodo! Think of the astounding implications of the startling disclosure that over (i 7,000 out of 106,000 liable for service in the Second Division have got an average of the merest fraction more than one child eaoh to their credit! . On the other hand' there are in the Dominion but 17,000 families of three children, 10,000 of four, and only 11,000 of five or more! This „ practically means that the average family for the whole Dominion has under two children, to its credit! With all this confronting us as a community, can our legislators not realise the iniquity of imporing euch inequitable burdens on the home-makere, cradle-nllors, and na-tion-builders in the Dominion?—l am, CATO MAJOR. October 9, 1917.