TO CHECK RACE SUICIDE

Evening Star, Issue 21751, 20 June 1934, Page 14

TO CHECK RACE SUICIDE

BRITISH REGISTRAR SUGGESTS POLYGAMY

Polygamy as a remedy tor the declining birth rate was envisaged by Mr W. H. Phillip, retiring president of' the Association of llegistrars of Scotland, at the association’s annual meeting m Dundee. The birth rate for Scotland m 1933 was the lowest on record. “ It is generally agreed that the declining birth rate is mainly due to a decrease in the number of children in the upper and middle-class families,” said Mr Phillip. “ and one of the causes is undoubtedly the modern fashion of later marriages. At present it was calculated that the highest classes in society only reproduced themselves to , the extent of 50 per cent. ,of their number in each generation, so that the hereditary ability of half of them was lost in each generation. The failure to reproduce, he said, had spread to the whole of the professional and middle-classes, and to most classes of skilled labour. “ Most women,” he said, “ eagerly embrace marriage and maternity as a career, and the bearing and rearing of a family of healthy and intelligent children is the utmost social service which the normal female can perform. “ If by any chance in the future the population were reduced by onc-half. then, regrettable though a might to some appear would public opinion countenance and perhaps insist on some form of polygamy until the balance ol the population was restored?”