PUBLICATION RECEIVED

Evening Star, Issue 22451, 23 September 1936, Page 6

PUBLICATION RECEIVED

‘ TO ALARM NEW ZEALAND ' * To Alarm New Zealand ’ is a booklet written by Mr A. E. Marnier, of Wellington, who is the author of other hooks on topics of social and political interest. This publication has the definite purpose indicated in the title. The text is the decline in the country’s birth rate, and the dangers that prethemselves ns a consequence. Statistics are used with telling effect to drive home the risks wo run. For instance, the annual birth-rate in New Zealand in 1880 was 41.2 per thousand. In 1935 it was 10.1. Even if the birthrate of 1911 had been maintained there_ would have been 40,000 babies born in 1935. Actually there were 24,000. The statistics reveal that to-day there are fewer children born in New Zealand, notwithstanding the increase in the population of half"a million than there were 25 years ago. About 24 per cent, of all marriages nowadays are childless, 19 per cent, have one child, 19 per cent, have two children, 16 per cent, have three, and 22 per cent, have four. A contention that the author makes is that if the decline continues it is evident that, apart from future immigration, Now Zealand’s nopulation has now almost reached its limit. The author emphasises the urgency of raising the birth-rate and proposes a system of immigration ou

a large scale, and concludes: “The first necessity is to awaken New Zealand to tho extreme gravity of the situation —the disaster ahead of this imauniou unless existing trends are immediately reversed and the urgency for action—the fact that, if indeed it is not already too late, at the best we shall be involved in a desperate race against time, so that, even now, we have not * month to lose.”