“CRADLE VERSUS COMFORT”

Evening Star, Issue 22465, 9 October 1936, Page 9

“CRADLE VERSUS COMFORT”

FALLING BIRTH RATES WORLD-WIDE DECLINE press Association —By Telegraph—Copyright LONDON, October 8. Commissioner Lr in a letter to the 4 Morning Post,’ points out that the delightful State of Queensland, with untold natural resources, has, after 67 years of separate existence, a population of less than 1,000,000, with an excess of 47,000 males. “ How can wo possibly hope to develop the Empire in such circumstances P” He adds that females exceed males in Britain by 2,000,000.

The ‘Daily Mail,’ emphasising the empty cradles of the Western world, instances that reliable statisticians expect that at the present rate of fertility the English population will begin to fall in 1941. and will be 38,000,000 by 1951 and 19,000,000 by 1975. If fertility lessens it will only be 4,250,000 a century hence. Similar tendencies are noticeable in France and Germany. Even Herr Hitler’s effort to increase the birth rate has only produced more first-year babies. Russia is the most important exception to the world-wide decline. Japan will probably increase until 1956, when there will be a population of 80,000,000, and thereafter a decline, as people were marrying later and declining to marry. He adds: “It won’t bo easy to restore the British birth rate, as the case of cradle versus comfort will involve the changing of housing schemes, in whicli garages will be displaced by nurserh'. There must also be a revised outlook on marriage.”