The Gisborne Times. PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 6, 1908. RACE ASCENDANCY AND THE BIRTH RATE.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVI, Issue 2108, 6 February 1908, Page 2

The Gisborne Times. PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 6, 1908. RACE ASCENDANCY AND THE BIRTH RATE.

Tho recent publication of French vital statistics has again drawn attention to tho seriousness of the population question to the French, people. Tho decline in tho birth-rate is so marked that it is becoming a national menace. Not that it is anything now, but unless it can bo arrested Franco must inevitably fall from her place as one of the leading Powers. Unfortunately (says the “Broad Arrow”) she does not stand alone. Only for the alien flic United States would be in even worse case than France, and the Australian birth-rato seriously perplexes Antipodal statesmen. In England the future is more promising owing to tho fecundity of the upper and lower classes. It is the great middle-class, tho very 'backbone of tho country, which is beginning to limit the family, thereby accounting -for the drop in our -birthrate from 30.4 per 1000 to 27 in fifteen years. If it continues Germany will hold tho relative position towards us in- population that- Franco did early in tho nineteenth century. For whorgas our annual increase is 500,000, Germany’s is 900,000. As Aloltke once said, ‘Every year by our birth-rate we -win a battle over France.’ True, but even in tho Fatherland the rate has fallen from 35.7 to 34.1 in four years. There is, however, no immediate danger. Hence the need for Germany to find elbow-room for her people. With her it must be ‘expansion or explosion.’ Nor do the problems raised by the birth-rate involve only the future of France, England, Germany, and the United States. With it is bound up tho existence of the white races. It is surely significant that while tho birth-rate is declining in tho Western world,' 'it iis rising in the East, particularly in Japan, where, in twenty-seven years it has almost doubled, hi Chin a the population is kept down by infanticide. Now with the yellow races growing fast, and the white races declining more or Jess slowly, it is merely a question of time when their relative importance will bo reversed. This was prophesied by Pearson long ago, when he was laughed at for a dreamer. But the world does not- laugh now. On the whole it would do well to consider whether civilisation, as we understand it, is worth the price, hi derstand it, is worth tho price. In the multiplicity of our material wants we are losing sturdy simplicity, and with it tho moral vigor without which no nation can stand. ‘The survival of tho fittest,’ we flatter ourselves is based on a AYestern standard. In reality, in is based on the capacity to subsist on little, which our over-civilisation abhors. Hence the menace of the birthrate. Here are the official returns of the population of France, which show a substantial increase in the number of marriages, an enormous rise in divorces, a continued fall in births, and a slight decline in deaths.

Average 1906. 1596 to 1905 Alarriages 306,457 295,924 Divorces 10,573 8,T05 Births 806,874 839,843

Deaths 750,796 783,379

In 1881 tho ntimbor of births in Franco wae 237,057, so that tho decrease in . twenty-five years is 130,000. On tho same subject tin; London

“Daily lAlail” points out that tho gross increase in tho numbers of marriages in Franco is much tho same as in tho Uni toil Kingdom. To every eiglil mar,Hagen proportionately in England there are iivo in Ireland. In Germany the rate lias been rapidly rising, while in Italy its tendency is to fall. -More marriages is tho general world rule, although tho increase is not startling. In tho decline in deaths France goes with tho world. Alodorn sanitation is lengthening life every where. J n the United Kingdom the death-rate lias fallen, since 1892, from 19.0 per 1000 to 15.6. AYhile tho birth-rate is falling in Europe, it is rising in Japan. In twenty-seven years tho .rate there grew from 17.1 per 1000 to 31.