Interesting Figures.

Manawatu Herald, 29 August 1903, Page 3

Interesting Figures.

It is tolerably well-known that the number of marriages taking place in a country is a fairly good index of the prosperity of the people. Judged by the test, New Zealand last year reached the high water mark of good time so far as a comparison of the past ten years enables us to judge. Marriages sank to the lowest rate in 1895, the year when the Bank of New Zealand wap reconstructed. The percentage was then 9.54 marriages to every thousand of the population. Next year it rose to 6.85, then steadily mounted up year by year until it reached 8 01. In the natural order of things there ought to have been a corresponding increase in the birthrate, but unfortunately this was not the case. There were 27.50 births to every thousand of the population in 1893, 26.33 in 1896, and last year it had sunk to 25.89. The natural increase of the population by the excess of births over deaths last year was only 12,280, which on an estimated population of 797,793, is an appalling low proportion. This menace to our very existence, to say nothing of our progress as a people, is a far more important subject for our social reformers to take in hand than the abolition of the totalisator. I Christchurch Press.