The Manawatu Herald. Thursday, January 26, 1911. NOTES AND COMMENTS.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXIII, Issue 946, 26 January 1911, Page 2

The Manawatu Herald. Thursday, January 26, 1911. NOTES AND COMMENTS.

A spuciai, meeting of the Borough Council will be held to-morrow evening for the purpose, among other things, of dealing with the Municipal Hall question. We have received a number of enquiries from different quarters, as to what steps are being taken by the local authority to provide a hall and our civic fathers have been accused of allowing the matter to drop. We previously pointed out that until all details have been decided in respect to site and correct estimate for the building, the Council cannot make any public announcement on the subject. It is only fair to the Council to say that they have gone thoroughly into the whole question and that when the loan proposals are submitted for approval they should meet with the entire satisfaction of ratepayers. If the loan is carried, the Municipal Town Hall should be ready for public entertainments by August next.

There has been a great outcry throughout the Dominion in recent years in respect to the falling birth-rate and much has been written on the subject. It is patent to every one that the Government should, by every means in its power, do what it can to assist the mother who brings more than three children into the world. During the recent holidays large numbers of mothers with several children each, whose ages run from a few months up to 10 or 12 years, have taken their little ones for a railway jaunt. Hundreds of mothers, however, could not afford to visit relatives and enjoy a brief holiday because the expense of providing locomotion for the alive branches was too great a tax on their slender means. So they had, perforce, to cheerfully continue their drudgery and look forward to a trip later on. On behalf of all such the Minister for Railways should grant free fares on our railways to all children under xo years of age and accompanied by their parents. Such a concession would not make any appreciable difference to the earnings of the railways, but it would give pleasure and health to many a struggling mother. Perhaps our member will tap the Minister on the subject ?

The Hon. Dr. Findlay, in a lecture on “ Urbanisation and National Decay,” before the Eugenics Society at Dunedin recently, said the modern tendency to drift into the towns was largely accountable for the unfit. Nearly 77 per cent, of the population of Britain lived in cities and towns. In New Zealand a few years ago the rural population exceeded the borough population, but to-day the position was reversed. In all the large cities the birth-rate was maintained mainly by the least fit. In the poorer part of Berlin there were 2x4 children to every 1000 married women; in the richest parts rax. In London the difference was about the same. He desired to mark three things : (x) That the birth-rate was dwindling fastest in the cities ; (2) that the reduced rate was

chiefly maintained by the fertility of the least fit; (3) that the population of New Zealand was steadily drifting to the towns and cities. The prospect justified the bold statement that for them the future n-e;;nt either eugenics or extinction. One family of defectives, it all its branches were prolific, would in a few years cost us in asylums, and homes some £ 20,000. Two imbecile girls had produced fifteen illegitimates, and every one of these would be dependent during their whole lives upon the State for everything, including ultimate burial. Among suggested eugenic remedies was a new marriage law which would prevent juvenile marriages. Specifically, the State should cardinally aim—(l) To keep people on the land ; (2) to enforce and assist the most approved method of town planning. Laud tor settlement must be fouud, and country life must be made more attractive. If this country was to rise to greatness it must check the agents of degeneration and promote those that would improve the physical and mental qualities of the people.

In referring to what it describes as an “iniquitous charge” the North Otago Times says ; Have the Chambers of Commerce oi New Zealand given consideration to the anomalies of the postal note system of the Dominion ? If they have not, they should certainly do so. A more iniquitous tax than that imposed by the Postal Department in its charge lor postal notes could hardly be conceived. These notes are invariably given in exchange for cash, and possess no greater value in themselves than the ordinary bank note. Indeed, the cost of printing them is much less. Why should one have to pay a higher price for a postal note valued at £1 than he has for a note valued at five shillings ? Why, indeed, should he have to pay more than the face value for any note, seeing that the Government gets the use of the cash, and all the advantage of notes which may be lost or destroyed ? The postal note is a feeder to the stamp and mail service, and should be treated as such. The Government had no right to make money out of it, as it has been doing in the past. The tax is a class one, because it places the country settler at a disadvantage compared with the man in the town.

In the course of an address at Wellington on Tuesday night, Mr J. Hodge touched on the education question. He had been reading, he said, during his visit tc New Zealand, of an endeavour that was being made to introduce sectarianism into the schools of the Dominion. “I hope you will never permit it,” declared Mr Hodge, emphatically. “It has retarded the cause of education in the Old Land, and I venture to say that sectarian differences have been the source of more bad blood between the people of any given nation than any other known origin. The Labour party at Hone want to get rid of that difficulty arid to see that we may have the educational ladder free from sectarianism from the elementary schools to the university.” The remarks were much applauded.