FEWER CHILDREN.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVIII, Issue 44, 20 January 1938, Page 7

FEWER CHILDREN.

CONDITIONS IN SCOTLAND. Stands Scotland where she did ? The depopulation of the Scottish Highlands was referred to by Mr H. A. Ross, Director of Education for the f Sutherland. at the nr

nual gathering of‘the- Glasgow Sutfaerlandshire Association. Mr Ross points ed out in 1920 in each village school in the oounty there were 489 pupils, To-day there were only 203, a drop of 58 -per cent., in seventeen years. “That is a terrible story,” he said. There was discontent among the young people in the north with the life of the crofts-and the villages, and many had left for the citirs .r- l •

were townships where whole families were living entirely on unemployment benefit, public assistance, and old-age pensions. The people of the High-, lands did not want these things; they preferred work. Mr Ross spoke of the housing activities of the County Council of Sutherland and of the intention of the Government to spend three-quarters of ■'■'l’on -• ir>r>s on road schema :

must come to an-end - sooner -or later. What was to be done- then ?, They could hot blind themselves to the fact that the very lifeblood of; the Highlands was being- drawn at the present time.. Something must be done to stop this hlood-Letting; something in the nature of a blood transfusion was required. New industries were needed in the Highlands. What was to he ■ ■ ! be done quickly .or it