RACIAL WASTE OF WAR.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 6, Issue 282, 8 June 1917, Page 4 (Supplement)

RACIAL WASTE OF WAR.

TU? views that an; entertained as to tho racial effects of war are many and varied. On the one hand there ie tho vie,-, most developed among the Germans, that war benefits the rate, because it gives a "survival value'' to the qualities needed for success in it—namely, organisation, willing obedience, and unhesitating sacrifice. "War,"' according to a typical German exponent of this do-trine, "is the highest and most majestic form of the struggle foe existence." At the other extreme :s the pacificist view that war in all circumstances is to condemned, because even if victorious it inevitably leads to racial deterioration. In a severe war, it is argued, so many of the best men are killed that the average fitness of tho fathers of the next generation is greatly lowered, and the nation is for ever the poorer by the less of the everbroadening stream of descendants of the noble lives .sacrificed. There is no doubt that Avar docs to some extent cause such a process of bed selection, but to whet extent? How far is the racial loss of'permanent significance ? Is t small or 1: rge in proportion to the good effect-, insisted tiron by advocates of war, as of racial value? To these questions Mr W C. D. Whetham, F.R.S., a close stuclei.t of eugenics, applies himself in a paper contributed to the January "Quarterly.*' The principal evidence of a definite kind available f >r nstimat'ng the rao'al effects of war on mankind is to be found in the very full details which are accss'ble about ihe i.'.-,.,,.'!, ?ivi«cripfa in different yorrs The statistics for the periods affected*by the Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars from 1792 to 1815, and by the FrancoPrussian war of IS7O-1, show a- temporary decline in the quality of the males born during and immediately after these wars, followed, however, in ea»h case by a recovery after the war. The problem is too complex for solution with the data at our disposal, but on the known facts the charge of permanent rami degeneration seems to be non-proven. As Mr Whetham says, this does not necessarily mean that war ; s not gm'ty, since it is clear that racial loss m;:«t result from the war in th? generation immediately affected by it. and deductive reasoning from tiie known fact;; of heredity would suggest that continuing harm is done to the race. The onus of proof rests en those who hold that tho ev'l is transient. There is yet, it would appear, good reason *o believe that the evil is far less than many would imagine, s'li-v, as Mr Whetham observes, any biologbal race seems to possess a normal, ty-e, and divergencies from that type of a merely fluctuational character tend to diminish as generation follow generation. Then, too, there is the nil-important fact that the "bad selection" of war doe s not touch w mien as it does men. It cannot oo denied, however, that the deterioration of race from a great national war may be lengthy, and consequently every effort shoud be made to bring countervailing tendencies into play. "The voluntary restriction of trc- birth-rate, which has been going on since 1876, has," declares Mr Whetham, "deprived Great Britain of many more lives than the war will cost." Had the natural birthrate continued, half a million more births in the year would be expected. It b here that Mr Whetham finds tho main hope, of repairing the wastage of the war. The restriction has been due partly to economic conditions and partly to a psychological attitude. It U through economic action that the State can chiefly work.- but there is also need of a change in the psychological attitude of the classes affected—mainly the skilled artisan and professional classes. So far as economic action is concerned, Mr Whetham discards at once the crude idea of paying a bonus or making a fixed addition to the family income for each child. Tho payment covering the reasonable cost of ii child varies largely with the status of the parents. If no distinction were mide the only result of such bonus or subs'dy would be to stimulate production in the lower-paid class. The hereditary aptitudes of the skilled artisan and the p-ofessional man would then tend to be swamped even more than they are at present. Mr Whetham suggests that the pensions of soldiers and sailors discharged after war service should increase not only with the number of their existing children, but wit-i the number of their children afterwards born. Though maimed or broken in health, these men, save in very special cases, woub 1 not transmit their infirmities to their offspring, and as a class they would be above the average of the community as desirable parents. Th n bettor-to-do classes might he encouraged to have children through a.n adjustment of direct taxation, which must be heavy for many years after the war. To lie r,f a"a;l the concession to parents must be of a substantial nature, something much more than a mere re-nii--i< n of income tax on. say. £2."> of income. The concession might take the, fonn of dividing the faru'ly income for taxation pi 'poses into as many separate incop es a-; there are memoes of the faini'v, giving each of those separate informs all the advantages of rebate and graduation. ruder the present ra-'os n Pi.gland (hi-, would mean that a single man would p:.y C7O, a married min w tli <no child Lin. and a married man vv'th two '•hildrei: nil, rn an income cf CiC) a year. The nom'nal rat . of the tax would have to be raised ~> pr.iilii'-c lie same amount, but th" chief burden would fall on h i'-Ic'm.'-. <i>iiistor-, and couples with no children.

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