MAM POWER

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 2, 24 March 1927, Page 16

MAM POWER

GROWING .IN GERMANY DESPITE WAR LOSSES Despite her loss of 2,000,000 men in the World War and the reduction of her population by several millions at Versailles, says a New York exchange, Germany to-day has 1,700,000 more able-bodied men of working age than she had before the war. Moreover, the Reich’s death rate —last year 12.2 to 1,000 inhabitants —is lower than it was in 1913. And, while the number of German births has diminished, this evidently is a passing phenomenon, a condition due to the fact that men of marriageable age, which is officially considered to be from 25 to 40, are less numerous, because from this category came the bulk of the war ejead. These statistics are drawn from a speech delivered before the Prussian Diet by Dr. Hirtsiefer, Prussia’s Minister of Public Welfare, and from figures. published to-day from the latest German census, taken in June, 1525. Both tend to demonstrate the country’s sound health, although Dr. Hirtsiefer hesitates to admit this and voices alarm over the backwardness of children from 12 to 14 years of age, who, he said, mosly give the physical impression of being from three to five years younger. It must be remembered, however, that youngsters of these ages were the chief sufferers from under-nourishment during the war. The Welfare Minister concedes, moreover, that the infant mortality is less than ever before. Medical Consulting Stations. As a stimulus to births to heal this condition attention is called to the recently established public consulting stations, which offer medical advice free to persons contemplating matrimony. This novelty already has proved successful, it is asserted, and ultimately it is hoped to persuade every would-be husband or wife to submit to a medical examination before marriage. In the same connection the Reichstag is now debating and seems certain to pass a measure to compel every German affected with certain diseases to undergo treatment at the expense of the State. The treatment would be private and the patients’ identity would not be demanded. The Prussian Government is also encouraging all forms of athletic sport and means to spend considerable sums for this purpose and for medical supervision of the physical training among the nation’s youth. The German Republic, it is argued, must undertake this task, was less imperative under the empire, because then the young men at least received adequate physical culture during their military service. Diminution of Marriages. The effect of the war on the Reich's population is detectable chiefly among men between the ages of 30 and 40, who numerically are far inferior to women of similar age. The obvious consequences is a diminution of marriages and so of births, which now total 1,300,000 annually, as against 1,700,000 before the war for the territory now composing the German Republic. While in 1910 only one womarf in 54 remained unwed, in 1925 every third woman was threatened with permanent spinsterhood. In pre-war Hamburg, for instance, every fourth man was doomed to be a bachelor all his life, whereas now every fourth woman must become an old maid. So great in the Reich was the volume of births in the first two decades of this cexltury, however, that the population of productive male Germans has more than overcome the setback caused by war-time deaths. Not only are there 1,700,000 more German men between the ages of 15 and 05 than in 1913, but the decrease in the death rate has considerably augmented the* number of those above and below those ages.