FOUR CHILDREN A FAMILY

Taranaki Central Press, Volume IV, Issue 413, 21 April 1937, Page 6

FOUR CHILDREN A FAMILY

AUSTRALIA’S NEED Mr. W. M. Hughes’s View. Sydney, April 15. | The Federal Minister for Health, hlr W. M. Hughes, commeiFng yesterday on the birthrate problem in I Australia, said that if the Commonj wealth was b> attack the question from a material x’.wpoint the in- ■ dustrial system must be readjusted provide for a family unit of six persons—parents and four children. "More than half the world is endeavouring to find a solution of the problem of the declining birth-rate, tn Australia, our circumstances differ vitally from those cf Great Britain, for example, where it is said that, assuming that recent trends in fertility and mortality continue, the population will be less than 5,000,000 in

LOh years. That sta ewent ‘gives oiie curiously to *hink,’ but, after all, 100 years is -elite a long way off,” said Mr Hughes. “Our circumstances suggest consequences far less remote —indeed, one J might say imminent.” The Causes. Some of the causes for the decline, IMr Hughes continued, were economic. To the extent that poverty was I a cause for the falling birth-rate, the ! remedy -vas clear and eas- of a.p- -: nlicaiion, although to some it might , >e distasteful. “Buc that is not the sole lx 'r the j main cause of -the declinirig birthj race,” said Air Hiighes. “This is psyI chological: a sta.c- -of mind, of oul> i look on life of ideals. The world ! seems to be drifting -away from itsI spiritual moorings. It is perhaps ;ue of lhe consenuencc’s of advancing Iviiisatlon ana, while it. arisen out of civilisation, it may prove to he the cause of the declne and fall of civilisation. It is iv.’ell for us to Remember that Rome fell through the failure of its crop of men. . Looking at the question from a material viewpoint, Mr Hughes said, th- remedy seemed to lie in a recognition thai the family rather lhan lie individual was r.e unit in 'society, and that family unit must, i .or the purposes of progress, never j a.I below five—a man, his wife, and | ‘hree children. ; Even a family uni. of that size did am make sufficient alJowancb for the toil that wcciden-t and disease -I&vied upe ' the child populaik n, nor did it ake account, .he number of | single persons and childless couples. "Broadly, we have to face the fact hat we must have large families' in IMS ■ ouutry, and, to the extent that people are deterred from having lar.se families by economic conditions, these must be ad lusted io our needs,” i M. Hughes added.