THE FUTURE OF THE RACE

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XLVII, Issue 81889, 16 November 1906, Page 3

THE FUTURE OF THE RACE

"If,"' said Sir James Chrichton- > Browne, at tho Sanitary Inspectors' Congress, at Blackpool (England), "we are recruiting our population from the poorer, and mentally and physically feebler stocks of the community at a greater rate than from the better and more capable stocks, then gradual deterioration of th« race is inevitable. The weeds will accumulate, and the good grain grow scarce. And if the relationship between infer or social status and high birthrate in towns has practically doubled during the last 50 years, the ocrlook is gloomy." Sir James thinkthe deC''n e °f &e birth-rate mu-t be ascribed e.tnCT to physical degeneration affecting the ;f productive power and diminishing fecundiij': or . to tn J wlful and systematic prevent oll °i child-bearing. Is it, he asks, race failure or race suicide we have to deal wJthy or pimply race failure? But the deter.ora'ion of the moral standard which the practice of race suicide implies is in itself an ndication of deb.lity and decay, and if raw fai.ure is being manifested more rapidly in the superior than in the inferior varieties of the race, that is to say, <f the reduction in the size of fa-miles-has begun at the wrong end of the social plane, then national decadence and disaster may be anticipated. Do not, S r James implores, let us wrap ourselves up in racial self-con-ceit. A declining birth-rate, and especially a declining birth-rate among the best breeds, means diminished racial resistance.