IS GREAT BRITAIN COMMITTING SUICIDE?

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 348, 26 March 1910, Page 10

IS GREAT BRITAIN COMMITTING SUICIDE?

fciTAIU'LLXIi i'ACLS ABOUT (Jl'K NATIO.NAL rilYSlyi K. \ Look to the Army and Xiu-y! Thai, is the constant cry (says a London paper), li Germany bui.ds ;i warship | wo must biiilt two; ii jJiu acquires a ] new type of gun tor her army, we must acquire n mure deadly one still. And what an enormous amount of ink lias ' been spilled in upbraiding .Britain for ■being so laggard in her preparations i" meet the German aerial licet, which the . ''bogey man" tells us will .invade our shores one night when we are quietly sleeping in our beds. But there is far greater menace to the supremacy of Britain than lack of Dreadnoughts, guns, or aerial warships. Shall we in the ruture have enough men of the right type to man them? The ' nation's hope for the future lies in tue children of to-day, and what is the use of building gigantic warships and manufacturing guns if we have not got the ; men? As a matter of fact, there is not ! only a startling decrease in the mar- ; riage and birth rates for the last lew , years, but the physique of our hoys— j and girls, too—who may become mothers, of more weaklings—is deteriorating to such an extent, on account of overcrowding in our large towns and improper feeding, that there is a dangerous possibility, as no far distant date, of the nation suffering irom a dearth of men capable of military or naval service, or of carrying on the commercial prosper- | ity of the country. j AN ALARMIXG PROSPECT. I So alarming, indeed, does the pros- j peet seem to the Bishop of Ripon that 'he considers that only forty years may I be given as the value of English auth- j ority and influence, if the diminution in the birth-rate and the increase of the | unfit goes on. He truthfully points out that those who are increasing most rapidly are not those who are profitable to us as citizens. The tramo and the diseased are increasing rapidly, but the best class is not increasing. The Registrar-General's statistics pro- [ vide striking proof 01 the decline in the j birth-rate. As a matter of fact, it has j fallen steadily since 1890, from 29.2 ! per 1000 to 20.0. While in 1003. for in- J stance, 1,183,627 births were registered, | the total in 1907 was only 1,147,988 a | difference cf 35,639. In 1904 the total! number of births registered was 1,181,- ! 803; in 1905, 1,163,535; while in 1906 it I rose to 1,170,537, only to fall rapidly as I mentioned in 1907. !

MARRIAGE AND LARGE FAMILIES TABOOED. This decrease, of course, is due to the fact that few couples venture to embark upon matrimony nowadays. In thirty years the proportion of bachelors per 1000 has increased from 354 to 411, and the fact that every year there is an increased desire on the part of men to avoid marriage is of national significance, when it is mentioned that, roughly speaking, there are 1,200,000 more females than males in our population. And it is an indisputable fact that the average middle-class husband avoids having a large family. He believes in having no more children than he can oomiortably elothe and feed, while there is every justification for the reproach levelled against the childless rich. On the other hand, the poorer classes are continually struggling with the problem of how to feed ten or twelve children on a, pound or thirty shillings a week. The result is, of course, that thousands of youngsters are reared under circumstances which make proper physical development impossible. They live in congested areas, where the overcrowding and insanitary conditions make decency, morality, and good health" an impossibility. They grow up puny weaklings, marry and produce more weaklings, and thus add to national deterioration. A STRIKING ILLUSTRATION. And it should be borne in mind that the Army and Navy are mainly recruited from these children of the poorer classes. A striking illustration of the physical defects of children living in our large towns—which, at the same time, is a forcible argument in regard to the necessity for new conditions of housing and town planning—is afforded bv a comparison between children of Port Sunlight and Liverpool, or those of Bournville and Birmingham. As readers are /doubtless aware, Bournville and Port Sunlight are two social experiments which have "oeen tried in connection with two of the greatest industrial cerns in the country. The working people are housed under ideal conditions. the result being that at Port Sunlight, for instance, the average height of a boy or girl of seven years oi age ;s 3ft 10% 'in, and the average weight 3st S%lb. On the other side of the Meisey, however, amongst boys and girls attending schools at Liverpool, the average height is 3ft 9%in, and the average weight 3st 2%1b. The height of a Bournvil'e boy of eleven years of age averages 4ft !)in, that of a Birmingham slum boy of the same age being 4ft 2in.. the respective weights being 4st 131b and 3st 111b. The chest measurement oi the Bournville boy, too, it might be mentioned, is three inches greater than that of his little slum brother in the Midland capital.

There is another reason for the deterioration of national physique, which readers may or may not regard as vital. In view of the fact, however, that it is put forward by that eminent physician, Sir Victor Horsley, it is certainly ontitled to serious thought and consideration. And it cannot be deniel that the figures he produces are very striking. At a recent lecture at Cardiff Sir Victor stated that he held the poverty of the people was due to the parasitic growth of the drink traffic. "Poor people." he said, "who spend their money in drink lad nothing left with, which to support their children, whose physique, if. had foeen proved, was greatly inferior to that of children whose parents did nof spend their money in drink. The expenditure of the country on drink had leapt from £110,000,000 in 180,0 to between -"-£140.000,000 and £150.000.000 in 1907."

A deplorable feature of this growth in the drink traffic was recently pointed out by the Dean of Worceste'.-. who i w marked that while men were becoming intemperate, women were becoming more intemperate, and that awful fact caused (hem to fear for (lie future ot the nation.