The Daily News. THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 2, 1911. A SINISTER OUTLOOK.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 113, 2 November 1911, Page 4

The Daily News. THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 2, 1911. A SINISTER OUTLOOK.

The mere fact that the Xcw Zealand birth-rate is still declining is not so important as the fact that nobody cares. We are provided with the most careful of statistics, comparative information of the opinions of French savant*, and all the rest of it, all of which might be helpful if a national feeling wore aroused. In the report of Dr.' Viilintine. In-spector-General of Hospitals, there are some notable facts. Facts, liowevcr notable, are of no value if the conditions they disclose do not disappear because of them. The most portentous fact in Dr. Valintine's report is that the birthrate in New Zealand is lower (Victoria excepted) than that of any State in Australasia. It is also very much lower than that of most European countries. Whether it matters or not time will tell. The reasons for the marked and continued diminution throughout the civilised world cannot be ascertained. It can only be surmised that the appalling decrease is chiefly the result of wilful prevention. It is of no service to preach aibout it; the threats of extermination through race suicide fall on deaf ears. If there is one fact that is worthy of earnest examination in connection with a deplorable state of affairs, it is that the women of all civilised races increasingly dread maternity because it has become a period of horror to most of them. We all know this to be true, and it is just.as true that Nature did not intend it to be so. We therefore conclude—we must conclude—that the race is becoming less fit to produce its kind. All the acts and facts and preachments in the world won't force a child crop. Even if we get down to causes, we do not necessarily spur people to parentage. At one time we were mnltluisians. and trembled because the race increase meant starvation for the world. Xow those who care tremble because gradually but surely the civilised races are dwindling away, while the races living in greater naturalness (and oftentimes in polygamy) increase as the sands of the seashore. There are theorists who believe that: a small child crop and a good one is better than a large child Prop and a poor one. and these gentlemen (and ladies who are mostly unmarried) write learned books on the fecundity of the unlit and the barrenness of the tit —a screaming comrariiction in terms. Tt is not provable that the small child crop of X,. w Zealand is a better crop than f lie large child crop of Hungary (more than ten per cent, in excess), hut it is known, for instance, that the people of Hungary are frequently very poor, and that artificial feeding is absolutely unknown in many parts of t lie country. What about it? Ask your doctor why so large a, percentage of our small child crop never survive. If be will tell the truth (and he may) lie will say that no infant is intended

by Nature to survive apart from its mother. In plain English, she has no right to bear children unless glie can feed them. Nature makes no mistakes, but slie plays pranks. She is playing pranks with the civilised nations because they have long since given up taking any notice of her. Strong words, oi course, but beyond disproof. We in Nev» Zealand are very comfortable. We are very well satisfied. We have got over the days of fight and struggle, the pioneering days, when there was no talk as there is in these days of calm and comparative luxury, of inability to bring up a family—and in most eases Nature lias had her way. Tt is considered almost indecent nowadays for Nature to have her way. One may watch the papers and read all the news about the ItaloTurkish war, and one will read of events in Europe that will make the nations pale, but some may also see after that war that neither Italy nor Turkey will have a birth-rate problem. There is never a birth-rate problem in a country that is struggling for its life, nor is there ever a birth-rate problem among the savage races, who regard life and death with impunity. What are we going to do about it? Nothing! We don't get flurried about our small families because Theodore Roosevelt cries, "Keep the cradle full," or because Mr. Seddon repeated it. And, anyhow, Mr. Roosevelt wouldn't have said a word about it if he had been one of "the fit but infertile." It is ahyays the other fellow one should advise. Although every country with a diminishing birth-rate is showing anxiety about it, no country has, nor can it, offer a solution. A State may force a people to be teetotal, or to go without beef; it may tax them and preach to them and pension them, but it can't make them procreate. The futility of all State-measures is shown in France; where, despite fatherly care, the decline proceeds. Dr. Valintine has made'no suggestions for New Zealand, because there are no suggestions to be made. He is too sensible to believe that a nation can be restrained from committing suicide if it wants to, or that diatribes on the wickedness of prevention prevent prevention.