CORRESPONDENCE.

Taranaki Daily News, 1 November 1917, Page 2

CORRESPONDENCE.

NATIONAL SUICIDE. To the Editor. Dr. Walker, in the course of his instructive lecture, touched upon a vital point, struck the nail on the head, when he referred to the comparative birthrates in France and Germany since ,1870. The one country's population has gone ahead by leaps and bounds; the other has been practically at a standstill during that period—natural fecundity and artificial sterility staring one another face to face. The curse of Malthusianism, born of a decline of religion, has been depopulating France more than all the terri.bli: ravages of the preseijt disastrous war, Alas! the nefarious, inhuman, and sinful practice of birth control is not confined to any one nation at the present time. Our own fair land is deeply smitten with it, and many citizens refuse the duty of handing on the terch of life. The doctor thinks that an appeal to the loyalty and patriotism of the women of the different countries after the war will transform the face of the earth. Loyalfy to what, or to whom? Patriotism is a noble virtue, a great ornament to man or woman, nay, an inherent part of normal humanity. but something deeper, more radical, more fundamental, is required to stay the plague of race-suicide/now so widespread in its ravages and threatening the downfall of civilised, or socalled civilised, society. A return t<s the principles of the gospel can alone arrest the downward march upon which the nations have embarked.—l am, etc., PATRIOT.