Page 5 Advertisements Column 3

Taranaki Daily News, 18 April 1918, Page 5

Some startling facts concerning Britain's decreasing birth-rate and the limitation of families were given recently to the Wesleyan Conference, sitting at Melbourne, by Professor E. J. A. Berry, MID., who stated that -ttere were 100,000 fewer babies born in Great Britain during 1915 than 1814, and 19M showed a still further diminution of 20,000. Further, in 1915, the cxeess of births over deaths in Great Britain had sunk to 252,201, and of that number nearly onehalf died in the first year of life. Tt was almost universally admitted by scientists that the limitation of families was deliberate. The matter was really so serious that on present birth-rate figures they could calculate the year in which the British Empire would be extinct. He had been criticised for not venturing to provide a cure. That could not be done by any one man or woman. It could only be done, firstly, by rousing publio opinion, and, secondly, by securing the co-operation of the medical and clerical professions. The conference unanimously adopted a motion that, in view of the menace to the future of our nation in the rapidly-diminishing birthrate, the Commonwealth and State Governments' be urged to take the ques. tion into their immediate and earnest consideration, and to bring iu such legislation aB may effectually restrict the manufacture and sale of drugs and appliaiwe»'.ior abortion.— ■4#fc ■