A NEW METHOD.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 3070, 15 December 1908, Page 4

A NEW METHOD.

Mr Artnur Griffith, one of the members of the New South Wales Legislative Assembly, has hit upon a new ma thud of encouraging the increase of population. Mr Griffith objects to the importation of large numbers of working men and women, who will have the effect of flooding the market and reducing "The best Australian immigrant," he urge 3, "is the Australian baby," and he argues that the State Governments of Australia could best use money meant to influence the gi'owth of population by assisting the people ! of the Commonwealth who are willing to undertake the responsibility of rearing families. Mr Griffith discusses as a means to this end the proposals of a tax on bachelors and of the adoption of the French system of remission of taxation in favojr of persona with families, and proposes that every woman, upon registering the birth of her child, shall receive out of the consolidated revenue the sum of £5 towards the costs incidental to and immediately following upon the birth. The bonus, so that it should not carry with it the stigma of pauperism, should be payable to all mothers, irrespective of their class or the section of the community to which they belong.