THE BIRTH RATE

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume XLIX, Issue 12628, 16 October 1905, Page 7

THE BIRTH RATE

To the Editor

Sir, —I see by Mr. Longdill's letter in your Thursday's issue that he falls. into the error, sometimes encojanter#3:/: amongst the followers of Mill, of ■ confounding abstract principles with facts.. Mill himself had a much clearer conception of the subject. Mr. Longdill says truly that when the population of the world has increas.ad to that quantity that it can absorb all that can bo produced from the earth's surface, "any further increase must inevitably mean starvation for some and shortage for all." But this point, in its extreme shape, is never reached. Though, in the abstract, we may say that it is oon•tinually approaching, yet in the nature of things it can never come to pass. Long before the stage of universal shortage arrives, it is esercising its restrictive influence in various ways upon the conduct of indiyidauls now living. It can never arrive because, before it does so, the fear of it, and Sometimes aven a small foretaste of it, immediately causes a reduction in the* proportion cf births to the population. Especially in densely populated countries the diminished number of marriages in periods of depression in trade shows how real an influence this fear, has in preventing over-multiplication. It will be seen that the actual starvation point to which Mr. Longdill refers ij eten further removed from the region of possibility on bearing in mind that there are several lesser forms of privation, loss of social standing, etc., which operate in staying population beioro any real pinch is felt. Thus controlled, tha period of possible growth is rendered indefinitely iong by the new inventions and improvements in the n-'elhods of production by which a greater yield is obtained. The clangei of privation, then, acts continually in tiho present. The mistake made by some of the modern disciples of Mill i 3 in regarding this general truth, not as a fixed principle, but as a coming event. Rather should it be conceived as a normal law of progress constantly .present, guiding history and regulating conduct. This distinction between the regulative and the real ought, I should think, to be called the pons asinorum of political economy, as also of all other branches of science. As it is not to be supposed that there are many of your readers who share Mr. Longdill'& peculiarities, I shall not trespass longer on your space.—l am, etc., C. ROBERTS. Tayford. To the Editor. Sir, —Kindly permit me to correct an error that appeared in my letter published in Thursday's issue of your paper, where'm you make me say the proposed saving of £755 by readjustment of officers is too small a sum to pay one or two assistants who will be required to help the present Borough staff to fill the gap caused by the loss of one whose services are valued at £1000. £755 should have read £75.— I am, etc., OBSERVER.