THE POPULATION QUESTION IN FRANCE.
It is a strange commentary upon those who would settle New Zealand in potato patches that the French Government is contemplating exactly the reverse step. The other day it was announced that legislative action was proposed to encourage the increase of population. This sounded funny, and most people, no doubt, thou slit it was a •' muddlogram, ' But now we are told the details of tlie proposnls. The law which decrees the equal division of landed property among ohidren at the death of their parents is to be repealed, and .small families and. bachelors are to be specially taxed. It is well known that the French as a nation have | for many years purposely limited their families, so that their children may have sufficiont land to live upon. The result has been that for many years the population of the country has been almost stationary. Since IS2I the increase has been only from 30,000,000, to 38,000,000 and of late years the increase has been almost confined to foreigners iesident in the country. Such a state of affairs in a country situated as France can only be regarded in a very serious light. While her hereditary enemies are not only increasing fast in population, but have millions of subjects in other countries, more or less available as a fighting force in a emergencv, France fiuds herself praticallv stationary. Every year increases this disparity in population, and the larger population can always put the larger army in the field. This is wnat is troubling the French Government. The ancients used to honour the mother of many sons, and in later times the ' Napoleon always promoted soldiers who had seven sons or more. But thi3 is the first time on record that the Government of a srreat nation has deliberately set itself to devise legislation to encourage large families, and to use the taxing ( machine to thlit end. ' i i 5 ' « I ■ j
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Waikato Times, Volume XXXIX, Issue 3130, 6 August 1892, Page 2 (Supplement)
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324THE POPULATION QUESTION IN FRANCE. Waikato Times, Volume XXXIX, Issue 3130, 6 August 1892, Page 2 (Supplement)
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