SMALL FAMILIES

Waikato Times, Volume 127, Issue 21246, 17 October 1940, Page 10

SMALL FAMILIES

DOMINION PROBLEM MODERN LIFE A DETERRENT SOME REMEDIES SUGGESTED By Telegraph.—Special to Time-?> DUNEDIN, Wednesday The view that a special Ministry of State should be established with the object of giving every encouragement to a return to the four and five children family was again expressed by Professor C. E. Hercus, Dean of the Otago Medical School, in an address delivered at the annual meeting of the Dunedin branch of the Plunket Society today. Professor Hercus declared there was nothing so arresting in the whole of New Zealand’s social history as the tremendous fall in the birth-rate since 1870 and later since 1918, although there had been a very slight rise in the past year. There would be fewer women going into the childbearing period in 15 years’ time unless the position was aided by migration. But England's birth-rate was also declining and. moreover, people showed no desire to migrate. Example of Maoris “There must be a substantial increase in the birth-rate, even to keep us where we are,”’ Professor Hercus added. “The Maoris are improving their birth-rate in spite of terrible infantile mortality, and even with many adverse influences to which they are subject their natural rate of increase is healthy. That suggests that, admirable though the efforts of the Plunket Society are, even if you could do the impossible and save every baby you would still not have touched the fundamentals of the problem. “I am asking for four and five children, not one and two, and unless we get it we are up against the biggest problem New Zealand has ever faced.” There was nothing biologically in New Zealand against a healthy population growth, Professor Hercus said, yet in 1836 there were 2000 more children in the primary schools of Otago than there were today. Cost of Living The modern way of living in flats, the high cost of living, etc., conspired against increasing the population, and one extreme disadvantage was that a great many New Zealand' mothers were seriously overworked in the domestic field. No society was better equipped than the Plunket Society to raise the status of the domestic worker, and he hoped the time would come when there would be a body of women similar to Plunket nurses going about homes helping mothers in their domestic duties and generally giving the domestic worker a better standing in the community.

Professor Hercus said he thought the State should be prepared to subsidise the domestic worker in the same way as it subsidised the doctor and Plunket nurse. “I suggest, however,” Professor Hercus concluded, “that the final solution lies in recognition of spiritual values in the widest meaning of the term. There must be restoration of the social prestige of the large family, of joy in parenthood, of pride of race, and the understanding that we have a great responsibility to carry on the torch to the next generation, which should have the right to be healthy and productive.”