THERE AREN'T ENOUGH OF US And Some Of The Reasons Why

New Zealand Listener, Volume 8, Issue 207, 11 June 1943, Page 4

THERE AREN'T ENOUGH OF US

And Some Of The Reasons Why

Views On Population. The Sise Of Families. And Birth-Control

NOTHING is reported so often about New Zealand as the fact that it has only one and a-half millions of people-16 to the square mile, or one to 40 acres. Scotland is less than one-third of our size, but has three times as many people. Southern Ireland has twice as many on a ‘quarter of our area, Denmark twice as many on a sixth, a poor country like Greece four times as many on halt, and Portugal five times as many on one-third. Those are all, of course, vastly older communities than ours, but the disparity is too great to be explained away in that fashion. New Zealand is dangerously under-populated whether the test is the threat from without or the economic and cultural limits on our development within. Does the average New Zealander worry about the position, or give it any thought at all? We have no means of knowing. But it has seemed worth while directing attention to the more obvious facts and asking some questions about them.

Appeal to Figures ITH the help of the Year Book and a statistician who understands the language in which such literature is written we unearthed the facts on which to base our inquiry. It is, we discovered, not strictly correct to say tuat New Zealand’s birthrate is steadiiy declining. There was a general decline from last century until 1935, and then the rate rose steeply until it reached e peak in 1941. But it dropped last year, and in the first quarter of the present year it has gone down very sharply. The war, of course, would be largely responsible for both these effects; many couples got married and had children before the husbands went to war, but in the last year or so the men have been away. As one would expect, the matriage tate has the biggest influence on the birthrate. After the depression, many marriages which had been postponed during the lean years, took place, and from 1933 our marriage rate began to tise, and went on rising steeply until 1940, so that by the outbreak of this war the rate of marriage per thousand of population was the highest since 1872, eclipsing even the post-war year of 1919. What has caused the general fall in the birthrate is not so much that married couples have not been having any children at all, but they have been too much inclined to favour the small family. The figures show a general tendency for people to have one child and to stop at that. here is this fallacy to guard against," we were told. "When we see that the birthrate has been rising in the past few years we are too inclined to think that all is well; but with the birthtate as it is at present, there are not sufficient females to reproduce the mothers of the future. The parents of to-day have got to make up for the

neglect of their own parents so far as reproduction is concerned, otherwise the gap will never be closed, and their own children and future generations will have a crushing burden to carry. Unless there is a continued marked improvement over a number of years, the birthrate in 15 to 20 years will still be going down. But this could be prevented if families were larger." Family Allowances? ; "[T’s a pity that many of the people who are so fond of telling us that we -need larger families have never had children themselves, or at least had them so long ago that they’ve almost forgotten what it is like to rear a large family under modern conditions," said father of four young children. "I suppose it could be said that I’ve been doing my duty pretty well to the community, but I’m not looking for sympathy or a putty medal, because I’m only too willing to admit that a married couple with a

decent-sized family has special compensations which, in the long run, more than make up for all the temporary annoyances.and inconveniences, such as being woken up night after night because the baby is teething, or being unable to go out with your wife becduse you can’t find anyone to mind the kids. "At the same tinte, we are living in a modern world, and it’s no good for the die-hards to look back and tell us that their mothers and fathers reared dozens of children and never bothered with gadding about. If the State wants us to have larger families, it has jolly well got to do something to encourage the family man and family woman and ease the burden for them-especially for the young mother. The allowance of £50 for a wife and £50 for each child in incometax assessments is almost an_ insult: what’s needed is a pretty generous scheme of family allowances, to lessen the financial hardship which the family man and his wife very often suffer by comparison with other people. More plainly, nearly everybody knows about birth-control these days, and you can’t rub out that knowledge: what’s got to be done is to make family-rearing sufficiently attractive for people to prefer not to practise birth-control as a matter of course." Help in the Home "IT’S not just a question of money, though I'll agree that family allowances are necessary," said the young mother of a large family. "But I’m more interested ---and have been for several years, and look like being for a good

many more-in this problem of domestic help. Here I am tied day after day and week after week to the kitchen and the wash-house, and even if I had enough money to pay for it, I can’t get anyone to help me. I can’t even send one of the children to a play centre, because there’s nobody to take her there or bring her back. My husband and I can seldom go out together-it’s even difficult for me to get down to the shops in my suburb to make household purchases, and if I ever manage to sneak into town there’s always that difficulty of prams on trams. What few domestic helpers are available seem to steer clear of large families — and I don’t say I altogether blame them. I grant that my proper place is in the home, but I’m a normal -.oderately well educated person, and this is a busy, exciting world we're living in, and I would like to have a few interests beyond the stove and the washtub. It seems to me that if the community really hopes to get anywhere with encouraging bigger families, it will have to remove the stigma from domestic service. It may even have to consider making a period of domestic service obligatory for every young girl. After all, the right sort of education, which stressed the idea of service to the community, would pretty soon reconcile the average girl to this scheme, especially as she could herself look forward to getting assistance in her turn when she came to set up house and _ started raping a family." "You mean a kind of conscription? That sounds pretty drastic; rather like Fascism," we demurred. "Well, let’s admit that even Fascists may sometimes have good ideas," was the reply. "I can’t see any real difference (Continued on next page)

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between conscripting young people (including girls), for war and conscripting them for service of this kind which is so vital to winning the peace." "Where Can They Live?" E referred the two opinions above to another family man. He agreed that they accurately described forms of social pressure which operated these days to keep the size of families down. "But there’s another point," he said, "and that’s the: problem of housing. If you’ve got a large family, but not much money, and particularly if you live in the city, where on earth are you going to bring your family up? The Government, of course, is going ahead with a comprehensivé housing policy, but I'd be interested to know how many of the projected State houses are designed for couples with four or more children. So far as I can see, the average State house is a small one. Speaking rather frivolously, it’s the same sort of tendency as you come across when you fill up your income-tax form and find there’s only enough space provided for four children, Not one of these factors- housing shortage, no domestic help, no baby-minders, high prices, prams on _ trams, uncertainty about the future, and so on-would by itself be likely to keep a couple from having another child-but they all add up to a pretty fair total of discouragement. They represent the social and economic pressures which combine to-day to limit the population, and it’s going to take a very comprehensive and far-seeing national policy to divert that pressure into the opposite direction. Above all, its going to take education: there’s still too much of a tendency to look on the mother of more than three children with a kind of pitying contempt-and to look on her husband as a beast. Still, I’m enough of an optimist to believe that we can already see signs of a changing attitude." "The Only Remedy" "\V HAT I feel like saying to everyone is just what Hallet Abend said in his book Ramparts of the Pacific," said an active member of the Dominion Settlement Association. "Abend said, ‘Cast your mind beyond this war altogether.’ "Our neighbours in the Orient, including China and India, total 1073 millions. They are all increasing rapidly, India at the rate of five million a year; and India has just been promised Full Dominion Status. Can you get anyone to tell you just what Full Dominion Status is? What does it mean if it doesn’t allow freedom of movement to and from the other Dominions? There ought to be enough in that to make people sit up and think. "Well, now, say P after this war we’re invited to confer with the United Nations and subscribe to the principles which those nations will undoubtedly draw up; unless we already have our minds made up about what we're going to do, those United Nations will say we’re a menace to ourselves and to international affairs, and they’ll take us in hand and force something on us. How can New Zealan possibly face a committee representing those over-populated, under-fed nations and still go on the way it has been going

on? In the face of the figures we just haven’t got any excuse for ourselves. Even if we suddenly jumped back to the 1880 birthrate figure (40.78 to a thousand), it wouldn’t save this country. Immigration is the only remedy. "Then take a look at the economic aspects of this business, The only thing that will keep our Social Security scheme going is a continual stream of young people who can carry the pensioners on their backs. It’s not cash, or cheques, or credit or anything that will pay for such a scheme, it’s Youth." "Birth-Control to Blame" "| HE sole cause of the declining birth-rate-certainly the sole sufficient cause — is birth-control; and the sole reason for birth-control in all but a negligible number of cases is selfishness," said a farmer. "Therefore, I don't know whether to regard birth-controllers as patriots or as traitors, If they have lost faith in life and in themselves, it is better that they should disappear; and they may therefore be serving their age without knowing it. But if, as I believe myself, Nature is far wiser than we are, and can, and does make good men and women out of nearly all children who ate neither pampered nor starved, most birth-controllers are parasitical humbugs. For they deceive themselves when (if?) they say that their purpose is merely to space their children. The purpose in nine cases out of 10 is to have no children*at all; and many, perhaps most, of the children they do have are accidents." A Parable GRANDFATHER whom we consulted said that he would give us his views in writing. He did, but what he wrote is a parable. We print it for those who can interpret it. There was one among the GodMockers called Smart Alec. The same went to a doctor by night and said to him: "Tell me how to love and not pay." And the doctor made answef: "Abandon poetry and take up mechanics." So he went away sorrowful, having fine instincts. Family Planner’s View "]'D like to see families here averaging between three and four children," said a member of a Family Planning

Association. "Families should be well spaced, but I would like a line drawn at six. To have more than about six children is apt to be an undue strain on the mother’s health." "What do you consider are some of the reasons causing small families, apart of course, from the war?" we asked, "It’s hard to say off-hand, There are a lot of factors such as the. shortage of domestic help, small houses and so on. I should say that a good deal is selfishness. The parents think that they would prefer a car to a third child. I should put the absence of any kind of help pretty high as a factor. No one but a mother of small children can know how one can feel, tied hand and foot hand day after day and year after year. Every other sort of worker gets an afternoon off occasionally, but most mothers of young children are physically and mentally tied for seven days a week and for 24 hours of the day. "There is also the snobbish angle. A lot of us want too much for ourselves and for our children. People expect to get the most expensive clothes and toys and schools for their children, none of which are necessarily the best. The sooner we put across the'idea that it is better for a family to have four healthy children than one over-dressed, overfussed child with expensive toys and car the better." Cost of a First Baby A YOUNG married woman who said she had "tried it once and didn’t like it," asked what was being done to encourage big families. "I don’t think there has been a time in the last 50 years when conditions could have been quite so discouraging for the expectant mother. I have made a list of the things I was required to have to go into the home recently to have my first baby, together with one or two items of furniture I also purchased. This list does not attempt to cover -everything, but does carry a mother along to a stage approximately six weeks after the baby is born. Then the real expenses start. This list will help to prove, however, that (continued on page 16)

THERE AREN’T ENOUGH OF US

(continued from page 5) a £100 note will look pretty sick by the time all expenses are paid. Can the average young couple afford that? Anyhow, here’s my list;

"This list (apart from the furniture), covers those things only required for the baby at the home. Nothing has been said about those things required by the mother or about baby’s clothes after the first few weeks." Quality and Quantity "{t is tempting to dismiss the population question as unimportant by saying it is quality, not quantity, that matters," said a lecturer in Philosophy at Victoria University College. "The cannon-fodder menfality which counts heads and prefers them thick is repellent

to most of us. But we miust remember that quality itself is dependent on quantity. The life of the large town tends to be culturally as well as materially richer than that of the small town. The same applies to nations as a whole. Modern life is complex and the community must reach a certain size before it can support a flourishing culture. The day of the city state is long past. The day of the small nation would seem to be passing. The population of New Zealand is too small for economic efficiency or cultural independence, and apart from the Maori section of it is not showing signs of any signal increase. At the present birth and death rates the whole population will just about hold its own. In most other English-speaking countries the trends for some time have been toward smaller populations in the future. Can this be allowed? To prohibit artificial means for the limitation of families is an easy remedy, but this has proved inefficient elsewhere (e.g., Italy). Economic bribes have brought small increases in some countries, but only small ones. Regretfully we must admit that there is no easy solution. Low birth rates are bound up with the whole pattern of modern Western society. Very far-reaching changes, material, psychological, and social will be necessary if this is to be altered. As John Stuart Mill said: ‘When the object is to raise the permanent condition of a people small means do not merely produce small effects; they produce no effects at all.’ But the population problem is only one that suggests a need for far-reaching changes. Many other signposts point the same way."

Hospital charge � 4 11 Extras Chlorcform Napaine flannel squdces' 6 1 1 3 singlets (cotton ) 3 singlets woollen wool only 9 0 3 gowns 3 coats material only 2 10 0 3 petticoats 1 shawl 5 Butter muslin 6 6 Sundries (powder, safety pins, cottonwool, etc. D 2 0 0 � 24 Bassinette and mattress Brankets and cover 1 ; 1 1 Cot Baby chair. 2 10 824 2 0 848 12 0