Vilas County news. [volume] (Eagle River, Vilas County, Wis.) 1896-1927, 1904-02-22
WIVES RECEIVE THE BLAME.
Australian Commission Says They are
Responsible for Race Suicide.

Australian Commission Says They are
Responsible for Race Suicide.
Some time ago the government of
New South Wales, Australia, appoint
ed a commission to investigate the de-
clining birth rate in that state, a condi-
ton which has been brought into sharp
relief by the figures of T. A. Coghlan,
the government statistician.
The commission decided as soon as
it had been organized to take testi-
mony and to perform it's other work in
camera. This rule it has adhered to.
1t is yet sitting, and when it will com
plete its task does not at present ap-
pear.
The results have caused not a little
surprise. 1t seems that most of the
members of the commission began
their task with a well defined idea that
it was prominently economic causes
that limited the birth rate. This was
the burden cf most of the letters which
were printed by the newspapers. 1t
was the popular notion that owing to
the hard times consequent upon the
drouth and the wild and weird financ-
ing of the New South Wales govern
ment of the last few years, it was the
fatherhood of the state which was re-
spOnsible.
But the commissioners were amazed
to discover, so it is said, that it is not
the fathers. hut the mothers, who are
opposed to any or to large families. 1t
is said further that the commissions
report will demonstrate that the
pounds and the pence are not really
the factor in the problem that they
are generally thought to be. Further
more. the objection to large families
is found among upper and middle class
wives rather than among women
lower in the social scale.
The testimony of the doctors who
have been before the commission is
that it is the pain and the physical
discomfort attendant upon child bear
ing-the curse of Eve-which most
move women to avoid maternity. The
next strongest motive, according 10
these witnesses. is the purely social
one-that motherhood interferes with
their other feminine interests and with
their pleasures.
Possibly the knowledge that deaths
following oonfnemnt are frequent or
increasing is another element in the
case COghlan's next to latest stats
tics show that in the decade 1S70-S0
the ratio of deaths TO confnements
was .004,S91 per cent; in the period of
1880 the ratio was .004,309, and in
1S91-1900 it was .006,509, which goes
to prove, SO far as figures at least are
that the fear has basis.
1t is said further that the same sta
tistics show that the women here are
now less capable, physically, Of child /
bearing than formerly. and that the
frequent practice of physi-
clans in Sydney and elsewhere in the
state of certifying equivocally in cases
of death in Childbirth makes the re
turns under this head less than they |
really are.
Although required by law to de
scribe deaths in childbirth as being
such. doctors use the term blood
and heart failure" in
stead and they persistently omit the
words "puerperal" in fatal cases of
septicaemia and peritcnitis. So Mr..
Coghlan charges, and so doctors have
stated, when questioned by the com
mission
Testimony has also been taken
which indicates that the mortality
among infants is larger than it should
be. Artificial feeding of infants,
doctors have told the commission,
limits the population.
The commission will point out in its
report with as much force as it is cap
able CT that whatever may be the rec
sons the birth rate in New South
Wales is indisputably falling off and
the decline has been most marked dur
ing the last few years. 1t will point
out that this condition is not an ac-
one. not due to the drouth nor
to hard times. but one of intention.
1t is said that ii will even go further
and declare that the decline bears an ]
relation to intellectual
status and 10 pcstponement of mar
riage. I