The Brattleboro daily reformer. (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1913-1955, 1913-03-11
LOW BIRTH RATE
ALARMS FRANCE
Danger of DGpOpuIatiCn Is
Disclosed.
NEED $50, 900 MORE YEARLY
sertilon Analyses Problem of Short
age, Its Causes and Remedies-Race
Has Fallen From is Per Cent to 10
Per Cent of Civilized Peoples OF
Earth-Urges New Laws.

Earth-Urges New Laws.
In an interesting aud lucid lecture
before the Society of Friends of the
University of Paris, of which NJ. Ray
mond Poincare is president, DR..
jacques Bertillon has analysed at
length the problem of the depopulation
of France, its causes and remedies.
In 1915, said the doctor, the French
amounted to 16 per cent of the civiliz-
ed people of the world. They now
represent only 10 per cent, and against
/ 100000 people who speak French
there are today 120,000,O00 who speak
German and 1J0,0O0,000 who speak
! English. This condition is becoming
/ more accentuated since in 1911 the
number OF deaths exceeded the num-
/ Der of births in France, while in other
countries the excess of births over
deaths kept at an average of about
twelve per thousand. Some people see a
remedy in efforts to decrease mortal.
ity, but the doctor declared this meth,
cd to be of little or no value.
100000 More Births Needed.
r. What was wanted, he said, was an
extra 100000 births every year. The
present deficit involved economic con
sequences of the most dangerous char
acter. Nautilus was quite wrong when
he attempted to show that at Hfes
banquet there was room only for q
limited number of guests. The guests
explained DR.. Bertillon, were also
cooks, contributing their share to the
banquet. That is why people with G
high birth rate show much more
rapid economic advance than does
France.
The consequences of depopulatior
are even graver in the realm of intelli
gence and culture. Technical and sci
entific works whose readers are limit
: ed in number, but which nevertheless
mark the essential condition of prog
ress, are necessarily published in Ian
guages spoken by the greater number
There are many factors responsible,
for the voluntary and dangerous imita
ton of families in France. The growtl
of individualism among others play
5 a considerable part. The civil code
which prohibits the free testamentar,
disposition of property, also favor
small families. This is clearly demon
strated by a little village in the out
skirts of Dunkirk. According to tn
terms of a foundation dating from tn
seventeenth century. every family liz
ing within the village boundaries
-, entitled to twenty-four areas (abou
three-ffths of an acre) of land TIL
result is that births exceed deaths b
Al per cent.
II Laws Help Birth Rate.
V Instances of the birth rate bein
II heightened by judiciOus legislation al
numerous, notably in Bavaria an
X Roumania, where by the suppressio
T of some of the veXatious formalitie
attending marriage thousands of birth
n We're gained every year
Il, The doctor would like to see til
u public taught to honor and favor lare
families instead of subjecting them
p mockery, as is so often the case nov
Il adays. He recalled that NJ. Poubell
when project of the Seine, would n,
- employ any officeholder unless he ha
=, at least three children. He ais
T.; thought that every mother who hG
~ four children living should be entitlt
to a grant of 500. This would, I
=. doubt, involve a large sum of none
~ but it must not be considered as mo
II