Evening star., 1935-05-12
Europe Concerned Over
Declining Birth Rates
BY A. G, GARDINER.

LONDON, May 1.-THE most sig
nificant feature Of the current budget
is the bonus for babies. I call 1t the
most significant fact because it is the
first hint of the turn Of the tide Of
gospel that has swept this country
like new religion.
I mean the gospel of birth control.
1t is only since the war that that gospel
has been propagated. There had been
steady decline in the birth rate of
the country (excluding Ireland, where
1t still remains stationary for 40 years
before the war
But 1t was not until after the war
that birth control, with Marie Slopes
as its high priestess and people like
Dean Inge and J. NJ. Keynes as intel
lectual sympathizers, became an or
ganiRed crusade, carrying the gospel
into the remotest corner of the land
and winning for it even official sane
ton and support. The result has been
that the birth rate, which in 1880 was
"a per 1000 of the population, has
fallen from IS in 1920 to Is and even
under Is today 1t is now the lowest
of any country in Europe with the ex-
ception OF Sweden, which has de-
clined to the same level.
X
The phenomenon, of course. is not
confined to Britain. 1t is world wide,
with the exception Of the Far East,
and it is most pronounced in the Euro
pean countries. Germany's birth rate
for example, has declined from IS to
II since the war and is now below the
level Of France, which, when I was a
boy, used TO be regarded by pious
Britons as the immoral country where
people wickedly interfered with the
Divinely appointed processes Of Ma
ture and were destined to come to no
good in consequence. Today the
French birth rate at 18 is substantially
above that of England. The country
which shows the smallest decline is
Italy, where Sgnr. Mussolini has made
the duty Of the nation to multiply it
self leading feature of his state
craft.
The effect of the declining birth
rate of Britain upon the population
has been obscured by two facts. The
first is the concurrent decline in the
death rate, which has steadily fallen
from 20 per 1000 Of the population in
1880 to II per 1000 today. The second
is the cessation Of emigration since the
war. We are no longer exporting our
surplus population. Indeed, more
people have come back to England
than have gone forth.
In spite Of these correctives, the
statisticians announce that the coun-
try has reached the end of that sus-
tanned growth Of population which be-
gan with the industrial revolution
of a century ago and that we are on
the brink Of serious decline. Two
things are likely to intensity it. Un-
like the birth rate, which may well
fall still further, there is pretty clear
evidence that the death rate has now
reached something like bedrock. And
with the recovery of the world from
the economic catastrophe of the last
few years, the revival of emigration is
regarded as inevitable. Should the
revival reach anything like the level
of the pre-war years, the depopulation
OF England would proceed at much
faster pace than the calculations of
the statisticians allow for.
And there Is another consideration
In the minds Of the chancellor of the
exchequer and the government in re-
verstng engines on the population
question and encouraging the tax
payers to produce more babies. When,
If ever, the tide of emigration begins
to flow again it will take with 1t. not
the elderly and the obsolete, but much
Of the youth and vigor of the country.
And this will further accentuate the
shifting Of the average age Of the
community which is already in prog
ress.
The lengthening of the individual
life by something like five years IN
the course Of the last generation, cou-
pied with the limitation Of births, has
already moved the balance from early
manhood to middle age.
(copyrisht. 19311