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Page 14
No other checks are directly operative.
Misgovernment and the unequal distribution of wealth and land affect
population indirectly only, and can only act through one or other or all
of the checks already mentioned.
CHAPTER III.
DECLINING BIRTH-RATE.
_Decline of birth-rates rapid and persistent.--Food cost in New
Zealand.--Relation of birth-rate to prosperity before and after
1877.--Neo-Malthusian propaganda.--Marriage rates and fecundity of
marriage.--Statistics of Hearts of Oak Friendly Society.--Deliberate
desire of parents to limit family increase._
It is not the purpose of this work to follow any further the population
problem so far as it relates to deaths and emigration. Attention will be
concentrated on births, and the influences which control their rates.
A rapid and continuous decline in the birth-rate of Northern and Western
Europe, in contravention of all known biological and economic laws, has
filled demographists with amazement.
A table attached here shows the decline very clearly. According to
Parkes ("Practical Hygiene," p. 516), the usual food of the soldier may
be expressed as follows:--
Articles. Daily quantity in
oz. av.
Meat 12.0
Bread 24.0
Potatoes 16.0
Other vegetables 8.0
Milk 3.25
Sugar 1.33
Salt 0.25
Coffee 0.33
Tea 0.16
Total 65.32
Butter 2.4--(Moleschott.)
[Illustration]
The New Zealand Official Year Book gives the following as the average
prices of food for the years mentioned:--
1877 1887 1897 1901
s d. s d. s d. s d.
Bread per lb. 0 2� 0 1� 0 1� 0 1�
Beef per lb. 0 5� 0 3� 0 3 0 5
Mutton per lb. 0 4 0 2� 0 2 0 4�
Sugar per lb. 0 5� 0 3 0 2� 0 2�
Tea per lb. 3 0 2 3 2 0 1 10
Butter (fresh) per lb. 1 3 1 0 0 8 0 11
Cheese (col'n'l) per lb. 0 10 0 5� 0 6 0 6
Milk per qt. 0 4� 0 3 0 3 0 3�
The official returns give the average daily wage for artisans for the
years 1877, 1887, 1897, and 1901 as 11s., 10s. 6d., 9s. 9d., and 10s.
3d., respectively.
The weekly rations (the standard food supply for soldiers--Parkes's)
purchaseable by the weekly wages for these years respectively are 11.1,
14.3, 16, and 12.4; _i.e._, the average weekly wage of an artisan in
constant employment in 1877 would purchase rations for 11.1 persons, in
1887 for 14.3 persons, in 1897 for 16 persons, and in 1901 for 12.4
persons.
Up to the year 1877, the birth-rate in England and Wales conformed to
the law of Malthus, and kept pace with increasing prosperity; but, after
that year, and right up to the present time, the nation's prosperity has
gone on advancing at a phenomenal rate _pari passu_ with an equally
phenomenal decline in the number of births per 1000 of the population.
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