|
Main
- books.jibble.org
My Books
- IRC Hacks
Misc. Articles
- Meaning of Jibble
- M4 Su Doku
- Computer Scrapbooking
- Setting up Java
- Bootable Java
- Cookies in Java
- Dynamic Graphs
- Social Shakespeare
External Links
- Paul Mutton
- Jibble Photo Gallery
- Jibble Forums
- Google Landmarks
- Jibble Shop
- Free Books
- Intershot Ltd
|
books.jibble.org
Previous Page
| Next Page
Page 21
Quite apart from considerations of self, parents declare that the fewer
children they have, the better they can clothe and educate them; and
they prefer to "do well" for two or three, than to "drag up" twice or
three times as many in rags and ignorance.
Clothing is dear in New Zealand. The following is a labourer's account
of his expenditure. He is an industrious man, and his wife is a thrifty
Glasgow woman. It is drawn very fine. No. 7 is less than he would have
to pay in the city by two or three shillings a week for a house of
similar size. No. 9 is rather higher than is usual with Benefit
Societies, which average about sixteen shillings a quarter.
WEEKLY EXPENSES OF FAMILY COMPRISING FIVE CHILDREN AND PARENTS.
Per Week.
� s. d.
1. Groceries and milk 0 15 0
2. Coal and light 0 4 0
3. Butcher 0 4 0
4. Baker 0 4 0
5. Boots, with repairing 0 2 6
6. Clothing and underclothing 0 5 0
7. Rent in suburbs 0 10 0
8. Sundries 0 2 0
9. Benefit Society 0 2 0
-----------
Weekly total �2 8 6
Most young people make a good start in New Zealand. Even men-servants
and maid-servants want for nothing. They dress well, they go to the
theatres and music-halls, they have numerous holidays, and enjoy them by
excursions on land or sea. It is when they marry, and mouths come
crying to be filled, that they become poor, and the struggle of life
begins.
In our Colony, there is no more prevalent or ingrained idea in the minds
of our people than that large families are a cause of poverty.
A high birth-rate in a family certainly is a cause of poverty. Many
children do not enable a father to earn higher wages, nor do they enable
a mother to render the bread-winner more assistance; while in New
Zealand, especially, compulsory education and the inhibition of
child-labour prevent indigent parents from procuring the slight help
that robust boys and girls of 10 years of age, or so, are often able to
supply.
These considerations go far to explain the desire on the part of married
couples to limit offspring; and, if there were no means at their
disposal of limiting the number of children born to them, a great
decline in the marriage-rate would be the inevitable result of the
existing conditions of life, and the prevalent ideas of the people.
Hopeless poverty appears to be a cause of a high birth-rate, and this
seems to be due to the complete abandonment by the hopelessly poor of
all hope of attaining comfort and success.
Marriage between two who are hopelessly poor is extremely rare with us.
Each is able to provide for his or herself at least, and in all
probability the husband is able to provide comfortably for both.
If he is not, the wife can work, and their joint earnings will keep them
from want. But, if one of the partners has not only to give herself up
to child-bearing, and thus cease to earn, but also bring another into
the home that will monopolise all her time, attention, and energy, and a
good deal of its father's earnings, how will they fare?
If a man's wages has to be divided between two, then between three, then
four, six, eight, ten, while all the time that wages is not increasing,
have we not a direct cause of poverty, and, moreover, is not that cause
first in time and importance?
Later on in the history of the family their poverty will become a cause
of an increase in the children born to them. At first they may struggle
to prevent an increase, but, when they are in the depths of hopeless
poverty, they will abandon themselves to despair.
Could they have had born to them only one, or two, or three, during
their early married life, they might not only have escaped want, but
later in life may have had others born to them, without either their
little ones or themselves feeling the pinch of poverty.
Previous Page
| Next Page
|
|