M. Arsene Dumont in “Natalite et Democratie” discusses the declining birth-rate of France, and finds the cause to be the voluntary prevention of child-bearing on the part of the people, going so far as to say that where large families occur amongst the peasantry, it is due to ignorance of the means of prevention.

The birth-rate in none of the civilized countries of the world has diminished so rapidly as in New Zealand.  It was 40.8 in 1880; it was 25.6 in 1900, a loss of 15.2 births per 1000 of the population in 20 years.

There is no known economic cause for this decline.  The prosperity of the Colony has been most marked during these years.

Observation and statistics force upon us the conclusion that voluntary effort upon the part of married couples to prevent conception is the one great cause of the low and declining birth-rate.  The means adopted are artificial checks and intermittent sexual restraint, within the marriage bond, the latter tending to replace the former amongst normal women, as physiological knowledge spreads.

Delayed marriage still has its influence on the birth-rate, but with the spread of the same knowledge, that influence is a distinguishing quantity.

Delayed marriage under Malthusian principles would exert a potent influence in limiting the births, because early marriages were, and, under normal circumstances would still be, fruitful.

In the 28th annual report relating to the registration and return of Births, Marriages and Deaths in Michigan for the year 1894 (p. 125), it is stated that “The mean number of children borne by females married at from 15 to 19 years of age inclusive, is 6.76.  For the next five year period of ages, it is 5.32, or a loss of 1.44 children per marriage, this attending an advance of five years in age at marriage.”

Voluntary effort frequently expresses itself in the practice of abortion.  Many monthly nurses degenerate into abortionists and practise their calling largely, while many women have learned successfully to operate on themselves.

The extent to which this method of limiting births is practised, and the absence of public sentiment against it, in fact the wide-spread sympathy extended to it, may be surmised from the facts that at a recent trial of a Doctor in Christchurch, New Zealand, for alleged criminal abortion, a large crowd gathered outside the Court, greeting the accused by a demonstration in his favour on his being discharged by the jury.  A similar verdict in a similar case in Auckland, New Zealand, was greeted by applause by the spectators in a crowded Court, which brought down the indignant censure of the presiding Judge.