In New Zealand, the ratio of those dependent upon the State, or on public or private support, has gone up from 16.86 per thousand of population, over 15 years of age in 1878, to 23.01 in 1901.  The ratio of defectives, including deaf and dumb, blind, lunatics, epileptics, paralytics, crippled and deformed, debilitated and infirm, has gone up from 5.4 per thousand, over fifteen years, in 1874, to 11.4 in 1896, declining slightly to 10.29 in 1901.  The ratio of lunatics has gone up from 1.9, in 1874, to 3.4 in 1901.  This is the period of the most rapid and persistent decline in the New Zealand birth-rate; and, coincident with this period, the marriage-rate went down from 8.8 per thousand in 1874, to 5.8 in 1886, and then gradually rose to 7.83 in 1901.  The number of weekly rations (Parkes’s standard), purchasable by the average weekly wages of an artisan in Wellington province, has gone up from 11 to 16.5 between the years 1877 and 1897.  In other words, the price of food and the rate of wages in 1897 would enable an artisan to fill 51/2 more mouths than he could have done at the rates prevailing in 1877.

Notwithstanding the development of civilising, Christianising, and educational institutions, crime, insanity, and pauperism are increasing with startling rapidity.  The true cause is to be found deep down in biological truth.  Society is breeding from defective stock.  The best fit to produce the best offspring are ceasing to produce their kind, while the fertility of the worst remains undisturbed.  The most striking demographical phenomenon of recent years is the declining birth-rate of civilised nations.  In Germany the birth-rate has fallen from 40 to 35 per thousand of the population; in England from 35 to 30; in Ireland from 26 to 22; in France from 26 to 21; and in the United States from 36 to 30 during the last twenty years; while, in New Zealand, it has declined from 40.8, in 1880, to 25.6, in 1900.  In Australia there were 47,000 less births in 1899 than would have occurred under the rates prevailing ten years ago.

There is a consensus of opinion among demographists that this decline is due to the voluntary curtailment of the family in married life.  Prudence is the motive, and self-restraint the means by which this curtailment is made possible.  But prudence and self-restraint are the characteristic attributes of the best citizens.  They are conspicuous by their absence in the worst; and it is a matter of common observation that the hopelessly poor, the drunken and improvident, the criminal and the defective have the largest families, while those in the higher walks of life rejoice in smaller numbers.  The very qualities, therefore, that make the social unit a law-abiding and useful citizen, who could and should raise the best progeny for the State, also enable him to limit his family, or escape the responsibility of family life altogether; while, on the other hand, the very qualities which make a man a social burden,