The Fertility of the Unfit Part 5

Members of the lower strata, all well educated voters, can give instances of friends, or relatives, or acquaintances, who are higher up than themselves--have "made their way," have "risen in society," have "done well," are "well off." And this consciousness inspires in all but the very lowest cla.s.ses an ambition to rise.

Because it is possible to rise, because others rise, the desire to be migrating upwards soon takes possession of members of all but the lowest or poorest cla.s.s, or those heavily ballasted with a large or increasing family.

The desire to rise in social status is inseparably bound up with the kindred desire to rise in the standard of comfort and ease.

Social status in New Zealand is, as yet, scarcely distinguishable from financial status. Those who are referred to as the better cla.s.ses, are simply those who have got, or who have made, money. All things, therefore, are possible to everyone in this democratic colony.

There is thus permeating all cla.s.ses in New Zealand a spirit of social rivalry, which shows no tendency to abate nor to be diverted. The social status of one cla.s.s exerts an attractive force on the cla.s.s next below.

But, apart from the influence of status, one cla.s.s keeps steadily in view, and persistently strives to attain, the ease, comfort, and even luxury of the cla.s.s above it.

Because the members of different grades are so migratory, there are many in one cla.s.s known well to members in some cla.s.s or cla.s.ses below, and the ease and luxury which the former enjoy are a constant demonstration of what is possible to all.

Many who do not acquire wealth enough to make any appreciable difference in their social status, are able, through family, to improve their position. Their sons and daughters are given an University education, and by far the largest number of those entering the learned professions in New Zealand are the sons of farmers, tradespeople, and retail dealers.

The great ma.s.s of the people in our Colony are conscious of the fact that their social relations and standard of comfort, or shall one say standard of ease, are capable of improvement, and the desire to bring about that improvement is the dominant ambition of their lives.

Anything that stands in the way of this ambition must be overcome. A large family is a serious check to this ambition, so a large family must be avoided.

This desire to rise, and this dread too of incurring a responsibility that will a.s.suredly check individual progress were counselled by Malthus, and resulted, and he said should result, in delayed marriage, lest a man, in taking to himself a wife, take also to himself a family he is unable to support.

But if this man can take to himself a wife without taking to himself a family, what then?

Men and women, in this Colony at least, have discovered that conformity to physiological law makes this possible.

A wife does not really add very much to a man's responsibility--it is the family that adds to his expense, and taxes all his resources. It is the doctor and the nurse, the food and the clothing, and the education of the uninvited ones to his home, that use up all his earnings, that keep him poor, or make him poorer.

Then there is one aspect of the question peculiar to the women themselves. Women have come to dread maternity. This is part of a general impatience with pain common to us all. Chloroform, and morphia, and cocaine, and ethyl chloride have taught us that pain is an evil.

When there was no chance of relieving it, we anaesthetised ourselves and each other with the thought that it was necessary, it was the will of Providence, the cry of our nerves for succour.

Now it is an evil, and if we must submit we do so under protest. Women now engage doctors on condition that chloroform will be administered as soon as they scream, and they scream earlier in their labour at each succeeding occasion.

Women are less than ever impressed with the sacredness and n.o.bility of maternity, and look upon it more and more as a period of martyrdom.

This att.i.tude is in consonance with the crave for ease and luxury that is beginning to possess us.

It is, however, no new phase in human experience. It characterised all the civilisations of ancient times, at the height of their prosperity, and was really the beginning of their decay.

Women with us are more eager to limit families than are their husbands.

They feel the burdens of a large family more. They are often heard to declare that, with a large family around her, and limited funds at her disposal with which to provide a.s.sistance, a woman is a slave. A large number think this, and, if there is a way out of the difficulty, they will follow that way. And they are not content to escape the hardships of life. They want comforts, and seek them earnestly. With the advent of comfort, they seek for ease, and, when this is found, they seek for luxury and social position.

Parents with us have a high ideal of what upbringing should be. Every parent wants his children to "do better" than himself. If he does not wish to make a stepping-stone of them, on which to rise to higher social things, he certainly wishes to give them such a "start in life" as will give them the best prospects of keeping pace with, or outstripping their fellows.

The toil and self-denial that many poor parents undergo, in order to give their children a good education, is almost pathetic, and is not eclipsed by the enthusiasm for education even in Scotland.

There is a shoemaker in a small digging town in New Zealand, still toiling away at his last, whose son is a distinguished graduate of our University, author of several books, and in a high position in his profession.

There is a grocer in another remote inland village whose son is a doctor in good practice. There is a baker in a little country district whose sons now hold high positions in the medical profession, one at home and the other abroad.

These facts are widely known amongst the working cla.s.ses, and inspire them with a spirit of rivalry.

With regard to the general education of the people, the Registrar-General says, (New Zealand Official Year Book for 1898, page 164) "In considering the proportions of the population at different age periods, the improvement in education is even more clearly proved. It is found that, in 1896, of persons at the age-period 10-15 years, 98.73 per cent, were able to read and write, while 0.65 per cent. could merely read, and 0.62 per cent. were unable to read. The proportion who could not read increased slowly with each succeeding quinquennial period of age, until at 50-55 years it stood at 4.04 per cent. At 75 to 80 years the proportion was 7.05, and at 80 and upwards it advanced to 8.07.

Similarly, the proportion of persons who could read only increased from 0.65 at 10-15 years to 3.66 at the period 50-55 years, and again to 9.74 and upwards. The better education of the people at the earlier stages is thus exhibited."

Further evidences of improved education will be found in the portion of his work relating to marriages, where it is shown that the proportion of persons in every thousand married, who signed by mark, has fallen very greatly since 1881. The figures for the s.e.xes in the year 1881 were 32.04 males, and 57.04 females, against 6.19 males and 7.02 females in 1895.

For the position of teacher in a public school in New Zealand, at a salary of 60 a year, there were 14 female applicants, 10 of whom held the degree of M.A., and the other four that of B.A.

The number of children, 5-15 years of age, in New Zealand, was estimated as on 31st December, 1902, at 178,875. The number of children, 7-13 years of age (compulsory school age), was estimated as on 31st December, 1902, at 124,986. The attendance at schools, public and private, during the fourth quarter of 1902, was European 150,332, Maoris and half-castes 5,573. If children spend their useful years of child life at school, they can render little or no remunerative service to their parents.

Neither boys or girls can earn anything till over the age of 14 years.

Our laws prohibit child labour.

In New Zealand, children, therefore, while they remain at home, are a continual drain on the resources of the bread-winner. More is expected from parents than in many other countries.

At our public schools children are expected to be well clad; and it is quite the exception, even in the poorest localities of our large cities, to see children attending school with bare feet.

During child-life, nothing is returned to the parent to compensate for the outlay upon the rearing and educating of children.

If a boy, by reason of a good education, soon, say, at from 14-18 years, is enabled to earn a few shillings weekly, it is very readily absorbed in keeping him dressed equally well with other boys at the same office or work.

An investment in children is, therefore, from a pecuniary point of view, a failure. There are, perhaps, two exceptions in New Zealand--in dairy farming in Taranaki, where the children milk outside school hours; and in the hop districts of Nelson, where, during the season, all the children in a family become hop-pickers, and a big cheque is netted when the family is a large one.

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 a.s.sistance; 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?