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1,000 respectively. These are the lowest rates yet recorded with the
exception of 1918, when the corresponding rates were 17.7 and 15.8 per
1,000. In Westminster the rate has risen from 10.7 to 11.3, which,
however, is lower than the average birth-rate of the quinquennium 1921-25.
The increase in the number of births has occurred only in the northern
area of the City. In the other districts into which the City is divided for
the purposes of Maternity and Child Welfare, the number of births remains
the same as last year.
Various theories have been put forward as to the causes of the falling
birth-rate. The fact that the birth-rate 30 years ago was almost 30 per
1,000 and has now declined to 17.8 per 1,000 has given rise to speculation
as to the causes. It would appear that the rate of decline is becoming
more rapid and the fact has been noted that after nine years of peace the
nation is no more fertile than in the last year (1918) of war exhaustion.
The most serious contribution to the solution of the problem postulates an
ebb and flow theory to human fertility. It is recollected that on the
continent a flow began about the end of the eighteenth century, probably
not unconnected with the national upheavals which culminated in the
French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars. The flowing tide in
this country went with the rise of industrialism. A rising birth-rate
seems to presage an ebullition of human energy in every sphere of
activity and achievement. Increasing prosperity and a rising birthrate
go hand in hand. Although it has frequently been stated that the
falling birth-rate is a sign of the present diminished prosperity of the
middle classes, the fact that the decline in this country was first observed
among the rural dwellers in Wales rather tends to confound this theory.
It may well be, as so ably argued in a recent Times leader, that European
peoples are passing through a period of quiescence following one of
exuberant vitality.
Other theories which require mention are two which are at mutual
variance— that hardship and lean years encourage fertility; and, on the
other hand, that a copious food supply and ease increase it. Some
students of the problem see in the falling rate a sign of race weariness,
a shrinking away from the responsibility of bringing large families into
the world to join in the stress of present-day economics.
Dr. Menzies, the County Medical Officer, has advanced a theory which,
in its common-sense view, must have a wide appeal. He feels that the
result of educating a generation and supplying the means of social amelioration
has largely supplanted the need for large families. In days when old
age pensions were non-existent and national insurance unheard of, those of
the labouring class, if they lived long enough, could look forward only
to the workhouse in their declining years unless they had reared a family