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IS
The Registrar-General's sole comment on these figures is
contained in the following sentence, which reflects an opinion I
have been forced to for a number of years:—
"It is probable that there is a common cause operating
"throughout these countries to account for the phenomenon
"of a general decline in human fertility, and apart from any
"decrease due to changes in the age constitution of the
married women of conceptive ages, there is strong ground
"for the assumption that, in varying degree, that cause is
"the deliberate restriction of child-bearing on the part of
"the people themselves."
NOTIFICATION OF BIRTHS ACT, 1907.
Towards the end of 1907 your Public Health Committee
had under consideration the adoption or otherwise of the above
Act, and resolved that it should be put into force within the
Borough. It was hoped that the Act might have come into
force at the commencement of the calendar year. However, it
was not until the 5th June, 1908, that a letter was received from
the Local Government Board, consenting to the adoption of the
Act, and fixing the 15th June as the date on which the Council's
resolution of adoption would come into operation. Fortunately,
in anticipation of the receipt of this communication, some of the
clerical work (which in a Borough such as this is of an exceptionally
heavy character, owing to the fact that there are 1,246
registered medical practitioners resident therein) had already
been put in hand. The usual circular letter, drawing the
attention of all medical practitioners and midwives practising in
the Borough to the provisions of the Act, was at once sent out.
During the first month or two of the operation of the Act,
the number of notifications received tallied very fairly with the
number of births registered. During recent months, however,
the notifications of births have been falling off, and it will
probably be necessary before very long to take legal action
to impress the fact of the existence of the Act on those
responsible for compliance with its provisions.
DEATHS.
The total number of deaths to be debited to the Borough
is 1,845, equal to a death-rate of 15.4 per thousand This figure
has been corrected by the inclusion of persons who, though
normally residents in the Borough, died in institutions outside,
and by the exclusion of persons who, though they died within
the Borough boundaries, were normally residents of other
districts.