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
5½ 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