1938-02-10 — Page 8

THE CHINA MAIL, FEBRUARY 10; 1938.

TO OFF

THE WORLD GOES BY

OPLE all Parties

If either or both of these beliefs affairs and scandals of every mem- Inquiry is practically infinite. Let

POPD off tyle under is corroborated by the Inquiry, the bar and sandals of ev

stand the purpose of the Popula tion (Statistics) Bill.

When all the facts and figures have been obtained, they say Then What?

Clearly

Government, you think, will be in tions back. an awkward situation. (If (a) they will have by means of a revised Income Tax to reduce the wealthier people to poverty to try and make them fertile.

is explanation some

If (b) they'll have to provide needed. The stated purpose of the Bill a to discover whether there everyone with a safe private in- are any vital factors making for come, which would mean a com- economic the decline of fertility, and any plete revolution of the means of persuading or forcing the system an equally embarrassing citizen to have more children than programme. he happens to want.

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like

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renera:

us suppose they have been at work for, say, 15 years, and have issued And some day in the indefinite their First Interim Report, stating future, perhaps even before the that the highest degree of fertility hand that writes these words is is found among blast furnacemen of dust, the inquiry will be com· Wolverhampton, with South Wales

annexe, ex- plete, and a large

miners as runners-up. tending half a mile along the Thames Embankment, will have been erected to house the docu- ments.

This stage being eq

you will think, Parliament

be pre- sented with a report, the elected This looks Now, at first sight, it would ap

serious representatives of the people will pear that in making this inquiry dilemma. But let me reassure you, stand up and say, "So What?" and the Government ia asking for Let us assume that all the ques- the Government will be obliged to, trouble. For two facts about the tions allowed for in the Bill have do something. birth-rate- are already agreed been answered. Every married

couple in the country will have There is no justification for this upon:-

Let me remind (a) That the highest fertility is filled in forms stating age, length pessimistic view. among the poorest classes;

and number of marriages, divorces, you of a point that was brought (b) That economic insecurity and illegitimacy, insanity, diseases, out in the debate that if any fur- fear of war causes the more res- trade and occupation, standard of ther questions were necessary, they ponsible classes

limit their education, prison records, and a would be added.

families.

to

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rough outline of the domestic The vista here opened before the

No vital factors being disclos- ed by the analysis of their family histories, further questions will be added, and it will be found that blast furnacemen `have a 25 per cent. proportion of protrud- ing ears and the miners a 37 per cent. incidence of flat feet. Research into the influence of flat feet and protruding ears upon fertility proving abortive, further will be made into the research females, showing that the most those with two mar- fertile are riages and red hair.

Nothing arising out of this, the medical research bugs will get to work on the relation of fertility to hereditary disease. This will open up a new.

as yet and vast field whereon

investigator's feet hath trod nor the Nose of any Parker, even Pop of that ilk, aniffed.

· The doctors will discover on an average one Vital Factor per week, which will be contradicted by other doctors the following week according to custom, And people will be prosecuted for having omitted to state in the last half- yearly returns that they had an

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uncle who thought he was Moses or a great-aunt with the botts.

Physical factors having proved so far fruitless, the Inquiry will. turn to Mental and Emotional In- fluences, and a new line of re- search will be started into the question of Encouragement. This will range from the influence of the Seasons with special reference to Spring, to the effects of chang- ing fashions in beauty-culture.

And." apropos of that, the In- quiry will start a new series of questions designed to elicit in- formation regarding The Things That Put A Man O

Off.

For, as was pointed out by sup- porters of the Bill if the Inquiry is to be fruitful, we cannot afford to ignore my factors which might

to be important

Those of you who are unaco ed with the methods and purpose of Sound Government will

here complain that such an Inquiry might easily go on for even with- out yielding any

any information on which action can be taken,

To this I can only reply. "I meant to... Official Inquiries are not instituted for the purpose of getting something done, but the reverse..

To this end, politicians have been trying for years to invent an In- quiry which by its very nature can never possibly come to an end, And here, in the Population (Statistics) Bill, we have at last the Ideal Of- ficial Inquiry. The Bureaucrat's Millenium has been ushered in.

The Bill will inaugurate a new era of question-asking. So far we have not had nearly enough. There are all sorts of details of the priva- te lives of citizens of which there is no official record.

(Continued on Page 9.)