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 assistance; 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.