--_If in the
minds of the citizens space and food are ample multiplication works
automatically_.--_To New Zealanders food now includes the luxuries as
well as the necessities of life_.--_Men are driven to the alternative of
supporting a family of their own or a degenerate family of
defectives_.--_The State enforces the one but cannot enforce the
other_.--_New Zealand taxation_.--_The burden of the bread-winner_.--_As
the State lightens this burden it encourages fertility_.--_The survival
of the unfit makes the burden of the fit_.
The multiplication of the fit is of the first importance to the State.
It supplies competent producers and courageous defenders, and the more
of these, consistent with space and food (using these terms in their
fullest significance), the better off the State.
If healthy happy citizens are the State's ideal, then limitation of
population well within the space and food will be encouraged. If
national wealth and prosperity in its material aspect are the State's
ideal, the harder the population presses on the means of subsistence the
sooner will that ideal be realised. For it cannot be denied, that the
greater the stress and hardship in life, the more strenuous the effort
put forth to obtain a foothold.
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