Foreign News: Politics of Procreation

¶ Death was claiming three of every ten Italian babies before the age of one. Infants who survived hunger and disease had not enough clothes. For warmth, many were cribbed in sawdust.

¶France's new Ministry of Population grappled with the problem of France's long-falling birth rate. Since 1939, France's population had dropped 1,250,000. If the birth rate continues to decline, 40,000,000 Frenchmen may dwindle to 22,000,000 by the year 2000.

¶ Britain's birth rate, after a wartime upward flurry, was down again. Unless the long-term trend is reversed, 45,000,000 Britons may dwindle to 14,000,000 by 2045.

¶ Russia's birth rate, for the first nine months of 1945, was up 35.3% over the corresponding period in 1944. A Russian mother of three gets 400 rubles (about $75). Reward for output rises to 5,000 rubles (about $950) for a mother of ten. But even without bounties, the U.S.S.R.'s population is expected to reach 250,000,000 by 1970.*