506 Transactions. — Miscellaneous. 



This shows mortality is not simply a result of climate, but is due to 

 many other causes. Some of these agencies will soon be powerless, whilst 

 others will long exist. To their consideration it is necessary to devote 

 some time, otherwise any person examining these tables will be led into 

 many errors. It is not right to say, as some have said, that our low 

 mortality is due to climate solely, or to abundance of cheap food 

 alone. The mortality of any country is a result of many interacting 

 forces. 



Amongst the causes leading to a low death-rate in this colony are the 

 following : — 



(1.) Easiness of Struggle for Existence. 



To the sparse population of these lands, with their fertile soils and 

 immense mineral wealth, the struggle for existence is an exceedingly easy 

 one. Here all who work and practice some self-denial are able, at little 

 cost to themselves, to obtain all the necessaries and many of the luxuries of 

 life. All the young get good food and abundance of milk, so that from 

 childhood to old age there is none of that under- feeding, which, when pro- 

 longed for years, as among the poor in other countries, causes a lowered 

 vitality and an enfeebled offspring. Since all classes find large rewards for 

 little labour, adults striving to live undergo few of the worries and hard- 

 ships and ceaseless anxieties which fall to the lot of the toiling masses 

 throughout Europe. Here we see the incessant struggle to keep " the 

 wolf from the door " replaced by the sufficiency for a " rainy day." 



Few of the farming, trading, or professional classes undergo much 

 mental worry, and therefore do not break down from disappointment or 

 over-anxiety. Moreover, the moderate toil and by no means hurtful self- 

 denial and the general speedy getting of riches beget a continuous cheer- 

 fulness, by enabling large numbers to obtain luxuries for their sick and 

 suffering — such luxuries as a change of air, some weeks' holiday, the long 

 rest so often prescribed by the doctor — and, except in these lands, too seldom 

 obtainable. It also enables others who have chosen an unsuitable or un- 

 healthy mode of life easily and fearlessly to change it. 

 (2.) Artificial Selection. 



During several years many thousand people were specially picked in 

 Great Britain for importation to this colony. None over the age of forty-five 

 were taken. Only children and young and middle-aged adults were picked. 

 All the emigrants underwent a certain amount of medical inspection, and 

 though some unsatisfactory people were brought out, yet many were 

 rejected, and the immigrants as a whole were a well-chosen healthy lot of 

 people. Certainly they were healthier far than any like number of free 

 immigrants. 



