An Allowance for Smaller Families

Mauritius – A Time of Decision – Second Part

Mauritius Times – 71 Years

By Nina McKenzie

The period between 1953 and 1960 in Mauritius was marked by a growing, yet often deferred, realization that the island’s rapid population increase was severely undermining its economic future.

Initially spurred by a 1953 Governor-appointed committee, a 1955 report recommended providing family planning facilities within social services. However, the government delayed action. The urgency was dramatically highlighted by the sensational Luce report of 1958, which cited a 20% population increase in six years and a world-leading birth rate. This led the government to finally state the need to arrest population growth and propose an Information Department to promote family limitation.

Despite a new Labour majority elected in 1959, which included advocates for family planning like the new Minister of Health, Hon. Guy Forget, and Dr. L. Teeluck (President of the Family Planning Association of Mauritius), initial hopes for positive government action were dashed. Dr. Teeluck repeatedly and courageously pressed the Legislative Council, stressing that development plans would be futile given the high birth rate and subsequent population doubling. The government remained hesitant, primarily due to a “barrage of opposition from certain religious groups,” leaving the Family Planning Association to struggle alone.

This deadlock was finally broken in April 1960. Following devastating cyclones and amid new economic and social surveys, the government, through the Financial Secretary’s Budget speech, announced a firm decision to provide a free, government-sponsored “ante natal and post-natal family planning service” across the island. This positive action included removing import duties on contraceptives and launching a massive educational programme aimed at popularizing a three-child family to stabilize the population.

This summary sets the stage for the second part of the article, which will detail the implementation of this new government policy and the immediate aftermath of this major legislative shift.

After giving facts and figures of what could be afforded in the social security measure before the Council he proposed to introduce benefits which would be non-contributory. The most controversial one was the “family benefit”. So that small healthy families could be a blessing and a security for the future it was proposed to pay 15 rupees a month to all parents with no more than three children under the age of 14 years, except to those who paid income tax — a revolutionary idea indeed and one which had not been attempted by any government before.

So, at last the government had decided to face the problem and in order not to anticipate the opposition which they knew would come from all sections of the community they elected to deal with it administratively. The news of such legislation came as a bomb-shell and the whole island was stunned for a day and then the uproar started. Seething with indignation and religious fanaticism, articles and letters appeared in the press. Mgr. Jean Margeot, Vicaire-General of the Roman Catholic Church, preached a devastating sermon on the evils of birth control, the Muslim Imam proclaimed his opposition and finally the Hindu community joined in the general dissent, seemingly for political reasons only. On all occasions when population problems are discussed the Mauritius press plunges into the controversy with much vigour and the religious opposition expressed in their papers seems to be out of all propositions to the local feeling. The main opposition comes from the Roman Catholics who are mostly French Mauritians and Creoles, a vociferous minority group, and there is one section of the Muslim community who are against birth control on religious and moral grounds whilst another section is outspokenly in favour of it. It seems that the controversy is more about the method to be used than on the principle of birth control itself but no doubt much ink will flow before the principle will be accepted.

A Fight Deferred

With every chance of the motion being defeated in the legislature by the opposition of a solid block of members, government has postponed the debate sine die. They now await the publication of the Meade and Titmuss reports, but the time will come when a vote on the motion will have to be taken. When it is finally debated perhaps sweet reason will have a better chance after the emotional aspect of the problem has time to die. In the meantime, three Ministers are exploring the possibility of emigration. British Honduras is said to need 300,000 new people and with MrRingadoo as their leader the Mauritian Ministers are making an effort to solve the problem in a different way.

Meanwhile the Family Planning Association of Mauritius has been trying to assess the damage done to their cause. They feel that the government has been too precipitate in their policy and that they gave no opportunity to those who have been in opposition to family limitation to “save face”. In such a mixed community where “prestige” and “face-saving” are so important this apparent disregard of their feelings has augmented the opposition. Perhaps the Government was tired of the controversy, which had been raging for over six years, and felt that the time for a decision had come. Their idea of stabilising a population by “family allowances” is surely unique. Such allowances have been used by France to increase their population and the Fascist law of Italy forbidding birth control, and the sale of contraceptives and the giving of family allowances is still on the statute book there. The idea of taxing the large family has been canvassed in the Indian Parliament and in its press, but it would be a measure quite inapplicable to the poor Mauritian labourer whose daily wage is little more than 4 rupees.

Other islands in the Commonwealth, such as Ceylon, Singapore and Hong Kong, might be very interested in this attempt at population control by family allowance legislation, as they are conscious of being unable to create a welfare state because of over-population. Yet it has been remarkable to note that the national newspapers of this country have largely ignored the Mauritius controversy and only small mention was made of it when members of the legislature there announced opposition to the bill.

Perhaps one should not feel too despondent! After six years’ labour, the government has given birth to a tiger but it is a tiger which cannot be still-born.

7th Year – No 321
Friday 21th October 1960

Mauritius Times ePaper Friday 14 November 2025