THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 RIVERSIDE 
 
 GIFT OF 
 
 Dr. Gordon Watkins
 
 NEO-MALTHUSIANISM 
 
 AN ENQUIRY INTO THAT SYSTEM 
 WITH REGARD TO ITS ECONOMY AND MORALITY
 
 NEO-MALTHUSIANISM 
 
 AN ENQUIRY INTO THAT SYSTEM 
 
 WITH REGARD TO 
 
 ITS ECONOMY AND MORALITY 
 
 R. USSHER 
 
 AUTHOR OF 
 
 " THE COLONIZATION OF THE FIJI ISLANDS " " CREMATION 
 " THE HISTORY OF CROXALL " ETC. 
 
 METHUEN & CO. 
 
 36, ESSEX STREET, W.C. 
 
 LONDON 
 
 1897
 
 "IN every Society where individuality will be strongly developed, in 
 every Society where wealth will be largely subdivided, the birth rate 
 will tend to become equal with the means of subsistence, and will not 
 have, as in the past, an element of fear and terror." NITTI, Population 
 and the Social System, 
 
 " THE study of social questions is one of the noblest pursuits which 
 can engage the thoughts of those who strive to follow in the footsteps 
 of Christ." Lambeth Decrees. 1887.
 
 PREFACE 
 
 r I "HIS book is not intended for the scientific, who 
 A are more or less familiar with the writings of 
 the great economists. 
 
 It is intended for the less highly educated, who 
 seem to be led astray by the specious and superficial 
 arguments of the Neo-Malthusians. 
 
 There seems to be little doubt that the great evil, 
 both moral and economic, which this book is intended 
 to combat, is enormously increasing in England and 
 foreign countries. 
 
 I trust that what I have written in the following 
 pages will, in some degree, be the means of checking 
 immoral practices which are fraught with very great 
 danger both to the individual and the nation, and 
 which transform the moral condition of marriage into 
 simple monogamic prostitution. 
 
 The subject is one which is looming largely in the 
 immediate future. All classes rich and poor, idle 
 and working seem to be rapidly adopting artificial 
 checks to procreation, which are urged upon them 
 by the Neo-Malthusians; and it seems to me that 
 the only way in which they can be brought to see 
 their grave mistake is by means of simple instruction
 
 vi PREFACE 
 
 in the elements of Political Economy, so far as it 
 relates to the subject, and Sociology. 
 
 A full discussion of the so-called advantages of Neo- 
 Malthusianism cannot but be productive of much good 
 to those primarily concerned. 
 
 I have only to add that it is obvious that this book 
 is not intended to be placed within the reach of boys 
 and girls, and that it is written from the Christian 
 point of view.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 I'AGK 
 
 THE HISTORY OF THE MATTER IN ENGLAND . . . i 
 
 NEO-MALTHUSIANISM NOT THE TEACHING OF THE REV. T. R. 
 
 MALTHUS (1766-1834) . . ... 13 
 
 THE ARGUMENT OF THE NEO-MALTHUSIANS . 29 
 
 THE EVILS OF NEO-MALTHUSIANISM . . 55 
 
 NEO-MALTHUSIANISM WITH REGARD TO POPULATION . . 105 
 
 THE EXCUSES FOR NEO-MALTHUSIANISM REMOVED 
 
 BY A REFORM IN GENERAL EDUCATION . . . 165 
 
 BY A REFORM IN MARRIAGE . ... 193 
 
 NEO-MALTHUSIANISM WITH REGARD TO THE LAND QUESTION . 253 
 
 EMIGRATION CONSIDERED AS A HELP TO REDUCE AN EXCESS OF 
 
 POPULATION . . . ... 289 
 
 TEMPERANCE CONSIDERED IN ITS RELATIONSHIP TO NEO- 
 MALTHUSIANISM . . . ... 300 
 
 CO-OPERATIVF HOMES CONSIDERED AS A HELP AGAINST NEO- 
 MALTHUSIANISM . . . . . 319
 
 NEO-MALTHUSIANISM 
 
 THE HISTORY OF THE MATTER 
 IN ENGLAND 
 
 r ~PHE subject which we are to consider in the following 
 J- pages is that which is now generally known by the name 
 of Neo-Malthusianism. This term, inaccurate as it is, in 
 simple words means the prevention, by artificial checks, of the 
 procreation of children ; in scientific, the control of fertiliza- 
 tion by men and women. Its advocates declare that it is to 
 be the greatest power of the future, one which will remove all 
 poverty and misery, and that modern society is adopting the 
 practice so largely, that this most desirable object is being 
 attained much more rapidly than they could have imagined. 
 It is not quite a new idea in England. It was alluded to in 
 certain newspapers so long ago as the year 1827. About the 
 same time anonymous handbills advising the adoption of the 
 practice were widely distributed throughout the North of 
 England. A little later on we find that lectures on the matter 
 were given in Leeds and elsewhere, which were attended 
 by very many of both sexes. Soon afterwards there appeared 
 Carlile's Every Woman's Book, warmly advocating the system, 
 and minutely describing the various means by which it could 
 be carried into effect. The literature of the subject did not 
 largely increase during the middle of the century. 
 
 The elder Mill advocated the system in his article "Colony" 
 in the Encyclopedia Brittanica, 8th edition; also in his 
 Elements of Political Economy, " Care taken that children, 
 beyond a certain number, shall not be the fruit," see pp. 
 34 and 44. John Stuart Mill, as many are no doubt aware, 
 following his father's example, was an enthusiastic advocate of
 
 2 NEO-MALTHUSIANISM 
 
 the system, and wrote of it in his Political Economy, which 
 now meets with but doubtful approval, to say the least. 
 Can nan describes it as a "collection of old essays produced 
 from a drawer, and published without alteration." 
 
 It was not until the Fruits of Philosophy was published 
 between 1870 and 1880 that the more modern treatment 
 of the subject was reached. This publication was soon 
 followed by Mrs. Besant's well-known book, The Law of 
 Population, its Consequences, and its Hearing upon Human 
 Conduct and Morals. Then followed in rapid succession 
 a large number of books, pamphlets, and treatises, dealing 
 with the subject, such as Notes on the Population Question; 
 The Physiology of Marriage ; Poverty : its Cause and Cure ; 
 Moral Physiology ; Individual, Family, and National Poverty ; 
 Elements of Social Science ; The Population Question; The Wife's 
 Handbook ; Artificial Checks to Population : is the teaching of 
 them Infamous 1 English and French Morality ; The Duties of 
 Parents ; The Strike of a Sex ; The Prosperity of the French 
 Peasant ; The Malthusian Magazine, founded as the organ 
 of the Malthusian League. The first Number appeared on 
 February ist, 1872. In addition to these works on the 
 subject, there is an immense mass of anonymous literature now 
 flooding the country in all directions, treating of the same. 
 Magazine articles and letters, for or against the system, have 
 appeared in TJie Economic Review, The Christian World, T/ie 
 National and Church Reformers, The North American Review, 
 The Humanitarian, The Free Review, etc., etc. Some of 
 these will be referred to in the course of the following pages. 
 There have also appeared certain other articles in various 
 magazines bearing on sexual relationship, which will be referred 
 to also, but which do not deal directly with the matter in 
 hand. I think the above list comprehends most of the chief 
 literature of the subject. The most distinguished writers on the 
 subject are Mill, Ward, Owen, Gaskell, Besant, Greg, Matthew 
 Arnold, Drysdale, and Clapperton. The matter is alluded to 
 in The Evolution of Sex, in The Church and the World, 
 and in Lea's Christian Marriage. Numerous foreign writings 
 on the subject will also be touched upon in the course 
 of the argument. Of all the works enumerated above the 
 one which undoubtedly caused the greatest interest and sensa- 
 tion was The Fruits of Philosophy, by Dr. Charles Knowlton, 
 of Boston, U.S.A., which found its way into the possession of
 
 HISTORY OF THE MATTER IN ENGLAND 3 
 
 the publishers of Tlie National Reformer, which publication 
 was then, 1878, under the joint control of Mr. Bradlaugh and 
 Mrs. Besant. 
 
 Dr. Knowlton's book had been known in England for some 
 years previous to this, having been published in America 
 in the year 1835, and had been sold in Bristol by a man 
 named Cook, who, however, had used it for obscene purposes, 
 which was not the object for which the writer had published 
 it. The publisher of The National Reformer was prosecuted 
 for exposing it for sale. He pleaded guilty, but Mr. Bradlaugh 
 and Mrs. Besant then took the case out of his hands, and 
 defended themselves in the Courts. All the legal proceedings 
 which followed only caused the book to have much more 
 publicity than it otherwise would have had. Opposition and 
 persecution, as they always do, only drew more general atten- 
 tion to the matter, which might otherwise have been left in 
 obscurity. The Neo-Malthusian practices advocated in the 
 pages of the book were new to the general public, and because 
 of this it was eagerly read, and obtained a very large circula- 
 tion in a comparatively short space of time. The ill effects of 
 that abortive prosecution bear their fruits still; if it had 
 not taken place very many would never have been initiated 
 into this nefarious system, which I hope to show in the 
 following pages is a disastrous one both for the individual and 
 the nation to adopt. Ever since the year 1878, in which 
 these two events occurred, the birth-rate of the United King- 
 dom has fallen. It commenced to do so in that year, and has 
 steadily continued doing so ever since that time. It has never 
 reached what it was previous to the Bradlaugh trial. We are 
 now becoming quite accustomed to the ever-recurring remark 
 in the Registrar-General's returns, " This is the lowest birth- 
 rate ever recorded." Nitti, in his most instructive work on 
 population, which all should study, comments on this as 
 follows: "This singular phenomenon, the decline of the birth- 
 rate in the United Kingdom, which contradicts all the dictates 
 of classic economy with regard to population, found a strange 
 coincidence in the campaign opened in 1878 by the so-called 
 School of Neo-Malthusianism." The serious decline in the 
 birth-rate of the United Kingdom can clearly be traced, in the 
 first instance, to the injudicious prosecution of Mr. Bradlaugh 
 and Mrs. Besant. Their trial, with all its accompanying 
 nauseous details, caused a book which had been originally
 
 4 NEO-MALTHUSIANISM 
 
 written with only a medical object in view, certainly not to be 
 read by an ignorant public, and which had, up to their trial, 
 lain in a well-deserved obscurity, to have altogether a fictitious 
 value and importance, and, moreover, which was much to be 
 deprecated, a very wide circle of unreasoning and ignorant 
 readers. " The noisy process which only served to diffuse the 
 incriminated theory." It penetrated into hundreds of 
 thousands of households, which now for the first time became 
 acquainted with a system and teaching which had previous to 
 this been only whispered about by a comparatively few un- 
 important persons. " Thfs campaign did not create the situa- 
 tion, but it gave it a great incentive, because it openly 
 advocated a custom which had previously been only carried 
 out in secret." (Mille in the Revue des Deux Mondes, 
 December i8th, 1891.) He there largely treats of the results 
 of the prosecution and its effects. Mr. Bradlaugh and Mrs. 
 Besant were summoned before Mr. Alderman Figgins, who 
 committed them both for trial, but allowed bail. Mr. Brad- 
 laugh carried the case before Lord Chief Justice Cockburn, 
 and moved for a writ of error. That Judge said he would 
 grant it, if, after having read the book, in conjunction 
 with Mr. Justice Mellor, he should think its object was the 
 legitimate one of promoting knowledge on a matter of human 
 interest. The writ was granted. At the ensuing trial the 
 Lord Chief Justice summed up strongly for an acquittal, 
 saying " that a more ill-advised and more injudicious proceed- 
 ing in the way of a prosecution had never been brought 
 before a Court of Justice." The verdict, however, was that 
 the book had a tendency to deprave public morals, but the 
 defendants were entirely exonerated from any corrupt motive 
 in publishing it. The jury said that the book recommended 
 immoral practices, but not obscene in the sense of exciting 
 sexual passion. This led to a verdict of guilty, but it was 
 afterwards quashed. The legal action in the whole matter 
 came to nothing, and now there seems, at first sight, nothing 
 to prevent any books on similar topics being published to 
 these the advertising columns of certain newspapers bear 
 ample witness, but it must be borne in mind that they should 
 have a philanthropic, not an obscene object. They must not 
 recommend sexual immorality. It yet remains to be legally 
 decided whether publicly advocating Neo-Malthusianism, in 
 the manner of certain publications of to-day, is an offence
 
 HISTORY OF THE MATTER IN ENGLAND 5 
 
 against public morals or not. It is somewhat difficult, after 
 having studied Stephens' Criminal Digest, to understand 
 why some of these pamphlets, now poured out in multitudes, 
 are not inhibited. They merely suggest and advocate the 
 practice of Neo-Malthusianism to young men and women as a 
 means by which they can gratify sexual desire without having 
 to fear the birth of children. It seems to me that the whole 
 matter, repugnant as it may be, will sooner or later have to be 
 enquired into, and legally decided one way or the other. It 
 seems monstrous that young women, in no matter what 
 degrees of life, should be the free recipients, by post, of these 
 pamphlets, as so many thousands are now. How far the 
 advocacy and publication of some of these systems can go 
 without coming under the law of procuring abortion is a nice 
 legal point, and it certainly will have to be considered sooner 
 or later. Some of these pamphlets merely treat of the most 
 efficacious means of procuring early miscarriage. When the 
 point of law was decided in Mr. Bradlaugh's and Mrs. 
 Besant's favour the Fruits of Philosophy was withdrawn, and 
 Mrs. Besant substituted her own book on the subject for it, 
 that well-known one, The Law of Population : its Consequences 
 and Bearing on Human Conduct and Morals. It had an 
 immense circulation and sale, until she withdrew it on 
 becoming a Theosophist in April 1891. "It was translated 
 into every language, and read by millions of persons." (Mille.) 
 " Issued in 200,000 copies, reproduced in the newspapers, 
 defended with ardour, the new publication did not delay 
 in finding its effects, more especially amongst persons who had 
 already begun to secretly practise that which the Malthusians 
 publicly advocate. This campaign, carried on with such 
 ardour, naturally produced results within a very short time. 
 Neo-Malthusianism did not appeal to elevated instincts or 
 noble feelings ; it was neither more nor less than a brutal affir- 
 mation of individual egoism. Well-conditioned working-men, 
 seeing in the absence or scarcity of children a means of putting 
 an end between them and the lower middle class ; and these 
 knowing they had to rely upon a small income, feared that 
 a large family might reduce them to the condition of working 
 men ; people who were independent, desirous of maintaining 
 their social position all accepted it enthusiastically." (Nitti.) 
 
 Mrs. Besant says she was offered a large sum for the copy- 
 right, but now having been led by Madame Blavatsky to
 
 6 NEO-MALTHUSIANISM 
 
 see her error in writing it, she refused to accept it, and 
 withdrew the book from circulation. She somewhat plaintively 
 remarks in her autobiography, " I know now that I was wrong 
 intellectually, and blundered in the remedy." She also truly 
 observes that to advocate Neo-Malthusianism is merely to put 
 one evil into the place of another. " Then the very apostles 
 of the Neo-Malthusian practices appeared to be dismayed 
 by the effects which their propaganda had produced, and 
 some of them even wished to withdraw. Mrs. Annie Besant 
 honestly declared that her experience of Neo-Malthusianism 
 doctrines had convinced her that the practices suggested by 
 the Neo-Malthusian League were contrary to the best interests 
 of the nation itself, as well as to those of morality ; that while 
 on the one hand they hindered every development of the 
 more educated feelings, on the other hand they weakened 
 and unfitted the people of Great Britain for the struggle 
 of life." (Nitti.) Mille comments on the lightness of heart 
 with which Mrs. Besant withdrew her book, and the frightful 
 responsibility which she had incurred by writing it. 
 
 " Declarer qu' avoir preche de gaiete de cceur la sterilite du 
 manage est une ceuvre tout simplement monstreuse." She is 
 corroborated in her latest opinion on Neo-Malthusianism by 
 Miss Clapperton, the talented authoress of Scientific Meliorism, 
 who, although herself an ardent Neo-Malthusian, declares 
 " we must not dream that by universal adoption of Neo- 
 Malthusianism our social miseries would at once be removed. 
 On the contrary, fresh complications would arise." 
 
 Mrs. Besant regrets that she wrote her book dealing with 
 the subject in the United Kingdom, but we must always bear 
 in mind that progress and information on such an important 
 matter as Neo-Malthusianism undoubtedly is, touching social 
 and national life in their most serious relationships, can only 
 be reached by means of the fullest discussion, and after a very 
 complete study of all the arguments capable of being brought 
 forward in its favour or against it. The day for ignoring 
 all the complex and tremendous issues of our increased 
 population, with all their far-reaching results, has long since 
 passed away, ever since the time that Harriet Martineau 
 passed through her martyrdom for having touched upon it. 
 We have learned a great deal of the value of free speech 
 for both sexes since her time. 
 
 Social problems are forcing their way to the front, and they
 
 HISTORY OF THE MATTER IN ENGLAND 7 
 
 must be solved. When we come to realize the fact that 
 England and Wales alone are now adding a thousand every 
 twenty-four hours to the population of the world, and London 
 three hundred, a million every ten years, we have in these 
 simple facts food for much wonder and amazement at what 
 the future has in store for us with regard to population. 
 Sociology has no more important question before it than 
 to decide how to deal with the tremendous issues consequent 
 upon such an enormously increasing population. Nitti rightly 
 observes that it has become the personal interest of every 
 individual. Even in the Twenties, before there was anything 
 like the present pressure of numbers, men looked into the 
 question and were bewildered. Some later on, more zealous 
 than wise, plunged into the matter, and, thinking that numbers 
 were the cause of present wretchedness and misery, wished to 
 stop the flow at the very fount, and urged mechanical pre- 
 ventions. Very sincere, no doubt, in their feelings, but wrong 
 economically. They failed to observe that the state of things 
 which they had to contend with was not entirely owing to an 
 excess of population, but to a difficulty of providing food, or 
 the means of obtaining it. Given sufficient food there need be 
 no fear what amount of population there might be. Further 
 thought upon the whole matter has convinced many of those 
 Neo-Malthusians who were foremost in the van in those days 
 that their foundations and premisses were false, yet new and 
 enthusiastic adherents are arising every day who con- 
 scientiously believe that Neo-Malthusianism will bring about 
 that Utopia which we all so eagerly desire. All sorts of 
 theories can now be amply discussed, and it would be a 
 disastrous policy to keep the treatment of Neo-Malthusianism 
 hidden away. " One other threatening danger, Neo-Mal- 
 thusianism, one almost universally passed over in silence, 
 but which, I am certain, ought not longer to be ignored." 
 The English people have suffered quite long enough from the 
 folly of having kept back everything relating to what must be a 
 disastrous course for them to adopt. Writing in The Humani- 
 tarian for November, 1896, Dr. S. A. K. Strahan says, "The 
 question has, however, developed so remarkably of late that I 
 think the time has come when all false shame and make- 
 belief should be thrown aside, and the question and its effects 
 be straightly put before the people. Women guilty of such 
 offences against morality and nature as those we hint at can
 
 8 NEO-MALTHUSIANISM 
 
 hardly accuse us of debasing their minds ; others need not 
 peruse our lines." The latter portion of this quotation can 
 equally well apply to what follows in this book. 
 
 Everything can be improved by light and knowledge, and 
 this subject is certainly one of those which especially need the 
 fullest consideration. " The prejudices against the discussion 
 of Neo-Malthusianism are dying out, and that is well, for they 
 do nothing but obscure appreciation of the merits or demerits 
 of the doctrine." {Evolution of Sex.") It is quite evident that 
 anything which tends to throw any light and information 
 on the terrible problems of present-day poverty and social 
 disorder ought to be heartily welcomed by every humane 
 person. I am convinced that if what is now commonly 
 known as Neo-Malthusianism had not been brought before the 
 public by the Brad laugh trial its consideration would have 
 arisen later. The mistake of those who brought about that 
 trial was that they caused the subject to arise before the 
 proper time for its consideration became urgent, and so many 
 minds were taken captive by what seemed a ready and easy 
 remedy at hand. 
 
 Dealing with the matter so far as its history in England 
 is concerned, Mrs. Besant's retraction of those earlier opinions 
 of hers, which she held so strenuously, advocated so earnestly, 
 and suffered for so much, is a noteworthy fact which will 
 be referred to later on. At the time of the trials held 
 as to the legality of publishing Neo-Malthusian literature, 
 certain other individuals, in addition to Mr. Bradlaugh and 
 Mrs. Besant, were prosecuted for selling books on the subject. 
 Truelove was fined fifty pounds and imprisoned for six months 
 for selling a book which had been sold for many years 
 previously without any interference. This was most unjust, 
 and only increased the bitter spirit of those who were uphold- 
 ing what they thought .philanthropic truth and right in 
 boldly advocating Neo-Malthusian practice. The course of 
 persecution they underwent recoiled on the heads of those 
 who caused it by increasing the sale and circulation of these 
 works, which rapidly increased in number. Large meetings 
 were held in Manchester, Bradford, and elsewhere in similar 
 large cities. Resolutions were carried by overwhelming 
 majorities in assemblages of both sexes, declaring in favour of 
 Neo-Malthusianism. These meetings were principally spoken 
 to on the subject by Mrs. Besant. The interest taken in the
 
 HISTORY OF THE MATTER IN ENGLAND 9 
 
 matter caused the rise of the Malthusian League, with Dr. 
 C. R. Drysdale as its President. 
 
 It can now be seen how fatal a mistake was made in 
 prosecuting the publishers of such works. They ought not to 
 have been interfered with. Nothing but an increased publicity 
 was gained. We are in justice bound to give both writers and 
 publishers ample credit for having been actuated by the 
 highest philanthropic motives. They were impelled, they say, 
 to undertake the crusade, which was personally repugnant to 
 their feelings, in consequence of the terrible evils attendant 
 upon excess of population, overcrowding, competition, and 
 poverty. They endeavoured, wisely as they thought, to 
 introduce a system which would do away with them all. We 
 may disagree as to their mode of action, but all right-minded 
 people must give them credit for having acted with a good 
 motive, mistaken as we believe them to have been. It cannot 
 be wrong to write or publish anything which, in accordance 
 with the rights of justice, might tend to alleviate human 
 suffering. What we may complain of is that works such as 
 these, dealing with, to say the least, very doubtful points of 
 morality and economy, should have been recklessly distributed 
 amongst an increasing multitude totally incompetent to form 
 a judgment upon the points raised. That is what was 
 done, and owing to the abortive issue of the prosecution, 
 it now seems to be taken for granted by a very unworthy 
 class of imitators that anything may with impunity be written 
 and published with a view to advocate Neo- Malthusian 
 practice, and so bring grist to the mills of those pecuniarily 
 concerned. 
 
 Many are aware of the numbers of tracts and pamphlets 
 advocating this system, which are sent to householders in every 
 class of life. What numbers of advertisements appear in the 
 newspapers! I have one before me now which contains 
 no less than six such. If one of these advertisements be 
 answered, there comes a pamphlet in reply telling of Neo- 
 Malthusianism, and giving the price of the articles required; 
 hence the profit. Not merely in these pamphlets, but in 
 catalogues of articles sold in certain shops, these recom- 
 mendations occur. Every one of them teaches the so-called 
 advantages of a limited number of children, and plainly 
 shows how sexual intercourse need not be followed by 
 fertilization.
 
 10 NEO-MALTHUSIANISM 
 
 " One of those silly-season controversies, which have of 
 late become so dear to the hearts of the big editors, has in the 
 early autumn been going on in one of the leading London 
 dailies. The subject is Early Marriages. As might be expected, 
 many of the correspondents have been women, all with a 
 certain modicum of education ; and it is positively alarming, 
 not to say disgusting, to note how these women speak of the 
 voluntary limitation of the family. One, referring to her own 
 case, says, ' We have one child, which we can bring up well ; 
 we dare not run the risk of any more.' Another, advising her 
 married sisters, remarks : ' Keep your family well within your 
 means.' And so they run on. The question is What state 
 of things does this indicate?" (Strahan.) 
 
 In maternity hospitals, Scientific Meliorism tells us, visiting 
 ladies leave large quantities of these tracts, and we are told with 
 marked success. " The women are so glad to receive them," 
 " the instructions are so eagerly acted upon." I know of a 
 good old squire in East Anglia who regularly distributes these 
 tracts throughout his neighbourhood. We find them every- 
 where ; in railway carriages, in public rooms, wherever publicity 
 can be obtained. 
 
 Mrs. Besant tells us in her autobiography what a large 
 number of letters she received from grateful women, amongst 
 them clergymen's wives, for having been the means of bringing 
 such valuable information to their knowledge and use. It 
 has been acted upon. In that book, A Christian with Two 
 Wives, by the Rev. Dennis Kurd, we find the following : 
 " The two girls are happy ; they have three sons each, and they 
 might have had ten, but I think three plenty for one woman ; 
 it just develops her nature and character, and makes her more 
 lovely." Comment is needless. 
 
 This wide distribution of modern literature advocating Neo- 
 Malthusianism has brought about a very serious condition 
 of things. What was merely hinted at twenty years ago is now 
 openly talked about as the most proper and useful course to 
 adopt. Is it any wonder, then, that the birth-rate decreases ? 
 All classes seem to be smitten by the Neo-Malthusian craze, 
 now rapidly spreading, fondly imagining that it will remove 
 all human woes and totally eradicate poverty and wretched- 
 ness. The matter will soon have to be grappled with in a 
 very vigorous way, for those who think at all must see that 
 to voluntarily cause the population of a civilized country to
 
 HISTORY OF THE MATTER IN ENGLAND u 
 
 decline is of the most vital interest to everybody concerned. 
 The nations of civilized countries need to be shown how 
 utterly mistaken they are if they should persist in following 
 the Neo-Malthusian practice. That it is immoral is not 
 the least doubtful, and as regards the destruction of the 
 prosperity of the nation that adopts it there can be no doubt 
 whatever. 
 
 The earlier writers in England on the matter did not write 
 for the sake of mere gain, they wrote with a philanthropic 
 purpose in view ; the modern writers do so merely to make a 
 profit. " In later times our sense of decency has been 
 shocked by the outspoken denunciation, not of marriage, but 
 of its consequences, and the bold inculcation of means 
 whereby the gratification of natural inclinations may be joined 
 with the violation of nature's laws and the frustration of 
 nature's ends." (Bourne.) 
 
 I cite the following testimony I could a great deal more 
 just to show how the doctrines of Neo-Malthusianism are 
 rapidly spreading in England. So long ago as the Manchester 
 Church Congress of 1888, Professor Symes said, "I have the 
 strongest reason to know that the subject is engaging the 
 attention of an immense number of people of all classes in 
 England and elsewhere." Another speaker at the same 
 Congress said, " The awful heresy which is prevailing through- 
 out the country as to restraining the growth of population by 
 artificial means." What will be said now when the system 
 is increasing by leaps and bounds ? 
 
 At the present time a more modern school of thought on 
 the same subject has arisen, but of a more refined expression. 
 It is composed chiefly of women, who declare that the duties 
 of maternity are becoming increasingly irksome to all classes 
 of women, especially to the more highly educated, and that 
 sexual intercourse and its result, maternity, are utterly re- 
 pugnant to a proper woman's feelings. It is an entire revolt 
 against what has hitherto been believed to be the moral duties 
 of woman. Women who write upon this subject declare 
 maternity to be a degradation to them, and they will refuse to 
 undergo it in the future. We have arrived at this state of 
 things in England. These aspects of the matter will be fully 
 discussed in the course of the following pages. I merely 
 mention them here to show how the earlier ideas of Neo- 
 Malthusianism have grown into a condition of things which
 
 12 NEO-MALTHUSIANISM 
 
 will need the gravest consideration on all sides. Marriage, 
 children, all sex relationships, are being terribly threatened 
 in every country where Neo-Malthusianism is carried into 
 practice. Such is a slight sketch of the origin and growth in 
 England of the matter to which serious attention will be 
 called in the following pages.
 
 NEO-MALTHUSIANISM NOT THE TEACHING 
 OF THE REV. T. R. MALTHUS (1766-1834) 
 
 THE nomenclature, Neo-Malthusianism, is an error. " What 
 shall we say to men who have dared to call themselves 
 Neo-Malthusians and then have indulged in immoral disquisi- 
 tions on preventive intercourse ? " (Cossa.) No authority what- 
 ever can be found in Malthus' writings for what is now known 
 as Neo-Malthusianism, with all its artificial methods to destroy 
 reproduction. " It is one of the many examples of the irony 
 of fate to which he (Malthus) has been a victim that his 
 name should be thus employed, for he expressly declared that 
 a course which may prevent any particular evil may be beyond 
 all comparison worse than the evil itself." (Price.) For 
 instance, on the front page of The Malthusian there appears 
 monthly this standard quotation from the writings of Malthus : 
 " To a rational being the prudential check to population ought 
 to be considered as equally natural with the check from 
 poverty and premature mortality." Now it is quite evident 
 to all who have, even no matter how superficially, read the 
 writings of Malthus, that by prudential checks to population 
 Malthus meant nothing more than moral sexual self-restraint, 
 certainly not voluntarily causing a limit by married people 
 to the number of their children; yet he is quoted here as 
 apparently approving of the artificial check system which The 
 Malthusian merely exists to support, teach, and advocate. The 
 real fact is, as will be proved later, that Malthus utterly dis- 
 approved of anything immoral being done to prevent the 
 conception of human life. I leave it to my readers to judge 
 how far this course of conduct by Neo-Malthusians is fair to 
 the memory of the Rev. T. R. Malthus. "It is beyond all 
 doubt that the Neo-Malthusians are the children, not of 
 Malthus, but of Owen." (Bonar). Those who ignorantly 
 believe that Malthus ever wrote anything calculated to advocate 
 artificial checks to population should do his memory the 
 
 13
 
 14 NEO-MALTHUSIANISM 
 
 simple justice of reading the Essay itself. "No man has ever 
 suffered so much from being answered by those who have 
 never seen his works." (Nicholson.) Let Malthus speak for 
 himself on this matter. " I should be extremely sorry to say 
 anything which could be either directly or remotely construed 
 unfavourably to the cause of virtue. I should always particu- 
 larly reprobate any artificial and unnatural modes of checking 
 population, both on account of their immorality and their 
 tendency to remove a necessary stimulus to industry. If it 
 were possible for each married couple to limit by a wish the 
 number of their children, there is certainly reason to fear that 
 the indolence of the human race would be very greatly 
 increased, and that neither the population of individual 
 countries or of the whole world would ever reach its natural 
 and proper extent." (Vol. iii. p. 393.) 
 
 I think the above extract ought to wholly convince the 
 most zealous Neo-Malthusian that he is not a true disciple of 
 the Rev. T. R. Malthus. It is altogether unjust to connect 
 this modern movement to artificially control the number of 
 one's children with his name. He never advocated such a 
 doctrine. To foist upon him such a scheme is utterly 
 unjustifiable. It may with just propriety be reckoned that if 
 he were alive now he would be the first to repudiate it. 
 
 Professor Flint says that the so-called wise regulation of the 
 birth-rate advocated in such books as Scientific Procreation 
 what the members of the Malthusian League mean by it 
 would lead to the most shocking demoralization of all classes. 
 He truly observes, " Malthus would have disowned with horror 
 the Malthusian League." Malthus was certainly correct in 
 saying that if population should be lessened, a great stimulus 
 to improvement in every direction would be removed. Nitti 
 says : " The suppression of every kind of struggle, the elimina- 
 tion of every unsatisfied need, would bring about a fatal and 
 irresistible cessation of development in society." There should 
 necessarily be competition in all things by such we gain 
 improvement but it ought to be a fair and just competition, 
 not the frightful thing we see under that appellation now. The 
 incentive to progress should be a just and righteous one. All 
 economists tell us that if we remove the proper pressure of 
 population on subsistence, necessity being the mother of 
 invention, which causes the latter to increase, we are removing 
 the spring of human industry, and the motive power of human
 
 NOT THE TEACHING OF MALTHUS 15 
 
 progress. They also bid us remember that a dense population 
 is better able to take fuller advantage of inventions and organi- 
 zations than countries which are thinly populated could, and 
 that a full population can exchange its wealth which it creates 
 for the means of subsistence from elsewhere. If the world 
 had acted hitherto upon the Neo-Malthusian principle of 
 diminishing population, what improvements would have been 
 discovered? There would have been no stimulus to further 
 knowledge, no necessity to improve which should always be 
 allowed to act as the mother of manhood. A properly 
 arranged population, not a recklessly increased one, should 
 always exist as an incentive to progress, but not to cause the 
 frightful tooth and claw competition which we have now upon 
 us, with all its callousness to suffering. See "Over Popu- 
 lation " in Common-sense Socialism. (Kempner.) Henry George 
 says that an increase of population is often one of the 
 most essential requisites for increasing the productiveness of 
 industry. A large population is necessary for the proper 
 division of employment, and also to carry out great works, 
 and without a large population it is impossible to have such 
 things as railways, large ships, and mills, to say nothing of the 
 arts and literature. Yves Guyot says : " The increase of 
 population forces progress on every people which has not, like 
 the Hindoo, given itself up to passive resignation. Beneath 
 this pressure the contest for existence becomes more eager, man 
 makes greater efforts, he develops his powers and his capacities 
 and abilities. If we cannot say that all densely populated 
 nations are strong, we can at least say that the nation with 
 a spare and stagnant population has ever been less strong." 
 
 Malthus wrote at a time when statesmen were endeavouring 
 by means of the old Poor Law, that absurd and unjust system, 
 to encourage an unwise course of increasing population. No 
 doubt the object they had in view was to be enabled to keep 
 up the supply for the army in its struggles against Napoleon, 
 and this unrighteous course was pursued utterly regardless of 
 all economic and social issues. " At a time when society 
 was governed by real military rulers, and the power of the 
 Sovereign had no other basis than military strength, the chief 
 care of every State was that of having a large number of 
 citizens fit for bearing arms, and hence of promoting in every way 
 the increase of population. They only busied themselves 
 with enlarging their dominions, or increasing the population,
 
 1 6 NEO-MALTHUSIANISM 
 
 in order to win prosperity and riches for their subjects by wars 
 of conquest. Tyrannicus et cynicus Gallice imperator dixit, ut 
 tina nox Lutetia Parisiorum atnpla esset, ipsius exercitus 
 vacuum complere" (Nitti.) 
 
 All Malthus' ideas and arguments, throughout his entire 
 works, are largely influenced by this course of action on the 
 part of those who then ruled Europe. Godwin, before him, 
 had written of the Utopia and future economic welfare of the 
 nation which was sure to come. Malthus, unable to foretell 
 modern improvements, endeavoured to prove that such pros- 
 perity was merely a chimerical dream impossible of achieve- 
 ment; that population was increasing, and always would 
 increase, on the powers of subsistence. He argued that 
 population was always limited by want of food ; that there 
 could be only sufficient for a certain quantity; and that 
 when population increased, want and misery must inevitably 
 follow suit. 
 
 The fact that food might be made to accompany popula- 
 tion in due proportion never seems to have entered Malthus' 
 brain; he seems incapable of entertaining that idea. "Malthus' 
 law is incapable of explaining the mystery of poverty." (Nitti.) 
 Max Nordau very aptly remarks that it never entered the 
 heads of Malthus and his disciples to state their principles 
 in a reversed form. 
 
 The provisions produced by the earth are not sufficient to 
 support her children, therefore we must increase the amount 
 of provisions. The same remark exactly applies to the Neo- 
 Malthusian of to-day, with the proviso thrown in of a just 
 distribution of the earth's productions. "Malthus and his 
 followers, while bringing prominently forward the increasing 
 needs of a population, keep out of view the increasing means 
 of supply which the additional labour of greater numbers will 
 produce." (Minton.) 
 
 Owing to those circumstances, both social and economic, 
 which existed in the time of Malthus, men's minds naturally 
 assumed a pessimistic mode of thought. Malthus, and many 
 others of his day, never imagined that there could be any way 
 out of the slough of despond in which the worker was then 
 adrift. Hence, everything which deals with population is 
 known as "The dismal science." He quite ignored and 
 underrated the help which economic progress might bring in 
 its train. He erred through ignorance. It was impossible
 
 NOT THE TEACHING OF MALTHUS 17 
 
 for him to have gauged the marvellous improvement in the 
 production of food which was to come, nor the vast annihila- 
 tion of distance which steam was to bring about. We have 
 the whole world now as a granary to gather in our food 
 from. This is one of the resources of an advanced civiliza- 
 tion which Malthus could not be expected to have foreseen, 
 and which largely diminishes the whole force of his arguments. 
 
 There is no civilized country in the world now which 
 remains dependent on its local resources for its food. England 
 is a very pertinent example of this. Lord George Hamilton 
 remarked the other day, speaking of the famine then threaten- 
 ing parts of India, that the difficulty in coping with it would 
 be much lessened by the fact that we could draw upon the 
 whole world for food, and that this was the first famine for 
 which it could be done. 
 
 " Malthus wrote especially for his own time, and he 
 generalized perhaps unduly from the facts which he was 
 himself witnessing." But he was by no means the first writer 
 in Europe who had been led to consider the population 
 question, which was even then drawing attention to itself. In 
 England, Swift and Adam Smith ; in Italy, Beccaria and the 
 friar Ortes. Malthus, I think, must have become acquainted 
 with some of this friar's writings ; the arguments here and 
 there seem identical. Ortes, the Venetian friar, published 
 his work in 1790; Malthus his in 1798. "Some pages of 
 Ortes seem quite similar to those of Malthus. There is even 
 a great affinity in the remedies proposed by the Catholic friar 
 and the Anglican priest." (Nitti.) 
 
 Malthus' Essay was received with delight by the wealthy 
 Tories of his time, who could now look upon the forlorn, 
 poverty-stricken condition of the labouring population and 
 say it was brought about by too early marriages, or even by 
 marrying at all. " Malthus' hypothesis is belied by a century 
 of research. His theory was a spontaneous product of an 
 alarming and dangerous state of things ; it was only a passing 
 phenomenon, but it assumed a permanent and enduring 
 character in the eyes of the English economists. By preach- 
 ing moral restraint and the adoption of preventive measures, 
 they ended with creating and authorizing the immoral move- 
 ment of the so-called Neo-Malthusians." (Nitti.) 
 
 Marx goes too far when he describes Malthus' work as "a 
 scholastic, superficial, and priestly plagiarism from Sir James
 
 1 8 NEO-MALTHUSIANISM 
 
 Stewart, Townsend, Franklin and Wallace." Malthus' whole 
 argument may be summed up somewhat like this : The 
 troubles consequent upon what is to be considered over- 
 population, must always arise from an excess of human beings, 
 not from a deficiency of food. For instance, he wrote that 
 famines were natural means for removing an excess of popula- 
 tion which had arisen. Now of course we know that these can 
 only arise from bad distribution and communication. If the 
 supply of food had been keeping pace with the increase of 
 population, and if it had been fairly distributed, or the means of 
 acquiring it had been within the power of all, the Essay 
 would not have been written. Malthus ransacked the world's 
 barbaric populations, among whom famines and wars were 
 chronic, for arguments upon which to build his case. 
 
 The whole economic thought of his time was that population 
 would overwhelm the means of subsistence, and would always 
 increase faster than the latter could. We have now learned 
 something better than this ; we now believe that if subsistence 
 is lacking for population, it is mostly owing to faulty social and 
 economic laws, such as an unequal and unjust distribution of 
 wealth, a lack of judicious emigration, a proper system of 
 education, good marriage laws, a reformed mode of farming, 
 tenure of land, and temperance. Malthus used his best 
 efforts to prove that population ought not to be artificially 
 encouraged; that was the urgent question which needed 
 dealing with in his day. The lapse of time has vitiated all 
 the force of his argument, but it was of great force in his days, 
 and its power has not altogether yet faded away. Nitti 
 rightly speaks of his work as follows : " Even when Malthus' 
 Essay shall have altogether failed, and the current of the new 
 ideas and the new researches shall have buried it, and time, 
 which, as Anacreon says, conquers everything, shall have 
 consumed it, it will still appear a wonderful monument of 
 insight and acumen." Since his time the powers of increasing 
 the means of subsistence for our population have increased to 
 an extraordinary degree, much more than the population has 
 increased, and these powers of supplying food have resulted 
 in an extraordinary increased output from every quarter of the 
 earth. Space and time hardly exist now, so far as food is 
 concerned. 
 
 All this Malthus could not have even conjectured. 
 It is an undoubted fact that population always follows an
 
 NOT THE TEACHING OF MALTHUS 19 
 
 increase of the means of subsistence. It must be obvious to 
 anybody who thinks at all, that the greater the wealth of a 
 country, the greater can be the number of its population, and 
 that poverty would be much diminished if that wealth was 
 equally divided in just proportion. Another great help would 
 accrue if the capitalist ceased to hoard wealth beyond that 
 which he might legitimately need, and spend it instead upon 
 increasing work. 
 
 The production of human beings may be looked upon as 
 the means of forming an equilibrium between numbers and 
 food. The great and complex question of population must 
 always be chiefly considered from the standpoint of wealth, 
 with which it is strictly bound up. Any civilized country, in 
 which a perfect system of production and distribution pre- 
 vailed, could support any reasonable amount of population. 
 " The increase of population, so far from being regarded as a 
 calamity, is in reality one of the factors of progress. Modern 
 statistics silence Malthus with crushing force, while they 
 justify the laws of divine wisdom and mercy. They bring 
 forward incontrovertible evidence that a large community, 
 other things being equal, is capable of producing more wealth, 
 man for man, than is possible in a small community. They 
 lead us to expect, as populations grow and become more 
 organized in the future, that the energies of the masses will be 
 taxed in a constantly lessening degree for the provision of the 
 necessities of existence, and that leisure will be greater, and 
 the comforts and refinements of life more easily obtainable. 
 As for mere food, abundance is already secured to the Western 
 civilization, while a mere tithe of the energy of the population 
 is devoted to its production. No doubt it is the existing 
 unequal distribution of wealth that hides these facts from 
 general view. Abuses are notoriously long-lived, and error 
 dies hard. After nearly a century of pernicious life in 
 England, Malthus' decree, so fondly cherished by the affluent, 
 is bound to wane under the light of modern statistics." (Minton.) 
 
 And Laing, in Problems of the Future, writes : " We can 
 afford to dismiss Malthus and his theory to a remote future, 
 and look on it as a bogey no more affecting practical action 
 than the prospect of the world coming to an end by the 
 dissipation in space of solar heat." 
 
 Nitti says : " As our century has been free from the wars, 
 pestilences, and famines which have afflicted other ages,
 
 20 NEO-MALTHUSIANISM 
 
 population has increased as it never did before, and neverthe- 
 less the production of the means of subsistence has far 
 exceeded the increase of men. Statistical study shows us 
 that in every civilized country of modern Europe, even in the 
 periods of disordered birth-rate which have characterized the 
 nineteenth century, the means of subsistence has always 
 exceeded the population, and that the unproductive consump- 
 tion on the one side and pauperism on the other, increasing 
 with fatal progress, are nothing else but a necessary con- 
 sequence of the vitiated form of the distribution of wealth, 
 and not of the excessive increase or fecundity of the human 
 species. The countries where perfection of statistical material 
 and the abundance of research have made the comparison 
 easiest and most certain, have given the Neo-Malthusians the 
 most complete and severe falsification." 
 
 If the Neo-Malthusian be convicted of falsely assuming the 
 name and arguments of Malthus, of which there can be 
 no dispute, and that these arguments themselves have 
 completely lost their power under an improved condition of 
 things, it is hard to see on what basis the whole edifice of 
 Neo-Malthusianism can stand. That population can increase 
 faster than subsistence may be conceded ; but, as a fact, it has 
 never done so, except in barbaric countries where there was 
 no proper organization, and where production and distribution 
 were, or are, notoriously imperfect. "We may regard a 
 redundant population not as a hopeless evil over which we 
 must almost despair, not as the necessary effect of physical 
 forces we cannot control, but as a symptom of some social 
 disorder which it is our duty to investigate, and if possible to 
 remedy." (Cunningham.) 
 
 The best criticism of Malthus and his work, compared with 
 modern political economy, can be found in Chapter i of 
 Minton's Capital and Wages, and also in his Welfare of the 
 Millions (Chapter 2), both of which works may be read with 
 much profit by those who desire to study this great question 
 of population. 
 
 The wrong Poor Law system which was in force in Malthus' 
 time, and which, no doubt, played a considerable part in 
 prompting him to publish his work, encouraged population by 
 relieving the working-classes of the due responsibility of main- 
 taining themselves and their families. His precept against 
 this course of action, which tended to minimize self-reliance,
 
 NOT THE TEACHING OF MALTHUS 21 
 
 was not to marry until there might be a fair prospect of 
 supporting a family. 
 
 Toynbee pointed out that under the Poor Law Act which 
 was then in force, cases had occurred in which mothers had 
 threatened to turn their children out of doors unless they 
 received capitation grants for their support. In the year 1806 
 an Act was passed exempting fathers of two children and 
 upwards from all taxes. That Poor Law system quite dis- 
 couraged any foresight, self-control, self-reliance, and the 
 rightful spirit of independence. It completely demoralized 
 the working-classes. The great aim of its opponents was to 
 emphasize the duty of self-support, and the proper re- 
 sponsibilities of marriage and parentage. But, as the Rev. 
 A. Lyttelton remarks in The Economic Review, this latter is not 
 the object desired by the Neo-Malthusians ; on the contrary, 
 they work for a system which would entirely eradicate all these 
 desirable virtues in the individual. Malthus never intended to 
 convey the erroneous idea which the Neo-Malthusian school 
 aims at, namely, that a thin population is preferable to a large 
 one. With him, as it must be always, the population question 
 must be the relationship of food to numbers. He failed 
 to notice in his abstruse calculations, in consequence of his 
 Tory belief, the artificial barriers which had been put up 
 between the people and the food or the means of obtaining 
 the food. Bastiat describes them fully in Harmonies of 
 Political Economy. This is just the weak point also of the 
 Neo-Malthusian arguments. The fact is that in Malthus 1 time 
 the condition of the labourers was piteous in the extreme. 
 Starvation and misery always stared them in the face. The 
 peasant tradition concerning this state of things is very much 
 alive even now, and Malthus, whom we know had very 
 sensitive feelings, was very much impressed by it. All the 
 wealth of that time was in the hands of the landlords, and the 
 labourers, the sons of the soil, had no part nor lot in the land, 
 and very little in the distribution of the wealth which came out 
 of it. It seemed impossible to believe that their miserable 
 condition could ever be alleviated, but on the contrary, it had 
 every appearance of becoming worse and worse. He pro- 
 phesied that it could only have that ending ; hence arose his 
 thoughts and his school. He considered it to be a law of 
 nature itself that population should always outrun its means of 
 subsistence. The absorbing question of his time was this Is
 
 22 NEO-MALTHUSIANISM 
 
 this fear and terror of want of food to last for ever ? Godwin 
 and Condorcet said no. They were optimists. Malthus said 
 yes. He was a pessimist. He attributed all the economic 
 troubles of the labourer of his time to the latter's sexual 
 indulgence, and not to a vitiated distribution. 
 
 " Having thus raised up in imagination a spectre of 
 darkness and despair to brood over the human race, the 
 actual existence of the ghost was assumed as a matter of 
 course. Modern statistics flatly contradict the theory of 
 Malthus as to the greater power of the increase of population 
 over any possible power of the increase of subsistence." 
 (Minton.) 
 
 France, about which I shall have a good deal to say later 
 on, is a standing proof. Mr. Lyttelton also says that want is 
 not caused by too great a population, but by a bad govern- 
 ment and a vicious land system, for when both of these were 
 removed, between 1790 and 1815, population and subsistence 
 increased side by side at once. 
 
 When Malthus' whole theory is examined by the light 
 of history and later knowledge, we can easily see that his 
 premisses were unsound. " He was not ashamed to ground 
 his entire system upon a very weak and uncertain foundation 
 of statistical proofs." (Ingram.) For instance, he stated that 
 population doubles itself in twenty-five years. If it really 
 increased with the mathematical precision which he took for 
 granted it did, no doubt it would, but history proves that 
 it does nothing of the kind, not even in a hundred years, 
 nor anything like it. Nitti fairly brings his arguments on 
 the geometrical increase of population to a very crucial 
 proof. In Malthus' time the population of Europe amounted 
 to about 176,000,000, and Nitti proceeds to argue as 
 follows : 
 
 In 1800 ..... 176,000,000 
 
 1700 ..... 88,000,000 
 
 1600 ..... 44,000,000 
 
 1500 . . . 22,000,000 
 
 1400 ..... 11,000,000 
 
 1300 5,500,000 
 
 1200 ..... 2,750,000 
 
 i ioo . 1,375,000 
 
 1000 687,500
 
 According to this just estimate, he naturally asks what was 
 the population of Europe in the time of Christ ? If popula- 
 tion doubles in a hundred years, Malthus ought to have found 
 in Europe in his time 1400 milliards of human beings. Man 
 has existed on the earth, at the lowest estimate, for 100,000 
 years. If population increased as Malthus thought it did, 
 what ought the population of the world to be now? The 
 fundamental error of Malthus was that he confounded real 
 with potential increase. We who live now can easily see that 
 Europe has in no way experienced the rapid increase of 
 population which Malthus feared. There is certainly a 
 possibility for population to double itself in twenty-five years, 
 and to increase to an almost incredible extent, but there are 
 continually forces from all sides contending against it, so that 
 the actual increase over the possible one is very, very far less. 
 For instance, one in every seven marriages is infertile. If 
 population is increasing in one part of the world it, generally 
 speaking, is declining in another. Such seems to be the case 
 throughout all the historical period. Some who have gone 
 into this question of population very deeply, like Botero, 
 Sismondi, Buffon, Damilaville, Levasseur, Thornton, Alison, 
 and other foreign and English writers on population, declare 
 that the total population of the world does not vary much 
 at any period. The teeming populations of Nineveh, 
 Babylon, and Egypt, seem to have come further west. Their 
 former habitations are denuded of human life. Other coun- 
 tries have taken it up. "The fact is that birth-rate and 
 population are subject to laws which were quite unknown 
 in the days of Malthus." (See Ogilvie in Westminster Review, 
 September, 1891.) Sidgwick says that if all checks to the 
 increase of population were removed, and that all married 
 as they pleased, population would double itself in something 
 under thirty years. 
 
 But manifold checks of all sorts are continually warring 
 against its increase. Certainly for the present, anyhow, they 
 are victorious. What will happen in time to come, owing 
 to the sacredness of human life being more considered than it 
 is now, and diseases being more overcome, is another matter. 
 In Caesar's time the population of England was about 700,000; 
 in the time of the Heptarchy somewhat smaller. In the time 
 of Henry V. it amounted to 2,500,000. In fifteen centuries 
 therefore it had hardly tripled. Chalmers estimated the
 
 4 NEO-MALTHUSIANISM 
 
 population of England and Wales to have amounted in the 
 year 1377 to 2,000,000. 
 
 After Malthus' death his name and influence were played 
 fast and loose with, and all sorts of theories were attributed to 
 him, some of which he never wrote of nor sanctioned in any 
 way. It remained for our own day to see him falsely held up 
 as a teacher of mischievous immorality. " Malthus, being 
 a Christian, did not go so far as to recommend those immoral 
 practices to which the great body of his followers had recourse 
 later. The theory of moral restraint became quite contrary to 
 what Malthus might have himself supposed a real school of 
 degradation." "The immoral counsels and practices propa- 
 gated later among the elevated class of his followers." 
 " Neo-Malthusianism is not Malthusian. It is neither more 
 nor less than a brutal affirmation of individual egoism." "The 
 moral aberrations into which the Neo-Malthusians have fallen." 
 (Nitti.) 
 
 Those who wish to study what German and Italian writers 
 on this subject of population think of the unjust connection 
 made between Malthus' opinions and the modern craze of 
 Neo-Malthusianism can do so in Oettingen's and Vanni's 
 works, which treat largely of the immoralities and dis- 
 advantages both from the economic and social points of view 
 of Neo-Malthusianism. Unfortunately they have not been 
 translated into English, and are rare in this country. It can 
 be gathered from what has been written that the moral 
 restraint, resulting in postponement of marriage, which was 
 what Malthus urged as a remedy in his day, is a very different 
 thing to the artificial system which the Neo-Malthusians 
 urge upon us. The arguments on its behalf are supposed 
 to be founded upon the writings of Malthus, with what 
 truth we have seen. 
 
 The artificial system is falsely derived from what is generally 
 known as Malthusian doctrine, and although at first sight 
 it might seem to be beneficial, when we come to consider the 
 whole matter carefully we can easily see that it cannot afford 
 anything for the alleviation of misery and want. On the 
 contrary, it would be just as likely as not to increase them. 
 A very low birth-rate, such as we now see in France, is an evil, 
 because it must inevitably lead to future low production 
 and productive power. To increase both of these is the 
 truest economic science.
 
 NOT THE TEACHING OF MALTHUS 25 
 
 The philanthropical aspect of the matter is to see that 
 those who produce the wealth have their just share, which is 
 not the case now. To this the Neo-Malthusian should direct 
 his social efforts, not to diminish productive power with its 
 sure and certain results, namely, increased wealth. 
 
 "Given the constitution of modern society, the economic 
 situation does not depend upon the increase of population, 
 but, on the contrary, not only the number of those who live, 
 but even the number of those who are born, depends upon 
 the economic situation." (Nitti.) 
 
 A low birth-rate must also inevitably mean immorality of 
 some sort or another, and the destruction of family life. But, 
 on the other hand, a high birth-rate is an evil if the economic 
 and social laws are unjust. As long as these are so the 
 productive power is overwhelmed, and a condition of hopeless 
 and helpless poverty ensues. Would that the Neo-Malthusian 
 could see that his well-meant scheme only deals with the 
 symptoms, not the causes ; remove the causes which do injury 
 to population, and no matter how large it may be, it might 
 increase ad libitum without harm to anybody. 
 
 " Excess of population can never be excess of men, but 
 deficiency of food." This is aptly put, and is a sound and 
 true maxim. No matter how large a population may be, if 
 there should be a sufficient supply of food all would be well : 
 if any suffered, it would only be the idle and vicious. It is 
 quite correct to say that competition is necessary to increase 
 the output of food ; it affords a healthy stimulus. But what 
 we justly complain of now is, that present competition has 
 broken all bounds. Under such an untoward and mischievous 
 state of economics, the whole question of population requires 
 the most serious consideration, and much more self-restraint 
 is necessary than there would be under a different state of 
 affairs. 
 
 The Neo-Malthusian differs from Malthus very materially 
 in this most vital point. The former teaches, which Malthus 
 did not, prudence without chastity ; the latter is very careful to 
 indicate what he means by moral restraint. He defines it as 
 a self-denial from marriage, for prudential motives, by those 
 who unfortunately lacked what might be considered sufficient 
 means, with a conduct strictly moral during the period of 
 this self-restraint, which is what every moral writer would 
 approve of.
 
 26 NEO-MALTHUSIANISM 
 
 " The Malthusian theory still has its advocates ; but we 
 imagine they are few in number. The theory has been 
 effectually smashed by political economists of the heaviest 
 metal, and we fondly thought that it was dead, but it appears 
 not. But whatever there was to be said in favour of this 
 theory from the standpoint of the economist or sociologist 
 and, to give its originator his due, he never advocated the 
 limitation of the family from any other standpoint there is 
 absolutely nothing to be said in its favour as at present 
 practised. The good of the State or of society does not 
 enter into the question at all in the present day. The whole 
 thing has its root and origin in pure and unadulterated selfish- 
 ness, in undenying self-gratification, and so never comes within 
 the purview of either economist or sociologist." (Strahan.) 
 
 Not the very slightest authority can be found in Malthus' 
 writings to justify the immoral practice of Neo-Malthusianism. 
 People have rashly put constructions upon his writings which 
 they certainly cannot bear. Moreover, the general tenour of 
 his writings is against their ideas. He always declared that 
 a pressure of population stimulated improvement in every- 
 thing. "Evil exists, not to create despair, but activity. An 
 increase of population is both a great positive good and 
 absolutely necessary to a further increase in the annual 
 produce of the land and labour of any country. It is an 
 utter misconception of my argument to infer that I am an 
 enemy to population ; I am only an enemy to vice and 
 misery." All he affirmed, in reality, was that regulation and 
 direction were necessary for population, certainly not diminu- 
 tion or extinction. 
 
 Long before him Aristotle had taught that man always 
 needed a stimulus to exertion. This must be allowed by all 
 reformers. Whateley, with his usual sound sense, summed up 
 Malthus' work as follows : " Malthus has been sometimes 
 represented as impugning Providence, and teaching that it has 
 either made man too prolific, or the earth too barren. To me 
 it has always appeared that the only sense in which he has 
 done so is that in which one might be said to teach that 
 Providence has made a certain river too wide and too deep, 
 by pointing out that one who cannot swim should not attempt 
 to cross it without a boat. And if anyone should warn men 
 that the juice of the grape has a tendency to produce in- 
 toxication, and should caution them accordingly to avoid
 
 NOT THE TEACHING OF MALTHUS 27 
 
 intemperance, he would not be understood as finding fault 
 with Providence for making vines too prolific. Malthus all 
 along represents Providence as having endowed man with 
 reason, and requiring that we should make use of it to avoid 
 many dangers which would otherwise beset us. If men will 
 act irrationally, they are liable to be drowned in attempting to 
 ford a river no less than to incur such evils as Malthus 
 points out." Of course, under his system there might 
 naturally follow the conclusion that the rich were to marry 
 whenever they pleased, but that the poor were not to marry 
 at all, yet if they did, were to postpone it until middle age. 
 In other words, marriage was to be a privilege for the wealthy 
 classes only. 
 
 The problem of population is a very complex and difficult 
 one, no matter from what side we approach it, but Malthus' 
 idea that it was to be kept within bounds by refusing marriage 
 to the worker was so unjust that it had its own elements of 
 failure within it, for the class to which he, with his Tory 
 inclinations, addressed himself was one which never would 
 nor could listen to nor give any heed to his pessimistic 
 advice. He studied the question of marriage, although him- 
 self of a gentle nature, from a cynical and misanthropical 
 point of view. Calvinism was of great force in his time, and 
 he never seems to have been able to shake off the melancholy 
 aspect which it gives to everything, especially to the great 
 increase of population which had then begun to take place. 
 He looked upon the problem as a theorist ; he does not 
 seem to have probed into what the minds of those for whom 
 he wrote were thinking of on the whole matter. He warred 
 against the most powerful incentive in human nature, love ; 
 and he failed which will always be the case of those who 
 ignore it. A course of action infused into human beings by 
 nature and nature's God cannot be fought against successfully. 
 "While philosophers are disputing about the government 
 of the world, hunger and love are performing the task." 
 (Schiller.) 
 
 Neo-Malthusianism has entirely arisen from the necessity 
 of dealing in some way with the increasing numbers of our 
 population, and so it is to the very last degree worthy of our 
 most serious consideration. Nothing can be of more im- 
 portance to our national and social life than this system ; it 
 touches the very foundations of all society. There cannot be a
 
 28 NEO-MALTHUSIANISM 
 
 greater subject of importance to any State than that of an 
 increasing or decreasing number of its inhabitants. 
 
 Population is the mystery of all mysteries as yet insoluble. 
 It is the foundation of all economic and philanthropic science ; 
 all the intricate questions of the world's weal or woe have 
 their origin in population. Nitti says the question is vast and 
 terrible as the Egyptian sphinx, and whoever wishes to study 
 the mystery underlying the whole history of mankind must 
 question it acutely. Messedaglia says, " It is the most 
 momentous and difficult economic problem, always of present 
 importance." Rossi says it is the problem which concerns 
 everything, morals and politics, national and domestic 
 economy. 
 
 It is no wonder, then, that some eager and enthusiastic 
 spirits amongst us, urged on by their sympathy for the suffer- 
 ings of the poor, have energetically taken up this modern 
 craze of Neo-Malthusianism, sincerely believing that by 
 artificially restricting the number of children they are 
 benefiting both the individual and the nation. But it must 
 be borne in mind that there are two classes of Neo- 
 Malthusians : one acting undoubtedly from a philanthropic 
 standard, the other merely wishing to give itself up to 
 hedonism and so do away with all chastity, anxious and 
 ready to throw off all self-restraint, and plunge into such a 
 condition of licentiousness as the world has never witnessed 
 hitherto. They desire to indulge themselves freely in sexual 
 passion, while at the same time repudiating and evading all 
 duty to and responsibility for child life, which is the lawful 
 object for which that natural passion was ordained. It does 
 not require much penetration, except for those who wilfully 
 close their eyes, to see what disastrous effects the practice of 
 Neo-Malthusianism would most assuredly have on the nation 
 and individual, and which Malthus, its supposed founder, 
 clearly foresaw and strongly condemned. We shall, in the 
 course of this volume, consider what those effects would 
 inevitably be.
 
 THE ARGUMENT OF THE 
 NEO-MALTHUSIANS 
 
 THEY describe with great force, honesty, and ability, the 
 horrors which are always attendant upon an excess of 
 population over subsistence, and the frightful fratricidal com- 
 petition for food which must of necessity ensue, and which 
 has been so graphically described in the numberless publi- 
 cations dealing with the matter. See Problems of Poverty 
 for instance. The sorrows, miseries, privations and diseases 
 of the half-starved, ill-clad sufferers, all of which they say are 
 the results of over-population. 
 
 That married women, instead of staying at home regulating 
 the moral and physical formation of their children, are obliged 
 to seek their own and children's food in competition with men, 
 and that that is destructive to the future physical powers of 
 our race. The husband is unable through competition to earn 
 sufficient to maintain a family, hence the wife is called in to 
 help, she who ought to be at home. Then feminine labour 
 brings down the labour market, which is always guided by the 
 lowest price accepted. The capitalist is always seeking the 
 cheapest labour. The best writers of the day unhesitatingly 
 condemn this unnecessary burthen being placed on married 
 women, which can only result in a weakened race. A rightly 
 ordered community offers protection and health to women. 
 Man's part in the life of the species is that of the bread-winner; 
 woman's part is that of the preserver and defender of the living 
 generation; she is the improver of the race by natural selection, 
 as she excites strife between the men of whom she is the prize, 
 and in which the ablest competitor secures the most valuable 
 prizes. 
 
 All this, the Neo-Malthusian declares, is, owing to disastrous 
 and unequal competition, quite out of the question. Women 
 are weakened, deteriorated by overwork, which ought not to 
 be their lot, aged before their time, their children neglected; 
 their case is desperate. 
 
 29
 
 30 NEO-MALTHUSIANISM 
 
 The Neo-Malthusians also say that owing to the terrible 
 and merciless competition which now prevails, caused by a too 
 redundant population, hopeless, helpless, starving girls are 
 obliged to prostitute themselves to earn their food or help a 
 stricken family. They are most reluctantly, by stress of circum- 
 stances, forced into a life which Duchatelet described as worse 
 than death, and which Lecky described as "the most mournful, 
 and in some respects the most awful, upon which the eye of 
 the moralist can dwell. That unhappy being whose name is a 
 shame to speak of, who is scorned and insulted as the vilest of 
 the sex, and doomed for the most part to disease and wretched- 
 ness; that degraded and ignoble form remains, while creeds 
 and civilization rise and fall, the eternal priestess of humanity, 
 blasted for the sins of the people." When Lecky wrote 
 European Morals he estimated that the number of prostitutes 
 in England amounted to 50,000; we shall see what the present 
 numbers amount to later on. The awful fact remains for 
 morality to consider that these poor creatures increase as 
 so-called civilization advances. (For a graphic description of 
 the prostitute's life, see Merrie England, p, 112.) Owing to the 
 struggle for food now, it is observed that younger girls than 
 formerly was the case, mere children, have taken to immoral 
 lives, driven thereto, not of their own free will, far from it, but 
 for the sake of food sometimes, alas, initiated into the life by 
 those whose natural duty ought to be to shield them from it. 
 The struggle for life and food has now become so keen that 
 the earnings of the daughter's dishonour are considered quite 
 as natural as those earned in other ways ! 
 
 It must be borne in mind that prostitution for the sake of a 
 livelihood was utterly unknown amongst all savage races until 
 white men introduced it. It is not a relic of primitive man; it 
 entered into being with what we wrongly term in many respects 
 civilization, which in other words often means a complex 
 struggle for life. (See Wake's Development of Marriage 
 and Westermarck's History of Marriage ; also Letourneau's 
 Evolution of Morality and his Evolution of Marriage.} 
 
 The Neo-Malthusians declare that, owing to the dreadful 
 competition for life now taking place, prostitution has 
 enormously increased of late, and that this, as well as all the 
 other untold miseries of the poor, arise from excessive 
 population struggling within itself. 
 
 They say that the unemployed are caused by it, that
 
 ARGUMENT OF THE NEO-MALTHUSIANS 31 
 
 miserable class, always tramping in search of work and finding 
 it not. That the whole matter requires alleviation, and that 
 if something is not done to relieve the present congestion of 
 population, the consequences will be frightful, and a cataclysm 
 imminent. They enlarge upon all the manifold arguments 
 which misery and want can too abundantly supply. Compare 
 all these throes of human misery, they say, hundreds of 
 thousands always in a chronic condition of semi-starvation, 
 vast numbers living on bread and tea only ; large numbers of 
 children by day and by night crying for food ; compare all this 
 piteous misery with our system, which would remove all of 
 them our glorious system, which we from pure, simple feelings 
 of humanity and sympathy advise you to freely adopt. Take 
 no thought for the morrow; marry whenever you please, no 
 matter at how youthful an age ; put aside all fear of " encum- 
 brances"; have but one child, or, better still, none at all. 
 Unhesitatingly gratify all sexual passion ; eat, drink and be 
 merry; children are a nuisance free yourselves from them. 
 Let not the anxiety for the support of a family enter into your 
 consideration for a moment. They fully descant upon the 
 dreadful vices which must always be likely to ensue from any 
 system of deferred marriage, the disease, the crime, the suicide, 
 and the fact that the rate of mortality amongst unmarried men 
 at twenty-five is equal to that of the married at forty-five. 
 
 They also cite as a fact that large numbers of both sexes 
 are forced to deny themselves marriage, which all must admit 
 is a most humanising force, yet they are obliged to see the 
 wealthy classes able to gratify themselves in this respect 
 whenever they please, and that this is not just. 
 
 "As things stand to-day, we prevent an immense number of 
 our finest potential mothers from realizing their own natures, 
 and this artificial restriction is galling and irksome to them. 
 How are we to free the important work of child-bearing from 
 its existing slavery to mere monetary considerations ? To me 
 it seems that England to-day is full of celibate women, to whom 
 their condition is, rightly and naturally, a wrong and a grievance. 
 Our girls are crying, not for freedom to be nuns, but for 
 freedom to be mothers." (Grant Allen.) This state of things 
 will, of course, continue as long as the present vitiated system 
 of distribution lasts. 
 
 They say that in consequence of the natural fear prevalent 
 amongst the professional classes of being unable to provide
 
 32 NEO-MALTHUSIANISM 
 
 for or maintain a family, the marriage age is being continually 
 postponed, with terrible effect upon the health of the nation 
 and the vigour of the children. That in consequence of this 
 untoward state of things, venereal disease is rapidly gaining 
 ground amongst all classes. They say that marriage, God's 
 ordinance against sexual vice, can now be only attained by 
 the rich. That human nature, constituted as it is, with sexual 
 instinct so strong and yet so natural, is not to be, and should 
 not be, repressed. 
 
 The following is a very good illustration of their advice: 
 " What I would propose is simply that steps should be taken 
 (such as giving proper support to the Malthusian League) to 
 bring to the knowledge of the poor those innocent and 
 inexpensive means of enabling married people to avoid the 
 burden of children they do not want, which have been for 
 years in use in the homes of some of the rich and middle 
 classes. It is only want of public sympathy and support that 
 prevents the Malthusian League going among the poor and 
 showing them how they can, at a cost of less than one half- 
 penny per week, and without any inconvenience, marry without 
 any fear of having more children than they can bring up in 
 decency and comfort" I merely quote this from Mr. Dunton's 
 article on " Marriage in East London " in the Free Review^ 
 just to show how openly people write on the matter. 
 
 They declare that multitudes of both sexes cannot put their 
 lawful and natural powers into proper use, but are driven to 
 vice. That the loves of wife, husband and children can never 
 be obtained by many who crave for them. That the maternal 
 instinct of women, so strong, so good, cannot lawfully be 
 gratified for fear of adding to an already existing overplus of 
 population, and so increasing their own and their children's 
 misery. That the physical condition of an unmarried woman 
 at forty is far inferior to a married woman at that age. 
 
 And so deep down in the hearts of the professional classes, 
 not the working labourer one, for that marries regardless of all 
 issues, there is a vast, growing sense of rebellion against all 
 this unnatural inequality of just rights, and that the conse- 
 quences of an enforced celibacy will be very awful. 
 
 It cannot be expected, says the Neo-Malthusian, that these 
 classes will or can practise entire continence, and so, marriage 
 being feared on account of the children, the moral condition 
 of England is being rapidly destroyed. All these adverse
 
 ARGUMENT OF THE NEO-MALTHUSIANS 33 
 
 conditions to marriage are clean contrary to religion, to nature, 
 to moral order and justice. That this impossibility of having 
 recourse to marriage, consequent upon the present state of over- 
 population, is producing a deep sense of discontent and hatred 
 of the moneyed classes. Within all hearts, it is said, there is 
 a deep feeling against this cruel hindrance to marriage, and it 
 is rapidly becoming too great a burden to be borne. Marriage 
 is honourable in all men, but far too few are able to obtain it. 
 That in itself sexual instinct is not impure; all that it properly 
 needs is a lawful, just and moral exercise, which it cannot be 
 gainsaid for a single moment is not now to be obtained under 
 the present unjust social system. 
 
 The Neo-Malthusians unhesitatingly affirm that their system 
 would remove all hindrances to marriage, and would, more- 
 over, cure all our social troubles. They point with delight to 
 the wonderful increase of its practice, which proves that they 
 have supplied a want, and that a still further and gigantic 
 increase is looming in the immediate future. They declare 
 that it is a cruel and a hard lot " to force upon others what is 
 now forced upon them, viz., ' to resist and forego, habitually 
 and generally, sometimes altogether, always during the most 
 craving period of life, those imperious longings of the heart, 
 which, combined, constitute the most urgent necessity of our 
 nature, and which the Creator must have made thus urgent for 
 wise and righteous purposes.' " (Greg.) 
 
 The Neo-Malthusian, to support his arguments and ideas, 
 quotes Brodie's statement at the Birmingham Science Con- 
 gress: "The evils of celibacy quite equal those of prostitution." 
 And again, Holmes Coote's remarks in The Lancet ', July i4th, 
 1889 : "The evils connected with continence are productive 
 of far greater misery to society than incontinence." 
 
 The statement is freely made that in consequence of marriage 
 being out of the question for very many, a certain form of 
 abominable vice is becoming to be adopted far more than it 
 used to be. This, whatever may be the cause, is, I believe, 
 correct in the main. It is also declared that postponement of 
 marriage until the physical powers are failing will inevitably 
 bring about a serious deterioration of the race. This the 
 Neo-Malthusians declare is actually taking place before our 
 eyes. That the universal practice of Neo-Malthusianism 
 would remove all these adverse influences so detrimental to 
 social welfare and human happiness. That their system would
 
 34 NEO-MALTHUSIANISM 
 
 reduce crime very much, for it is notorious that the married 
 are much steadier than the unmarried. That in every com- 
 munity where we find the most married, there we also, without 
 question, find the most order and regularity of life. That in 
 the Arcadia which they are certain this system would produce, 
 the tired wanderer would no longer ever be seeking for work, 
 which he findeth not, but work would be eagerly seeking for 
 men. That a thin population is far preferable to an over- 
 abundant one, for in it all would have enough, even plenty. 
 That education, or as they term it " brain sharpening," is only 
 another means whereby some can conquer and overwhelm 
 others in the struggle to live. That all charity, thrift, help of 
 any sort, are utterly useless under present conditions of 
 industrial life ; the evil must be strangled in its very source ; 
 population must be lessened if human woes and sufferings are 
 to cease. That the silly gabble about promoting thrift is 
 merely encouraging people to be misers, and upholding the 
 sin of selfishness, causing them to extinguish their sympathy 
 for their fellow-creatures lying in piteous destitution. That 
 anything done to relieve present misery, as long as population 
 is allowed to recklessly increase as it is doing now, is but 
 labour lost and charity misplaced. The only efficacious cure 
 is to limit the number of one's children, and then the new 
 era of prosperity, so long prayed for, will come to pass. 
 
 Such is a slight sketch of the Neo-Malthusian argument, 
 which is most vigorously upheld at public meetings open to 
 both sexes, and by an increasing and powerful literature 
 scattered broadcast all over the kingdom before an un- 
 reasoning and ignorant people. 
 
 What have we, who oppose their system, to say in reply? 
 Well, we can say to the Neo-Malthusian we fully and sorrow- 
 fully admit that all you tell us of our miserable social 
 inequalities and injustice is, alas, only too true, and they need 
 quick, sure, and certain remedies; but we utterly deny that 
 what you advise to be done would relieve them in the very 
 least. They could exist just as well in the thinnest as well as 
 in the thickest population. The schemes which you Neo- 
 Malthusians hold forward as rightly calculated to put an end 
 to all human misery are fallacious from beginning to end. 
 The fact is that the Neo-Malthusian starts from wrong 
 premisses altogether; he deals with the mere fringe of the 
 problem ; he makes poverty dependent simply upon an excess
 
 ARGUMENT OF THE NEO-MALTHUSIANS 35 
 
 of population instead of upon unequal distribution, incomplete 
 production, and an unnatural social system, unjust and merci- 
 less to the last degree. No matter how small a population 
 might be, it will certainly suffer from poverty if it is not 
 allowed to share equally in general production, and if it is 
 denied free access to the land, the source of all wealth and 
 food. The most terrible poverty can exist in a thin population, 
 and in which there was ample subsistence. See the present 
 condition of Morocco, for instance. There is a splendid object- 
 lesson on this point close beside us. A most beautiful fertile 
 country, its soil the most productive in the world, capable of 
 producing anything, lies barren and waste; the people are 
 generally in a state of chronic want and misery, yet the 
 population is very small. Its area is 314,000 square miles, 
 with an estimated population of only four millions. The area 
 of Ireland is but 31,759 square miles, yet it supports a 
 population of five millions. Morocco, that country rich in 
 everything, lies stagnant with a thin population in hunger and 
 need, in consequence of misgovernment. 
 
 Wherever there exist difficulties in bringing population to food, 
 or vice versa, there will unquestionably also exist chronic want 
 and all kinds of miseries. (See Cairnes.) In barbaric countries 
 we see these difficulties rampant, for the simple reason that 
 ignorance is rampant also, but in civilized countries they are 
 gradually being removed. Still grave blots on our Christianity, 
 mercy, and justice remain; until these are lessened and removed 
 the cries of the wretched will be heard in the land. 
 
 There is a great deal of truth in some of the statements 
 which the Neo-Malthusian brings forward with regard to 
 marriage, the hindrances to it, and its enforced postponement. 
 Major Seton Churchill says: "Considering the very high 
 position given in the Bible to marriage, it is an appalling 
 thought that there is a constantly increasing number of un- 
 married men and women growing up together far beyond the 
 age when people ought to marry. Such is the artificial state 
 of society we have reached in the igth century that marriage, 
 one of the necessary institutions of life, is becoming more 
 and more an expensive luxury in which only a comparative 
 few can indulge. It is a thing to which public opinion must 
 be directed, and on which all right-minded men and women 
 should speak out plainly. It is palpably absurd to condemn 
 the evils of immorality, on the one hand, and yet seek to
 
 36 NEO-MALTHUSIANISM 
 
 ignore a cause which, perhaps more than any other, leads to it. 
 If society forces men and women, through untoward circum- 
 stances, to live an abnormal existence, some frightful penalty 
 will be demanded. Indeed, the penalty is already being paid 
 in the growing immorality of our large towns and cities, and 
 the plain decadence of morality amongst the boys of the 
 upper classes. Unless something is done to meet the evil, it 
 will grow to an appalling magnitude, of which we have now, 
 looking at it in its incipient stage only, absolutely no con- 
 ception." 
 
 Major Churchill's indictment against modern society, with 
 regard to its position towards marriage, is very terrible, but 
 it is perfectly true. Surely it is obviously every right-minded 
 person's duty to work for a nobler, more moral, purer, and 
 more just condition between the sexes, to remove all improper 
 and unjustifiable impediments in the way of healthy and pure 
 marriage. Neo-Malthusianism would not assuredly help us in 
 this respect in the very least. We should only be putting 
 other grave evils into the places of those we removed, viz., the 
 wholesale decay of national power, and personal physical 
 weakness. The key of the whole situation is economic 
 reform : that which is urged upon the nation by all thoughtful 
 writers. There are plenty of books treating of the matter now 
 being issued. (See Capital and Wages, Problems of Poverty, 
 etc.) We want social reform, we want more Christian feeling 
 the one towards the other. Everybody, except those whose 
 hearts have turned into stone, must have compassion on and 
 feel pity for those of our flesh and blood who, through 
 no fault of their own, are compelled to labour under hard and 
 iniquitous conditions from the cradle to the grave. Dreary, 
 unhappy lives, always torn with anxiety for daily bread, always 
 toiling for wealth, but of which they are not permitted to 
 obtain their just and lawful share. On the contrary, the chief 
 part of it passes into the coffers of the capitalist, the non- 
 worker, the idle, and the vicious. The producer is forbidden 
 to touch but a mite of that which the sweat of his brow has 
 accumulated. 
 
 Every man's hand, in the struggle to obtain even a share of 
 this scanty pittance, is directed against his neighbour with a 
 view to crush him out, lest he should acquire a part of it. 
 This is the exact opposite of every humane and Christian 
 principle. Competition says hate and destroy your fellow-
 
 ARGUMENT OF THE NEO-MALTHUSIANS 37 
 
 creature. Christ says love and aid him. Competition says 
 use every means to deceive. Christ says be true and just 
 in all your dealings. Competition brings about such a state of 
 things as this. Common shirts are sold at ten shillings and 
 sixpence per dozen, and the woman who makes them earns 
 only two shillings and a penny half-penny per dozen. 
 
 " This great problem of poverty in the midst of wealth, and 
 observe it is a poverty which mars the happiness of the rich as 
 well as the poor, demands attention. It is forcing itself on 
 public attention, both in the old world and the new. There 
 is no escape from it. Sooner or later this problem must 
 be faced, thoroughly examined by educated reason, grappled 
 with and solved by the exercise of a cold calculation. Wealth 
 must not any longer be the chief factor of human happiness." 
 (Scientific Meliorism?) It is this terrible question of unjust 
 distribution of wealth which the Neo-Malthusian leaves out of 
 his reckoning altogether. He argues from the wrong premiss 
 that population is the cause of poverty. That an utterly 
 unrestricted, recklessly-increased population may to a certain 
 extent be a cause I do not for a moment deny, but all 
 who think seriously upon the matter can easily see that a 
 disordered condition of economics and distribution is beyond 
 all question the chief factor. It is to remedy these, not to en- 
 deavour to diminish population, which produces wealth, that 
 the Neo-Malthusian should work. 
 
 Although population might be weak in number, where 
 unjust distribution existed it is bound to be in as great poverty 
 and wretchedness as if it existed in too great a quantity. 
 " Civilization causes men to increase much more in wealth 
 than in numbers." (Nitti.) Those who believe that Holy 
 Scripture is a revelation from God must also believe that the 
 order lying upon mankind is to increase, multiply, and subdue 
 the earth. With a scanty population the latter is impossible, 
 but a properly-arranged one acts as a goad to attain to it. It 
 is a fact, which nobody can for a moment gainsay, that 
 it is only in countries of large populations that inventions are 
 discovered. What have Holland, Greece, Switzerland, for 
 instance, produced for the world's welfare during this century ? 
 On the other hand, observe what England, America, and 
 Germany have done in this respect, and what France did, ere 
 she adopted the withering blight of Neo-Malthusianism. 
 Evolution to better things, improvements of all sorts, are
 
 38 NEO-MALTHUSIANISM 
 
 the certain products of proper and fit numbers. Without 
 them the world would stand still, and that we may readily 
 believe is not the intention of the Creator. Judging from the 
 past and what better criterion can we have ? the future has 
 for those who are yet to come, unknown and at present 
 incomprehensible achievements. After closer study on this 
 point some of the earlier Neo-Malthusians, like Mrs. Besant, 
 have receded from their first and less reasoned out thoughts 
 on the matter. In France, too, this has been the case. 
 
 Referring to those writers who had previously enthusias- 
 tically upheld Neo-Malthusianism, Schone in his History 
 of French Population, a book which all interested in this 
 matter should read, says : " These were sadly deceived by the 
 events of 1866 and 1870, amongst them Lavergne, whom 
 I have just quoted. They sacrificed their previous convic- 
 tions, and entered the ranks of those who were seeking to 
 raise the birth-rate of France." Such, also, were Wolowski 
 and Fontevraud. "While in prolific Germany Neo-Malthusian- 
 ism still finds believers and apostles, in sterile France, where 
 it was at first received and practised with enthusiasm, it is 
 gradually losing ground. The continual diminution of the 
 French birth-rate, at first slight and changing, but afterwards 
 continual and dangerous, has had no effect but that of 
 increasing the aversion to Malthusianism.'' (Nitti.) 
 
 Lavergne, for instance, in 1865, declared that the excess 
 of population was the direct cause of poverty. In 1876 he 
 publicly asserted that experience had proved to him that 
 a numerical increase of population can be perfectly recon- 
 cilable with increasing comfort. 
 
 Guillard was at first devoted to Neo-Malthusianism, but 
 statistical inquiry soon convinced him that instead of there 
 being a necessary opposition between population and the 
 means of subsistence, the former always proportions itself 
 to the latter. 
 
 Legoyt also changed his opinion on the matter in the same 
 manner. In 1894 Mantegazza wrote in The Art of taking 
 a Wife: "Neither do I side with those who believe with 
 too great a faith or fanaticism that a restriction in the number 
 of births is sufficient to solve the social problem." Yet he is 
 an enthusiastic Neo-Malthusian. His works dealing with this 
 subject, Elementi d'Igiene, Fisiohgia dell' Amore, and Igiene 
 d'Ainorc, have been placed on the Index. Wolowski wrote
 
 ARGUMENT OF THE NEO-MALTHUSIANS 39 
 
 late in life : " Facts must be our guides. When one studies 
 the state of things in France, we must say that those who 
 advocate sterility there make a grievous error. In my view 
 the increase of population is the end, the sign, of all progress." 
 Schone writes : " Those who hold Neo-Malthusian doctrines 
 become every day more isolated." 
 
 No one for a moment will deny that the Neo-Malthusians 
 have a great deal of unpleasant truth in their statements with 
 regard to the pitiable condition of many of the working- 
 classes now, but we totally disagree about the remedy they 
 advance as likely to bring about a solution of that vast 
 problem. A large population can never be a source of 
 weakness, nor where just and true economic conditions 
 prevail can it be a source of poverty. "Poverty is not simply 
 the result of an excess of population. Many other causes 
 go to produce it, and among them is a vitiated distribution." 
 (Messedaglia.) This was especially the case with regard 
 to the Irish and Indian famines. Quantities of food lay 
 contiguous to the starving multitudes, yet they had not 
 sufficient means to purchase any of it. " In France, under 
 the old regime, in periods of great distress, regions where 
 men perished of hunger bordered upon others where there was 
 a menace of a superabundance of grain. Even where means 
 of communication were not wanting, the internal duties very 
 frequently caused the crops of one province to be insufficient, 
 and caused deaths and atrocious suffering, while in another 
 they rotted in the granaries, and by their cheapness were the 
 cause of much more evil than good. The extreme localiza- 
 tion of the sale of grain, as we have said, caused death in 
 one province, while in another its abundance caused ruin." 
 (Nitti.) 
 
 Nowadays we have improved upon such a false and 
 barbarous state of things. We have, by means of modern 
 inventions and a better mode of transit, the whole world 
 to draw from for food, consequently a famine in a civilized 
 country is a thing of the past. Besides, the fact remains 
 that between the years 1818 and 1848 the increase of wealth 
 in England was far greater than the increase of population. 
 Yet it was the time of the greatest poverty and misery 
 England has ever seen. According to Neo-Malthusian teach- 
 ing there should have been none of either. The fact is 
 that no matter what numbers of people practised Neo-
 
 4 o NEO-MALTHUSIANISM 
 
 Malthusianism, poverty would remain just as urgent and severe, 
 as long as the economic conditions remained adverse. 
 
 "Suppose that a hundred, a thousand, or a hundred 
 thousand men followed the Neo-Malthusian precept, this 
 condition would not be altered in the least, because 
 the general conditions would remain unchanged. But let 
 us suppose, for the sake of argument, that this abstention 
 were possible in an entire nation, the foundations of 
 capitalist economy would remain the same, and the causes 
 of poverty would remain the same. The argument which 
 ruins the whole Neo-Malthusian structure, which makes poverty 
 simply dependent upon excess of population and not upon 
 the economic order, is the fact that the severest poverty has 
 always occurred in countries and at times when the means of 
 subsistence sufficed for the population and far exceeded it. 
 In contemporary France food far exceeds the population, yet 
 the persistence of the most squalid poverty, the frequency of 
 crises, the continual agitation of the unemployed, are standing 
 proofs that poverty is not the result of an excess of men over 
 the means of subsistence, but of a vitiated distribution of 
 food." (Nitti.) 
 
 Mrs. Besant graphically describes the miserable condition of 
 the poor in pp. 239 and 240 of her autobiography. Their 
 unmerited sufferings, she says, caused her to write her well- 
 known book, but she ignores altogether the economic causes 
 which lead to them. She laid them all at the door of over- 
 population. We quite admit that, looked at from the point of 
 view of this or that family, existing through want of a 
 reasonable amount of foresight and prudence in marrying, but 
 which would not be necessary in an ideal state of things, over- 
 population may be a cause of poverty to certain individuals ; 
 but on the other hand, looked at from the universal, every 
 increase of population is a potential increase of wealth for the 
 whole community. " The supposition that excess of population 
 is the cause of all poverty is completely erroneous, not merely 
 in its practical conclusions, but also in its very essence." 
 (Nitti.) 
 
 There is so great an amount of the crassest ignorance 
 prevailing on all sides with regard to this subject of popula- 
 tion, that we would do well to study it as closely as we can. 
 There are many who say, let it increase as fast as it likes, 
 only good can come out of the increase, the more there is
 
 ARGUMENT OF THE NEO-MALTHUSIANS 41 
 
 the better; never mind what individual suffering there may 
 arise alongside of it, take no heed of those who are crushed 
 out of existence and the joys of life through its working ; let 
 the weak go to the wall, let only the fittest survive ; it is, 
 after all is said and done, but the same struggle which goes 
 on in all nature. This is technically known as the laissez 
 faire system, that of Darwin, Guillard, Spencer, etc. Darwin 
 said that it would form the mainspring of progress and of 
 moral evolution. It has also been advocated by Frederick 
 the Great, Rousseau, Filangieri, Botero (// Precursore di 
 Malthus), Adam Smith, Sussmilch, Sismondi, and Bodini. 
 In a word, it is let the weakest die out and perish, who 
 need care? 
 
 Spencer comments on the sins of legislators in interfering 
 with the beneficent operations of the pitiless discipline which 
 kills off the unsuccessful members of society ; but he himself 
 is criticized pretty freely by well-known writers. " Mr. Herbert 
 Spencer's tiny knot of disciples who follow their master to the 
 bitter end of individualist anarchism." Spencer's theory, 
 according to Nitti, is that in the past the abundance of 
 population was the chief stimulus to progress, since producing 
 congestion it caused men to perfect themselves, and make 
 them more fit for the conflict of life. But when the globe 
 will be entirely inhabited, when it will be cultivated in its 
 inhabited parts to the highest degree, when intelligence and 
 the feelings suited to the highest degree will be developed, 
 then the abundance of population, having served its purpose, 
 will gradually cease. But he observes that Spencer's theory has 
 found but very slight favour with economists. (See also Vanni.) 
 Cossa says : " Herbert Spencer, whose unchallenged eminence 
 is only equalled by his eccentricity, represents the theories 
 of doctrinaire individualism in England"; and Cohn has 
 charmingly remarked that his voice is as the voice of one 
 crying in the wilderness. 
 
 "The number of the population constitutes the wealth of 
 the State." (Frederick the Great.) "The government under 
 which the citizens increase and multiply the most is in- 
 fallibly the best." (Rousseau.) " The chief care of sovereigns 
 desirous of procuring the happiness of their people was that 
 of increasing the population." (Sussmilch.) " The truest in- 
 dication of a nation's prosperity must be sought in the 
 numerical increase of its inhabitants." (Adam Smith.) They
 
 42 NEO-MALTHUSIANISM 
 
 all asserted that without a high birth-rate there is not a 
 sufficiently keen struggle for existence, and that without this 
 struggle there is not merely no progress, but actual retro- 
 gression. The advocates of this cruel system do not stay 
 to consider the individual suffering which must of necessity 
 take place during the unequal struggle. It is their policy, not 
 the teaching of Christ ; neither, we may be well assured, is it 
 the wish of the Almighty. 
 
 The advocates of the laissez faire system are always, without 
 exception, to be found in the ranks of those who enjoy the 
 good things of life. They would not be so eager to advance 
 the theory as they are if they themselves formed part of those 
 who shiver and pine away from semi-starvation. " Beati 
 Possidentes" is their welcome motto. Common humanity 
 must feel for those who have to go under in the struggle, 
 at least where anything of human pity remains. The ethical 
 aspect of the laissez faire system will be fully discussed under 
 the necessary reforms in marriage ; I merely give a statement 
 of that idea here. 
 
 Then there are others, the Neo-Malthusians, who say, let us 
 diminish population by every means in our power, then we 
 shall have no competition, no want and misery, fewer numbers 
 and more individual luxuries and pleasures. Like most things 
 in this world, there is a great deal of truth in extremes, but 
 the whole truth is not found therein ; generally speaking the 
 via media will be found to contain the surest and safest guide. 
 We are not justified in allowing population to recklessly in- 
 crease, regardless of all issues ; neither are we, on the other 
 hand, justified in recommending or adopting immoral and 
 annihilating schemes with regard to it. We must always bear 
 in mind the undoubted fact that increase of population means 
 an increase of consumers as well as an increase of producers ; 
 but we must equally bear in mind that unless we are able to 
 bring the production to the consumption in equal proportions, 
 the evil of an overplus of population goes on increasing, and 
 that is what we are now suffering from. 
 
 With regard to an abundant population, wise men will say 
 it is a source of strength and excellence, but at the same time 
 we are bound to remove all unjust interferences and hind- 
 rances to its due support ; then population and its sustenance 
 would go hand in hand together, one continually balancing 
 the other ; one creating a steady, proper stimulus for the other
 
 ARGUMENT OF THE NEO-MALTHUSIANS 43 
 
 to increase part passu with it. Above all, see that the 
 marriage system, the fans el origo of it all, is properly secured 
 on a firm and moral basis. Remember, also, that unjust, 
 artificial barriers which exist between population and its main- 
 tenance are not of God's making, but of man's invention, 
 through unjust and careless legislation. 
 
 " With it, the doctrine of Malthus, will die an older and 
 still more pernicious belief that God has ordained the poor 
 man's lot, with its attendant hopelessness and misery. The 
 dawn of a brighter day seems breaking, when in time it will 
 be perceived that poverty, and well-nigh all the ills of life, 
 arise from man's ignorance and selfishness, and are curable as 
 he grows." (Minton). 
 
 With regard to Neo-Malthusianism, we can affirm that the 
 object it has in view, namely, of diminishing population, would 
 remove all stimulus to attain to perfection, and so cause the 
 unquestionable decay of any nation that was so blind as to 
 adopt it. All right-minded people will, however, agree with 
 the Neo-Malthusian when he says that marriage should not 
 be a mere question of wealth, which it is far too much now. 
 Sexual desire is a gift implanted in men and women with but 
 one object, to reproduce their species. " Be fruitful and 
 multiply, and replenish the earth," is God's injunction laid 
 upon the race, and anything which disturbs or vitiates that 
 law will, we may be very sure, only bring about failure and 
 remorse. Marriage, evolved by God's guiding hand out of 
 promiscuous intercourse, is now the lawful and right sequel of 
 a natural desire given to mankind to reproduce itself. It 
 hallows sexual connection ; it renders what is impure, un- 
 lawful, and immoral without it, pure, lawful, and moral with it. 
 " Marriage is honourable in all." " To avoid fornication, let 
 every man have his own wife, and every woman her own 
 husband." " If they cannot contain, let them marry, for it is 
 better to marry than to burn." " Forbidding to marry is a 
 doctrine of devils." St. Paul sums up the argument very 
 clearly. It is better for those who can exercise self-control 
 not to marry; this is a higher and better state, the best 
 precept we can follow, not however within the reach of the 
 many ; for those who cannot exercise the gift of continence, 
 let them marry, and this will prevent vice. 
 
 Bishop Lightfoot paraphrases St. Paul's utterances on this 
 subject in the following words : " If I had my way I should
 
 44 NEO-MALTHUSIAN1SM 
 
 advise all men to lead a celibate life, like myself, in con- 
 tinence." 
 
 The Church, in her marriage service, echoes these thoughts. 
 She declares that marriage is God's ordinance against vice, 
 and gives the reasons for His ordaining it. " First, for the 
 procreation of children, to be brought up in the fear and 
 nurture of the Lord, and to the praise of His Holy Name. 
 
 " Secondly, it was ordained for a remedy against sin and to 
 avoid fornication, that such persons as have not the gift of 
 continency might marry, and keep themselves undenled 
 members of Christ's body. 
 
 " Thirdly, it was ordained for the mutual society, help, and 
 comfort, that the one ought to have of the other, both in 
 prosperity and adversity." 
 
 The Neo-Malthusian asserts that his system would remove 
 all the causes which tend to postpone this most desirable 
 married condition for all, and he persistently cites the case 
 of France as a proof in all his arguments, that what he says is 
 true. Now everybody knows that Neo-Malthusianism has 
 been and is now the universally accepted married condition 
 of that country. It is very easy to note the results. 
 
 Let us first take the case of early marriage, which the Neo- 
 Malthusian declares is a most desirable object to attain to, 
 and see how it works out there. The percentage of marriages 
 of men under twenty-five in 1892 was in France, 27; in 
 England, 51*3 ; in the rest of Europe, 39'3- The Rev. A. T. 
 Lyttelton comments on these figures in T/ie Economic Review, 
 and remarks that if Neo-Malthusianism aims at inducing men 
 to marry while still young, it has utterly failed in France, 
 where it has had such a full trial. Uewey writes : " The 
 Frenchman too often marries, if he marries at all, long after 
 thirty." Another authority states that, roughly speaking, a little 
 more than two-thirds of the Frenchmen who marry do so 
 between thirty and forty years of age. Comparing the 
 number marrying between twenty and twenty-five and those 
 between twenty-five and thirty, the preponderance is in some 
 countries on one side and in some on the other. In England 
 the proportions are about the same; but in France only 24-58 
 per cent, of the men marry between twenty and twenty- 
 five, while 42^36 per cent, marry between twenty- five and 
 thirty. Switzerland, Belgium, Holland, and the Scandinavian 
 countries follow the same rate as France. In Russia in
 
 ARGUMENT OF THE NEO-MALTHUSIANS 45 
 
 Europe 32-01 per cent, of men marry below twenty, of 
 women 56-35. 
 
 Even moderately youthful marriages are not the rule in 
 France. Mr. Lyttelton says : " Marriages in France are later 
 than in England, whether you take the age of men or women." 
 Dr. Drysdale, the President of the Malthusian League, 
 incidentally remarked that "marriage is later in France than in 
 England, and there is far more prostitution." Mulhall gives 
 us the relative number in 1000 persons of either sex marrying 
 at different ages : 
 
 UNDER 20. 
 MEN. WOMEN. 
 England . .35 
 
 Scotland 
 
 Ireland 
 
 France 
 
 Italy 
 
 Prussia 
 
 Russia 
 
 Norway 
 
 Sweden 
 
 Belgium 
 
 Holland 
 
 Jews 
 
 Vienna 
 
 Leipzig 
 
 32 
 26 
 
 23 
 ii 
 
 8 
 
 373 
 
 8 
 
 i 
 
 9 
 
 23 
 
 22 
 
 149 
 134 
 137 
 204 
 171 
 ill 
 573 
 93 
 Si 
 63 
 99 
 235 
 
 MEDIUM MARRYING AGE. 
 
 MKN. WOMEN. 
 
 . 277 
 . 28-6 
 
 25-5 
 . 257 
 
 . 29-9 
 
 25-2 
 
 3O'2 
 
 24-9 
 
 . 30-2 
 
 25-4 
 
 297 
 
 . 27-1 
 
 25-2 
 
 . 2 1 '5 
 
 . 30-9 
 
 . 3Q'i 
 
 . 27-1 
 . 28-3 
 . 28-5 
 
 . 28-0 
 
 . 26*2 
 
 . 32-0 
 . 28-9 
 
 . 27-0 
 
 . 26'2 
 
 If we study the whole marriage 
 find that the French rate helps the 
 The Registrar-General of England 
 annually married per 1000 : 
 
 Hungary . 
 
 Prussia 
 
 German Empire 
 
 Austria 
 
 England and Wales 
 
 Italy 
 
 France 
 
 Denmark . 
 
 Holland . 
 
 Switzerland 
 
 United Kingdom . 
 
 Belgium 
 
 Scotland . 
 
 Norway 
 
 Sweden 
 
 Ireland 
 
 -rate of Europe, we do not 
 Neo-Malthusian case much, 
 gives the following rates of 
 
 871-90. 
 
 1891. 
 
 1891. 
 
 '893- 
 
 19-1 
 
 17-2 
 
 18-4 
 
 18-6 
 
 167 
 
 16-3 
 
 16-1 
 
 16-1 
 
 16-4 
 
 16 i 
 
 15-9 
 
 15-8 
 
 16-3 
 
 I5-4 
 
 15-6 
 
 
 15-6 
 
 15-6 
 
 I5'4 
 
 147 
 
 15-6 
 
 15-0 
 
 15-0 
 
 147 
 
 IS'4 
 
 15-0 
 
 15-2 
 
 
 
 I5'2 
 
 13-6 
 
 13-6 
 
 14-1 
 
 IS'* 
 
 14-2 
 
 14-2 
 
 14-6 
 
 147 
 
 14-4 
 
 14-4 
 
 147 
 
 14-4 
 
 I4'6 
 
 14*6 
 
 I3-9 
 
 14*2 
 
 14-8 
 
 14-8 
 
 15-2 
 
 13 '9 
 
 I3'9 
 
 I3-9 
 
 13-2 
 
 137 
 
 13-2 
 
 13-2 
 
 12-8 
 
 13-1 
 
 117 
 
 117 
 
 
 
 9-0 
 
 9-2 
 
 9-2 
 
 9 '4
 
 NEO-MALTHUSIANISM 
 
 Schone tell us that out of all France in the year 1884 only 
 6960 men below twenty married, and he tells us what were 
 the ages of the women they married : 
 
 3266 . under 20 
 
 2419 
 
 886 
 
 252 
 
 88 
 
 37 
 
 12 
 
 20 tO 25 
 
 25 
 30 
 
 35 
 40 
 5 
 
 30 
 35 
 40 
 So 
 60 
 
 In the year 1887 the rate fell to 
 
 2414 
 1836 
 637 
 
 26 
 5 
 
 under 20 
 20 to 25 
 
 25 
 30 
 
 35 
 40 
 
 50 
 
 30 
 35 
 40 
 
 50 
 60 
 
 In Russia, where there is not a suspicion of Neo-Malthu- 
 sianism, youthful marriages attain the most extraordinary 
 dimensions. Levasseur gives the percentage of men and 
 women married under twenty in Europe as follows : 
 
 MEN. WOMEN. 
 
 Russia 
 
 Scotland 
 
 England 
 
 Prussia 
 
 Bavaria 
 
 Italy 
 
 France 
 
 Sweden 
 
 Norway 
 
 Some almost incredible cases of Russian fecundity are on 
 record. In the year 1757 the Empress Catherine received a 
 peasant woman who had had fifty-seven children. 
 
 37-8 
 
 58-0 
 
 3'i 
 
 i3'5 
 
 3 '3 
 
 14-4 
 
 o-6 
 
 10-3 
 
 0'2 
 
 64 
 
 I'l 
 
 i6'9 
 
 2 '4 
 
 21 '2 
 
 O'l 
 
 5-5 
 
 17 
 
 0-9 
 
 16 
 
 21 
 
 20 
 
 in 4 confinements. 
 
 7 
 
 ,. 10 
 
 This woman's husband married again, and he had fifteen 
 more children by his second wife in seven confinements. 
 Fedor Vassileff, of Moscow, in 1782, had eighty-three children 
 living when pensioned by the Czar. He had had sixty-nine
 
 ARGUMENT OF THE NEO-MALTHUSIANS 47 
 
 children by his first wife at twenty-seven births, and after her 
 death had eighteen more by his second in eight births. 
 (Mulhall.) Richet, in Dans Cent Ans, states that Russia is the 
 coming power of the world. All European populations are 
 now diminishing except the Russian. Possessed of boundless 
 territory, boundless resources, Russia is certain to become 
 sooner or later the ruling power in Europe. 
 
 It would be interesting to follow up the figures from Russia, 
 how far life in the army and agricultural pursuits bear these 
 figures out. All who have written upon Russia and its 
 people unite in saying that youthful marriages are the rule, 
 and that the fecundity of the women is very great. Semenow 
 says that early marriages are invariably the rule in Russia, for 
 there parents urge their sons to marry at as early an age as 
 possible, in order to gain another labourer for the family. 
 Mackenzie Wallace says that celibacy amongst Russians is 
 unknown; at 18 the youth is told he must marry. Wilkens 
 says that the mean age Englishmen marry at is 26, Frenchmen 
 28, Englishwomen 24, Frenchwomen 25. 
 
 The following appeared in the Pall Mall Magazine; it 
 may be read here with interest : In England and Wales, 
 at the present time, people are married at the rate of 1250 
 per day, the daily marriages numbering 625. If we allow 
 12 hours per day for the performance of the marriages we 
 get a result of more than a hundred newly-married persons 
 for each hour of every day in the year, not omitting Sundays, 
 i.e., nearly one marriage a minute. More marriages take 
 place in London, in proportion to population, than in 
 Lancashire, Yorkshire, or Nottinghamshire, the counties 
 having the highest marriage-rate. Of every 1000 men who 
 marry in England it is estimated by a competent authority 
 that 731 do so between the ages of 20 and 29, taking 
 partners of ages between 20 and 24. The last quarter of 
 the year is the time most patronised for marriage, the first 
 is the least popular. 
 
 Letourneau says that in England 504 men out of 1000 
 marry before 25, and nearly two-thirds of the women. This, 
 he says, is only the case in France for 0-29 of the marriages of 
 men. In Paris, he says, the rate of the marriage age is 40 for 
 men and 35 for women. 
 
 The Registrar-General's Report gives the average age which 
 men marry at in the United Kingdom as twenty-six and a half
 
 4 8 
 
 NEO-MALTHUSIANISM 
 
 for men, twenty- five for women. In England the highest 
 marriage -rate is in cities and towns. The rate per 1000 
 makes London 17*6, Hertfordshire only io'8. In England a 
 tendency has arisen to defer marriage. In 1880 the average 
 bridegroom age was 25^8, the bride 24*4 ; in 1891 the average 
 age was for the former 26*4, for the latter 24*8. There is a 
 similar tendency to defer it in France. 
 
 Moreover, marriage of any sort does not seem to prosper in 
 France. The number of divorces in that country during the 
 year 1884 amounted to 1,667; m *&94 they had increased to 
 6419. The exact figures are : 
 
 1884 1667 
 
 1889 
 1890 
 1891 
 1892 
 
 1893 
 1894 
 
 4786 
 
 5457 
 5702 
 5772 
 6184 
 6419 
 
 The rate of divorce is higher in France than in any other 
 country of Europe. It is lowest in Norway. Divorces are 
 rapidly multiplying in every country in the world. The follow- 
 ing are some statistics, taking 100 as a standard to commence 
 with, given by Mayo Smith : 
 
 1850 
 1880 
 
 FRANCR. SAXONY. BELGIUM. HOLLAND. SWEDEN. 
 IOO ... IOO ... JOO ... IOO ... IOO 
 
 . 235 ... 105 ... 240 ... 151 ... 161 
 
 United Kingdom 
 
 France 
 
 Germany 
 
 Russia 
 
 Poland 
 
 Sweden 
 
 Holland 
 
 Belgium 
 
 Canada 
 
 United States 
 
 Henniker Heaton gives the following present statistics of 
 divorce : 
 
 1867-71. 
 
 
 iCSz 86. 
 
 905 
 
 
 2298 
 
 9850 
 
 
 22,750 
 
 18,450 
 
 
 29,I4O 
 
 4597 
 
 
 6563 
 
 809 
 
 
 1725 
 
 619 
 
 
 1109 
 
 700 
 
 
 1570 
 
 620 
 
 
 I5OI 
 
 15 
 
 
 52 
 
 53,574 
 
 
 "7,3" 
 
 England 
 
 Russia 
 
 Scotland 
 
 Austria 
 
 Belgium 
 
 I divorce in 577 marriages. 
 45 . 
 3JI 
 
 184 
 169
 
 ARGUMENT OF THE NEO-MALTHUSIANS 49 
 
 Hungary 
 
 
 I divorce in 149 marriages. 
 
 Sweden 
 
 
 
 134 
 
 
 Holland 
 
 
 
 132 
 
 
 Baden 
 
 
 
 IOO 
 
 
 Roumania 
 
 
 
 94 
 
 
 Denmark 
 
 
 
 36 
 
 
 Saxony . 
 
 
 
 33 
 
 
 Switzerland 
 
 
 
 21 
 
 
 Italy 
 
 
 
 21 
 
 
 Berlin 
 
 
 
 17 
 
 
 Vienna 
 
 
 
 13 
 
 
 Paris 
 
 
 
 13 
 
 
 Tolland County, Connecticut 
 
 6 
 
 
 Again, with regard to the marriage -rate per 1000, the 
 International Statistical Institute tells us that Massachusetts, 
 Rhode Island, Hungary, and Servia have the highest rates in 
 the world: Massachusetts, 10*53; Rhode Island, n'27; 
 Hungary, 10*28; Servia, ii'2<). The English average is 
 8'36; Prussia, 8'82 ; France, 7'8g. There is a tendency 
 to decrease all round. The last averages are England 772, 
 Germany 7*93, and France 7 '49. 
 
 Divorce does not seem to have any effect on the marriage 
 age, which it might be expected to have. In America, where 
 divorce is the rule and not the exception, the age is about the 
 same as in Europe. 
 
 Levasseur gives the following figures, 1870-82 : 
 
 PERCENTAGE OF BRIDEGROOMS. 
 
 Russia 
 
 Scotland 
 
 England 
 
 Prussia 
 
 Bavaria 
 
 Italy 
 
 France 
 
 Sweden 
 
 Norway 
 
 Russia 
 
 Scotland 
 
 England 
 
 Prussia 
 
 Bavaria 
 
 Italy 
 
 France 
 
 Sweden 
 
 Norway 
 
 UNDER 20. 
 
 20-30. 
 
 . 37-8 ... 
 
 43'9 
 
 . 3-1 ... 
 
 68-8 .. 
 
 3'3 
 
 73]4 - 
 
 . 0-6 ... 
 
 
 0'2 ... 
 
 55'5 
 
 I'l ... 
 
 6 1 '9 
 
 2'4 ... 
 
 62-3 .. 
 
 O'l ... 
 
 58 '9 
 
 . 17 ..- 
 
 62'I .. 
 
 PERCENTAGE OF 
 
 BRIDES. 
 
 . 58-0 ... 
 
 33-2 .. 
 
 I3-5 - 
 
 68 -Q .. 
 
 . 14-4 ... 
 
 68-8 .. 
 
 . 10-3 ... 
 
 697 .. 
 
 . 6-4 ... 
 
 54-8 - 
 
 
 65-8 .. 
 
 . 21'2 ... 
 
 59 '6 
 
 5'5 . 
 
 65-0 .. 
 
 . 0-9 ... 
 
 59* 1 
 
 30-40. 
 u-8 
 18-8 
 14-4 
 
 22'6 
 30-0 
 26'I 
 25'I 
 
 28-8 
 
 14-6 
 
 6-2 
 
 13-1 
 
 10-9 
 14-9 
 
 20'6 
 
 12-5 
 137 
 
 22'2 
 
 ABOVE 40. 
 7'4 
 9 '3 
 8-9 
 9'6 
 
 10-3 
 
 I2'2 
 
 11-6 
 
 26 
 
 4-5 
 5-9 
 
 5'9 
 8-1 
 
 47 
 5-6 
 
 7-2 
 12-4
 
 50 NEO-MALTHUSIANISM 
 
 These figures, culled from various sources, do not show that 
 early marriages are more the rule in France than anywhere 
 else. Another item in the Neo-Malthusian programme, and 
 upon which great stress is laid, is that its adoption would very 
 largely reduce illegitimacy; but here, again, France is a stand- 
 ing proof that it does not. Illegitimate births among the 
 population of France in 1892 were in the ratio of 8'4 ; in 
 England, 5*3 ; in the rest of Europe, 6 '4. In France this pro- 
 portion is increasing, yet in England, although the marriage 
 age is being postponed, it is decreasing. Writing on this 
 matter in The Westminster Review , Mr. Dewey says: " Marriage 
 (in France) being made difficult by law, illegitimate unions 
 naturally abound. These produce children, who, for want 
 of parental care, have the chances of life against them." 
 
 The following are the statistics of the matter in England 
 per 1000 : 
 
 1845 ... 70 
 
 1855 ... 64 
 
 1866 ... 62 
 
 1872 ... 54 
 
 1875 ... 48 
 
 1885 ... 48 
 
 1890 . . .44 
 
 1894 ... 43 
 
 The returns of the last census in France give 8*9 per cent, 
 illegitimates in all births ; 247 in Paris, but only 3 per cent, 
 in the Basses and Hautes-Alpes. In 1881 the general per- 
 centage was 7 '5. 
 
 Levasseur, in La Population Francaise, gives the following 
 percentage of illegitimacy in France : 
 
 Department of the Seine . . . .24*1 
 
 Urban Population . . . . IOT 
 
 Rural Population . . 4-2 
 
 Letourneau gives the following : 
 
 1800-1805 . . . 475 per cent. 
 
 1806-1810 . ... 5-43 ,, 
 
 1821-1825 . ... 7-16 ,, 
 
 He says the rate is constantly increasing. In Paris, accord- 
 ing to Bertillon, more than a tenth of couples live in free 
 love. 
 
 See also Block's Europe Politiqiie et Sociale. Wappaus says 
 that in France town illegitimacy to country is as 15*13 to 4*24 
 per cent. "Of the births in France during the year 1893 no 
 Jess than 75,562 were illegitimate." (Whitaker.)
 
 ARGUMENT OF THE NEO-MALTHUSIANS 51 
 
 The following is the present rate of illegitimacy in Europe 
 
 per 100 : 
 
 Bavaria 
 
 Austria 
 
 Saxony 
 
 Denmark 
 
 Sweden 
 
 Scotland 
 
 Prussia 
 
 France 
 
 I4'oi 
 
 Italy 
 
 14-6 
 
 Belgium 
 
 I2'4S 
 
 England 
 
 9-4 
 
 Holland 
 
 I0'2 
 
 Ireland 
 
 7-9 
 
 Ulster 
 
 7'8 
 
 Connaught 
 
 8-4 
 
 
 7-3 
 
 8-7 
 
 4'5 
 3-2 
 
 27 
 
 4'3 
 0-8 
 
 This latter in Connaught is the lowest in the world. For 
 the ten years 1881-91 the rate of illegitimacy in some English 
 counties was : 
 
 Shropshire 
 Cumberland 
 Norfolk . 
 Hereford . 
 Westmoreland . 
 
 8 '2 per cent. 
 
 7-6 
 
 North Wales 
 Surrey 
 Middlesex 
 Essex 
 
 7 'o per cent. 
 4*i ,, 
 3'4 
 3'3 
 
 This rate is almost constant. 
 
 The Registrar-General reports that there are three zones of 
 illegitimacy in England, the Southern very low, the Midland 
 something above the average, the Northern very high. 
 
 Prussia is the only country which has examined into the 
 rate of illegitimacy according to religious belief, and the 
 result is : 
 
 Protestant 
 
 Catholic 
 
 Jewish 
 
 8 '85 per cent. 
 
 5'64 
 
 273 
 
 Oettingen says that in Gratz and Munich there are more 
 illegitimate than legitimate children. 
 
 Mulhall gives the following figures. Illegitimates in a 
 1000 births : 
 
 1865-78. 
 
 Greece 
 
 Ireland 
 
 Russia 
 
 Holland 
 
 Switzerland 
 
 Canada 
 
 England 
 
 Spain 
 
 Portugal 
 
 Italy 
 
 16 
 
 United States 
 
 70 
 
 23 
 
 Belgium 
 
 
 71 
 
 3i 
 
 Hungary 
 
 
 71 
 
 35 
 
 France 
 
 
 74 
 
 48 
 
 Norway 
 
 
 85 
 
 50 
 
 Germany 
 
 
 87 
 
 54 
 
 Scotland 
 
 
 93 
 
 55 
 
 Sweden 
 
 
 102 
 
 56 
 
 Denmark 
 
 
 III 
 
 65 
 
 Austria 
 
 
 35
 
 52 NEO-MALTHUSIANISM 
 
 The rate prevalent in France does not afford much ground 
 for the Neo-Malthusian argument that the system reduces 
 illegitimacy. Its adherents also confidently assert that its 
 practice would eradicate the great evil of prostitution. 
 Let us again take the case of France and see what 
 effect Neo-Malthusianism has upon it in this respect. The 
 population of the United Kingdom in 1891 amounted 
 to 37,797,000; the estimated number of public prosti- 
 tutes, calculated by most competent investigators, 
 amounted to about 315,000. The population of France in 
 1891 amounted to 38,343,192; the number of public pros- 
 titutes, estimated by skilled observers, to about 467,000. 
 The estimated present population of London is 6,041,555; 
 that of prostitutes about 50,000. The present population of 
 Paris is 2,447,957 ; that of prostitutes about 40,000. Mulhall 
 gave the following statistics in this respect in 1891 : London 
 had 31,800 prostitutes; Paris, 26,990; Berlin, 27,300 ; Lyons, 
 5,520; Marseilles, 4,080; Bordeaux, 2,610. 
 
 Schone attributes to the increase of prostitution in France 
 one of the causes of its depopulation. Dewey, writing on the 
 depopulation of France, in The Westminster Review for Decem- 
 ber, 1896, calls Paris "the world's brothel." 
 
 There is sufficient ground, then, for stating that Neo- 
 Malthusianism, with regard to its alleged power of hindering 
 vice, has not succeeded in France, where, everybody must 
 admit, it has had ample scope. Moreover, looking beneath 
 the surface in this matter, we can readily observe that prostitu- 
 tion presents many drawbacks to those women who evince a 
 desire to follow such a calling there. In France they are 
 only permitted to ply it under well-defined regulations, a 
 close supervision and scrutiny by the police des mceurs. 
 
 The principle upon which foreign Governments act in this 
 matter is, that if women, of their own free choice, deliver 
 themselves over to prostitution, they shall not be permitted to 
 infect the men of the race with the disease which necessarily 
 follows upon the practice of that vice. They assert that 
 women are the primary factors in the matter, and must be 
 dealt with accordingly. 
 
 There is no such system in England ; yet the number of 
 prostitutes is less than on the Continent, where it is in vogue. 
 In England they are free to come and go wherever they 
 please. There are many moralists who uphold one system
 
 ARGUMENT OF THE NEO-MALTHUSIANS 53 
 
 against the other, and there are many who condemn both, 
 without suggesting any preventative scheme. That prostitu- 
 tion will exist as long as the world lasts is, I suppose, to be 
 admitted. Foreign Governments say that this great evil 
 should be supervised, and placed under rigid control ; that 
 no woman need follow that vocation unless she pleases, and 
 that if she does, in spite of every warning, she ought to 
 deprive herself of personal liberty. Also, that the moral 
 condition of their streets is far superior to English ones, where 
 vice is horribly rampant, and open scandals and temptation 
 are visible to the young of both sexes. 
 
 Writing on prostitution as it is carried on in London, Dr. 
 Richelot says : " La Prostitution y marche sans entraves, 
 sans controle, sans lois moderatrices, la tete levee, en plein 
 soleil." 
 
 The French authorities say that it is utterly wrong that this 
 great evil should be allowed to flaunt itself in public, and that 
 if people are so depraved as to wish for it they should go in 
 search of it, not have it brought prominently before them. 
 
 Of all the problems which affect mankind in its most vital 
 relations, prostitution is the greatest ; it is the one of all others 
 that fanaticism should not be allowed to touch, yet it is that 
 fatal thing which rules it most in England. Mr. W. S. Lilley 
 admirably deals with the whole matter in "The Problem of 
 Purity" in The New Review for January, 1895. He there 
 writes of the terrible temptations girls have to undergo under 
 our present unjust economic system. "Thousands of poor 
 girls who know the bitterness of unsatisfied hunger, who endure 
 the misery of that most bleak of all cold, the chill of starva- 
 tion, who suffer torments of mind, wrong, and wretchedness, 
 who are, in short, half-starved." Further on he also writes : 
 "Tearfulness and trembling may well come upon us, and a 
 horrible dread overwhelm us, when we reflect that here, too, 
 we are confronted with that appalling fact, the inscrutable law 
 of vicarious self-sacrifice. It is a profound and heart-piercing 
 mystery, like that of animal suffering ; a problem beyond the 
 reaches of our souls." I do not agree about the mystery of 
 it. It is caused by unjust economic hindrances to marriage ; 
 remove those and prostitution will cease. It never existed 
 amongst savage races. 
 
 The women who follow this trade in France are confined 
 to certain streets and houses, from which they are practically
 
 54 NEO-MALTHUSIANISM 
 
 unable to go out. Those who wish to know more of the 
 rigid conditions under which they live can study the Blue Book 
 in which is contained the evidence given before the Lords 
 Committee held to investigate certain matters with regard to 
 the " Protection of Young Girls in England." 
 
 That the Continental system has a deterrent effect upon a 
 young girl about to launch herself into such a life may well 
 be believed ; but that it has a reforming effect upon those who 
 have abandoned themselves to it cannot be accepted. It is 
 almost impossible for any woman to emancipate herself from 
 it on the Continent. She is marked for her whole life, and 
 her chances of reform are practically hopeless. 
 
 This whole question of the supervision of prostitution, is a 
 most difficult and complex one. Frenchmen themselves, in 
 vehement language, condemn their own system. Daubie, the 
 writer of La femme pauvre du XIX Stic/e, says : " Mais qu'il 
 se garde d'imiter I.a France officielle qui est la prostitue'e des 
 nations." Dumas fils says : " Such a nation deserves that prosti- 
 tution should devour it completely, and that is what is now 
 coming upon us." The Continental system degrades a woman, 
 and reduces her to a very low type, to a much greater bestial 
 animal than can be thought possible. In a scarce pamphlet, 
 written by a lady in Nottingham, treating of the laissez faire 
 system of prostitution permitted in England, and the super- 
 vised one in France, says that an English prostitute looks 
 down with horror on a French one, on account of her 
 horrible, unnatural practices. Those who wish to study this 
 nauseous subject further, how enormously prostitution is in- 
 creasing in France, can do so in the writings of Duchatelet, 
 Guyot, Dufours, Lacroix, Debray, Montagne, Rabutaux, 
 Jeannel, Mireur, Reuss, and Lecours. Neo-Malthusianism, 
 then, arguing from the case of France, which is always upheld 
 to us as an example of its beneficent action, cannot for a 
 moment be considered as a means for inducing early 
 marriages, reducing illegitimacy, or hindering vice. The 
 arguments in its favour, therefore, with regard to these three 
 points fall to the ground.
 
 THE EVILS OF NEO-MALTHUSIANISM 
 
 LET us deal first with its physical results. Medical opinion 
 is overwhelmingly against its practice. I have been at 
 some trouble to ascertain this, and I find it is undoubtedly the 
 case. French physicians, who have a large acquaintanceship 
 with its results in this direction, condemn it in Mo, and 
 with great vigour. Bergeret, in Les Fraudes Conjugates, says : 
 " Every dishonesty in the generative action is an infanticide 
 fatal to morality and civilization." Amelin, in Le Libre 
 Echange, says : "La castration vaut mieux a tout prendre, 
 qu'une prudence voisine de la pratique de 1'avortement." 
 Bourgeois, in his work on The Passions, says : " Conjugal 
 onanism is a real social pest; every fraud is a choked germ 
 rendered unproductive, an indirect infanticide." 
 
 Those who desire to pursue the foreign medical literature 
 of the subject further can do so in Les Fraudes dans I'accom- 
 plissement des Fonctions Generatrices ; in Dr. Meyer's work, 
 Conjugal Relations considered in relation to Population, Health, 
 and Mortality ; in Dr. Richard's work, On Generation, 
 especially in Oettingen's Moral Statistics, and in Vanni's 
 writings on the subject, Questioni Malthusani in Germania, 
 etc. ; also Dr. Lagneau in the Bulletin de V Academic de 
 Medicine, 1890. "The French physicians who had at first 
 adhered to Neo-Malthusianism now agree in demonstrating 
 its dangers and evils." (Nitti.) See also Dr. Rochard in 
 Traite d' Hygiene Sociale. 
 
 At the meeting of the British Association in Bournemouth, 
 Dr. Marion Sims said that in consequence of the representa- 
 tions from the medical profession in America, the Government 
 of the United States had ordered the destruction of all Neo- 
 Malthusian literature in that country, and that when it came 
 to be dealt with it was found to amount to tons weight. A 
 most distinguished English physiologist tells me that it is 
 utterly condemned as ruinously immoral by the whole medical 
 
 55
 
 NEO-MALTHUSIANISJvl 
 
 opinion of England ; that if child-birth is pronounced likely to 
 be detrimental to the woman, continence must be the rule. 
 It is rightly pronounced to be a conjugal fraud, and moreover 
 immensely hurtful to those who practise it. 
 
 Dr. Martin, of Brussels, said hysteria is commoner in P'rance 
 than in any other country, in consequence of the universal 
 practice of Neo-Malthusianism there. In a paper read by 
 Dr. Broca before the French Academy of Sciences, he stated 
 that Frenchwomen were becoming more and more diseased 
 through its practice. " Refusing for the sake of self-luxury 
 to gratify her natural feelings of maternity, she is driven on in 
 the continual search of pleasure, in the rage for enjoyment, in 
 the desire for intense personal sensations." 
 
 It is a curious fact that in France the proportion of still- 
 born children is enormously high. Compared with other 
 European countries which publish such statistics, it is in a 
 100 births 
 
 Sweden 
 
 Norway 
 
 Denmark 
 
 Holland 
 
 Belgium 
 
 France 
 
 Switzerland 
 
 2 '62 
 
 275 
 
 272 
 
 4 '26 
 4'56 
 4 '60 
 
 Germany 
 Austria 
 Hungary 
 Italy 
 Massachusetts 
 Connecticut . 
 Rhode Island 
 
 3' '53 
 2-85 
 
 2 '00 
 
 3-67 
 3'4i 
 3-85 
 
 Neo-Malthusianism is causing Frenchwomen to become 
 naturally infertile ; I am assured by competent French 
 authorities that many of their countrywomen are becoming 
 so in consequence of the great frequency of that practice. I 
 am also told that in consequence of its wide adoption French- 
 women are also becoming mere nervous wrecks, and that 
 they consume enormous quantities of morphine and ether. 
 
 Dr. Pigeolet, of Brussels, said that a married woman's 
 physical condition was far better when allowed to give birth 
 to children than not, and her physiological nature was 
 improved when her womb was allowed to have full expression. 
 
 Medical opinion likewise wholly condemns it in the case of 
 men, for when it is practised there is no time when they 
 cannot give expression to their sexual impulses, as there 
 would be if their wives bore them children ; consequently 
 they become sooner exhausted in sexual vigour. This 
 is one of the reasons put forward to account for the present 
 deterioration of the physical powers of the Frenchman.
 
 THE EVILS OF NEO-MALTHUSIANISM 57 
 
 Here are some of the opinions concerning it from the ablest 
 English physicians of the day : " There is no antithesis 
 between medicine, morality, or political economy." " On 
 the moral aspect of Neo-Malthusianism there can be no doubt 
 whatever but that the practice is altogether unjustifiable; it 
 follows on this, that what is morally wrong cannot be right, 
 either in economics or medicine." " It is physically, economi- 
 cally, and morally injurious." " As to the effects medically, 
 there are so many different methods that no genuine statement 
 can be made. But I have seen ill-effects follow to the 
 nervous system from one practice, and I know of inflammation 
 following another." 
 
 The medical aspect of Neo-Malthusianism is fully treated 
 of in a paper read before the British Association, Obstetrical 
 Section, in August, 1878, by Dr. Routh, now published under 
 the title of The Moral and Physical Evils likely to follow 
 Practices intended to act as Checks to Population. All those 
 interested in the matter should read it. It fully describes the 
 various diseases likely to follow upon such practices. It is 
 published by Bailliere, King William Street, Strand. 
 
 Evolution of Sex says it would be well if the medical 
 profession pronounced authoritatively upon the matter. It is a 
 matter upon which, for the sake of the general public, the 
 national health and welfare, it should speak fully. Doctors 
 know very well how largely the practice is increasing, and the 
 time has come when they should grapple with it. One 
 of our greatest physicians writes of it : " The nervous system is 
 very seriously affected and a condition of irritability and 
 depression is induced, which makes life unendurable, or 
 there may be hysteria. My opinion as to the injurious effects 
 goes far beyond my actual experience." Another writes : 
 " With regard to women the risks to health are great. Of 
 course the means adopted are various, and the effects differ 
 with the means. With some means the natural desire is 
 unsatisfied, and the unrelieved excitement leads to degenera- 
 tion and disease of the organs concerned. With some the 
 risk is chiefly in the direction of local congestions and severe 
 inflammations. In this way much suffering is produced, and 
 in the weakly, life is in many cases shortened." 
 
 The fact is that from whatever side we view it, Neo- 
 Malthusianism is an unnatural thing, both morally and 
 physically, and must therefore bring its own punishment with
 
 58 NEO-MALTHUSIANISM 
 
 it. It must certainly be admitted that it would deprive the 
 world of one of its most softening influences, namely, the 
 presence of children. We have some experience of its results 
 in that untoward, pampered, and conceited only child of 
 French parents. In him we have a perversion of child-life, 
 its beauties and affectionate influences are not found there. 
 The artificial check system has to bear the credit of producing 
 that ignominious specimen of impism. It cannot be denied 
 that as far as regards child-life, its practice must be to the last 
 degree injurious. If ill-instructed persons of low intellectual 
 type are led which under the system of Neo-Malthusianism 
 they would undoubtedly be to consider children to be mere 
 nuisances and burdens, hindrances to personal enjoyment, we 
 can readily understand what a fate there is in store for English 
 child-life. In some cases this is already bad enough now, but 
 what would it likely be if it should be still further despised 
 and repudiated? It would gradually cease to be the holy 
 thing which it is still fortunately considered to be, and more 
 selfish, brutal considerations would inevitably arise in connec- 
 tion with it. Any practice calculated to bring child-life or love 
 for children into contempt would undoubtedly tend to increase 
 infanticide, child massacre, and ill-treatment of all kinds. " I 
 didn't want, and I don't want the brat," would be heard far 
 more frequently than even it is now. 
 
 Those who are acquainted with French manners and 
 customs know how very high the death-rate is amongst the 
 children of wet nurses, who are so much sought after in 
 France. Their children are left in the nominal care of relatives 
 whose greatest interest is that they should not live, and they 
 do not. 
 
 The child-life of home, the family life of England as our 
 best poets sang it, and which happily many English children still 
 joyfully live, as those who went before them did, have had 
 an enormous effect in civilizing the nation and elucidating the 
 best traits of English character. Are all these humanizing 
 and refining influences to perish under the adverse influence 
 of Neo-Malthusianism ? If such a deteriorating and destructive 
 force be allowed to gain a footing amongst us we may well 
 fear for the future of our race. Les enfants sont le ciment des 
 families. (Denn.) Remove the presence of children from the 
 home and family life, and we shall inevitably lose a great 
 charm and become more and more hardened and brutalized.
 
 THE EVILS OF NEO-MALTHUSIANISM 59 
 
 It has always been the habit, following a natural instinct, for 
 human nature to feel pity and compassion for a childless home. 
 We know very well that barren women always have an 
 unnatural craving for something, something to love, something 
 to cherish ; it takes all kinds of forms, parrots or poodles. We 
 know the manner in which Holy Scripture describes the 
 condition of the barren woman ; in all ancient history it has 
 been pourtrayed in something of the same way. 
 
 Yet this is the forlorn and melancholy condition which 
 Neo-Malthusianism voluntarily works to acquire. It is to be 
 earnestly hoped that the natural desire for children, divinely 
 implanted in every human heart, will prove too great an 
 obstacle for any attack which may be made upon it. More- 
 over, the English character, let us hope, is too sturdy, too 
 self-reliant, too moral, too religiously inclined, to barter what 
 it has hitherto experienced to be good and beneficial for a 
 visionary and immoral scheme. Under a widely-spread system 
 of Neo-Malthusianism, which there is, alas, grave fear to 
 anticipate, there would be great danger of human nature 
 losing much of its self-sacrifice, its devotion, its love, its 
 charity, and its tenderness. 
 
 When the great Wilberforce was busily engaged in the Slave 
 question, his friends tried to keep his children from him 
 during the intervals appointed for meals and rest. It was 
 thought that, as he was so hard-worked with such important 
 State affairs, his little ones would trouble him too much. 
 Having noticed their absence, he guessed the cause, and said, 
 " Don't rob me of the little ones, I cannot get on without 
 them ; their little prattle is my greatest relaxation." Dr. 
 Holmes, of the United States, writes as follows upon this 
 point : " There is one word when spoken that vibrates every 
 chord of sensibility in our entire organism, and sends an echo 
 of the sweetest melody of nature to our inmost soul it is 
 that of mother. But who can imagine a true mother, a true 
 woman, who believes in the sacred laws of wedlock and yet 
 to despise and rebel against the most sacred gift of heaven. 
 Yet how prevalent is this crime in this day of our boasted 
 civilization ! Can children, who thus perchance become the 
 uninvited blessings to such households, hope for the best 
 inheritance when those subtle yet potent prenatal influences 
 are against them." 
 
 If children were only allowed to exist in accordance with
 
 60 NEO-MALTHUSIANISM 
 
 selfish schemes, if they were reduced to comparatively small 
 and insignificant numbers, if some poor children of a family 
 were told they were unwelcome, we may well fear for the 
 future of child-life. The presence of children brings out the 
 best traits of character; it stimulates parents to work for 
 their sakes; it prevents wasteful extravagance. In these 
 respects, as well as in many others which are obvious, 
 children and family life are grand helps to form self-reliant, 
 daring, and enterprising character, such as the English race 
 has acquired through long effort, struggle, and impulse. 
 
 The refining effect of child-life is well described by Whyte 
 Melville in the following touching words : " How many a 
 matrimonial bicker has been interrupted and ended by the 
 innocent smile of one of these little ones? How many an 
 ill-assorted couple have been kept from separation by the 
 hourly consideration of what should be done for the children ? 
 How many an evil desire, how many an unkind thought, has 
 been quenched at its very birth by the pure, open gaze of a 
 guileless child ? The stern, severe man, disgusted with the 
 world, has a corner in his heart for those of his own flesh 
 and blood. The passionate, impetuous woman, beset by a 
 thousand temptations, pauses on the threshold, and is saved 
 from ruin when she thinks of her children. Sunshine and 
 music do they make in the house with their bright, happy 
 faces, the patter of their little feet, and the ringing echoes of 
 their merry laugh. Grudge not to have the quiver full of 
 them. Love and prize them while you may ; the time will 
 come when your life will be weary, as they take wing and 
 fly away." 
 
 We can readily say that if the number of our children is 
 to be curtailed according to the wishes of the parents, 
 actuated by selfish motives, sloth and self-luxury would 
 increase tenfold, as indeed we see both of these disastrous 
 results occurring before our eyes in France. Witness the 
 open immorality of the Second Empire, and all the present 
 bribery and corruption there on all sides. Prominent men 
 of every degree falling victims to the insatiable desire for 
 luxury and self-gratification, which Neo-Malthusianism tells 
 them are the only objects worth aiming at. A nation only 
 consists of families in the aggregate. If we minimize or 
 destroy the latter, most surely will the former follow suit. 
 
 If marriage and children are to be treated with contempt,
 
 THE EVILS OF NEO-MALTHUSIANISM 61 
 
 if French demoralization is to be imitated in England, our 
 decadence is not far in the distance. If marriage be unduly 
 postponed, as it is fast coming to be ; if when it does take place 
 it is merely entered into for as long as the respective parties 
 desire ; if it be undertaken merely for self-gratification ; if its 
 duties with the responsibilities of children be utterly cast aside 
 and despised as unpleasant nuisances, then marriage fails of 
 its entire purpose, which is to create family life ; it becomes 
 nothing but degradation. If England is to continue being 
 the great nation it is, its people must continue, at all cost, 
 to place family life in the forefront of all its desires and 
 objects. Our opposite neighbours have long since adopted 
 the other course, and the result is what their best friends are 
 now never ceasing to deplore. Their fair fields are becoming 
 depopulated, and strangers are coming in to cultivate them. 
 
 If a nation is to prosper in all that is worth prospering in, 
 family life, with all its necessary purity and self-respect, must 
 be upheld at all cost. If that be lost or degenerates, the 
 nation soon follows suit ; on the other hand, if each individual 
 be taught to have ever before him a noble ideal, one calcu- 
 lated to draw out the best sides of his nature, unquestionably 
 the nation of which he forms a unit will be moulded into the 
 highest forms of usefulness and activity. 
 
 " Every well-trained family home is a centre whence 
 elements of social happiness and national dignity radiate. 
 The country, indeed, which is most abundantly blessed with 
 such homes amongst its people will ever take the lead in the 
 march of civilization, for the amelioration of the world's 
 barbarism and vulgarity is not so much the work of the arts 
 and sciences as of the social sentiments. If we break up the 
 family life, we injure the nation at large, which is but an 
 accumulation of families." (Physiology of Human Nature?) 
 
 Well aware of this, great European writers utterly condemn 
 Neo-Malthusianism as destructive to the best interests of 
 child-life, and consequently to the prosperity of the nation 
 that adopts it. In France, Letourneau, Guyau, Guyot, Cauwes, 
 Beaulieu, Ott, Mille, Le Fort, Frary, Gide, Fouillee, Dumont, 
 and Richet. In Russia, Tcernicewsky and Tellquist. In Italy, 
 Messedaglia, Loria," Johannes, Vanni, Majoranna, Vigili, 
 Colaganni, Zorli, Lebrecht, Ferraris, and Nitti. Amongst the 
 most distinguished opponents of the system in Germany are 
 Oettingen and Wagner. Of all Englishmen most competent
 
 62 NEO-MALTHUSIANISM 
 
 to give an opinion upon the matter, Darwin was the greatest. 
 He was a great naturalist as well as a great individualist, yet 
 he condemned the use of artificial checks to population by 
 the married. He was, moreover, much influenced by the 
 writings of Malthus on population, yet he did not descend to 
 advise the theories of the Neo-Malthusians. Their system is, 
 in a word, self-abandonment to luxury. It eats up every 
 ambition and a proper desire to excel. It busies itself not 
 with the grandeur of the race or nation, but in what way the 
 idle and the indolent can best indulge their pernicious desires. 
 It entirely subordinates the best interests of the community 
 to the self-indulgence of the individual. 
 
 Yet what caused the old civilization to become decayed and 
 vanish away but this? What else swept away the teeming 
 populations and grandeur of Egypt, Babylon, and Nineveh ? 
 When we consider the waste that goes on in wealthy habita- 
 tions, the outcome of self-luxury, which is considered nowa- 
 days to be absolutely necessary for existence, we are irresistibly 
 reminded of the story of the millionaire who lost a great 
 fortune, yet in the days of lesser wealth he is reported to 
 have said, " I am really much happier now than I was before, 
 as I get what I eat hot, which I never did previously, as I was 
 so far from the kitchen." Everything nowadays is sacrificed 
 in the intense hurry and scramble to be rich ; the consequence 
 is that the standard of morality was never so low. Formerly, 
 in the more halcyon, earnest days of a sterner England, it was 
 the moral worth of the man which proved an open sesame, 
 not the length of his purse. This was unquestionably right, 
 because the true, sound progress of a nation can only be 
 measured by the character of its people. When a race became 
 eaten up and disfigured by luxury and self-ease, when vice 
 became its sole desire, it invariably declined in honour, vigour, 
 and chivalry ; finally it perished, and vanished away from off 
 the face of the earth. 
 
 The undoubted object of Neo-Malthusianism is to relieve 
 oneself of the nurture of those who in time would produce 
 wealth and prosperity for their country and nation. Its tendency 
 is to demoralize those who practise it, for its main object is 
 nothing but how best to revel in secret indulgence and vice. 
 Yet surely it is for the best interests of all nations that there 
 should be high thinking and plain living, rather than the 
 opposite, for if history proves anything, it proves that the love
 
 THE EVILS OF NEO-MALTHUSIANISM 63 
 
 of luxury and self invariably caused the downfall and abase- 
 ment of every nation that was so foolish as to place them in the 
 forefront of its desire. It is evident, all history assures us of 
 the undeniable fact, that devotion to self-luxury and licentious- 
 ness, which Neo-Malthusianism must bring about, has had a 
 most lamentable and ruinous effect upon rearing a vigorous 
 and sturdy race. 
 
 Surely it is nobler to work towards simplifying one's life, to 
 have a conscience void of offence before God and man, to 
 remember that this world is not our all, to restore to England 
 its old divine order of marriage and children, rather than 
 to pander to self-viciousness and sloth, which inevitably tend 
 to ruin both the individual and the nation, and which, it is 
 sheer folly to deny, is destroying and depopulating France. 
 The well-known lines of Juvenal come to one's memory 
 
 ' ' Nunc patimur longa pacis mala scevior urbi 
 Luxuria incubuit, victumque ulcisceritur orbem." 
 
 " Prima peregrines obscena pecunia mores 
 Intulit, et turpi fregerunt ssecula luxu 
 Divitise moles." 
 
 When one thinks how little luxury is necessary for life, and yet 
 a comfortable one, and how much absolute waste there is in 
 luxuries, we may well place morality before them. That phrase, 
 means of subsistence, is capable of a very wide interpretation. 
 What it really means is the necessaries, not the luxuries, of 
 life. The wealthy classes interpret it to mean idleness, and 
 to surround themselves with unproductive commodities. 
 
 Max Nordau aptly says that the larger the number of human 
 beings who place their own interests higher than all the duties 
 of solidarity, and all the ideals of the development of the 
 species, the nearer the species is to the end of its vital 
 career. He says that in such a case all family instinct dies 
 out; the men do not wish to marry because they find it 
 inconvenient to assume the burden of responsibility for 
 another human life, and to provide for another human being 
 besides themselves. The women avoid the pains and in- 
 conveniences of motherhood, and even when married strive 
 by the most underhand means to remain childless. Decay 
 and ruin, he says, must be the destiny of those peoples in 
 whose marriages the selfishness of the contracting parties
 
 64 NEO-MALTHUSIANISM 
 
 celebrates its victories, while the child is unwished for, and 
 even in the most favourable cases considered an indifferent 
 accident. The decay of the Roman Empire is a striking 
 object-lesson of this. 
 
 Horace, who was by no means an ascetic, condemned the 
 tendency of his day to avoid or postpone marriage with a view 
 to increase personal luxuries. 
 
 " Our youth diminished through the parents' faults." (Odes, II. 16.) 
 
 He likewise told his countrymen that they would be a greater 
 nation if they expended less upon their food. 
 
 "O, when shall l^eans, the relations of Pythagoras, and other vegetables 
 made savoury with bacon, be served at my table ? " (Satires, II. 6. ) 
 
 English society at the present day is taking a degenerate 
 view of life, just as the Roman did when it was tottering to 
 its fall. " Instinctively we think of Rome in the days of 
 Augustus, when the well-to-do held back from marriage, and 
 the retrospect and comparison are not reassuring." (Graham.) 
 
 " On that hard Pagan world disgust 
 And secret loathing fell, 
 Deep weariness and sated lust 
 Made human life a hell." 
 
 Commenting upon the present state of morals in France, 
 Molinari writes in his recent book, La Viriailture : "A 
 1'epoque de la decadence Romaine on vit la prostitution se 
 developper a mesure que les charges de 1'entretien d'une 
 famille, aggravees par I'impot, agissaient davantage pour 
 decourager le manage." Describing the many causes which 
 were bringing about the downfall of the Roman Empire, 
 Juvenal, in his Sixth Satire, freely mentioned one : 
 
 "The wealthy dame is seldom brought to bed." 
 
 When the Roman women, anxious about their own self- 
 indulgence only, refused to nurse their children, and came to 
 look upon infanticide without any shame or horror, the empire 
 soon fell. Is the same fate in store for modern nations now ? 
 The present generation in England has not been naturally 
 nursed ; its start in the world has not been according to 
 natural hygienic laws ; the consequence is that it is not half 
 so strong or vigorous as the past were. It is anaemic to an
 
 THE EVILS OF NEO-MALTHUSIANISM 65 
 
 appalling degree; it faints at the slightest pretext. The 
 modern soldier cannot march as his Peninsular ancestor did, 
 or go through half the hardships he did, without dying off. 
 The nation has become neurotic, neurasthenic, and decadent. 
 The cause is not far to seek. A hundred years ago every 
 English mother nursed her child, as her Creator intended she 
 should, and which is the natural and proper thing to do, and 
 bore one every two years. Nowadays the wretched infant 
 is fed, not nurtured, on every sort of unnatural food and 
 poison, and one is born every year, nature thus avenging 
 herself; for owing to the great strain upon the mother the 
 child is puny and weak. 
 
 Yes, we cannot deny it, we are a decaying race. Luxury 
 will prove our downfall. Nothing in history, past or present, 
 shows the decadence of a race more than the neglect of the 
 mother for her child. Medical opinion is absolutely decisive 
 that a mother should nurse her child, and that no other 
 substitute is at all equal to that. All animal creation teaches 
 us that this is the only appointed way. Did anybody ever 
 hear of nations or races, up to a recent date, adopting any 
 other method but this ? We may be quite sure that no other is 
 really satisfactory to the mother, no other suitable for her 
 child. The self-surrender to luxury and idleness induces 
 women to refuse to nurse their children it is too irksome, too 
 grievous a burden to be borne ; consequently, from having in 
 comparatively modern days done all they could to prevent them- 
 selves from doing their duty to their children, they now advance 
 the plea that they are physically unable to do so. Quite so ; 
 this inability naturally ensued, for disuse brings about degenera- 
 tion. Read Richet on this point, who shows how through 
 unnatural food being given them the children of a race are 
 inevitably bound to decay, and what numbers of poor children 
 pine away and die from sheer hunger, helpless in their misery. 
 
 Nitti reminds women who professedly bear the name of 
 Christian, and yet who practise Neo-Malthusianism, accom- 
 panied with a refusal to nurse their one child, that the 
 Madonna, the highest type of womanhood, is always repre- 
 sented in Christian art with the Child in her arms, motherhood 
 and childhood representing the self-forgetting love of the one 
 and the fearless faith of the other; that human relationship 
 which of all others is the purest, the sacred principle of 
 maternity.
 
 66 NEO-MALTHUSIANISM 
 
 Young married Englishwomen should take warning from the 
 fate of France and other well-known instances in history, that 
 luxury is not the best school to be trained in or to train others 
 in ; and that life has not been given them to spend it in frivolity 
 and uselessness, but, as St. Paul tells them, to bear children 
 and guide the house. Canon Knox Little describes the present 
 condition of English society as follows : " We find a state of 
 society so terribly corrupt in some particulars, that it may be 
 said to present some likeness to the state of things at the break 
 up of the Roman Empire." Divine retribution in some form or 
 other invariably falls upon a nation which disobeys God's laws. 
 Sacred and secular history always testify to that fact. Nations 
 rose to great eminence, and flourished gloriously for a time ; 
 they despised and rejected all moral law, and then faded and 
 vanished away. " It is marvellous how history repeats itself, 
 how nations first grow prosperous and then luxurious. The 
 next stage is licentiousness, and next comes national decay. 
 Other nations low down in the scale rise to eminence, only 
 to be followed by a similar fate. Where are now all the 
 proud nations that once dictated terms to the civilized world ? 
 Chaldaea, Persia, Greece, Rome, Spain, and Portugal have all 
 been left behind, and signs of natural decay in licentious 
 France seem to indicate that her day has gone." (Churchill.) 
 
 It is to be hoped that better counsels will prevail than do 
 now, and that Englishwomen will refuse to be led, as, alas, far 
 too many are now being led, to consider that life is to be a 
 mere scene of luxury and self-gratification without children, 
 or if any, the smallest possible number. That is the one thing 
 to be absolutely reduced at all costs ; hedonism and children 
 cannot exist side by side ; then away with them, they circum- 
 scribe our pleasures. The thought is very, very full of evil 
 presage for the future of the nation. The sex novel of the 
 present day, and the revolt against maternity, show what is 
 passing in the minds of many women of the present time. 
 Marriage is to be free love and with no child-life. Lately, in 
 the Revue des Deux Mondes, Bravine asks us if it is feminine 
 and seemly that young vicious Englishwomen should write 
 books with the sole object of unsexing women, and so bring into 
 being an unnatural creature devoid of all love and devotion ? 
 These peculiar creatures are invariably pourtrayed in the 
 immoral but yet widely-read novels of the present day as 
 revelling in free love, but refusing and repudiating maternity,
 
 THE EVILS OF NEO-MALTHUSIANISM 67 
 
 considering it much too grievous a burden to be borne by 
 them. "Name me a position more abject. A woman with 
 a child in her arms is to me the symbol of an abasement, an 
 indignity, more contemptible, more disfiguring and terrible 
 than anything can be." " I can't see that it makes so very 
 much matter which particular woman looks after the children ; 
 any average fool would do." Love if you like, but do not 
 have any children ; that seems to have become the motto of 
 fashionable society nowadays. 
 
 No religion, no nation, however savage, ever taught in past 
 times such an unnatural thing as Neo-Malthusianism ; it has 
 been left for the latter part of this century to produce this 
 monstrosity. In a family restricted to one child, which is usually 
 the case in France, and becoming very much so in England, 
 and which is the sole object of Neo-Malthusianism, where is 
 the room for brotherly or sisterly affection, and the mutual 
 self-sacrifice so profitable in producing a manly life, which can 
 only be learned in homes through the self-denial and love of 
 those who form them. Remove all these from English life and 
 we shall have only one result, a nation composed of what the 
 French are now spoiled children without discipline, frivolous, 
 self-conceited, quarrelsome, and petulant. Is the use of artificial 
 checks to bring about the same results in England? That their 
 adoption is becoming more and more prevalent here seems evi- 
 dent. Mantegazza writes : " Neo-Malthusianism governs the 
 economy of the family in France, Italy, Germany, and even in 
 chaste and fecund Albion." The whole birth-rate of Europe 
 proves how rapidly Neo-Malthusianism is spreading. 
 
 BIRTH AVERAGE PER 1000. 
 
 1871-90. 1891. 1892. 1893. 
 
 Hungary . . . 44.0 ... 42.3 ... 40.3 ... 42.5 
 
 Austria . . . 38.6 ... 38.1 ... 36.2 ... 
 
 Germany . . . 38.1 ... 37.0 ... 35.7 ... 36.7 
 
 Italy . . . 37.3 .. 37-3 . 36.3 36.6 
 
 Holland . . . 35.2 ... 33.7 ... 31.0 ... 33.8 
 
 England and Wales . 34.0 ... 31.4 ... 30.5 ... 30.8 
 
 Scotland . . . 33.6 ... 31.2 ... 30.8 ... 31.0 
 
 United Kingdom . 32.6 ... 30.4 ... 29.5 ... 29.9 
 
 Denmark 
 
 Belgium 
 
 Norway 
 
 Sweden 
 
 Switzerland 
 
 31.7 ... 31.0 ... 29.5 ... 30.6 
 
 31.0 ... 29.6 ... 28.9 ... 29.5 
 
 30.7 ... 30.9 ... 29.6 ... 30.7 
 
 29.8 ... 28.3 ... 27.0 
 
 . 27.4 ... 28.3 ... 28.1 ... 28.5 
 Ireland . . . 24.9 ... 23.1 ... 22.4 ... 23.0 
 
 France . . . 24.6 ... 22.6 ... 22.1 ...
 
 68 NEO-MALTHUSIANISM 
 
 I will give, under the heading of " Population," quite 
 sufficient evidence to prove that Neo-Malthusianism is 
 increasing in England. Commenting upon its increase in 
 Germany, Nitti writes : " The proposals of the English 
 Neo-Malthusians have found a large acceptance, notwith- 
 standing their distasteful character, which would have caused 
 their repudiation by a nation imbued with ideality and the 
 Christian spirit." Mille, while deploring its widespread use in 
 France, makes one laugh at what an army composed of only 
 sons and that is what the French one is coming to fast would 
 be like. In a family where the children, in the true sense 
 of the word, are naturally allowed to increase, we have a 
 healthy rivalry and a legitimate ambition to succeed in life, a 
 proper stimulus to exertion. Where there is unhappily but 
 one child all these must certainly be lacking. " Every 
 measure which tends to enfeeble the energy of man is an 
 arrest of development." The indulgent and exotic manner 
 in which the single child of France is treated has considerably 
 augmented the degeneracy of that country. The evidence of 
 the state of things which existed in France previous to the 
 war of 1870 was clear and decisive, that luxury and immorality 
 had eaten out the very vitals of the nation. It could not 
 be otherwise ; nurtured in every extravagance, pampered in 
 every luxury, frugality despised, the French then rushed upon 
 their ruin. Their manhood, their virility, their best qualities, 
 were sapped at their very core ; the power to go forth conquering 
 and to conquer was annihilated. In a very special degree, 
 during that terrible time of trial, the German love of home 
 and child-life, with all its necessary virtues, carried that 
 nation through the greatest ordeal it ever had to undergo. 
 Search the world through and it will always be found that 
 countries and nations in which the divine laws of marriage 
 are upheld are invariably the most powerful and the most 
 prosperous; it could not be otherwise. How could it be 
 supposed by any Christian that the divine laws of marriage 
 and the moral procreation of children, which are the surest 
 foundations of social and civilized life, may be disregarded with 
 impunity? I well remember the words of an old Catholic 
 Legitimist doctor in an obscure town in France, when he 
 deplored to me the terrible expiation which his country would 
 yet have to undergo, in consequence of her utter disregard for 
 the moral laws of God. Signs are not wanting to show that
 
 THE EVILS OF NEO-MALTHUSIANISM 69 
 
 France is rapidly nearing a precipice. Her debt is the largest 
 ever incurred by any nation, her taxation in consequence is 
 becoming unbearable, yet her children are more and more 
 limited in number, and family life is being broken up. 
 Unrest and disquietude are apparent everywhere, and her 
 army and navy are being continually increased beyond any 
 necessity. 
 
 Healthy homes in all senses of the word, moral lives, 
 healthy sons and daughters, are the life of the nation. 
 Despise, depreciate these, and soon a cataclysm will come. 
 " It must be remembered that the members of a large family 
 educate one another ; they are usually more genial and bright, 
 often more vigorous in every way than the members of a 
 small one." (Marshall.) In his evidence on the selection of 
 candidates for the Indian Civil Service, Sir William Gull said 
 that those candidates who were members of large families 
 were the strongest. Galton quotes from a letter to him by 
 Holland, in which the latter states that Franklin's advice to a 
 young man in search of a wife was to take one out of a 
 bunch of sisters; and also quoted the popular saying, that 
 kittens brought up with others make the best pets, because 
 they had learned to play without scratching ! He also says 
 that the members of a small family are much more selfish 
 than those of a large one, and that a higher morality is oftener 
 found in the latter than in the former. Richet points out to 
 us how that in a family of one child only, this child, when it 
 becomes a man, may be represented by an annual income of 
 ;i2o, but in another family of ten children, in a country 
 where there were no unjust or artificial obstacles to the pro- 
 duction of wealth, these ten children would be able to make 
 ten times 120. Herein, in a word, seems the most con- 
 clusive proof of the adverse influences of Neo-Malthusianism. 
 
 Not so very long ago, France, with a much larger population 
 than we had then, had a much better chance of increasing her 
 possessions and wealth than we had, but already the artificial 
 check system had begun to take effect, and the result is 
 what we see to-day in the volume of the trade belonging to 
 each respective nation. In the year 1895 England's total 
 trade stood at ^700,274,704 ; that of France at ,385,531,016. 
 And yet we see amongst short-sighted, yet well-meaning people 
 in England, so-called philanthropists, an increasing tendency 
 to diminish population. A wiser course for them to adopt
 
 70 NEO-MALTHUS1ANISM 
 
 would be to put forth their best efforts to remove all obstacles 
 in the way for it to gain the wealth of its own labour, which is 
 the true principle to work for, instead of to lessen the power 
 of production, that which is in the end most conducive to the 
 welfare of both the individual and the nation ; granted, as we 
 shall examine into later, that it should be an ordered, not a 
 disordered population. The nefarious system of one child 
 only now waxes great in France ; its results there we can 
 witness before our eyes, and take warning therefrom. Child- 
 life in that country is considered to be a nuisance, as something 
 detrimental to happiness. Vogue writes with regard to this : 
 "Children, one sometimes, that still happens." Dr. Lagneau 
 writes that " in some parts of France the words brother and 
 sister are seldom heard." Dr. Rochard : " A family of five or six 
 children was once an ordinary thing, now it is regarded as a 
 veritable affliction." Yet, if Frenchwomen would read 
 Westermarck, they would see that he unhesitatingly declares 
 that the nations which value children are always the strongest 
 in valour, worth, and morality. " French literature, which is a 
 reflection of the morality of the dominant class, has been 
 fatal to the spirit of family unity." (Nitti.) "O meres 
 Franchises, faites done des enfants pour que la France 
 garde son rang, sa force et sa prosperity. Je voudrais qu'une 
 socie^ nouvelle en sortit, de braves hommes, de braves 
 femmes, de manages ayant chacun douze enfants pour crier la 
 joie humaine a la face de soleil." (Zola.) 
 
 Dumas fils gives us in FrandUon an amusing dialogue. 
 
 " And you have only one child? " 
 
 " How many do you want me to have ? I have only been 
 married a year, ten months, and seven days. I could not 
 have five like you." 
 
 " Of whom two are twins." 
 
 " What a horror ! And you have nursed them both ? " 
 
 " Both." 
 
 " Even the twins ? Oh ! merciful goodness ! " 
 
 We can also read what Clothilde is made to say by Zola in 
 Dr. Pascal. 
 
 In English society the disinclination to maternity is in- 
 creasing day by day. The fact that a fresh being has been 
 called into life is not a subject for joy. 
 
 Women do not seem inclined to feel as Marguerite felt in 
 Faust, that teaching the babe was the holiest of all joys.
 
 THE EVILS OF NEO-MALTHUSIANISM jl 
 
 There is not delight that a man has been born into the world, 
 but rather that one has been prevented from coming into it. 
 Lately, in a speech at Chester, the Rev. Benjamin Waugh 
 and who is a better authority on child-life in England? spoke 
 of the disinclination to bear children evinced by society of the 
 present day, and said it was caused by self-indulgence, blue 
 china rather than babies, fashionable resorts, and a large 
 amount of public notoriety, with very little time spent in the 
 nursery. 
 
 Yet Sir J. Crichton Browne tells us that the family is the 
 social unit, the nursery of goodness, the school of character, 
 the germ-plasm of the loftiest virtues, for it is by a diffusion of 
 the feelings that well up within its precincts to the class, 
 the nation, and the race, that we become public-spirited, 
 patriotic, and philanthropic. The savage owes to it his 
 first glimmerings of ethics, and we in this country owe to 
 it all the prosperity we enjoy, and that the family is moreover 
 the fountain-head of altruistic emotions, the palladium of 
 sound morality. 
 
 It is not hunger or the fear of it for their children or them- 
 selves that urge on the well-to-do of the present day to 
 artificially limit the number of their offspring. It is merely an 
 insatiate desire to keep in society, to gratify one's own 
 personal luxuries, selfishness, and self-indulgence at any price. 
 Simplicity of life, which we may be quite sure is necessary for 
 healthy living, is dreaded as an awful fate to befall anybody. 
 It is a common custom in English society now to arrange 
 before marriage that there shall be only one child or none 
 at all. This is quite commonly quoted as "the pre-nuptial 
 arrangement." The Rev. A. T. Lyttelton said, at a meeting 
 of clergy held to discuss these matters : " The increasing 
 practice of such methods among all classes of society. I 
 know for a fact that these plans for checking conception 
 are known and practised by many ladies in London society, 
 and I believe doctors will tell you the thing is on the 
 increase." We do right in believing that the practice of Neo- 
 Malthusianism is immoral. It is strangling human life in its 
 very source. The degrees between it, abortion, and infan- 
 ticide are very slight. What distinction can there be between 
 it and the latter? "The consequences of Neo-Malthusian 
 doctrines would be gradually to abolish the sanctity of human 
 life, and to condone, or rather to sanction and approve,
 
 72 NEO-MALTHUSIANISM 
 
 deliberate murder." (Father Clarke, SJ.) Anything calculated 
 to interfere with or depreciate the sacredness of human life 
 must, from the nature of the case, harden and brutalize both 
 men and women. The very thought which puts Neo- 
 Malthusianism into action arises from hatred and dis- 
 inclination to cherish infant life. Those who practise it are 
 bound to set a low value on life, and to consider it a 
 mere matter of accident. What can be the religious belief of 
 those who destroy the initiation of life? Decay of religion 
 and Neo-Malthusianism are bound to go hand in hand 
 together. Where the former is present the latter follows as a 
 matter of course, and vice versa. Such is the case in France, 
 and, alas ! there is every reason to fear that the same is taking 
 place in England also. 
 
 Christians must believe that it is contrary to the will of God, 
 inasmuch as it frustrates His will, appointment, and wish. It 
 is unnatural, because it is contrary to all laws of morality, 
 reproduction, and nature itself; the latter cannot be thwarted; 
 if it should be, troubles are certain to arise. It seems 
 impossible that a morally-minded couple should conspire 
 together against the intention of the Almighty, and nature 
 itself, that the lawful intercourse of marriage should be 
 followed by the production of other lives. In making use of 
 artificial checks they together compass the destruction of the 
 life of the germinating seed of a living soul. God has 
 instituted marriage for the reproduction of human life, and 
 also for the protection of women, in the right and lawful sense 
 of the word. The Divine law laid upon human nature, as 
 indeed on all animal creation, is that the male should be 
 creative and the female receptive. To fight against or resist 
 that by immoral means is fighting against the natural order of 
 the whole world of sentient beings. Have we arrived at the 
 period of the world's history when the natural God-given 
 instinct of motherhood is to be annihilated ? Is giving life to 
 another to be considered a repugnant and distasteful task 
 by the women of the present day ? It would seem like it. Is 
 the final issue to be that marriage and the reproduction 
 of human life, with all their accompanying results, the Divine 
 and natural order of human affairs, must be sacrificed, in 
 the case of the great majority, because of the unjust distribu- 
 tion of wealth now prevailing? Everything seems to be 
 trending in that direction. In consequence of the want of
 
 THE EVILS OF NEO-MALTHUSIANISM 73 
 
 sufficient means to marry upon, an astounding state of things 
 has arisen in Germany. Max Nordau describes it as follows : 
 "There is in Germany a curious state of affairs which is 
 actually unknown elsewhere, and which I must admit greatly 
 reduces the burden of a standing army. All over the country 
 there exists a species of free union, which really results in what 
 would probably be styled elsewhere a series of temporary 
 marriages. Money plays absolutely no part in the arrange- 
 ment. Indeed, when the couple are out the woman always 
 pays for her own refreshments, and while they are practically 
 keeping house together mutual faithfulness is an absolute 
 sine qua non. It frequently happens that, after a certain 
 number of these affairs de c&ur, the woman, who is often 
 a worker in a factory or great workshop, contracts a legal 
 marriage which legitimatises all the children born out of 
 wedlock, who are. thus covered by the cloak of marriage. 
 This state of things has become so universally recognized that 
 even if the mother does not subsequently marry no disgrace 
 attaches to her children. In the army, of course, this curious 
 bride and bridegroom system plays a considerable part, and 
 you will find it flourishing exceedingly in each garrison town. 
 Each German soldier is entitled to only one meal a day, 
 and if he can secure a temporary wife (she is nearly always, be 
 it noted, someone employed in a bourgeois establishment), 
 he thinks he has done well for himself. This is so true that 
 each German housewife recognizes it as a matter of course by 
 providing extra food for this strangely unofficial visitor to the 
 kitchen." It is evident that this extraordinary state of 
 morality must serve as a direct stimulus to prevent conception, 
 as children would be very much in the way of these establish- 
 ments. We can easily see that there are many forces in 
 Europe at present tending to hinder the presence of children. 
 We read in a novel written by an Englishwoman, "Children 
 have been the means, from time immemorial, of enslaving 
 women." "Maternal instinct is the scourge of genius." 
 "This reproductive rage held them (women) on the animal 
 plane." "Are women to be simple productive agents of 
 inferior quality?" "What thousands of women there are 
 to whom the birth of children is an intolerable burthen 
 and a fierce misery, from which many would escape by 
 death." "Motherhood, as our wisdom has appointed it 
 among civilized people, represents a prostitution of the
 
 74 NEO-MALTHUSIANISM 
 
 reproductive powers." So Hadria is made to speak. Yet 
 Aristotle, the greatest of thinkers, said that no higher or 
 holier tie to all that was noble could exist than the child. 
 In a simpler style of living now, alas ! considered mean 
 to be a mother was thought to be the chief glory of a 
 properly -minded, virtuous woman. In these more complex 
 days this is no longer considered to be the case. But surely 
 a husband without a child, and a wife without one, and 
 their condition self-willed and achieved, merely results in 
 the one being a male and the other a female. Commenting 
 upon this sort of connubial arrangement, a certain Italian 
 writer says : " A marriage inspired only by the desires of the 
 flesh, maintained only by the bread of lust, is a very poor and 
 abject thing that can very rarely give peace to the mind, and 
 much less happiness. 
 
 " Even in the most vulgar and sensuous natures there is 
 something that rebels against the permanent animal, and raises 
 its voice in demand for a more human form of food. Man, 
 like the swine, wallows in the mud, but with this difference, 
 he likes to look up to the heavens from the trough. 
 
 " It must be added that in marriage the dignity of father 
 and mother only increase the responsibility of the two 
 consorts to animate and enlarge the human feelings at the 
 expense of the animal pulp. The spirituality of the family 
 impresses itself upon the coarsest nature and the most obtuse 
 nerves, by warming the atmosphere and revealing a streak of 
 blue in the heavens above. Woe to the man who, in solitary and 
 sad contemplation of his wife, says to himself, My companion 
 is only a female. Much worse is it, and woe to that woman 
 who in the night-watches, looking at her husband as he 
 snores, says in a low, fretful voice, My husband is only a 
 male." 
 
 Yes, it is true; those who wilfully, by the use of artificial 
 checks, bring about childlessness, barter and change the 
 sacred possession of a child for a vile prostitution of flesh 
 and bank-notes. There is a growing indifference, a positive 
 hatred, to child-life growing up steadily. For instance, why 
 should children be termed " encumbrances " ? Does not this 
 appellation signify contempt, and that they are mischievous 
 burthens ? How often we see advertisements for men and 
 women to fill responsible situations, " no encumbrances." The 
 applicants must be married, yet they must be childless. Does
 
 THE EVILS OF NEO-MALTHUSIANISM 75 
 
 not this course of conduct lead directly to immorality ? Again, 
 we notice that even the clergy, when advertising their houses 
 for hire during the summer, make use of similar words, " no 
 children," "no encumbrances." Everything is tending to eradi- 
 cate child-life out of the land. The curate seeking work at a 
 church declares, as one of his suitabilities for the post, that he 
 is married but has " no encumbrances." All these things, 
 taken together, prove the truth of the remarks of Her Majesty's 
 Judges of Assize, namely, that never were there more crimes 
 against morality and children than there are now. 
 
 The self-destruction of the whole nation is looming perilously 
 in the future ; the declared will of God is thrust defiantly out of 
 sight ; it interferes with pleasure, therefore it must be ignored 
 and treated with contumely. Writing upon Neo-Malthusianism 
 in The North American .Review for September, 1896, Father 
 Clarke, S.J., admirably makes use of the following burning 
 words : " The practices advocated by the Neo-Malthusians are 
 most serious offences against nature and nature's God. In the 
 eyes of men, those who are guilty of them may pass for 
 honourable and virtuous citizens; but in the eyes of Him 
 who sees in secret, the poor wanderer in the streets is far 
 less culpable than those who set at naught, for the sake of 
 their own comfort and enjoyment, the laws that God has 
 laid down to regulate the increase of the human kind." I 
 advise my readers to study the whole article ; it is short, it 
 does not profess to enter deeply into the matter, but it is well 
 worthy of study by those who are interested in this most 
 important question. The luxurious habits of Englishmen 
 have caused children to become too costly a burden to main- 
 tain, therefore they must be suppressed. " There is something 
 worse than death. Cowardice is worse. The decay of enthu- 
 siasm and manliness is worse. And it is worse than death, aye, 
 worse than a hundred deaths, when a people has gravitated 
 down into the creed that the wealth of nations consists not in 
 generous hearts, fire in each breast and freedom on each 
 brow, in national virtues and primitive simplicity, and heroic 
 endurance and preference of duty to life ; not in men, but in 
 silk and cotton, and something they call capital. If wealth 
 accumulates and men decay, better far that every street in 
 every town of our once noble country should run blood." 
 (Robertson.) 
 
 Mammon, not natural love, not patriotism, not the possi-
 
 76 NEO-MALTHUSIANISM 
 
 bility of enriching mankind or the world with a clever child 
 and man, has become the chief object of life. Success in 
 money -grabbing is considered the only standard of right. 
 Temporal interests form the absorbing ideas and conversation 
 of society. Most people refuse to believe that self-denial, 
 which, after all, brings greater happiness than luxury, a 
 splendid national character, is of far more importance than 
 national wealth. " Our modern society is suffering from gold 
 fever ; this contributes more than anything else to corrupt the 
 roots of marriage." 
 
 Anybody who, no matter how cursorily, observes the 
 tendencies of modern life, must admit that the dictates of 
 Christian morality are being entirely sacrificed for personal 
 wealth. The future greatness of the nation or race is ignored, 
 all must be subordinated for present luxury and self-abandon- 
 ment. The interests, the hopes, all that centres round the desire 
 for a new and heavenly country, the vast issues of a future 
 life, are cast aside in the interests of the present. The 
 corruption of the moth and rust are no longer believed in ; 
 " let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die." The present is 
 so very real, the future so very doubtful to many who still 
 nominally profess to believe that they ought to lay up for 
 themselves treasures in heaven and not on earth. The fact is 
 that economic influences are changing the whole aspect of 
 human nature and killing all purity and morality. "With 
 the increase of needs, with the advancement of the standard 
 of life, there grows an aversion to a numerous offspring, even 
 among the women of the lower classes. In all this there is an 
 egotistical feeling which constitutes one of the great perils of 
 modern nations." (Nitti.) All that now interferes with one's 
 personal luxuries, no matter what morality, righteousness, 
 justice, honesty all are cast aside in the mad pursuit of 
 wealth. Yet a great English writer and authority tells us that 
 to live for oneself is to lose oneself, and that to live for others 
 is to gain oneself and all the world besides, and that blessed- 
 ness and righteousness, and not merely happiness, should be 
 our aim. There can be only one rendering of that sentiment. 
 
 It is also amazing to read all the Neo-Malthusian literature 
 of the day, and observe how all idea for the future economic 
 welfare of those who are to succeed us is ignored. Temporary 
 easement is all that is considered. Whatever amount of bene- 
 faction Neo-Malthusianism might have on the present condition
 
 THE EVILS OF NEO-MALTHUSIANISM 77 
 
 of the poor and that we will consider later on it cannot by 
 any means be taken to apply to the well-to-do, who merely 
 curtail the number of their children so as to enable them to 
 indulge in hedonism. Frequently we find in Neo-Malthusian 
 writings the attention of the poor called to the wide practice 
 of the artificial check system amongst the rich, and blaming 
 the former for not more largely following their example. 
 
 Formerly it was considered the wholesome duty of the 
 educated and well-to-do to set an example of high morality 
 and Christian practice. Nowadays the position is reversed. 
 Those in high places have acquired the knowledge which 
 enables them to indulge in sexual intercourse without 
 becoming parents, and they have unhesitatingly adopted the 
 practice. But after all, there must be an inner chord of 
 natural affection and a craving desire in every woman's heart 
 to hear the word "mother" addressed to her. Who can imagine 
 a true married woman, who believes in the sacred ties of 
 motherhood, deliberately refusing the lawful gift of a child? 
 To her a child can never be an uninvited blessing. She can 
 never be what the flippant, vulgar, and unnatural English- 
 women writers of the day describe as a " propagating drudge." 
 What have we come to in England when a mother is so 
 described ! But to which of the two, the self-complacent, 
 yet unnatural, irreverent, and childless Neo-Malthusian woman, 
 or the "propagating drudge," will conscience and remorse 
 speak loudest when face to face with death? In the case 
 of the one, the loving, dutiful, devotional care of children will 
 be absent; in the other, sons and daughters will strive together 
 to soothe their mother's trouble and pain. Which is the 
 prettiest picture ? Those who oppose nature will always suffer 
 in some way, and in none more so than when they oppose 
 nature and morality combined. Here is where the evil effects 
 of Neo-Malthusianism can be most clearly seen and observed. 
 "The nations which artificially limit their fecundity arrive 
 at such bestial corruptions as would not only alarm Malthus, 
 who was an honest man and an Anglican priest, but any 
 tolerant spirit." (Oettingen.) "It is not only Christian 
 morality which considers Neo-Malthusianism to be an infamy, 
 but the morality of all times and places." (Ott, Journal des 
 Economistes, August, 1888.) 
 
 The sin and evils of Neo-Malthusianism come home to the 
 human heart very effectively when a man, looking upon his
 
 78 NEO-MALTHUSIANISM 
 
 healthy, happy child, says, I could have prevented that child's 
 life. 
 
 As Christians we can very readily say that it is a sin : 
 the whole Church condemns it, and declares that its sole 
 object is merely to promote self-luxury. (See Appendix.) 
 " What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world 
 and lose his own soul?" "A man's life consisteth not in 
 the things that he possesseth." We must readily believe that 
 the practice of artificial checks to conception must degrade 
 the finer moral instincts of both men and women, especially, 
 of course, the latter : in them it cannot have any other effect 
 than to bring about a bestial sensuality and indifference to all 
 morality. 
 
 " Turning the use of the woman into that which is against 
 nature " must surely act terribly upon the woman herself who 
 practises it, or allows it to be practised upon her. The 
 husband at his marriage recorded a solemn vow before God 
 that with his body he would worship or do honour to his 
 wife "with my body I do worship." Is this practice which 
 we are considering in accordance with that vow ? 
 
 Jeremy Taylor wrote that he is an ill husband who treats 
 his wife as an animal or a harlot, having no end but pleasure. 
 Moreover, it must be remembered that women must always be 
 factors in the scheme, and that if their morality is debased 
 the worst consequences must ensue in every direction. " C'est 
 de la moralitd de la femme que ddpend tout 1'avenir d'une 
 generation." (Marsangy, Etude sur la Moralite de la Femme 
 et de VHomme. Paris, 1890.) In earlier days, when a higher 
 standard of morality was in vogue, and nothing of the " Sexual 
 Revolt" was heard in the land, Englishwomen protested 
 against the practice, which they rightly considered aimed at 
 lowering their morality and finer feelings. I well remember 
 some years ago, at a certain Parliamentary election, a candi- 
 date, who shall be nameless, was ignominiously defeated, solely 
 through the influence of the women, it having been noised 
 abroad that he was an advocate of Neo-Malthusian practice. 
 The men granted their wives' appeal and rejected him. It 
 seems very difficult to believe that any pure-minded woman 
 could so far abase herself as to adopt it. " Men are God's 
 trees; women are God's flowers." Nature has designed 
 women for one especial and peculiar purpose, that of bearing 
 children, and everything in her has more or less close con-
 
 THE EVILS OF NEO-MALTHUSIANISM 79 
 
 nection with this, her original and inalienable vocation. If 
 that instinct be thwarted or perverted she becomes discon- 
 tented, craving, and morbid. Women have not been created 
 by God to practise immorality. It is a thing alien to their 
 best instincts and nature. If they persist in doing so they at 
 once cease to be in their natural sphere, and they themselves 
 and the race will undoubtedly suffer. Fifty years hence 
 will tell a gruesome tale if women now surrender themselves to 
 practise a system which is both physically and morally in 
 entire opposition to their proper welfare. " Woman is, under 
 God, the true creator of personal character, and in the 
 aggregate, of national character also, for the destiny of a nation, 
 so far as human instrumentality goes, is really the charge 
 of each succeeding female generation. Senators may make 
 the nation's laws, statesmen may wield the national resources, 
 universities may perpetuate its learning, but the women of the 
 country develop its moral characteristics, and like as the mind, 
 and not the physical being, constitutes the man, so the moral 
 features of a people, and not their geographical situation, 
 nor political relations, constitute a nation in the eyes of 
 Him who rules and will judge the world." {Physiology of 
 Human Nature.} 
 
 Neo-Malthusians must necessarily admit that the practice 
 they urge, as a remedy against poverty, is an entire perversion 
 of the laws of nature. We may guide and lead nature, 
 but we are certainly not justified in opposing it. Those 
 who believe in Christianity must admit that it is contrary to 
 its teaching. This most surely follows as the night the 
 day. Therefore, before people adopt Neo-Malthusianism, 
 they must have convinced themselves that Christianity is false. 
 I feel assured, however, from what I know of Neo-Malthusians, 
 and it is not a little, that they only urge their system in 
 consequence of their sincere belief that it will prove a 
 universal panacea for all the troubles we are rapidly becoming 
 encompassed with. They firmly believe that population must 
 always outrun the means of subsistence. They do not or will 
 not see that what they in preference ought to do is to 
 endeavour to remove all impediments to the increase of food, 
 and to an equal and just share in property. 
 
 This was what Mr. Bradlaugh and his school could not per- 
 ceive. He persisted to the end of his life in declaring that the 
 only possible remedy was to restrict population. His belief is
 
 8o NEO-MALTHUSIANISM 
 
 now altogether discredited by all who can pay any educated 
 attention to the matter. The advocates of the system shrink 
 with horror from bringing more life, which they would 
 naturally love and cherish, into what they believe is an over- 
 populated arena of suffering. They hesitate to increase the 
 suffering, and finding sexual impulse too strong to overcome, 
 they adopt a means to satisfy it without what they term 
 evil results following. 
 
 The time most certainly has come when these most im- 
 portant questions will have to be very seriously considered 
 by those who desire to uphold the morality of marriage 
 and the prosperity of the nation. The inequalities of wealth 
 have now become so deleterious to everything which is most 
 conducive to the welfare of the race, that some steps will have 
 to be undertaken to reduce the terrible hindrances which at 
 present exist to entering upon proper marriage. The ignorant 
 and rash are taking the matter into their own hands, and are 
 attempting to solve the various problems involved by adopting 
 the practice of Neo-Malthusianism. For the first time in the 
 history of the world civilization is face to face with one of the 
 influences most destructive to its own progress. People are 
 always prone to judge too hastily of the symptoms of the 
 disease, and not to look to its causes. 
 
 Great allowance must be made for opposing economic 
 influences. After all, there is a lurking suspicion that this 
 practice cannot be quite right. The Malthusian itself speaks 
 of "braving the indecency of artificial checks." Yet, in the same 
 number from which the above extract is taken, it quotes 
 Robin as follows : " To make known in suitable places this 
 useful knowledge, so practical as it is, gentlemen, is an 
 apostolic mission to which I invite you." Another writer 
 says : " Under conditions respectful to human dignity, a know- 
 ledge of Neo-Malthusian art should be carefully instilled." 
 
 It is quite impossible for any professing Christian to defend 
 the practice, for it certainly presupposes that there is no such 
 thing as any Divine interposition or guidance, either in 
 the world or in the individual. With the materialistic Neo- 
 Malthusian, of course, no religious argument can apply or have 
 any moral force. Mrs. Besant points this out very clearly in 
 her autobiography. On becoming a Theosophist she renounced 
 Materialism, and consequently Neo-Malthusianism. She says 
 that when she advocated the latter she considered man to be
 
 THE EVILS OF NEO-MALTHUSIANISM Si 
 
 but an organism which was produced on the earth and 
 perished upon it. 
 
 To the materialistic Neo-Malthusian, therefore, there is no 
 other seemingly available course to deal with population but 
 brutally to suppress it. The religious aspect of the question 
 has no concern for him. Man is a mere generating animal, 
 like all lower forms ; hence it follows, as a matter of course, 
 that the reproduction of mankind can be treated like that 
 of cattle, cats, and dogs. Granted that his premisses are true, 
 there can be no sin or immorality in adopting his system. He 
 does not believe in a future life ; he says that all he can work 
 for here during his present life is to do all he can to prepare 
 better places for those who may be destined to succeed him ; 
 but if his advice to make use of artificial checks be adopted, 
 there will be few to profit by his work. So very few people 
 are logical in their thought and action. The man who 
 practises Neo-Malthusianism must consider that all human 
 life is only connected with this world, and has no future 
 before it. It is but a purposeless dream, "a vain Bacchic 
 dance of idiot atoms careering on their way from a nebula 
 to a charnel house." Even if there be no God, it is better 
 to be chaste than licentious, for nature will certainly punish 
 those who are breakers of her laws ; if they prostitute them- 
 selves they must suffer physically. Syphilis is the result of 
 prostitution, which is in itself unnatural. It is threatening to 
 consume the very vitals of the nation ; it is the just punish- 
 ment that fastens itself upon a society which, owing to an 
 unjust system of economics, heaps up every hindrance and 
 artificial restraint to lawful marriage. To be logical, then, 
 the materialistic Neo-Malthusian must believe that when he 
 becomes aged and generally useless he ought to be placed 
 in the lethal chamber like the dog, and there end his mortal 
 career. He believes that human life has no future before it ; 
 he refuses to call it into existence; he ought logically, there- 
 fore, to end his own whenever he pleases. The Epicurean, 
 whose view of religion was similar to his, was logical; he 
 believed that when life had been made the most of it was 
 time to end it, and he did. Directly Mrs. Besant believed 
 that man is immortal she naturally threw over Neo- 
 Malthusianism, being convinced that not only is it immoral 
 in itself, but that it is only putting one evil into the place 
 of another. The materialistic Neo-Malthusian deals only
 
 82 NEO-MALTHUSIANISM 
 
 with the gross aspect of human propagation. He adopts 
 a course in accordance with his belief. But even in his own, 
 the purely economic aspect of the matter, we can readily 
 see that he is in error. That side of the problem has within 
 it facts which he cannot easily gloss over or surmount, such 
 as the hindrance to prosperity, and the decay of the nation 
 which would adopt his ideas. It is essentially, then, an act 
 of cowardice which would sacrifice the prosperity of the 
 nation for individual ease and comfort, yet this would be 
 certainly the result of Neo-Malthusianism. The benefits 
 which he imagines would follow upon his idea being generally 
 adopted have been over and over again proved to be fallacious, 
 and moreover utterly destructive to all economic progress. It 
 is hard to understand how the Neo-Malthusian can continue 
 to advance his theories with honesty. Sir J. Crichton Browne 
 writes most forcibly upon this point : "The altruistic emotions 
 which in human beings, fostered and transmuted by various 
 agencies, have enabled them, as regards certain relationships, 
 to struggle out of the dismal swamp of the struggle for 
 existence. And in the case of human beings it has, I 
 believe, been the formation of distinct family groups that 
 has more than any other reproductive influence been con- 
 tributory to moral progress." 
 
 We may well wonder at a journal like The Christian World 
 stating that abstinence from marriage is equivalent to the 
 practice of Neo-Malthusianism. After a correspondence in 
 its pages on Neo-Malthusianism, the issue of August, 1893, 
 contained the following: "We limit population just as much 
 by deferring marriage from prudential motives as by any 
 action that may be taken after it." The two things are 
 diametrically opposed to one another. To abstain from 
 marriage for various reasons, especially under the present 
 unjust economic system, is no sin, neither is mutual con- 
 tinence in the married, but to destroy or use means calculated 
 to destroy the initiation of life in the married, Christian 
 morality must pronounce to be immoral. Some who practise 
 it stifle their conscience by saying that it is not directly 
 condemned in Holy Scripture, but it is. A similar practice 
 brought death to the man who adopted it, so it is recorded 
 in the Book of Genesis. The desire for sexual intercourse 
 and the instinct thereto have been implanted in all animal 
 creation by the Creator for no other object but the repro-
 
 THE EVILS OF NEO-MALTHUSIANISM 83 
 
 duction of life, yet at the same time we are in no way 
 commanded by Him to put them into action ; " all things 
 are lawful unto me, but all things are not expedient." That 
 instinct which we believe is divinely given, and to which 
 pleasure has been attached to bring it into use, prompting 
 every living thing to reproduce itself in the married and 
 unmarried, may be kept under control, but when put into 
 use should be allowed its lawful and legitimate mission. 
 " The degradation of sexual instinct which Neo-Malthusianism 
 brings about only seems to kill the family ideal, the sentiment 
 of social duty, and to shake the very foundations of civilization 
 and progress." (Nitti.) It is very difficult to imagine how 
 those married under the Church's service and blessing can 
 practice Neo-Malthusianism, for at the altar, in the most 
 solemn and important moment of their lives, when they were 
 joined together as man and wife by God's ordinance, never 
 to be separated until it was God's will that death alone should 
 do so, they were expressly told that marriage was ordained 
 by Him for the procreation of children ; " children to be 
 brought up in the fear and nurture of the Lord and praise 
 of His Holy Name." 
 
 Professor Mivart says : " For my part I am profoundly 
 convinced that no love is worthy of the name, or possesses 
 any real value, unless it is consecrated by the idea of duty, 
 which so frequently implies self-sacrifice ; so consecrated, it 
 is at once the source and stay of whatever is highest and 
 noblest in life. Divorced from the idea of duty, it is the 
 greatest curse of human existence, the cause of endless 
 misery, and often deserving, in its base selfishness, to be 
 called hatred rather than love." 
 
 There are many who believe that all the troubles which have 
 fallen upon France are the punishments which have been 
 inflicted upon that country for its gross violation of the funda- 
 mental laws of morality and human society. Certainly it has 
 frustrated the intention of the Creator with regard to the moral 
 obligations of marriage. Besides its immediate immorality, 
 and the lack of child-life with all its advantage to the nation, 
 Neo-Malthusianism, if largely carried out, would have another 
 disastrous effect, and that Darwin clearly foresaw. It would 
 very considerably diminish ante-nuptial chastity on the part of 
 both men and women, especially of the latter. If they came 
 to know that they could indulge all sexual appetite without any
 
 84 NEO-MALTHUSIANISM 
 
 fear of becoming mothers, they would undoubtedly surrender 
 their virginity much more readily than if the fear of bearing a 
 child was present. 
 
 " Sexuality would tend to increase if its responsibilities were 
 annulled. The proportion of unchastity before marriage could 
 hardly but be augmented." (Evolution of Sex.) 
 
 The fear of having a child, although not the highest moral 
 preventative, certainly now restrains very many women from 
 giving way, which otherwise they would be tempted to. 
 
 Another evil result of Neo-Malthusianism would be that 
 divorce would become much more prevalent than is even the 
 case at present. Whyte Melville showed us how the presence 
 of children often averted that most disastrous rupture of 
 marriage bonds, which serve so greatly as a protection for 
 women, by the consideration of what would become of the 
 children. But if Neo-Malthusianism should become generally 
 adopted by society, this excellent preventative to divorce would 
 certainly cease, inasmuch as no question of the children's future 
 would be likely to arise. If Neo-Malthusianism should be 
 largely adopted it most certainly would let loose an immense 
 flood of pre-nuptial unchastity throughout all classes of society. 
 Women would be enabled to appear outwardly as virgins, yet all 
 the time they might be living in concubinage with their lovers, 
 and nobody would be any the wiser. This is very much the 
 case in Germany now. In consequence of the use of artificial 
 checks to conception in France, there is a great prevalence 
 of immorality amongst the class not wholly given over to 
 vice. Concubinage without children is the rule in the town, 
 marriage without children is that of the country. In case 
 anybody wishes to know what actual effect the public adoption 
 of Neo-Malthusianism would have on morality in general, let 
 him read Gohre on its results in Germany, where it is now 
 being widely adopted. He is a Lutheran pastor, who deter- 
 mined to live for a time amongst the working classes, to learn 
 more intimately their manner of thought and modes of action. 
 He tells us that in the large manufacturing centre of Chemnitz 
 it would be almost impossible to find a single boy or girl over 
 seventeen who is chaste. 
 
 Sexual intercourse without children is considered quite the 
 natural course to adopt, and to marry and to have children 
 to be the grossest folly a man and woman can commit. He 
 gives us a graphic description of the manner in which people
 
 THE EVILS OF NEO-MALTHUSIANISM 85 
 
 who live under the influence of Neo-Malthusianism spend 
 their Sunday evenings in the dancing saloons. Needless to 
 say all are unbelievers. This is the animalism we English are 
 advised to adopt by the advocates of Neo-Malthusianism, and 
 such would most unquestionably be the case if their advice was 
 widely adopted. Darwin was a far-seeing man, and he declared 
 that such would be the case. It would be simple promiscuous 
 intercourse without procreation of children. Evolution of Sex 
 tells us plainly that Neo-Malthusianism would undoubtedly 
 increase sexuality. It would transform human beings endowed 
 with moral powers into mere machines for gross sexual gratifi- 
 cation. But there is a moral force rising up against Neo- 
 Malthusianism in many quarters of Europe. Will it prove 
 the stronger? "Against all the efforts of the Neo-Malthu- 
 sian school there has been formed, and is still forming, a 
 strong current of opposition ; doctors and demographists daily 
 protest against a school, the principles of which, if carried into 
 effect, would change matrimony into a monogamic prostitution, 
 and would gradually lead to the weakening of social relations 
 and to the degradation of the moral sentiments." (Nitti.) 
 The French economist Guyau asserts that the question of 
 the depopulation of France is purely and simply a matter of 
 morality alone. 
 
 With regard to the question of morality in connection with 
 the prevalence of Neo-Malthusianism in France, the census 
 return of that country in the year 1891 gave no less than 
 7,684,906 Frenchmen as of no religion. 
 
 Caused by the miserable and unjust system of economics 
 now in force, there are many influences at work against a high 
 morality. Undue postponement of marriage is one. The 
 advocate of the artificial check system avers that his scheme 
 would remove this, but the case of France proves that it does 
 not. The tendency of present society everywhere is against 
 marriage and children. It is considered to be self-effacement 
 and disappearance from what is considered living in the world; 
 hence vice takes the place of purity of life, and we see the 
 streets in the condition they are, and the whole moral state 
 of the community deteriorating. Prostitution and disease 
 are becoming more and more rampant every day, because 
 a properly organized condition of marriage is lacking. We 
 are now actually informed that no less than sixty per cent, 
 of the population are more or less infected with syphilis ;
 
 86 NEO-MALTHUSIANISM 
 
 some go so far as to say seventy-five per cent. "We now know 
 that certain diseases of the lungs, liver and spleen are all of 
 syphilitic origin, and the mortality from syphilis in its later 
 forms is every year found to be larger and larger, by its being 
 found to be the source of a number of diseases which pre- 
 viously were referred to other origins." (Sir J. Paget.) We 
 also cannot forget what Ibsen wrote in Ghosts. " Of all 
 diseases which can affect the human race, none is to be 
 feared more than syphilis." (Duchatelet.) Competent medi- 
 cal authorities declare that this disease is rapidly spreading 
 throughout all classes of society. 
 
 "Medical science mitigates suffering, but confers long life 
 upon the diseased. Maladies arising from profligacy are 
 controlled and half cured. The natural penalties of excess 
 are remitted by the gratuitous skill of our hospital staff. Tens 
 of thousands of individuals whose lives are diseased are 
 preserved for marriage. These tainted constitutions transmit 
 a terrible inheritance of evil to the next generation." (Arnold 
 White.) 
 
 Society and the upper ten thousand think that social caste, 
 its so-called privileges and pleasures, are to be esteemed of 
 higher value than morality, but it shows a diseased state of 
 mind. As the Rev. R. Blake says in The Great Temptation 
 "To be or not to be in society is not the question before 
 God, but to be or not to be in Christ, in God's family, in 
 God's love, in God's home." Granted that marriage and 
 children, in the present artificial and unjust state of things, 
 may be what is incorrectly termed social death ; social life 
 as commonly interpreted, being only feeding and amusing 
 some indolent fellow-creatures who would be the first to 
 desert one in time of trial, instead of one's own children, 
 one's own flesh and blood. Surely we ought to consider the 
 estimation of God to be of greater value than the estimation 
 of an effete society. That is not in a healthy condition when 
 it practically says, " Do anything, practise whatever vice you 
 like, but do not marry and have children." The current phrase 
 of society, alluding to young men who are not wealthy, or of 
 the parents who cannot leave wealth to their sons, is, " Oh, he 
 must make up his mind not to marry." In other words, he 
 may wallow in vice in the streets and dens of the city ; he may 
 degrade himself and as many women as he likes; he may 
 become rotten from disease, and infect others with the same
 
 THE EVILS OF NEO-MALTHUSIANISM 87 
 
 as much as he likes, but " he must make up his mind not to 
 marry." Well, of course, it all means social asphyxia. It is 
 only history repeating itself. Old civilizations, through giving 
 countenance to such habits, became effete, effeminate, and 
 rotten. England is rapidly sliding down the same plane. 
 Prostitute yourselves, my sons ; do the same, my daughters ; 
 only do not bring disgrace upon yourselves by unwelcome 
 children. Pure marriage is a " clog and hindrance to all your 
 hopes." Vice is far preferable to having children. This, be it 
 observed, is only addressed to those who do not possess large 
 means, hence the gross wickedness and injustice of it all. It 
 tacitly declares that it will wink at woman's degradation, only be 
 sure not to marry and have children. The poor suffering girl, 
 who it insidiously declares is necessary for its sons' gratifica- 
 tion, is cast into hell as a being too utterly degraded even to 
 name ; yet the men who cause her to be as she is are received 
 with open arms into every drawing-room. Is this a proper, 
 fit, and moral condition for society to be in ? Is the immoral 
 woman to be ostracised ? Is the immoral man to be glorified ? 
 There are signs, however, that this unfair condition of things 
 is about to cease. The fallen man will no doubt in time 
 receive the same recompense as the fallen woman. The 
 sooner the better, and then society will be reclaimed. 
 
 I do not propose to enter here into the advantages or dis- 
 advantages of the Contagious Diseases Acts, but there is a 
 great deal of truth in the Declaration which the Ladies' 
 National Association has lately issued. Here it is : " The 
 Contagious Diseases Acts, with every form of regulation of 
 vice, whether established by law or existing only as an ad- 
 ministrative measure sanctioned by the State, are an outrage 
 against every principle of justice and just law. They are the 
 public proclamation of outlawing against a class arbitrarily 
 selected, not because of their own guilt, but for the con- 
 venience of their equally guilty accomplices. The enactment 
 of the Contagious Diseases Acts was a fatal retrogression in 
 English justice, introducing some of the worst features of 
 American slavery, and sanctioning the immoral doctrine of the 
 subjection of a portion of the human race as corpora villa 
 which may be sacrificed for the real or imaginary benefit of 
 another portion." Why should men's sin in this respect be 
 considered as nothing, but a woman's to be the cause of 
 casting her outside all human pity ? The women thus treated,
 
 88 NEO-MALTHUSIANISM 
 
 be it well remembered, are the daughters of the poor, not 
 those of the rich. In places where we should least expect it 
 we find Malthus' exploded idea still believed in that the 
 well-to-do are to marry and have children at their desire, but 
 the poor are not to do so. For instance, we find a critic 
 writing these words on Mr. Hobson's recent work, Tfie Probleni 
 of the Unemployed: " It is the duty of the poor to abstain 
 from bringing into the world children who will be additional 
 competitors in a labour market already overstocked." If this 
 is not adding another injustice to an already unbearable one, 
 what is ? Considering human nature as it is, it seemingly can 
 only mean that the poor are to be condemned to wallow in 
 vice and Neo-Malthusianism, while the rich are to be exempt 
 from such evils ; the sons of the poor man are to be depraved, 
 and his daughters to be prostitutes. Is this a state of things 
 that can last? Is it just? Is it in accordance with the 
 simplest laws of humanity? And yet, after all they have 
 had to bear in these respects, the morality of the poor is 
 higher than that of the rich. Sad it is to have to say it, but 
 it is beyond all question true, that all attempts to bring about 
 a high condition of morality have come from the middle class, 
 not from so-called English society. No attempt at self-re- 
 formation has ever been made by society it has more or 
 less defiantly accepted the reform when the middle class de- 
 manded it, but the reform itself has never originated within it. 
 How absurd the Pharisaical hypocrisy of English society 
 seems ! It does all it can to prevent its sons making pure 
 marriages and having healthy children, yet it bewails when 
 it sees fit the increase of prostitution and the degradation of 
 women. It is ready sometimes to give money, which costs 
 them so little, towards girls' rescue and reformation, while it 
 winks at their necessity. Father Ignatius, in the course of his 
 usual plain speaking, observes that it will be more tolerable for 
 Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of judgment than for the 
 society mother of the day. One of the most terrible sights 
 to be seen in the world at the present time is the condition 
 of the West London streets at night. There can be seen 
 woman's degradation in its most ghastly forms ; there can be 
 seen the result of hindrances to marriage ; there can be seen 
 the results of "he must make up his mind not to marry." 
 There can be seen beautiful, handsome young Englishwomen 
 of the finest types, born to give birth to splendid Englishmen,
 
 THE EVILS OF NEO-MALTHUSIAN1SM 89 
 
 yet sunk in vice and disease. Year by year, as those who are 
 engaged in rescuing these girls know very well, their age is 
 becoming younger and younger. Now we have to deal with 
 mere children sometimes. Such is the result of the evil habits 
 of modern society. 
 
 Neo-Malthusians do not of course take into any serious 
 consideration the importance and blessings which the Old 
 Testament attached to family life and children, but the Jewish 
 race is a living witness to their beneficial and invigorating 
 effects. It is far and away the healthiest race in the whole 
 world; it is far less prone than others to infectious disease. 
 Phthisis is of rare occurrence ; during all the years the Royal 
 Hospital for Consumption has existed, only six Jews have had 
 occasion to enter it. The Jews seem to have more vitality 
 and stamina than any others, and these qualities in addition 
 to very superior mental calculating powers. They have fewer 
 stillborn and illegitimate children than any other race, and 
 far less suicides. Insanity is almost unknown amongst them. 
 All these desirable qualifications arise from their acting within 
 certain hygienic laws, known and appreciated ages ago, but 
 which modern races have neglected to their serious loss. 
 Amongst the Jews a family of children is extolled, a celibate 
 condition is neither sanctioned or approved. From 1851 to 
 1864, the then estimated Roman Catholic population of 
 Europe increased 0*48 per 100, the 52,212,000 Protestants 
 0*98, the Jews i'93, and the same ratio continues. (See 
 Lagneau.) The great fecundity of the Jews is in consequence 
 of their religion, which abhors virginity; naturally every Jewish 
 girl thinks that she may be the mother of the Messiah. "All 
 Jewish heroes were men of numerous families and abundant 
 offspring." Notwithstanding all the persecutions and troubles 
 which it has had to endure for ages, and which would have 
 stamped out others altogether, the Jewish race has increased 
 and maintained itself in a marvellous manner, because it has 
 always considered healthy, lawful marriage and family life 
 to be the first duty of mankind, and which invariably tends 
 to increase its vigour and contentment. (See Voltaire, 
 Dictionnaire Philosophique, on this matter of the family life 
 of the Jew.) I have taken some trouble to ascertain, and I 
 find that the artificial check system is looked upon with 
 horror by every Jew, both as distinctly immoral and also 
 wholly ruinous to any nation that might be so foolish as to
 
 9 o NEO-MALTHUSIANISM 
 
 adopt it. Neo-Malthusianism would most certainly cause such 
 a nation to decay in numbers and become the victim of one 
 more daring and prolific in numbers. 
 
 As it has ever been in the past, so it will be in the future. 
 A nation going forth to conquer new lands in search of food, 
 having obtained what it sought, settled down to enjoy its 
 conquests. It soon allied itself by marriage to the women of 
 the conquered, and imbibed the vices which caused the latter's 
 overthrow. These in time caused the once conquering nation 
 to give way in its turn to another more used to hardships 
 and inured to self-denial. If it was the weaker types of the 
 English race which artificial checks are now affecting, the 
 result, though much to be deplored in consequence of their 
 degrading effects, might not be so appalling, but it is not ; 
 it is the educated, the refined, the cultured, who are most 
 generally putting them into use. The consequence, of course, 
 is, that the weaker type is increasing and the stronger is 
 declining. This is disastrous; is it wise, is it true political 
 or economic wisdom, that a higher mental and physical type 
 should decrease, one which has grown more and more perfect 
 and refined through long centuries of environment, breeding, 
 and chivalry ? Is it wise, is it conducive to the welfare of the 
 State, that such a type should wither and decay, and a lower 
 one, weaker in discipline, in self-restraint, in all the higher 
 virtues, increase ? If such takes place, the best and choicest 
 types will cease to be, and thus will come about the survival 
 of the unfittesL Dewey says that it is mainly the working- 
 men, the labourers for daily wages, who are now propagating 
 the French race. Cournot says that the strongest, the most 
 hard-working, the most provident, the most moral part of the 
 population will have to struggle to maintain a parasitical 
 population which is often lacking in these very qualities, and 
 which it is very much to be feared will transmit a part of its 
 hereditary vices to future generations. This is one of the 
 inevitable results which will follow upon the highest types 
 decreasing and the lower increasing. 
 
 Passy says that in those parts of Paris which are inhabited 
 by the rich there are not 1*97 births to each marriage; in the 
 poor the births amount to 2 '86. Between the moderately 
 rich and the very poor the difference is 1-87 to 3^24, that is 
 73 per cent Cheysson says the birth-rate of the rich parts 
 of Paris is 20 per 1000, of the poor 28. Nitti says that the
 
 THE EVILS OF NEO-MALTHUSIANISM 
 
 birth-rate of the quarter of the Louvre, the Bourse, and the 
 Opera is hardly 22 per 1000, of Passy only 17, of the Champs 
 Elysee only i6'4. But it is 30 per 1000 in Popincourt, 
 Gobelin, Vaugirard, and Buttes Chaumont; in the very 
 poorest parts 38 per 1000. The last French returns give 
 the natality per 1000 of the following districts in Paris: 
 
 Pere-Lachaise 
 
 Pont-de-Flandre 
 
 Gare d'Orleans 
 
 Javel 
 
 Maison-Blanche 
 
 La Chapelle 
 
 St. Thomas-d'Aquin 
 
 Chauss-d'Antin 
 
 Place Vendome 
 
 Invalides 
 
 Madeleine 
 
 Porte-Dauphine 
 
 39' i 
 367 
 35'3 
 33'2 
 327 
 3 2 7 
 14-4 
 14-4 
 14-0 
 
 137 
 
 12-9 
 10-3 
 
 In the last census of Paris there were found an enormous 
 number of couples with no children in the neighbourhood of 
 the Place Vendome; on the other hand, in the Epinettes 
 there were found more families with four children than those 
 with none. The department of the Seine Inferieure has a 
 very high birth-rate, but Cherwin says that forty-seven out of 
 every hundred recruits coming from it have to be rejected. 
 Rumelin, observing that the rich are provident, and the wage- 
 earners improvident and boundlessly prolific, asks, in dismay, 
 if this singular fact, which renders the intelligent classes 
 stationary and the uncultured more numerous, is not an 
 inversion of Darwinian selection ? 
 
 It is very ominous that the birth-rate of the East End of 
 London amounts to 35 per 1000, that of the West to only 25. 
 Tfa Malthusian tells us that the birth-rate in Hampstead 
 amounts to only 20 per 1000, that of Whitechapel to 40. 
 When power, either mental or physical, has decreased in a 
 race, it is best for all concerned that that race should not 
 increase. 
 
 There is another very gigantic evil, easily discernible in the 
 practice of Neo-Malthusianism, which it would be well for 
 its advocates to gravely consider. It is that if the nations of 
 the West were generally to adopt it, they would infallibly 
 decrease in numbers, and those of the East would take their
 
 9z NEO-MALTHUSIANISM 
 
 places. Yves Guyot says that if Neo-Malthusianism, which 
 is destroying the French people, should extend to the other 
 races which now form the front rank of civilization, they will 
 run the risk some day of being supplanted by the less 
 civilised peoples. Whole nations will share the fate which 
 has already befallen the enfeebled and degenerate descend- 
 ants of our aristocracy and wealthy bourgeoisie. Orientals 
 rightly consider that population is strength, and now that 
 famines are more under control, in consequence of improved 
 organization, wars likely to cease, at least in India, and 
 infanticide dying out, their numbers are rapidly increasing. 
 Is it to be the case that, in consequence of European nations 
 giving way to immorality, these nations will pour in in 
 multitudes upon the effete and dwindling races of the West ? 
 This would not seem impossible if Neo-Malthusianism was 
 allowed to pursue its way unchecked ; Pearson's prophecies 
 that the yellow race will one day sweep in upon the West 
 would then be fulfilled. 
 
 Jules Simon bids us beware of what the East will do in 
 the future. " Everything in the East is asleep, nothing is 
 dead; be on your guard against the awakening. After long 
 resistance it has now condescended to use the weapons 
 acquired from us. China has only to open her ports to 
 become formidable at a stroke. Beware. The history of 
 Europe is now and must be for a long time the history of 
 Asia and Africa." Again another statesman, thoroughly con- 
 versant with Oriental manners and customs, writes : 
 
 " The coming century, which will be full of scientific 
 marvels, radically changing the conditions of modern life, will 
 also see the awakening of old-world nations, which many have 
 believed to have sunk into hopeless decrepitude. Everywhere 
 the valley of dry bones begins to stir with new life." (Sir Lepel 
 Griffin in Nineteenth Century, July, 1896.) 
 
 In 1883 the population of Japan amounted to 37,017,302 ; 
 in 1893 to 41,388,313. The birth-rate of Madras is the 
 highest of cities in the world, amounting to 407 per 1000; 
 Christiania is the lowest, only 17*6. (Whitaker.) Ibsen says 
 Christiania is the most immoral town in Europe. Marriage 
 is practically non-existent, owing to the absence of police- 
 controlled prostitution and the great facility for divorce. He 
 says the streets are singularly clean of all vice, but the private 
 houses, the family circles, are singularly impure. The menage
 
 THE EVILS OF NEO-MALTHUSIANISM 93 
 
 d trois flourishes there as nowhere else. People marry, divorce, 
 re-marry, and after re-marriage return to a kind of free union. 
 He also says that since the abolition of Government inspection 
 of women, syphilis has enormously increased. Next to Stock- 
 holm, there is more of that disease in Christiania than in any 
 other town in Europe. We can therefore easily learn from all 
 this why Christiania has the lowest birth-rate of all cities in 
 the world. In 1816 the population of Java amounted to 
 4,615,000; in 1889 to 22,818,000. 
 
 " If a superior race increases and multiplies civizalition is 
 safe, if an inferior all is in peril ; to run such a risk voluntarily 
 is ruin to all concerned. Civilization could not run such a 
 risk. If science has demonstrated that the superior races are 
 the least prolific, to voluntarily help in intensifying the 
 phenomenon is to unconsciously prepare the decay of civili- 
 zation, the brutalizing of the world." (Nitti.) Gallon says " that 
 in the old -standing civilization the active and ambitious 
 classes are induced by many reasons to defer the age of 
 matrimony, and many marriages are dictated by economic 
 motives. Hence there is in old nations a permanent obstacle 
 to the fecundity of the more elevated classes, so that only 
 the weak and improvident are very prolific. Thus the race 
 gradually deteriorates, preserving the appearances of civiliza- 
 tion until it reverts to barbarism." This is certainly the danger 
 ahead now, not only in England, but throughout all Europe. 
 The best and most fitted types to increase are ceasing to do 
 so ; the least fitted very much the reverse. 
 
 " A recognition of the obligations which man owes to his 
 fellow-men, and the promptings of love's divine self-abnegation, 
 impose restraints on some of the competitors, who, instead of 
 forcing their way to the front, as they are well able to do, 
 stand aside and allow themselves to be beaten by those less 
 fitted to survive." (Crichton Browne.) 
 
 Amongst all uncivilized nations the birth-rate is enormously 
 high. For instance, the negroes of the United States have a 
 much higher natality than the whites. This is due to their 
 low social condition and general improvidence. For whites 
 the figures are 26*35 P er ioo; for the coloured, 29*07. See 
 Mayo Smith on this point. He regrets that the fecundity of 
 the coloured is greater than that of the white races, and 
 predicts trouble in future from it. 
 
 But in considering the natality of coloured races, it must be
 
 94 NEO-MALTHUSIANISM 
 
 remembered that their death-rate is correspondingly high ; for 
 instance, the death-rate of infants under one year amounted in 
 Calcutta, in 1893, to 415 per 1000; in 1894, to 403. In 
 England the corresponding annual rate was, over an average 
 of ten years, but 144. 
 
 In 1790 the population of the United States amounted to 
 3,929,214; in 1890, to 67,240,000. In 1790 the coloured 
 population amounted to 757,208 ; in 1890, to 8,000,000. 
 The American statisticians estimate, present increase continu- 
 ing, that in 1900 the white population of the United States 
 will amount to 77,000,000; in 1950 to 103,314,000; in 1990 
 to 1,206,400,000, with a coloured population in that year of 
 86,000,000. They also estimate that in 1990 the urban 
 population of the United States will amount to 240,000,000, 
 and of these New York alone will probably contain 30,000,000. 
 
 In India the birth-rate now amounts to 48 per 1000. This 
 is greater than in any country of Europe except Russia. 
 There is ample room for imagination, therefore, as to what the 
 future will bring with regard to Eastern populations ; the only 
 European one which is largely increasing and keeping pace 
 with them is the Slavonic. Is that to be the dominating 
 power of the world after the Latin, the Teutonic, and the 
 Anglo-Saxon have faded and gone? Russia certainly plays 
 the chief part in Europe now, and she shows signs that she 
 will soon do the same in Asia. She evinces a greater aptitude 
 in assimilating herself with the manners and customs of the 
 Oriental than any other Western nation. To the Englishman 
 the Indian is always the nigger ; the Russian does not disdain 
 to incorporate the nigger with himself, and so the two nations 
 become blended into each other. The Indian respects the 
 Englishman : to him he owes all the law and justice he enjoys, 
 but his heart is far from him ; his ideas, his character, his 
 manners, form things apart. With the Russian it is entirely 
 different. The latter is half an Oriental himself, and he has 
 no difficulty in making himself loved by the races he over- 
 throws. 
 
 Naturalists scoff at any importance being placed on the 
 quantity of population ; that its quality must always be the 
 chief consideration, and that the future cannot be for the 
 most populous, but for the most individuated races. Granted. 
 But naturalists must remember that cessation of famine, in- 
 creased sanitary knowledge and culture, better food, etc., are
 
 THE EVILS OF NEO-MALTHUSIANISM 95 
 
 rapidly bringing Oriental races, enormous in numbers, quite 
 on a par with the so-called civilization of the West, and when 
 this completely comes to pass, numbers must tell. Given 
 equal appliances, equal knowledge, equal conditions, and then 
 it must be readily admitted that numbers will win. Of course, 
 if all races were on a par, so far as civilization is concerned, 
 it would not matter much whether black or white humanity 
 ruled the world, but the former, so far as history and know- 
 ledge of it inform us, seems incapable of rising to the highest 
 level. 
 
 The condition of Hayti and Liberia, as well as some States 
 in the East, are sufficient examples of this. As yet the atten- 
 tion of the West has not been sufficiently aroused to the 
 astounding development of the Japanese. In some respects 
 they are already far superior to Western nations; they after 
 a thirty years' experience of improvement, we after many, 
 many centuries of the same. And it must be remembered 
 that the Chinese are just as capable of development as the 
 Japanese. The only difference at present existing between 
 them is that one has adopted Western civilization, improve- 
 ments, and discoveries, while the other has not. One day the 
 Chinese will most assuredly wake up, and then those who are 
 alive will see what numbers can do under equal conditions. 
 Pearson's prophecies have just as much force now as ever they 
 had; rather more, in consequence of what Japan has shown 
 herself capable of. The ill-success of the Chinese in the late 
 war was solely caused by an absurd, rotten, governmental 
 system rather than by any want of vigour in the nation itself. 
 What it did under Gordon is quite sufficient to amply 
 prove that when well governed, well led, and equipped, 
 the Chinese soldier is as effective as any European one. 
 Only the other day Lord Wolseley publicly stated that 
 the Chinese were above most races apparently designed to be 
 a great military, naval, and conquering people. They pos- 
 sessed all the important attributes that enabled men to be 
 easily and quickly converted into excellent soldiers and 
 sailors. He had no hesitation in saying that, given a free hand 
 and allowed at first to draw upon England for officers and 
 military instructors, he would guarantee to raise, in a couple of 
 years, a great Chinese army which it would be hard indeed to 
 beat. There was certainly nothing in the East which could 
 beat it. The whole cause of the defeat of China in the late
 
 96 NEO-MALTHUSIANISM 
 
 war was that for centuries Chinese laws and customs had killed 
 all military spirit. These, combined with degeneracy within, 
 had united in temporarily overcoming that nation. 
 
 At present, as Mr. Gladstone tells us, the Christian nations 
 rule the world. This no doubt is true, but unless Paganism 
 breaks up before Christianity sooner than is expected, the rise 
 of Japan is a proof that it will not always be so, and when 
 China awakes it most certainly will not be. Gaskell, in his 
 letter to Darwin, admitted that " there is undoubtedly one great 
 danger in lessened fertility of some races, namely, that the 
 pressure of other races upon them might extinguish them." 
 Neo-Malthusians ought, before they urge their system on the 
 multitude, to consider fully this most important result of the 
 course of action which they are so eager to recommend. We 
 shall see, when we come to deal with the case of France, how 
 it shows itself there. Notwithstanding all that can be urged 
 against the immorality of making use of artificial checks, some 
 of which I have commented on, I am well aware that there are 
 many high-minded, refined men of the highest moral order 
 and standard of ethics who cannot see their way to the 
 absolute moral condemnation of some at least of these 
 practices. It is very difficult, they affirm, to prove them to be 
 in themselves morally wrong, and that their chief condemna- 
 tion ought to lie in their disastrous social political results, 
 and in their physical consequences. It seems to me that the 
 moral aspect of the matter has to be considered from the point 
 of view of our responsibility to our Creator and His revealed 
 will on the matter. What I am about to write will, of course, 
 have no weight with unbelievers, but Christians must believe 
 in the duties and responsibilities to God and man which are 
 annexed to the creation of a human life. It becomes a nice 
 question to affirm, as Lea says, at what particular point 
 violation of its sacredness commences. It is a question of 
 degree and time. It is the difference between destroying the 
 potentiality of life and life itself. The latter, of course, is 
 infanticide or murder ; the former is moral murder. The desire 
 of the will is the same in both cases. 
 
 The doctrines of Traducianism and Creationism may be 
 considered with profit here. The former means in simple 
 words that the soul as well as body is begotten by reproduction 
 from the substance of the parent; the latter that the soul is 
 separately created by God, and not as the body, engendered
 
 THE EVILS OF NEO-MALTHUSIANISM 97 
 
 by reproduction from the substance of the parent. The latter 
 is the most generally accepted. Certainly one thing must be 
 clear to the Christian, that Neo-Malthusianism is a frustration 
 of God's moral government and care for each human life, which 
 He has given man and wife the power to bring into the world. 
 Moreover, it is especially a sin against the Holy Ghost, the 
 Lord, the Giver of Life. It ranks higher in the scale of 
 turpitude than self-abuse, for in the latter one individual only 
 sins, while in Neo-Malthusianism two become partners in each 
 other's sins. Moreover, the whole Church condemns it, and 
 that must be sufficient for the Churchman. Professor Mivart 
 says that to those who frustrate the ends of matrimony the 
 Church absolutely denies all use of her Sacraments. It is 
 utterly impossible for any Neo-Malthusian to be a communi- 
 cant. He also adds that the depopulation of France " is due 
 to the gradual decay of Christian belief there, with the 
 consequent progressive disappearance of Christian morality. 
 Amongst Catholic families, faithful to their religious duties, 
 such evils could not exist. In England, where there is now a 
 great decay, as well as much progress in religion, we have 
 begun to experience a corresponding moral relaxation which is 
 greatly facilitated by the knowledge, now widely diffused 
 amongst women, of these proceedings. Anyone who, wholly 
 advocating license, promotes this unadulterated selfishness in 
 undenying self-gratification, or who seeks to relax the binding 
 force of those matrimonial obligations still happily recognized 
 amongst us, directly attacks the welfare of the State, and does 
 his best, however unwillingly, to destroy the nation's very life." 
 
 Schone says that, besides luxury and prostitution, the 
 depopulation of France is to be attributed to the decay of 
 all religion more than anything else. (See Ulrreligion de 
 fAvenir, Guyau.) 
 
 And now we have to discuss another aspect of the matter, 
 which, although it does not bear directly on the subject we 
 have in hand, is closely allied to it. Numbers of zealous 
 and well-educated women are rising up in the present day, 
 who, although they would scorn to make use of artificial 
 checks, absolutely refuse to accept the duties and responsi- 
 bilities of maternity. The simplest course, it would seem to 
 the most superficial observer, for them to adopt would be to 
 remain single; but this they repudiate altogether as a 
 condition not suitable for a woman. They desire to be wives,
 
 98 NEO-MALTHUSIANISM 
 
 but not mothers. They implore their husbands not to inflict 
 upon them what they consider the degradation of having a 
 child. They say that they have to bear all the pains and 
 penalties of childbirth and have all the trouble attendant 
 upon nursing the child, therefore they alone ought to be the 
 arbiters of their fate, and to them alone should be given the 
 choice of deciding when or at all the burden should be under- 
 gone. A certain writer in the Humanitarian voices this present 
 feeling of advanced women-thinkers in the number of that 
 Magazine for February, 1894, in the following words: "I 
 protest against this form of slavery ; I protest against the 
 custom which compels women to give the control of their 
 maternal functions over to anybody. It should be theirs to 
 determine when and in what circumstances the greatest of all 
 constructive processes, the formation of an immortal soul, 
 should be begun. It is a fearful responsibility with which 
 women are entrusted by nature, and the very last thing that 
 they should be compelled to do is to perform the office of 
 that responsibility against their will, under improper con- 
 ditions, or by disgusting means." We read in many writings, 
 women's especially, of the present revolt against sex obliga- 
 tions by women. It is everywhere visible. " The extreme 
 popularity of such works as The Heavenly Twins, &c\&Jude the 
 Obscure, can be primarily attributed to the fact that these 
 writers do but give audible expression to the silent rebellion of 
 innumerable women. That woman should have the free 
 ordering of her life, that all questions as to the regulation 
 of her motherhood should be left in her own hands, seems on 
 the face of it no more than any capable, self-respecting citizen 
 might rightfully expect." (The Hon. Miss Alice Coralie Glyn, 
 in The Humanitarian for December, 1896.) The ladies who 
 now write these books on sex matters tell us of the many 
 letters which they receive from women in all parts of the world 
 thanking them most cordially for what they have written. In 
 every European country this revolt of all classes of women 
 against maternity is becoming apparent. Guyau writes : 
 " Meme chez les femmes du peuple la gestation et 1'accouche- 
 ment e"tant le plus dur travail est aussi celui qui est 1'object 
 de la plus vive repulsion et des protestations de toute sorte. 
 Je n'ai pas vu une femme du peuple qui ne se lamentat d'etre 
 enciente, qui ne preferat meme toute autre maladie a cette 
 maladie de neuf mois. 'Ah, nous ne faisons pas, nous recevons,'
 
 THE EVILS OF NEO-MALTHUSIANISM 99 
 
 me disait 1'une d'elles, 'sans cela.' Elle re'sumait ainsi la 
 situation physiologique et psychologique de la femme pauvre. 
 Celle qui n'ont pas eu d'enfants loin de s'en plaindre 
 s'estiment le plus souvent tres heureuses. En tout cas, elles 
 n'en desirent presque jamais plus d'un." Baudrillart writes : 
 "En Picardie et en Normandie on se moque de la femme 
 qui a beaucoup d'enfants. Ce qui sauve la fdconditd de la 
 femme dans les autres provinces, a defiant de la religion, 
 c'est son ignorance. Elle ne connait pas toujours Malthus. 
 Elle ne trouve qu'un remede au mal qu'elle redoute ; fuir son 
 mari. Telle femme d'ouvrier prefere etre battue que risquer 
 d'avoir un nouvel enfant ; mais, comme elle est plus faible, 
 elle recoit souvent presque a la fois les coups et 1'enfant. La 
 crainte de 1'enfant est plus frequemment qu'on ne croit 
 une cause de dissensions dans les manages pauvres, comme 
 d'ailleurs dans les menages riches. Du moment ou la femme 
 raisonne au lieu de se laisser guider par la foi, elle ne peut pas 
 manquer de sentir la tres grande disproportion qui existe pour 
 elle entre les joies de 1'amour et les souffrances de la mater- 
 nite". II faudrait qu'une nouvelle idee intervint ici, celle du 
 devoir, et non pas seulement d'une obligation religieuse, dont 
 le mari peut se railler, mais d'une obligation morale." 
 
 All this is a serious question, and is, judging from certain 
 widely-read novels of the day, coming rapidly to the front 
 as one of our most serious social questions. What will be the 
 end thereof? Is a wife ever morally justified in refusing to 
 beget another's life? Under these circumstances she is. If 
 hurt to herself or her child be probable ; if her husband be 
 suffering from venereal disease ; if she cannot have but still- 
 born children; if he be drunk, or a confirmed dipsomaniac; if 
 he be insane ; if he be unfaithful. That book, Der Kampf 
 der Geschtecter, eine Studie aus dem Leben und fur das Leben, 
 may be read with profit in this connection. That there are 
 cases innumerable in which wives need protection from their 
 husbands, there can be no doubt whatever, and the time seems 
 approaching when women will justly demand and obtain such 
 protection. When an attempt was made to render the sale of 
 Mrs. Besant's work on Population in Australia illegal, Mr. 
 Justice Windmeyer refused to condemn it, and made some 
 remarks upon the disastrous effects which the exercise of 
 unjust though legal marital rights can have upon an un- 
 fortunate wife and society in general. He commented upon
 
 ioo NEO-MALTHUSIANISM 
 
 the case of a woman, married to a drunken husband, steadily 
 ruining his constitution, ruining his family, bringing children 
 into the world to be inevitably depraved like himself, who is 
 obliged, although loathing it, to submit to her husband. This 
 is, of couse, an injustice to the wife, and needs amendment. 
 But where such evil surroundings are absent, and where moral 
 conditions to lawful sexual intercourse prevail, it is difficult to 
 see why they should not be exercised. In The Woman Who 
 Did, Grant Allen says : " Every good woman is by nature a 
 mother, and finds best in maternity her social and moral salva- 
 tion. She shall be saved by the child-bearing. Herminia was 
 far removed indeed from that blatant and decadent sect of 
 ' advanced women ' who talk as though motherhood were a 
 disgrace and a burden, instead of being, as it is, the full realiza- 
 tion of woman's faculties, the natural outlet for woman's wealth 
 of emotion. She knew that to be a mother is the best 
 privilege of her sex, a privilege of which unholy, man-made 
 institutions now conspire to deprive half the finest and 
 noblest women in our civilized communities." 
 
 Marriage must ever mean to a woman that she is expected 
 to bear her husband children ; if she accepts an offer of 
 marriage it ought surely to imply that she gives her consent to 
 fulfil that condition which has hitherto been annexed to it, and 
 which every man, as long as his conduct is irreproachable, has 
 a right to expect. It is impossible for human nature, the wit 
 of man, or morality, to discover any other solution of the 
 present revolt of women, than for those who would be likely to 
 feel the duties of maternity irksome to refrain from marriage. 
 If they consent to marry they give their acquiescence to 
 perform their part of the contract. 
 
 Lady Henry Somerset deals with the question in The Arena 
 for March, 1895, under an article termed "The Welcome 
 Child." In it she enlarges upon the disadvantages of an 
 unwelcome child, and that the millennium will only set in when 
 every child is welcome. By a child's being welcome, she 
 means of course only welcome to the mother; the father's 
 wishes on the subject are not to be considered as of any 
 account. She says: "Let us remember the number of 
 children that are at this moment awakening into this world 
 whose mothers greet them with a sigh, and hold out their 
 arms to take them with a sob instead of a kiss, wishing that 
 the little baby face turned up to theirs had never seen
 
 THE EVILS OF NEO-MALTHUSIANISM 101 
 
 the light; yet they crowd in, these little unwelcome strangers, 
 upon the weary workers of the world ; the women who bend 
 over their tasks until they lie down under the great agony of 
 maternity, and know that when it is over, weak and wan, they 
 must take up their labour again, with another mouth to feed, 
 and less strength to gain the wherewithal. Through those 
 dreary months before the final tragedy, that child has been 
 environed with the consciousness that it was not wanted; 
 gloomy anticipation has robbed the little one of joy and hope, 
 and so once more a being comes into existence with a life 
 blighted, a nature narrowed and cramped, affections chilled, 
 before it has seen the sun in the heavens or drawn the breath 
 of life. And this happens not only in the garret and cellar, 
 but in homes of opulence and ease. The unwritten tragedy 
 of woman's life is there." 
 
 This is picturesque though sorrowful writing, and not fair 
 argument. If Lady Henry Somerset could only be brought 
 to see that a child can only be unwelcome as long as man 
 continues to make, in his folly and selfishness, the conditions 
 of life adverse and unjust, and that it is a God-given instinct 
 in a woman to be a mother, and that human life is a divine 
 gift, it would be better for her and those she attempts to 
 teach. Doubtless she has no intention to do so, but her 
 inferences here tend directly to the practice of Neo-Mal- 
 thusianism. It would be of more advantage to herself and all 
 concerned if she would appeal to the rich for greater simplicity 
 of life, more Christian charity to the poor, and strive to 
 inaugurate a more equitable distribution of wealth than now 
 prevails. Then there would be no unwelcome children, then 
 no mother would sigh and sob when she gazed on her new- 
 born child. Lady Henry Somerset, like many others, attempts 
 to deal with results instead of causes. She should learn that 
 it is in consequence of landlords and capitalists getting more 
 than their just share of the general production of the nation 
 that " mothers wish that the little baby faces turned up to 
 theirs had never seen the light," and that the vice about which 
 she speaks to the country would die out if all impedi- 
 ments to proper marriage were removed. If she tried to do 
 this she would be doing better work for her poor suffering 
 sisters than she does now. The evils which are now shattering 
 morality and society do not necessarily come into force ; they 
 always arise from the injustice of human laws and institutions.
 
 102 NEO-MALTHUSIANISM 
 
 She describes, in her article, a condition of things which 
 doubtless exists in far too large a number of families now, but 
 she does not attempt to point out either the causes or the 
 remedies ; all she remarks is that children are unwelcome, 
 owing to an untoward condition of economics. In this she is 
 merely a disciple of Malthus. 
 
 But many of those women who hold advanced views on 
 feminine matters do not agree with this doctrine of wives 
 refusing to bear children. Virginie Demont-Breton, the great 
 French painter, says : " Maternity is the most beautiful, the 
 healthiest glory of woman ; it is a love dream in palpable 
 form, and comes smilingly to demand our tenderness and our 
 kisses ; it is the inexhaustible source whence feminine art 
 draws its purest inspirations." 
 
 Sarah Grand says : " While being fully in favour of women 
 entering the professions, speaking on public platforms, and 
 taking their part in the movements of the time, I think they 
 should always consider their homes and families first of all. 
 There is no more delicate or beautiful work than training 
 and developing the minds of little children, and I have no 
 respect for women who do not feel this to be an important 
 work. The influence of a mother is paramount, and I do 
 not think that a woman can be better engaged than in 
 her own nursery." 
 
 These are the remarks of a wise woman, and it would be 
 well if they were taken to heart by many of her sex. 
 
 This matter of the revolt against maternity is deserving of 
 very serious consideration, whether carried out by Neo- 
 Malthusianism or as a simple refusal to bear children, for this 
 has always hitherto been considered to be the moral duty of a 
 wife. Formerly it was considered that men were much more 
 selfish than women, but, judging from the signs of the times, 
 women are gaining upon them fast. The virtue of self- 
 sacrifice for others has come to be looked upon as mere 
 foolishness. Faith and religion are fast losing their hold, life 
 is considered to be but an opportunity for hedonism, an end 
 in itself; the consequence is that women are fast repudiating 
 the self-sacrifice required for the birth of children. But Sir J. 
 Browne writes: "The triumph of motherhood represents 
 the immolation of the individual for the collective advantage. 
 Throughout the whole animal kingdom, from the mesozoa, 
 where the female dies in giving birth to her ova, upwards, we
 
 THE EVILS OF NEO-MALTHUSIANISM 103 
 
 have illustrations of the sacrificial nature of the reproductive 
 process." 
 
 The whole matter has been admirably treated by Professor 
 Mivart in The Humanitarian for October, 1896. He deals 
 with it, as might be expected, in a masterly manner. He says 
 it has a special bearing on the well-being of society, since it 
 may result in the extinction of some choice specimens of our 
 race. This remark can be equally applied to Neo-Malthusianism, 
 and I have touched upon it before. He declares, which will 
 be very unwelcome reading to those ladies who repudiate 
 maternity, that the natural and normal end of marriage is the 
 production of children, and he finishes his remarks with a 
 direct statement, which must find a place in my argument. 
 
 " Though the full enjoyment of conjugal delights is utterly 
 devoid of the merest shadow of blame, still there is a higher 
 ideal for those who would attain a stage of development most 
 remote from mere animality; it is scrupulously to fulfil the 
 duties of the faithful spouse and tender mother, as purely and 
 exclusively from a will and intention to be as lovingly faith- 
 ful to duty as may be possible. But unless the husband 
 and wife have mutually agreed from the first to live together 
 in absolute chastity, it is evident that the main end of marriage 
 renders submission to intimate conjugal relations an obvious 
 duty on the part of the woman. It is plainly, also, but justice 
 to the husband, who otherwise may incur too serious a dis- 
 advantage. By submission, then, the wife yields to the 
 injunctions of reason and justice, and conforms to the 
 moral law. If such submission is distasteful, her compliance 
 acquires increased merit of self-sacrifice to duty. She sub- 
 ordinates feeling to the intellectual perception of right, and 
 so obeys the dictates of the highest powers her being possesses. 
 In thus acting, her very feelings of reluctance may become a 
 source of merit, and she will so attain to a higher moral 
 elevation. How, then, by such acts, is degradation possible? 
 It is by the opposite course, by the subordination of reason to 
 sentiment, and of plain duty to mere feeling, that through the 
 desire to escape an imaginary and unreal inferiority, there 
 may be brought about grave social mischief, and, what indeed 
 has in some instances already occurred, namely, a real and 
 most disastrous degradation of woman." He also adds, " that 
 any race amidst whom the instinct of reproduction has fallen 
 into abeyance must be far on the high road to extinction."
 
 104 NEO-MALTHUSIANISM 
 
 The remark which the Professor makes upon the serious 
 disadvantage thrown upon the husband, by the refusal of the 
 wife to undergo conjugal relations, is well timed. Does the 
 thought ever strike such women that they are likely thereby 
 to drive their husbands into vice, and would therefore be 
 the direct causes of their husbands' sin ? This is a supremely 
 important aspect of the matter, which it would be most 
 desirable for women who advance these doctrines to consider. 
 They should remember that marriage has been ordained as a 
 remedy against vice, but their course of conduct would render 
 it useless for the very purpose for which it was ordained. 
 In fact, the tables would be turned, and they would be the 
 direct means of degrading their husbands. 
 
 The end of the nineteeth century will prove the parting of 
 many ways. Unless we all hold fast to the sacred ties and 
 duties of marriage and family life, society in the near future 
 will certainly and surely be wrecked. If all these hindrances 
 to marriage continue to become more powerful; if men, 
 seeing women refuse to bear children, shrink back from 
 marriage, and give themselves over to prostitution, we may 
 well wonder what the future of civilization will be. We are 
 living in a time when everything is being questioned. What 
 have hitherto been accepted as moral truths, about whose 
 certainty there was not a possibility of doubt, are now attacked 
 and jeered at even by boys and girls in their teens. Of course 
 the consequence is that faith and morality are disappearing ; 
 there is no longer any honesty, any morality, any chivalry. 
 The struggle for life has become so keen that honest and 
 moral dealings are rapidly becoming unknown quantities.
 
 NEO-MALTHUSIANISM WITH REGARD TO 
 POPULATION 
 
 WE shall commence the consideration of this part of our 
 subject with that axiom of Political Science kept con- 
 tinually in our remembrance that "Population is strength." 
 This must surely be admitted by the Neo-Malthusian to be a 
 positive truth. History and the experience of the world have 
 proved it to be so over and over again. I have touched 
 lightly upon this point in previous pages, when we were 
 dealing with Malthus, but we shall enter into it more fully 
 later on in the course of this argument. I am quite ready 
 to admit that a weakened, disordered, and degenerate popu- 
 lation cannot be a source of strength, but rather the contrary. 
 Owing to a disastrous combination of hostile forces, we seem 
 to be approaching a condition of things, with regard to the 
 population of England, which will soon need the utmost 
 energy of statesmen and philanthropists to cope with. The 
 fittest type to live and work is declining, and herds of the 
 unfit, with bolstered-up lives, are rising up to take its place. 
 The man of the country, healthy and strong, is being rapidly 
 transformed into the man of the town, diseased and weak. 
 The countryside is sacrificing its most stalwart sons and 
 daughters to the Molochs of the factory and the town, with 
 the inevitable result that the health of the nation is deteri- 
 orating. From every quarter pour in upon our ears harrowing 
 tales of the misery of the poor in our large towns and cities. 
 Various causes contribute to create this misery, the chief 
 of which are unjust distribution of wealth, the multiplication 
 of the unfit, and over-population. 
 
 With regard to the first, there can be no doubt whatever 
 but that increase of population also means increase of wealth. 
 "The countries of densest populations are always those of 
 the greatest wealth." What we are suffering from now in 
 
 105
 
 106 NEO-MALTHUSIANISM 
 
 these respects is caused by a reckless and indiscreet increase 
 of population, which, being unable to obtain a due share of 
 the wealth it produces, lacks proper food, and all that tends to 
 make life satisfactory. Hence great disorder among all classes, 
 and continual strikes between capital and labour. Capital 
 must remember that it is useless without labour, and labour 
 must also recollect that it is useless and unprofitable without 
 capital. When the interests of the two become combined, 
 and the profits arising from the union of both are more 
 equally divided, the mystery will be solved; and in the 
 principle of profit-sharing we may discover one step towards 
 the solution. 
 
 I must not enter too deeply into the reasons why wealth 
 has a tendency to increase faster than population. It 
 will be sufficient for the purposes of this book merely to 
 state the fact, giving some evidence to corroborate this 
 statement. 
 
 It is beyond all doubt that it does so. The fault lies in the 
 fact that the majority of producers, population in the full 
 sense of the word, do not receive their proper share, and 
 so we have reached a condition of things where wealth is 
 increasing on the one side, and poverty on the other. 
 
 "Although there is not a greater population than that 
 required by the wealth which is being accumulated, there is, 
 however, a very bad distribution of work, which weighs heavily 
 upon the one class while keeping the other unoccupied. In 
 this way one part of the population performs the work which 
 all should do, and capitalism avails itself of the industrial 
 reserve, that is of the great body of the unemployed, to 
 compel those who work to accept a slender salary." (Nitti.) 
 Hence has arisen most, if not all, of our present-day troubles. 
 Men are obliged to take what wages are grudgingly doled 
 out or starve. Formerly it was possible for a small trader 
 to earn a competence ; now it is impossible, for all trade 
 is passing from individual power of acquisition into that of 
 large syndicates and companies. Even so long ago as the 
 year 1880, Cardinal Manning wrote: "In no country, and in 
 no age, has the world ever yet seen such commercial activity 
 and prosperity as that of England. But in the midst of im- 
 measurable wealth is a want which the poorest country of 
 Europe scarcely knows. The inequalities of our social state, 
 the chasms which separate classes, and the abrupt and harsh
 
 WITH REGARD TO POPULATION 107 
 
 contrasts of soft and suffering lots, unless they be redressed by 
 humility and charity, sympathy and self-denial, are dangerous 
 to society and to our spiritual welfare." 
 
 I hope to deal with the matter of the multiplication of the 
 unfit under marriage. Let us deal here with the increase of 
 wealth as regards population and distribution. The estimates 
 of public wealth, by the most experienced economists, show 
 that the capital of the United Kingdom has doubled in forty 
 years : 
 
 ESTIMATES. WEALTH OF THE 
 
 UNITED KINGDOM. 
 
 1800. Beck and Pulteney . . 1,800,000,000 
 
 1840. Porter . ... 4,000,000,000 
 
 1860. Levi . ... 6,000,000,000 
 
 1877. Giffen . ... 8,840,000,000 
 
 (Mulhall.) 
 
 THE GROWTH OF POPULATION AND WEALTH OF THE 
 UNITED KINGDOM is AS FOLLOWS. 
 
 POPULATION NATIONAL WEALTH PROPORTION TO 
 
 YEAR. IN MILLIONS. IN MILLIONS. EACH INDIVIDUAL. 
 
 1600 . . 4^ ... lOO ... 22 
 
 1887 . . 37 ... 10,000 ... 270 
 
 PROPORTION BETWEEN WEALTH AND POPULATION IN 
 FRANCE. 
 
 POPULATION NATIONAL WEALTH PROPORTION TO 
 YEAR. IN MILLIONS. IN MILLIONS. EACH INDIVIDUAL. 
 
 1789 - -26 ... l,520 ... 58 
 1885 . . 3 8 8,560 ... 225 
 
 PROPORTION BETWEEN WEALTH AND POPULATION OF THE 
 UNITED STATES. 
 
 AVERAGE DOLLARS 
 YEAR. POPULATION. PER HEAD. 
 
 1790 . . . 3,929,827 ... 187.00 
 1800 . . . 5,305,937 ... 202.13 
 l8lO . . . 7,239,814 ... 207.20 
 
 1820 . . . 9,638,191 ... '95-OO 
 
 1830 . . . 12,866,020 ... 2O6.OO 
 
 1840 . . . 17,069,453 ... 220.00 
 
 1850 . . . 23,191,876 ... 3 7-67 
 
 i860 . . . 3I,5OO,OOO ... 510.00 
 
 1870 . . . 38,558,000 ... 776.96 
 
 I880 ... ... 870.00 
 
 1890 . . . 62,622,250 ... looo.oo
 
 io8 NEO-MALTHUSIANISM 
 
 The total expenditure of the United Kingdom in the year 
 1875 was under eighty millions, in the year 1895 it amounted 
 to one hundred millions. Over and over again it has been 
 amply and sufficiently proved that increase of population has 
 always been followed by increase of trade. See Giffen's 
 Growth of Capital, and "The Statement of the Malthusian 
 Principle" in Macmillaris Magazine for December, 1883. In 
 the year 1801 the exports and imports per head of the popu- 
 lation of the United Kingdom amounted to ^7 ros., in 1895 
 to ;i8. In 1 80 1 British imports and exports amounted in 
 value to ^212,000,000, in 1896 to ^681,729,544. The 
 following figures show the imports and exports of the United 
 Kingdom, and their value per head, for forty years : 
 
 IMPORTS. 
 
 PER HEAD. 
 YEAR. VALUE IN MILLIONS. s. d. 
 
 1854 . . . 152 ... 5 10 2 
 1895 4i7 10 19 7 
 
 EXPORTS. 
 
 1854 . . 97 ... 3 10 2 
 
 1895 . . 286 ... 6 2 ii 
 
 In the year 1801 the total tonnage of the British Mercantile 
 Marine amounted to 2,812,000, in 1895 to 12,969,951. Pro- 
 fessor Symes stated at the Manchester Church Congress of 
 1888 that the tendency in England has always been for wealth 
 to increase much more rapidly than population. Wealth had 
 quadrupled, but population had only doubled. He added that 
 if landlords and employers of labour got more than their fair 
 share, which is obviously the case, the rate of wages would 
 inevitably fall, and this we see taking place everywhere. Nitti 
 goes into the statistics of the matter, and shows us that in 
 France wealth far exceeds the population, yet there is still in 
 that country the most squalid poverty, and just as many 
 unemployed as here. Poverty and misery, then, it may with 
 safety be said, are not always the results of an excess of popu- 
 lation, but of a vitiated system of distribution of wealth. In 
 his great work, Principles of Economics, Marshall goes into this 
 question of the mutual increase of wealth and population, and 
 shows us how numbers and wealth may increase with equal 
 profit to both, and how dangerous any decrease would be. 
 The privation and poverty we see around us now are not
 
 WITH REGARD TO POPULATION 109 
 
 wholly caused by an excess of population they are the 
 inevitable consequences of an unrighteous and unjust economic 
 system which has silently grown up, and been borne with- 
 out sufficient protest far too long. " Hitherto humanity has 
 always acted in ignorance of its proper laws, and hence 
 unconsciously with regard to production, distribution, and 
 population. In the new society which is to be it will go 
 forward with full consciousness of those laws and rules." 
 (Bebel.) Various remedies have been and are being pro- 
 pounded to bring about a more satisfactory condition of 
 things than, alas ! now exists some of them very wild and 
 impracticable. All the best suggestions which have been put 
 forward by those most competent to offer an opinion upon the 
 matter tend towards the direction of checking the accumu- 
 lation of wealth by the individual, who, generally speaking, 
 acts regardless of the wants and miseries of others. We ought 
 to do everything in our power to reduce the inequalities of 
 wealth; this is the true goal for every worker in the social 
 field to have in view. To remove everything which would 
 tend to hinder increase of production, especially from the land; 
 to carefully promote a wise increase of a proper population ; 
 to do all in our utmost power to increase wealth, and then see 
 that it is fairly distributed amongst all those who have con- 
 tributed their share towards its production ; that will be the 
 ideal state. When will it come ? When will that blessed time 
 arrive when men, women, and children, instead of cutting 
 each other's throats to still further enrich the wealthy, will be 
 working together for themselves, and for everybody who will 
 stand side by side with them in the community which is to be? 
 The Neo-Malthusians put forward their crude theories to meet 
 the present difficulties, and short-sighted people eagerly adopt 
 them, sincerely believing that they will prove a solution and 
 a short cut to happiness. Uneducated people do not stay to 
 inquire what Political Economy has to say upon the points at 
 issue. We ought not to work towards diminishing a properly 
 regulated population ; we should endeavour to remove every 
 obstacle which stands in the way of the population obtaining 
 its fair share of the general production. We ought to do our 
 utmost to increase wealth, and distribute it justly amongst the 
 largest number ; this is what the Bradlaugh school could not 
 be got to see or understand. The tendency nowadays in 
 dealing with the accumulation of wealth is to extinguish the
 
 no NEO-MALTHUSiANISM 
 
 single capitalist, and to form large syndicates, corporations, 
 and companies, to acquire and hold it in trust for others. 
 These companies cannot, it is alleged, have any consciences, 
 so far as justice to others is concerned, as what they hold is 
 given them to trade with, and pay good dividends to those who 
 have entrusted capital to them. It is true that vast numbers 
 of poor working people have all their possessions in these 
 companies possessions which would be unproductive unless 
 they had such things to place them in. Quite so, but all this 
 does not relieve the investor from exercising that most excellent 
 gift of charity out of the dividends which he receives. Besides, 
 a large number of these investors are drones and idlers, who 
 stand all the day idle, and produce nothing for the advantage 
 of the common weal. They live in luxury on the toil and 
 sweat of others. The burthen of doing some good to his 
 fellow-creatures rests on the conscience of each individual, and 
 he is bound to make an adequate return to those who by their 
 labour have contributed to his wealth. In too many cases by 
 far nothing of this is done. For instance, a very large number 
 of Christian people, living in great luxury in England, derive 
 the money which enables them to do this from investments in 
 our colonies. But what do they give to the colonies in return ? 
 What do they expend in providing our colonists with the 
 spiritual privileges which they are so sorely in need of, and 
 which the investors in Colonial Securities have in such lavish 
 profusion at their own doors at home ? In far too many cases 
 nothing at all. 
 
 The personal responsibility of wealth is now being brought 
 home to the minds of the English people much more than it 
 has ever been before, and there is in this great hope for the 
 future. The Church is pressing home to each individual 
 conscience that the possession of wealth is a great responsi- 
 bility and trust, and if a future life is believed in, so surely an 
 account will have to be rendered of the manner in which it 
 has been administered here. Besides, all laws dealing with the 
 personal possession of property have undergone great modifi- 
 cations of late years ; it is a mere impertinence to say that a 
 man can do what he likes with his own; so far as wealth 
 is concerned he cannot legally do anything which interferes 
 with his neighbour's comfort or interests. Some ardent re- 
 formers urge the adoption of a graduated taxation of the 
 well-to-do by means of a progressive income-tax ; they say
 
 WITH REGARD TO POPULATION in 
 
 it would be fair to all, both rich and poor, for all would 
 contribute their just quota to whatever alleviation of misery 
 the proceeds might be apportioned. " A progressive income- 
 tax might possibly meet the case. This would throw a 
 much larger burden of the taxes upon the wealthy than 
 they have hitherto borne." (Minton.) The principle of a 
 progressive taxation has been admitted long ago. What are 
 Poor, School Board, Sanitary, Public Library Acts but the 
 exercise of this principle? The poor, no doubt, are enor- 
 mously benefited in many ways by them. We have made 
 great strides. Since the principle was admitted, the ball 
 has been set rolling; where it will be necessary to stop, the 
 future alone will tell. Will it be expanded to include hospitals 
 and all education, both for rich and poor ? Certainly the con- 
 dition of the poor is vastly different now to what it was in 
 comparatively recent years, and this most welcome condition 
 has been arrived at by improvement in social legislation. All 
 Acts of the legislature now dealing with the condition of 
 the poorer classes are socialistic, whether carried by Tory 
 or Liberal majorities. This is fortunate, for no other is 
 tolerable ; and if it was not so, another revolution, worse than 
 the French one, would long ago have taken place. Wisely 
 the English nation disarms the revolution by granting wise and 
 salutary reforms in time. Many condemn the idea of a pro- 
 gressive income-tax, alleging that it would prove a preventative 
 to anybody working to increase his personal wealth, as he 
 would naturally think that the more he acquired the more he 
 would have to pay in taxation. One can only say in answer 
 to this, that the present system of taxing income does not 
 altogether prevent people from being possessed with the 
 craving to become rich. The greatest of all boons, and 
 alleviation to our present troubles, would be a heavy tax on 
 those who voluntarily limited the number of their children ; 
 in other words, the removal of taxation from those who had 
 large families to those who had few children or none, by their 
 own desire. No tax could be fairer than this; no tax more 
 just; no tax better calculated to bring in large sums to the 
 revenue ; no tax more popular, for all would at once recognize 
 its justice ; no tax could prove of more immense value to the 
 State, for it would cause the best types to pause and consider 
 what they would have to pay before they gave themselves up 
 to extinction. Women who, from physical causes, might be
 
 1 1 2 NEO-MALTHUSIANISM 
 
 unable to bear children could be protected by a certificate, as 
 unfit vaccination cases are now. French statesmen and learned 
 societies are advocating the imposition of such a tax at 
 once in France; and when the depopulation of England 
 becomes as important a question as that of France is now, it 
 will certainly have to be imposed here also. That it is a mere 
 question of time in France there is not the slightest doubt 
 whatsoever, and it will equally be the case in England. 
 
 Some believe that a great alleviation to our present distress 
 would be found in altering our present custom of disposing of 
 wealth by will. One of the greatest boons that could be 
 conferred upon the world would be to render the making of a 
 will illegal. All property, no matter whether real or personal, 
 land or coins, should be equally divided at the death of the 
 owner amongst the nearest relatives. What heart-burnings, 
 what selfishness, what jealousies, so often exhibited by poor 
 human nature beside death-beds, would be prevented if the 
 making of a will was rendered illegal. Can anything be more 
 unjust than that the widow and children, who had borne 
 perhaps for years most cruel sufferings from the husband and 
 father, should be left penniless by him ? " If, despairing of 
 justice, the faithful wife endures patiently through life for the 
 sake of her children's future, the English law permits an 
 unfaithful husband and father at death to will away every 
 penny of his property from his wife and children to a charity, 
 a stranger, or a mistress." Can any injustice be more out- 
 rageous, more inhuman, than this? All these questions 
 relating to women's rights, divorce, and equal justice to both 
 sexes, can only be settled when women, married and single, 
 have the franchise. What more monstrous absurdity and 
 injustice can there be than that degraded, vicious, drunken 
 men should have voices in the legislation of England, while 
 all our cultured, sensible women are silenced, and have no 
 power to remove the wrongs they suffer from? Is not the 
 principle of equal division amongst widow and children right 
 and just, and if no widow or children, amongst near relatives ? 
 Why should the dead hand have the right to order directions 
 with regard to the use of wealth, which time and circumstances 
 are continually changing. " There is no foundation in nature 
 or in natural law why the son should have the right to exclude 
 his fellow-creatures from a determinate spot of land because 
 ^is father had done so, before him, or why the occupier of a.
 
 WITH REGARD TO POPULATION 113 
 
 particular field or of a jewel, when lying on his death-bed, and 
 no longer able to maintain possession, should be able to tell the 
 rest of the world which of them should enjoy it after him." 
 (Blackstone.) What numbers of persons are now suffering 
 from the effects of the dead hands who, a hundred years since, 
 ordered that their money should be only invested in land. If 
 such proceedings were not disastrous in their present effects 
 they would be ludicrous. 
 
 The further we go back we always find that righteous 
 principle, that property should be equally divided amongst 
 the children, fully declared and held. The old Anglo-Saxon 
 law of gavelkind, still in use in parts of Kent, splendidly 
 upheld this doctrine of equal inheritance by sons and 
 daughters. It surely is a mystery, beyond righteous under- 
 standing, why an eldest son should inherit the bulk of the 
 property and his brothers and sisters comparatively nothing; 
 again, why should the brother, who is better qualified to earn 
 money than the sister, be better provided for than she who 
 is the weaker vessel ? 
 
 That all such injustice will pass away as soon as Christian 
 ethics come to be practised more than they are now, there 
 cannot be the least doubt. By equal division of property 
 at death, amongst the children or near relatives, wealth 
 would become more and more subdivided with more justice 
 to all. See " The Ethics of Wills," Economic Reviciv, April, 
 1893. With regard to the equal division of land at the 
 owner's death, as in France, see Welfare of the Millions, 
 and Land Nationalization, The evil results of the law of 
 entail in England will be noticed under the Land question. 
 
 Another suggestion made to deal with our present condition 
 is that the production and sale of food should not be left 
 to private interests and public competition. In a matter so 
 closely connected with the health of the nation, it would 
 seem better that the necessaries of life should be provided 
 merely at the cost of their production and sale by the State, 
 than by unscrupulous private individuals, who have only their 
 own interests to serve. This principle has been admitted 
 in other similar directions. We see certain methods of 
 social intercourse as letters and telegrams, of less necessity 
 than food, removed from public competition and handled 
 by the State, with marvellously beneficial results to all 
 concerned. Surely the same might, with equal benefit, be
 
 1 14 NEO-MALTHUSIANISM 
 
 effected as regards the production and sale of necessary food. 
 When we think of the miserable stuff which goes by the 
 name of food that the poor have to consume, unable to 
 get anything better, in consequence of the profit to the 
 middle-man, we might well strive to see the whole matter 
 of the supply of food undertaken by the State. I do not 
 see why the rich should object to this, as they would benefit 
 just as much as the poor. 
 
 There is a great unfairness exhibited in these things at the 
 present day. Why should those who are idle, who only 
 live for luxury, have the best food, which they do not need, 
 while the man who works, who needs the best and most 
 nourishing kind, cannot obtain it? "The great inequality 
 of riches which on the one hand compels the masses of 
 the people to live poorly, on the other hand encourages 
 unproductive consumption and raises the standard of food 
 of the wealthier classes. It has brought about that the upper 
 classes in every civilized country eat more than is necessary, 
 and even beyond what their constitution can bear without 
 harm." What an inversion of justice and right it all is that 
 those who need the best and most nourishing foods should 
 be unable to procure them, while those who need them 
 not have them in abundance? Can such an unjust condition 
 of things last much longer? Lepetit says that our present 
 miserable economic system prepares exquisite but hurtful 
 delicacies for the rich. Yet it cannot provide the poor man 
 with a bed to lie upon. Impoverished and weak from 
 insufficient food, he has to go forth morning after morning 
 to exhausting toil. See also what Richard Jefferies says on 
 this point in Toilers of the Field, 
 
 If it be said that the tendency of to-day to municipalize 
 all our institutions, to nationalize our land, and to place 
 the sale of food in the hands of the State, would be a 
 removal of all prudential checks to marriage, I affirm, 
 without the least hesitation, that in an ideal state there 
 should be no checks to marriage whatever, except physical 
 ones ; certainly none on the economic side. Marriage is a 
 God-given gift to man, to serve as a preventative against vice, 
 and therefore it never can be wrong to exercise it, except 
 when sins of former generations have affected the present. 
 There are signs that the present-day competition, and all 
 its attendant evils, must come to an end from its own
 
 WITH REGARD TO POPULATION 115 
 
 inherent evils. Competition is creating monopolies, the 
 richer companies are buying up and absorbing all competitors 
 in their trades, with the obvious result of evil to the consumer. 
 Surely we can say with justice, that it would be better for 
 the State to have a monoply for the benefit of all, than 
 that a company should have it for the sake of a few. Look- 
 ing at this point from every direction, we can readily see 
 its justice and utility. Land, railways, food, every market 
 and department of human industry how soon will the time 
 come when all these will be administered for the public good 
 and not for private greed and gain ? When such comes 
 to pass, there need be no fear that a natural growth of popula- 
 tion would ever suffer. Certainly there would be no necessity 
 for the practice of Neo-Malthusianism. 
 
 The Christian Social Union has been founded to teach 
 the spirit of Christian self-sacrifice and charity, and bring them 
 more generally into usual practice towards the poor than 
 has hitherto been the case. This is a grand work, the noblest 
 for the follower of Christ to adopt. In carrying them out he 
 approaches more nearly to the life of Him who was surely "an 
 example of godly life." We may be quite sure that all the 
 troubles and difficulties which threaten to assail us, with 
 regard to all the complex problems of population and modern 
 life, can only have their solution in Christ. It is impossible 
 to discern any other ray of hope from anywhere by anything 
 else. When the Christian comes face to face with various 
 difficulties in human life which seem to mortal men wholly 
 insurmountable, and to defy human solution, he must, if 
 his faith be worth anything, turn to Him, His life and 
 teaching, whom he believes to be God incarnate, and there 
 find solutions for all the difficulties which perplex mankind. 
 By more earnestly teaching that most excellent gift of charity, 
 the Church can effect a great deal towards mitigating our 
 present great and terrible amount of human suffering. Her 
 manifest duty is to teach all men that they are brothers, 
 and when one suffers the whole body does so likewise. It 
 is her plain duty to uphold the rules of Christian morality; 
 if she does not, other societies, which mock at Christianity, 
 will have their say and way, and then a cataclysm will ensue. 
 The Church must guide, must teach, must reprove, no matter 
 in what high places ; if she does not, she ceases to be Christ 
 on earth. The duties of self-sacrifice and alms-giving are
 
 ii6 NEO-MALTHUSIANISM 
 
 those means most in accordance with the mind of Christ 
 for lessening human misery. 
 
 There is just a small matter in connection with the 
 Church's work on alms-giving which may be mentioned 
 here, for it needs much reform. There is no doubt that 
 in the early days of the Church, the alms collected in the 
 Churches were expended upon the sick and poor ; but this 
 most excellent Christian principle has, alas, in these degenerate 
 days, like many other things in the Church, become wantonly 
 abused. We see immense sums of money collected in our 
 churches, but the bulk of it is expended upon un- 
 necessary spiritual luxuries, such as music, flowers, etc., 
 which was certainly not the case in earlier and purer times. 
 Some of the published balance-sheets of London West 
 End churches show a thousand a year spent on such-like 
 luxuries, and about twenty or thirty on the sick and poor. 
 This is altogether contrary to the primitive custom of expending 
 alms collected in churches. 
 
 In that last dread scene so vividly described for our warning 
 in the New Testament, the reward was in accordance with what 
 each one had done to lessen the sufferings of his fellow-passen- 
 gers in the journey of life. There is a vast difference between 
 the voluntary act of self-sacrifice exercised in the Christian 
 spirit of alms-giving and that of the present one of compulsory 
 poor-rates. The Christian principle of voluntary alms-giving 
 was greatly limited in England at the time of the suppression 
 of the monasteries ; it was abused then, no doubt, but the 
 principle, a voluntary, not a compulsory one, was correct. 
 Compulsion, which is most in vogue now, has almost killed 
 it. People say, why should I give to the poor, when I already 
 contribute large sums to the poor-rate? The principle of the 
 compulsory poor-rate was inaugurated in Elizabeth's reign. 
 Some legislation had to be taken in hand to deal with the 
 swarms of indigent poor who then covered the land, since 
 the monasteries, their previous support, had been annihilated 
 under the infamous Henry. His favourites were not of the 
 class which is inclined to exercise Christian charity. They 
 glutted themselves with the lands and revenues of the spoiled, 
 and were far too much occupied in feathering their own 
 nests to bestow even a passing thought upon the suffering 
 poor, whom their robberies had cast out upon a cruel and 
 heartless world. " Whilst the Church held its possessions
 
 WITH REGARD TO POPULATION 117 
 
 and spread its convents and monasteries over the land, the 
 workhouse was not required. One quarter of the tithe then 
 received was devoted to the aid of the aged and poor. No 
 traveller, however humble, was refused food and lodging. 
 The monks were the teachers as well as the preachers of 
 the country, and in this capacity rendered an inestimable 
 service to English agriculture no less than to English scholar- 
 ship. It has been truly said that whilst the Church held her 
 lands there was practically no absolute pauperism. Afterwards 
 poverty haunted alike the purlieus of the towns and the bye- 
 ways of the country. It was becoming a danger no less than a 
 disgrace, and, after repeated and unsuccessful endeavours to 
 check its spread, Elizabeth and her Government were at last 
 compelled to pass the Act of 1601. At the beginning of the 
 Tudor period pauperism was unknown, at its termination it 
 became a national institution." (Booth.) 
 
 At the end of Henry's reign, and during Edward's, the 
 condition of the poor had become piteous in the extreme. 
 The remedies adopted to cope with the state of things which 
 had been brought about were torture and mutilation. The 
 country became overrun with beggars. At the end of one of 
 her royal progresses, Elizabeth is said to have exclaimed, 
 "Pauper ubique jacet!" The principle of helping the poor 
 became in her reign compulsory ; none other, I suppose, was 
 possible then, and so it has continued to the present day ; still 
 it is a wrong one. Everybody condemns the existing system 
 and all it entails the enormous expenses, its mode of 
 operation, the huge barrack-like, ugly buildings, and their 
 inmates, idle, forbidden to do any productive work lest they 
 should interfere with the various trades outside. Good and 
 bad, deserving and undeserving, are all mixed up together. 
 
 But there are now indications that classification of the 
 unfortunate inmates of workhouses is being undertaken with 
 most successful results. The Whitechapel Guardians have 
 wisely divided their aged and infirm into two classes, and 
 provide recesses and compartments where the first-class may 
 form their own companionships or be alone. The value of 
 this boon to some of the respectable poor can hardly be 
 estimated. One of the great terrors of workhouse life to a 
 sensitive disposition is the total absence of all chance of 
 retirement. Day-time in the day-room, meal-time in the 
 dining-hall, at night in the dormitory, the man is surrounded by
 
 n8 NEO-MALTHUSIANISM 
 
 his fellow-paupers, forced to listen to their conversation ; there 
 is not a spot to which he can go and say, " Here I can be alone." 
 And to the aged man and woman taken away, possibly, from 
 some quiet cottage this is intolerable ; the prison cell would be 
 more acceptable. 
 
 At Southampton the Guardians have a comfortably furnished 
 room set apart for the best of the old women, which goes by 
 the name of the Drawing-room. 
 
 At Coventry, out of 350 or 400 inmates, some fifty are 
 classified off, living and sleeping apart, having every facility for 
 going out, and not wearing workhouse clothes. 
 
 At Sheffield the scheme is in full operation, and, although 
 the conditions for Classes I. and II. are most stringent, no less 
 than 140 out of 550 inmates fall into it. The fact that one 
 workhouse contains no less than 140 persons who can undergo 
 a severe scrutiny as to character, and are there through no 
 fault of their own, is a strong plea for a more indulgent treat- 
 ment of our aged poor. 
 
 Another union that has carried a similar scheme into effect, 
 and reports most favourably upon it, is Kingston-upon-Hull. 
 There the first-class consists of the aged, and those of any age 
 who are incapable of work, whose characters before and after 
 entering the house are good. There is no qualifying length of 
 residence fixed, but a preference is given to those who have 
 paid rates the longest time. For these comfortable rooms are 
 set apart, laid with linoleum, and sanitary paper upon the walls. 
 The tables are covered with cloths ; arm-chairs, mirrors and 
 pictures, cupboards, books, and flowers are provided. The 
 inmates may go in and out at any time, and receive visits from 
 their friends, and are allowed to sit up till nine o'clock. Their 
 clothing is not uniform ; the men wear suits of tweed or their 
 own clothes if good enough. The food is served with great 
 care. 
 
 It is very gratifying to observe that the Local Government 
 Board has sanctioned these improved arrangements. Another 
 great wrong in the Poor Law system is that clergy, who 
 happen to be Guardians of the Poor, declare one day in 
 church that it never should be lawful to put asunder those 
 whom by matrimony God had made one, yet in a few days or 
 weeks, perhaps, they are obliged to order the separation of a 
 child-bearing couple. The irony of the system is complete. 
 Long and bitter controversies go on amongst Guardians,
 
 stirring up additional strife, with regard to out-door and in-door 
 relief. The very class itself which it was intended to benefit 
 loathe the very name of the whole thing. Many a poor 
 creature says, "I do not fear death, but I fear the workhouse." 
 Instead of its being a help to the poor and distressed, it is 
 exactly the opposite ; some would rather die of starvation than 
 have anything to do with it. The fact is that the whole 
 administration of the Poor Law has broken down. It was 
 intended to be a deterrent to able-bodied men, causing them 
 to do their utmost to seek work before they applied for entrance 
 there as the last resource. Now, times have changed ; this class 
 does very well, or much better than it formerly did outside, 
 and the inmates of the workhouse have become the aged, the 
 helpless, the sick, yet they are treated with the utmost severity. 
 Nothing needs more reform than the administration of the 
 Poor Law. 
 
 It seems horrible that the poor old couple who have lived 
 and laboured in their native village all their lives long, who 
 have worked and toiled, long and hard, for the pecuniary 
 benefit of others rather than for their own, and brought up 
 children, too often with bitter self-denial, on scanty pittances, 
 should, in their old age, have nothing to look forward to but 
 the workhouse as their last home on earth, to separation 
 from relatives, and all that is dear to them in life ; surely the 
 bitterness of death is increased by all this unnecessary cruelty. 
 Anybody who has worked amongst the poor is only too 
 familiar with the intense dislike which they naturally show to 
 the present Poor Law system and all its detestable enormities. 
 Yet it is to this that the vast majority of the poor certainly 
 the agricultural poor only have to look to for their latter days. 
 The saying in Dorsetshire is : 
 
 " Dry bread, all work, and no pay, 
 Go to the Union, some day." 
 
 There has always been a golden age for opulence, but no age, 
 save a desolate one, for indigence. 
 
 " In the year 1888, out of 79,000 deaths which took place 
 in London, 10,170 took place in workhouses, 7,113 in public 
 hospitals, and 380 in public asylums, or more than one-fifth 
 of the whole number; one in four dependent upon public 
 charity. But this includes all classes of society ; if taking the 
 working classes alone it must be much higher." (Problems of
 
 120 
 
 NEO-MALTHUSIANISM 
 
 Poverty.} In the year 1894 twenty-four per cent, of the 
 deaths in London took place in public institutions. It is an 
 awful thought, affording terrible contemplation for the rich, 
 that thirty per cent, of those who produce the wealth for their 
 enjoyment die in the pauper lunatic asylum, the hospital, and 
 the workhouse. What an end to a life of toil? How can 
 such a state of injustice last? 
 
 In the year 1894 the number of deaths registered in public 
 institutions in England amounted to 65,496 ; in Ireland to 
 12,740; the Scotch registration returns do not apparently 
 give this information. The United Kingdom, notwithstanding 
 all the hatred which it evolves, spends more in proportion 
 upon its Poor Law system than any other European country. 
 Mulhall gives the expenditure in 1888. 
 
 United Kingdom 
 
 France . 
 
 Germany 
 
 Austria . 
 
 Italy 
 
 Holland . 
 
 Switzerland 
 
 
 
 10,700,000 
 
 1,500,000 
 
 4,600,000 
 
 400,000 
 
 1,900,000 
 
 510,000 
 
 1,050,000 
 
 On Lady-Day of the year 1895 the Poor-rate of England 
 and Wales reached the enormous sum total of 9,866,605. 
 On the ist of January, 1895, the number of paupers in 
 England was 777,213; on the ist of January, 1896, the 
 number was 780,288. In 1861 the amount levied for Poor- 
 rates was at the rate of 75. u|d. per head; in 1891 the 
 amount levied was at the rate of IDS. gfd. In 1861 the 
 officials employed received but .660,370; in 1891 this had 
 increased to .1,452,810. The total cost for these years, 
 ending Lady-Day, is as follows : 
 
 ENGLAND AND WALES. 
 
 Lady-Day (1891) 
 Do. (1892) 
 Do. (1893) 
 Do. (1894) 
 
 
 
 8,643,318 
 8,847,678 
 9.2i7,5!4 
 9,673,505 
 
 "On January ist, 1894, the number of paupers amounted to 
 821,921; the same on January ist, 1895, to 827,593." 
 (Whitaker). Notwithstanding the universal adoption of
 
 WITH REGARD TO POPULATION 
 
 121 
 
 Neo-Malthusianism, there is much more poverty in France 
 than in England. The following figures are taken from the 
 Annuaires Statistiques de la France, and prove it : 
 
 No. OF BUREAUX No. OF THOSE NOMBRE DK 
 
 DE BlBNFAISANCE. RELIEVED. SECOUKS ACCORDE. 
 
 l880 
 
 .. 14,071 ... 1,442,440 
 
 
 
 l88l 
 
 14,033 
 
 ,449,021 
 
 .. 
 
 1882 
 
 .. 14,287 ... 
 
 ,449,33 
 
 
 
 I88 3 
 
 .. 14,485 ... 
 
 ,405,552 
 
 
 
 1884 
 
 .. 14,700 ... 
 
 ,443,320 
 
 .. 
 
 1885 
 
 .. 14,574 ... 
 
 ,778,354 
 
 .. 
 
 1886 
 
 .. 14,944 
 
 ,440,744 
 
 - 
 
 1887 
 
 .. 14,948 
 
 ,440,666 
 
 
 
 1888 
 
 .. 15,138 .-. 
 
 ,577,964 
 
 12,910,798 
 
 1889 
 
 .. 15,308 ... 
 
 ,616,481 
 
 14,756,900 
 
 1890 
 
 15,202 
 
 ,705,439 
 
 14,837,282 
 
 1891 
 
 15,515 . 
 
 ,705,290 
 
 .. 15,783,608 
 
 1892 
 
 .. 15,227 ... 
 
 ,664,320 
 
 16,027,287 
 
 There is much waste in the mode of administering poor 
 relief in France, but more in England. 
 
 The fact is that the money collected in the United Kingdom 
 nominally for the poor is expended upon unnecessary staffs 
 of officials. How much simpler, how much more welcome, 
 how much cheaper, yet how much more efficacious would it 
 be if smaller houses or cottages in the style of the mediaeval 
 almshouse were maintained in the villages. We have only to 
 go to France to see these most charming examples of this 
 kind of hospice for the poor. Under the present system in 
 England there is extravagant waste ; and, notwithstanding its 
 high expenditure, the system breaks down in most important 
 points. For instance, it is found most deleterious to the 
 morals of the children, considering what class they are taken 
 from, to herd them together, consequently the boarding-out 
 system has to be adopted. This is, of course, a step in the 
 right direction, and will no doubt in the end be the means of 
 proving that this true principle of extension and not con- 
 centration is the proper one to adopt with regard to the 
 deserving poor. 
 
 " In England there are 238,489 children who are dependent 
 on the rates. Of these 59,957 are entirely fed, clothed, and 
 housed by the Poor Law authorities, while 178,532 receive 
 out-door relief. In London, out of 18,000 pauper children, 
 14,000 are housed in large barrack schools, from which
 
 1*2 NECMVIALTHUSIANISM 
 
 ophthalmia and ringworm are hardly ever absent. So hideous 
 has been the failure of the barrack system that no difficulties 
 should deter the nation from ridding itself of such a monstrous 
 growth as speedily as possible." 
 
 Let the idle, the vicious, and the drunken be dealt with in 
 the most exemplary and vigorous way, with the utmost dis- 
 cipline ; but let the deserving poor remain in the village 
 almshouse aided by old-age pensions. What a blessed relief 
 for them this would all prove ! In this scheme there would 
 be exhibited more of the Christian spirit of alms-giving than 
 is the case under the present harsh administration of an 
 inflexible poor-house system. In no country of the world 
 are children supported by charity allowed to be congregated 
 together as they are in England. Miss Davenport Hill shows 
 us that the Scotch have eighty-four per cent, of these children 
 living with foster parents; in Switzerland seventy-four per 
 cent. ; in Germany boarding is compulsory ; in the Colonies 
 always adopted; in Russia ninety per cent, are distributed 
 amongst families willing to take them. Yet in London only 
 six per cent, are boarded out, and the percentage throughout 
 England is much lower. What a marvellous improvement it 
 would be to adopt this continental system ! Each child 
 under the barrack system costs eleven shillings a week, yet 
 ophthalmia, which attacks only two per cent, of those outside, 
 affects fifteen to twenty per cent, of the workhouse children. 
 
 Besides, the whole manner of dealing with the undeserving 
 poor is notoriously defective. For them there should be a 
 great deal more of detention exercised. Here is an example 
 of how the present system of too excessive liberty is abused. 
 A woman openly living a notoriously evil life has three 
 children, all less than eight years of age, under her care. 
 Half her time is spent in the workhouse. She takes the chil- 
 dren in and out, as she has done for the last five or six years. 
 For a fortnight or three weeks or a month the children will be 
 in the workhouse, and will attend its school. The mother one 
 morning suddenly demands her release and theirs, and goes 
 off at her own sweet will for four months, living the old life in 
 her old haunts. Then suddenly she determines to go into the 
 workhouse again. She brings the children back with her, and 
 asks admission for herself and them, admission which cannot 
 be refused. She stays a month or two, and then disappears 
 until it graciously pleases her to return. Her whole family has
 
 WITH REGARD TO POPULATION iz$ 
 
 been for two generations back as degraded as she is now. 
 One of her children is reported to be a bright, sharp child, but 
 she already shows the mother's fatal tendency to lewdness; 
 although only eight years old she is well learned in the 
 knowledge of evil, and uses, with a fearful precocity, the vilest 
 language. Surely the people of which she is a type should 
 be kept in control under more rigid discipline. Towards the 
 aged and deserving poor, living the evening of their days in the 
 almshouse of their native villages, better opportunities of exer- 
 cising charity would be given to their neighbours than there 
 are now, when they are carried off and placed in the Poor Law 
 barracks. By preaching, in season and out of season, less harsh 
 treatment of the deserving poor, more self-sacrifice for one 
 another, more Christian alms-giving, we shall be doing a great 
 deal towards relieving the stress of population, and removing 
 any so-called necessity for the practice of Neo-Malthusianism. 
 That the present condition of things can last much longer 
 seems impossible. If some wise and moral measures are not 
 soon undertaken to ameliorate our present distress, immorali- 
 ties of all sorts will consume the very vitals of the nation. 
 Everywhere we hear the plaintive cry from the poor and suffer- 
 ing that the Almighty did not create them to undergo such 
 sufferings, to starve in the midst of plenty, to live such lives, 
 under such terrible conditions, as they have to do now. In- 
 creasing numbers of men, women, and children are pleading 
 with outstretched arms, appealing with piteous despair, to any- 
 body or anything that will help them in the struggle to obtain 
 a fairer reward for their labour, a juster share in the distribu- 
 tion of their production. " The struggle for existence is 
 assuming a form which it never had before ; and as a struggle 
 is more ferocious between the species which most resemble 
 each other and have therefore the same needs, so the struggle 
 is more intense in a society like ours where all have the same 
 aspirations to wealth, and tend with equal ardour to raise 
 themselves in the economic sphere." (Nitti.) 
 
 No less than seventy-one people died in London during the 
 year 1895 from sheer starvation. Of these twenty-nine were 
 women. The numbers tend to increase. In the year 1894 
 the number was thirty-nine. From whence, said a certain 
 philosopher, come all the sins and miseries of the world 
 stealing, murders, the agonies of suicide, imprisonment, the 
 increased bitterness of death in consequence of being obliged
 
 iz4 NEO-MALTHUSIANISM 
 
 to leave one's children unprovided for and abandoned to the 
 tender mercies of a heartless and merciless world, starvation, 
 want, privation, cold, prostitution, vice, impossibility of 
 marriage, ignorance, drunkenness, disease, enfeebled health in 
 consequence of insufficiency of food, early deaths, cum multis 
 a/ii's, all the miseries which disturb mankind, but from some 
 persons possessing more of wealth than others. This unequal 
 possession causes many to live lives under surroundings 
 which inevitably tend to draw out all that is evil in the world 
 and human nature. In these days of improvement it seems 
 marvellous to think that so many miseries should follow in the 
 wake of some having a few less possessions than others. It 
 certainly will not be always so. Cardinal Manning's words are 
 true : " These things cannot go on ; these things ought not 
 to go on ; the accumulation of wealth in the land, the piling up 
 of wealth like mountains in the possession of classes or indi- 
 viduals cannot go on, if these moral conditions of our people 
 are not healed. No commonwealth can rest on such con- 
 ditions. If the great end of life were to multiply yards of 
 cloth and cotton-twist, and if the glory of England consists or 
 consisted in multiplying without stint or limit these articles 
 and the like at the lowest possible prices, so as to undersell all 
 the nations of the world, well, then, let us go on. But if the 
 domestic life of our people be vital, above all, if the peace, the 
 purity of homes, the education of children, the duties of wives 
 and mothers, the duties of husbands and fathers, be written in 
 the natural law of mankind, and if these things are sacred, far 
 beyond anything that can be sold in the market, then, I say, if 
 the hours of labour resulting from the unregulated sale of a 
 man's strength and skill shall lead to the destruction of 
 domestic life, to the neglect of children, to turning wives and 
 mothers into living machines, and of fathers and husbands into 
 creatures of burden, who rise up before the sun, and come back 
 when it is set, wearied and able only to take food and to lie 
 down to rest, the domestic life of men exists no longer." 
 
 The mortality of well-to-do children in the United Kingdom 
 is under eight per cent, in the first year of life, but among 
 the poor the figure often rises to over thirty per cent. 
 
 " Where poverty lies, 
 
 One may stay till he dies ; 
 But where gold doth abound 
 Much more can be found"
 
 WITH REGARD TO POPULATION iz$ 
 
 It is needless, perhaps, to add that the mortality of the needy 
 classes is always much higher than the well-to-do. Is this 
 right? Three Unions give the following statistics, thereby 
 affording much consideration for Christian consciences to dwell 
 upon : 
 
 AVERAGE AGE AT DEATH. 
 
 GENTRY. SHOPKEEPERS. ARTIZANS. 
 
 St. George's, Hanover Square 45 ... 29 ... 27 
 
 Strand . . ... 43 ... 33 ... 22 
 
 Betfaoa] Green . ... 45 .. 26 ... 16 
 
 It must create an unwelcome skeleton at the banquets of the 
 rich for them to become aware that the possession of their 
 wealth has only been obtained by depriving others of life. 
 
 " Many faint with toil 
 That few may know the cares and woes of sloth." 
 
 It can all be summed up in that most apt phrase, Swnmum 
 jus, sumrna injuria. The horrible thought that vast numbers 
 simply pine away and slowly die in consequence of the exist- 
 ing unjust distribution of wealth must come home to those 
 who possess one atom of conscience. Can this be doing 
 justice to our neighbour? It is the result of individualism 
 and the fury of competition. Infanticide, quick and painless 
 death ere the slow one begins, is advocated by some as a 
 remedy, as a more merciful manner of dealing with an unjustly 
 stricken humanity. We are sometimes advised to deal with it 
 as we deal with puppies and kittens. This is merely a sign of 
 the times, showing to what a pitch modern thought has come, 
 and what a climax miserable poverty and wretchedness have 
 reached. " The world is too hard upon the poor man, and 
 makes him pay too heavy a toll out of his short life." It 
 must readily be admitted that the poor man, especially the 
 agricultural labourer, has but a very paltry share of this 
 world's pleasures. However, it is one consolation to know 
 that all the warnings of the Bible are directed against the rich, 
 and all the promises to the poor. There was nothing, as the 
 world would say, very disgraceful about Dives, no flagrant 
 vice. It is only recorded of him that he was clothed in 
 purple and fine linen, and fared sumptuously every day ; yet 
 his condition in the next world is not such a one as any of us 
 would envy.
 
 iz6 NEO-MALTHUSIANISM 
 
 That a great deal of present-day misery could be reduced 
 without doing any harm to anybody is self-evident, thus also 
 reducing the temptations to impurity and immorality, which 
 are so real and terrible at the present time. The total 
 abolition of poverty we cannot look for or expect in this 
 present world, but we should all do our utmost to mitigate 
 pauperism and misery in every possible way, with their 
 attendant evils of all manner of immoralities. We have no 
 right or reason to believe that undue poverty is inevitable, 
 and that it must be for ever the doom of the vast majority 
 of the human race. Canon Liddon rightly distinguished 
 between poverty and pauperism. Of the latter, he said that 
 it meant an absence, not of the mere comforts, but of the 
 very necessaries of life ; it meant a despairing acquiescence in 
 want as in something inevitable by large numbers of men ; it 
 meant the creation of a class which feels itself disinherited, 
 so incapable of the duties as to be deprived of the rights of 
 human society; and thus it meant, in the long run, not merely 
 class misery, misery vast and untold, but general disorder. 
 We cannot hope to remove all this state of things, the results 
 of centuries of all manner of evil and selfishness, in a day. 
 We cannot, spiritually or economically, regenerate the world 
 in one year, or ten years; but we can, each one of us, no 
 matter how insignificant our respective places may be in the 
 world, strive to leave it, and those we leave behind us, a 
 little better for our having played a part in it. 
 
 One thing yet remains to be said. It is, that we may be 
 quite sure that all the sad results of present-day poverty, its 
 sorrows and its miseries, are not caused by God's appointment 
 or wish, but by man's own sins and follies. Formerly it used 
 to be supposed that the Almighty sent every drought, famine, 
 and plague. We have learned better things than that by this 
 time. We store the water He sends us in plenty, we add to 
 our knowledge of agriculture, and we cleanse our sewers. We 
 believe, in a word, that God helps those who help themselves, 
 and that we must not idly fold our hands and leave everything 
 to Him to do for us. Some poor may be always with us, but 
 we may be quite sure that it is not by God's wish that many 
 are ; yet being here, they tend to draw out the best side of 
 man's character, his charity, his love, his self-sacrifice, and his 
 devotion. In fact, they give the rich the opportunity of doing 
 the work of God. Trials and sufferings have their due and
 
 WITH REGARD TO POPULATION 127 
 
 proper place in this world's economy, but starvation in the 
 midst of plenty need not be one of them. 
 
 It is not my intention to comment further here upon those 
 many reforms which advanced thinkers on the subject declare 
 would be most beneficial in combating the economic and 
 immoral evils of the present day ; they can be judged of in 
 numberless writings on the subject. I am glad, however, to 
 observe that many of those most advanced in thought of this 
 nature unite in condemning Neo-Malthusianism, declaring it 
 to be a mere red herring trailed along the course to withdraw 
 the chase from the proper scent, which is fair distribution. 
 They can see very clearly that it would merely tend to 
 diminish the increase of production which is so very necessary 
 for the welfare of all. It seems to me that, without attempt- 
 ing any of the proposed more advanced and wild schemes, 
 some of which must be more or less chimerical, we have in 
 improvement of education, marriage, tenure of land, emigra- 
 tion, temperance, and spread of co-operative homes, much 
 ground for hope in being able to deal with the problems of 
 over-population and the increasing practice of Neo-Malthusian- 
 ism. Improvements in these things are by no means outside 
 the range of possibility, and their capabilities for help in these 
 directions will be discussed under their respective headings. 
 
 That we are now suffering from the effects of over-population 
 is beyond any doubt. All these are the result of much in- 
 justice, gross ignorance, and sad neglect in the past of good 
 advice on marriage to the young and heedless. If, say, 
 fifty years ago proper remedies had been wisely adopted to 
 cope effectually with the increase of population, things would 
 not have reached the terrible pitch which they have now. 
 The matter has been hitherto utterly neglected ; is it to be the 
 same in the future? It simply cannot, for the result in the 
 near future would be too appalling ; the laisserfaire system has 
 been weighed in the balance and been found wanting ; some 
 new treatment must he adopted. 
 
 In ancient times the pressure arising from an excess of 
 population was dealt with by the merciless and immoral modes 
 of abortion and infanticide. Nowadays this same pressure 
 causes the equally immoral practice of Neo-Malthusianism to 
 be adopted. New problems require new considerations and 
 adjustment. It is not quite fair to those who are destined 
 to succeed us that we should say, "Sufficient unto the
 
 iz8 NEO-MALTHUSIANISM 
 
 day is the evil thereof." We are now suffering from the sins 
 of our forefathers in not dealing wisely with population ; we 
 surely ought not to pass them on, still more augmented, to 
 our descendants. If some judicious handling of this most 
 important matter, namely, the increase of population, is not 
 undertaken, either by private enterprise or by the State, it 
 seems to me that either vice and disease will consume the 
 entire nation, or that Neo-Malthusianism, with all its disastrous 
 moral, social, political, and physical evils, will be adopted by 
 increasing numbers of families. Men and women will refrain 
 from marriage and indulge in vice, or marry and have no 
 children. Either is a piteous future to look forward to. 
 Although increasing and enormous populations are blessings, 
 and cause means of improvement to arise, are we not 
 justified in endeavouring to mitigate the sufferings which they 
 must always inevitably bring in their train? Although sin, 
 vice, and prostitution may produce their Magdalens and their 
 saints, are we not to war against them ? Although war may 
 be the very best means to purify a nation sunk in degeneracy 
 and decay, yet are we not justified in mitigating the sufferings 
 of the wounded? So are we justified in fighting against the 
 evils of a reckless excess of population. 
 
 In consequence of the struggle for life now taking place, 
 morality is rendered increasingly difficult and hard to main- 
 tain ; marriage has become almost impossible, except for the 
 well-to-do, yet sexual instincts cannot be unduly restrained ; it 
 is folly to attempt it. The hour for dealing with this terrible 
 problem of over-population seems to have now arrived. If it 
 is not dealt with by moral alleviations, it will be by immoral. 
 The difficulty of dealing with it has provided misanthropical 
 cynics with grounds for proposing frightful measures. For 
 instance, one Weinhold, a councillor of the King of Saxony, 
 Nitti tells us, actually had the audacity to seriously suggest 
 that a certain number of boys of the poorest classes should 
 annually be castrated. (With regard to this outrageous 
 proposal, see La Revue Socialiste, February, 1892.) Every- 
 one must agree that no greater problem in human history 
 requires to be examined and unravelled more than this great 
 crux of population, in which every question relating to human 
 nature and its actions have their origin. 
 
 There are some who, although refusing to see any necessity 
 at present for widely adopting Neo-Malthusianism, yet declare
 
 WITH REGARD TO POPULATION 129 
 
 that the world will undoubtedly one day become over-populated, 
 and then there may come the necessity for its use, but that 
 that time has not come yet. Many economists in olden times 
 held the same opinion, namely, that if population is allowed 
 to increase at its will, it will overpower the earth's capacity to 
 support it, and that although every acre of the earth's surface 
 should be cultivated as a garden, producing all it could do, 
 yet the time must come when population will prove too much 
 for it. Well, notwithstanding all the myriads of human beings 
 which have existed on the earth, that, or anything like it, has 
 never yet occurred. "As a matter of fact the increase of 
 food products has outrun the increase of population, and each 
 generation, since Malthus' day, has had more to eat than that 
 before it ; and it is now claimed that, by treating the soil as 
 a laboratory instead of as a farm, we can increase the supply 
 of food almost indefinitely." (Bowker.) Again, Graham writes 
 on the same point : " Doubtless a day may come when all 
 the earth will be fully peopled, although, as a fact, it has 
 hitherto peopled very slowly, and some countries have become 
 unpeopled. Such a day may come, as a day may come when 
 all our coal may be used up. And both eventualities would 
 be very serious. But both are a good way off for one consola- 
 tion ; moreover, some saving chance may always turn up in 
 the interim; some substitute for coal might be extorted from 
 nature by science, just as coal itself was found when wood 
 began to fail for fuel, and something might be discovered to 
 save us from the danger of over-population at that distant 
 date." Ott writes: "The question of a population that will 
 overcome the world is so far away from us that, if it ever 
 really occurs, it will be at a time which science can neither 
 determine nor foresee." Nitti says : " What will happen in 
 a distant future need not give us trouble. Posterity will have 
 gathered such a mass of facts, observation, and study, that it 
 can well face the problems, the very existence and nature of 
 which are hidden from us." 
 
 China, with its vast population of 300,000,000, does not 
 find itself very much overcrowded, notwithstanding the 
 atrocious economic system under which it labours ; for the 
 great population there has acted as a stimulus to force out 
 of the soil all it is capable of producing. Those who have 
 had experience of Chinese gardeners in Melbourne and 
 Sydney can readily testify to the skill with which they
 
 1 3 o NEO-MALTHUSIANISM 
 
 make the most of every plot of ground under their care. 
 Max Nordau says that if the soil of Europe was treated, 
 tilled, and managed as that of China is, it could support 
 one thousand millions of human beings, instead of its three 
 hundred and sixteen millions, which it does now. China, 
 no doubt, has its famines, but these are not caused either 
 by diminishing returns or the infertility of the soil, but by 
 gross misgovernment. Arguing from our experience of the 
 present century, it is quite impossible to form any definite 
 conception what improvements in the production of food 
 the science of chemistry will effect in the immediate 
 future. Renan wrote : " When one thinks of the social 
 revolution which will be accomplished when chemistry will 
 have found the means, by imitating the work of leaves, and 
 in capturing carbonic acid from the air, of producing food 
 superior to that which vegetables and the beasts of the 
 field supply us with." 
 
 Writing upon this point another distinguished man of science 
 says: "We may reckon upon possibilities not to be now 
 determined, on chemical discoveries, on industrial inventions, 
 which are now out of man's power, but which the future will 
 reveal." The Italian physiologist Albertoni says that the 
 discovery which would most benefit the world now would be 
 that of azote in a form easy of assimilation. See the writings 
 of Siemens, Eisler, Liebig, Mantegazza, on this point of 
 probable future foods. "Applied science will provide our 
 descendants with ingenious contrivances as yet not dreamed 
 of." (Longstaffe.) 
 
 If such things are to take place, we may hope for a time 
 when food will be attainable without much cost. We now 
 enjoy the fruits of discoveries in this direction which our 
 ancestors could not have imagined, and, judging from this 
 fact, we have grounds for hope in believing that something 
 of a similar kind will take place with reference to our 
 descendants and their sustenance. We see to-day our 
 40,000,000 of English better fed than our 12,000,000 were 
 during the last century. 
 
 What have we not seen effected in our own time in the 
 shape of all kinds of concentrated foods ? It seems a waste 
 of power that animals should be maintained to convert 
 certain simple substances into food suitable for mankind. 
 Surely we may hope for a time when these intermediaries
 
 WITH REGARD TO POPULATION 131 
 
 can be dispensed with. Senior declared that food has always 
 increased faster than population, in spite of the alleged 
 tendency of population to increase faster than food. " I 
 admit the abstract power of population to increase so as to 
 press upon the means of subsistence; I deny the habitual 
 tendency; I believe it to be just the reverse." Doubleday 
 said that scanty nutriment stimulated reproduction, as abun- 
 dant food checked it, and then drew the conclusion that as 
 ample food would be in the future the rule, and not the 
 exception, the average fecundity of the human race would 
 be lessened. " At present and for centuries to come we 
 must allow that the facility for satisfying wants, the raising 
 of the general well-being, will increase as the population 
 becomes denser." (Hertska.) 
 
 Moreover, looking at the geographical area of the world, we 
 can plainly see that there are enormous sources yet to be 
 drawn upon, even without a single new invention, which 
 are capable of supporting a very greatly increased amount of 
 population. What a vast number of new foods are now 
 imported into this country, and all over Europe, which 
 were unknown to exist, certainly unattainable, even a century 
 ago. Besides, it must be taken into consideration that 
 production has never yet reached its possible extent. " The 
 son has no more children than his father had, but by the 
 help of the steam-engine he can multiply the power tenfold." 
 
 Herein is a very practical answer to those theorists who 
 think that the world cannot support an increased population. 
 We see how improved modes of transit came into being with 
 increased population, each of which became in turn insuffi- 
 cient when numbers increased. No matter what theories 
 may be held as to the power of the world to feed increased 
 population, we have solid grounds for believing that when 
 such arrives it will find sufficient food to support it. Henry 
 George said : " The increase of man involves the increase 
 of his food. Formerly in the United States there were only 
 a few hundred thousand, now forty-five millions, but there 
 is no difficulty in providing the food, which did not bring 
 the men, but the men it. The substances which form man's 
 food have the power to reproduce themselves some billion 
 folds more than man himself has." 
 
 With regard to the space on the earth's surface for contain- 
 ing population, some curious and interesting calculations have
 
 132 NEO-MALTHUSIANISM 
 
 been made. For instance, taking the world's population at 
 present to amount to about 1,450,000,000, one calculator writes 
 as follows : " If all these persons were in England and Wales, 
 they would each have a space of about one hundred and 
 fifty square yards. If spread over the whole of the United 
 Kingdom, they would each have a space of rather more than 
 three hundred square yards. If collected in a city built in 
 the ordinary way, their houses, streets, gardens, parks, etc., 
 would occupy a space of some twenty millions of acres, say one- 
 half of England and Wales. But if formed into a crowd, they 
 would find abundant standing-room in the county of Rutland. 
 If the United Kingdom were all as densely populated as 
 England, it would possess about 60,000,000 inhabitants. If 
 Europe were all as densely populated as England, it would 
 possess about 2,100,000,000, more than six times as many as 
 it has now. If the whole world were as densely populated as 
 England, its population would be about 28,000,000,000, or 
 more than twenty times what it is at present." 
 
 From these figures we can easily see how much greater 
 the population of the world might be, and no trouble, so 
 far as space is concerned, would be likely to ensue. 
 
 Another calculator, writing in The Strand Magazine, tells 
 us that every living person on the earth could be contained in 
 a square common less than twenty-two miles each way. Each 
 person could have a square yard to stand on, and any expert 
 cyclist could ride round it in about three and a half hours ; or 
 each person could occupy a square yard of standing-room 
 in the county of Bedfordshire, and then only fill up two-thirds 
 of that county. They could all fit into Radnorshire, leaving the 
 rest of the world empty. The whole population of the earth 
 could be packed in a cubic box measuring only 1,140 yards. 
 Each person could be allowed 27 cubic feet of room inside 
 such a box, and the box itself could be deposited, when full, in 
 Battersea Park with a squeeze ; in Victoria Park with ample 
 room to spare ; or in Hyde Park, and not occupy much more 
 than one-third of the ground-space of that Park. A cyclist 
 could ride round the box in about six minutes, and a person 
 on foot could stroll round the box and inspect it in only one 
 hour. These facts are startling, yet perfectly true. They help 
 to show us what a very small space of the earth's surface the 
 population of the world occupies now. But to return to the 
 immediate object before us. Terrible and lamentable as the
 
 WITH REGARD TO POPULATION 133 
 
 results of present-day competition are, caused by not adopting 
 measures to bring about an adjusted condition of population, 
 they will not have existed in vain if they succeed in calling 
 the attention of everybody to the dire necessity which exists 
 for dealing justly and efficaciously with the increase of popula- 
 tion. It seems to be the invariable rule, attendant upon all 
 human action, that pain must precede pleasure or improve- 
 ment. In consequence of the suffering undergone, man strains 
 his utmost powers to obtain relief. That this universal rule 
 will also take place in reference to our present stress of over- 
 population there can be, I think, very little doubt. Verri 
 says, with regard to this point of the necessity that everywhere 
 exists for dealing with the increase of population, that pain 
 is the only moving power in man. Bishop Butler shows 
 us how, when any very great need arose in the world, there 
 always followed the remedy, but the need caused the remedy 
 to come. Through much human suffering, through much 
 human agony it may be, yet in the end the remedy came. 
 Miss Cobbe expresses the same idea in "All noblest things 
 are born in agony." And again, Wallace says : " Great things 
 can only be reached by means of sacrifice. The good and the 
 brave reach the highest attainments through the stern discipline 
 of dangers and disasters. It is thus that the noblest characters 
 have been formed, and the sublimest destinies of nations have 
 been achieved." Canon Scott Holland also expresses the 
 same idea when he says, in Logic and Life, that all the present 
 fruits of the advanced civilization which we enjoy have come 
 through the enforced discipline and trials of those who 
 preceded us. We may, therefore, hope that our present 
 sufferings, through over-population, will be the means of 
 bringing about a better state of things in the future. It is 
 always the darkest hour before the dawn. We have now 
 surely learned all that we should learn of the troubles which 
 arise from excess of population. Experience and increased 
 knowledge must come to our aid. " Excessive fecundity has 
 secured the march of civilization. It will now fix regular 
 limits to fecundity, and what Malthus and the Malthusians 
 thought an inscrutable and profound mystery will certainly 
 have nothing dangerous or terrible in the future." (Nitti.) 
 Over-population in no way takes away or diminishes the force 
 of the great truth that " Population is strength," and that the 
 opposite is deterioration. But when we make use of the word
 
 154 NEO-MALTHUSIANISM 
 
 " population " in the phrase " Population is strength," we 
 mean an effective, vigorous population, not a weak and com- 
 paratively useless one. We can now see in France various 
 evidences of the truth of the opposite, namely, that a defect of 
 population is a source of weakness. It used to be considered 
 by the old school of politicians and economists that colonies 
 were sources of weakness rather than of strength to their mother 
 countries, but we have now learned that this view was quite 
 false. We now know that they are great aids to strength, 
 and the proof is that every European power is now endeavour- 
 ing to obtain them by every means in its power. The follow- 
 ing statistics may be useful. From 1884 to 1896 England has 
 annexed something like 2,600,000 square miles. A writer in 
 The Times has been reckoning up the extent of our possessions 
 beyond the seas, and they amount, if the Indian Feudatory 
 States be included, to 8,409,790 square miles : namely, in 
 Europe, 120; in Asia, 1,414,000; in Africa, 300,000; in 
 America, 3,610,000; and in Australasia, 3,085,540. In 1884 
 the colonial empire of France was 665,000 square 
 miles. Since then she has increased it by two and a half 
 millions of square miles : 1,500,000 in the Sahara ; 300,000 on 
 the Congo; 300,000 in Senegambia; and 250,000 in Mada- 
 gascar. In the same period Germany has annexed 1,023,070, 
 Belgium a million, and Italy half a million. England is proud 
 of her colonial empire, the greatest the world has ever seen. 
 We know that our colonies would help us in any great crisis ; 
 they are our markets for the sale of our manufactured goods, 
 and resting-places for the overplus of our population. We 
 rightly rejoice in all this, and the additional force which their 
 possession adds to our voice in the world. But now how 
 does France, which is at present straining every nerve to 
 become a colonial power, stand with regard to aptitude for 
 colonization? Well, she is almost powerless, simply because 
 she has adopted a wrong method of dealing with increase 
 of population. If England should adopt Neo-Malthusianism 
 practices on the same scale as France has, we shall un- 
 doubtedly see her colonizing power become less and less, 
 and that would have a disastrous effect upon her influence. 
 The English principle for dealing with population is to 
 colonize. The French restrict the number of their children, 
 with the results we see. Algeria, New Caledonia, India, 
 Tahiti, Cochin China, Siam, Tonquin, Madagascar, are all
 
 WITH REGARD TO POPULATION 135 
 
 convincing proofs of how France fails everywhere as a colonizing 
 power. Of course it is because she has no surplus population 
 to leave her shores in search of new homes and adventures. 
 This is only to be expected, for, having but one son, French 
 parents are loth to see him leave them and depart to a colony. 
 Max Nordau says : " The young Frenchman is watched over 
 with almost painful care from his birth, the more so that he is 
 probably the only son of perhaps two or three children. His 
 way is made easy for him in every fashion that can be devised 
 by the loving and careful hearts of his father and mother. 
 His very wife is chosen for him, and at the mere whisper of a 
 colonial career, or even of a temporary emigration to a foreign 
 country, his parents implore him to remember how precious his 
 life is to them, and how far preferable is fifty years of France 
 to a cycle of Cathay ; in other words, how preferable is a quiet 
 life in France to any existence elsewhere." Of course such a 
 system as this robs the whole nation of all spirit of daring and 
 adventure. The present frantic desire to acquire fresh 
 colonial territory by France, to which not a Frenchman will 
 go, is very ludicrous. Yves Guyot says : " Our experience in 
 Cochin China goes to prove that our colonies serve rather as 
 outlets for the capital of the French ratepayers than for the 
 products of French industry. Colonized chiefly by Govern- 
 ment officials, the purchases they make in France are made 
 with the money we send out to them in salaries." French 
 colonies have always been, and are now, supported by the 
 ratepayers of France. On the other hand, English colonies 
 are always self-supporting. Herein is one of the great differ- 
 ences between the two as colonizing powers. The returns for 
 1895 show us that Cochin China cost France ^600,000 and 
 Tunis p i, 2 00,000 during that year. We are told that in the 
 huge island of Madagascar, the third largest island in the 
 world, now a French colony, outside the officials there are 
 barely a hundred French colonists. So long as the French 
 voluntarily, by means of artificial checks, limit the number 
 of their children they never can be a colonizing power. The 
 total area of French colonies, dependencies, and protectorates 
 amounts to about 932,500 square miles, with a population of 
 nearly 36,000,000. It is worthy of note, however, that within all 
 these territories the number of Frenchmen proper does not 
 exceed half a million, Algeria and Tunis excepted. The 
 entire trade of the French colonies, exports and imports,
 
 i 3 6 NEO-MALTHUSIANISM 
 
 amounts to ^16,502,877, about equal to that of Canada with 
 England. (Whitaker.) Although Algeria is but thirty-six 
 hours from Marseilles, the total French population is less than 
 a quarter of a million, or about the same number of settlers as 
 in our little colony of Queensland, which is not yet thirty-six 
 years old. Mahaffy, commenting on this matter of French 
 colonization, writes in the Nineteenth Century: "They may 
 acquire territories, but they do not make them profitable. 
 The newspaper of to-day tells me that the acquisition of 
 Madagascar has already tempted English, American, and 
 German immigrants for trading purposes, but no French ! 
 Whenever the French admit these races the colony prospers 
 by foreign enterprise. If they be driven out, it lapses into 
 stagnation. It is usual to say that the French have no genius 
 for colonizing. That is only a restatement of facts. Perhaps 
 in our day much of their ill-success may merely arise from the 
 absence of over-population at home ; from the want of 
 younger sons in many families who must go abroad to make 
 their fortunes ; from the increased comforts of home life ; and 
 the precocity of the only son, whom his parents will not expose 
 to such perils. If her population goes on decreasing she will 
 ultimately be content to take some such position as is held by 
 the Dutch, who were once masters of the seas." At the 
 beginning of this century France had just as good a chance of 
 founding a great colonial empire as England had (see 
 Seeley's Expansion of England}; but she failed, because her 
 colonizing power even then was not equal to the demands 
 made upon it. 
 
 France expended many millions of francs, and sacrificed 
 many precious lives, in annexing Madagascar. Taylor 
 remarks on this : " If they can make nothing of the smaller 
 islands they possess in the same waters Nossi-Be, Mayotte, 
 Sainte Marie, and Reunion what will they do with the third 
 largest island in the world?" Oliver says that the present 
 condition of Reunion is very unsatisfactory. Absentee land- 
 lords and money spent in Paris that should go to benefit the 
 starved estates of the colony are the roots of the evil. 
 
 While England is colonizing all the waste places of the 
 earth, and spreading her language and customs all over the 
 globe we are told by competent authorities that in a century 
 from now the English language will be the predominant one of 
 the entire world France is declining in all these things.
 
 WITH REGARD TO POPULATION 
 
 '37 
 
 Commenting upon the extension of the Anglo-Saxon race 
 throughout the world, Mayo Smith writes as follows : " We 
 have now over 100,000,000 civilized white persons living in 
 powerful communities whose speech is English. The countless 
 thousands pouring into America must speak English if they 
 are to succeed. The influence of a nation is not to be 
 measured solely by the number of its inhabitants at home. 
 There seems to be no doubt that the English language is the 
 widest-spread, and is destined to be spoken by an increasingly 
 large proportion of the civilized inhabitants of the earth." 
 
 With regard to the commerce of France, also, Neo- 
 Malthusianism is beginning to tell a tale. The returns for 
 1894, the most recent available, show us that the entries and 
 clearances of British ships in all the ports of France amounted 
 to 9,477,000, or 1,852,000 tons more than those of the French 
 flag itself. "From the year 1849 to I ^5^> 200,000 emigrants 
 left France ; in the same period 200,000 left Germany ; 
 1,200,000 the United Kingdom. From 1865 to 1874 only 
 60,245 teft France." (Cobb.) "No fewer than 154,000 
 emigrants from our British Isles entered the United States in 
 1881 ; whilst from France the number that took refuge there 
 was only 5,227." (Scientific Meliorism?) 
 
 The French returns of the last census give the following 
 figures relating to emigration from France : 
 
 1878 
 
 1879 
 1880 
 1881 
 1882 
 1883 
 1884 
 1885 
 1886 
 1887 
 1888 
 1889 
 1890 
 
 2316 
 
 3634 
 4612 
 
 4456 
 4858 
 4011 
 6100 
 6063 
 
 73H 
 11,170 
 
 23.339 
 3i,354 
 20,560 
 
 The writer of "1920" in TJie Contemporary Review for 
 December, 1895, states that in the year 1920 English speaking 
 peoples, with their subjects, will reach the great amount of 
 700,000,000 ; while France, at the same time, will recede to 
 less than half what she now has. He also adds these grave
 
 NEO-MALTHUSIANISM 
 
 words: "France will, to a practical certainty, be reduced to the 
 level of a third-rate power in 1920, simply from this capital 
 and well-ascertained fact, that her people will not breed. The 
 probable population of France will be in 1920 under 
 40,000,000, and unless the continuous decline of the birth- 
 rate can be arrested, it will be very considerably under that 
 figure. She has reached the maximum of her population, 
 and seems bound to decline continually henceforward in 
 relative power and influence." 
 
 Richet gives the following estimates with regard to popula- 
 tion for 1932 : 
 
 United States 
 
 Russia 
 
 Germany 
 
 Great Britain 
 
 Austria 
 
 France 
 
 Italy 
 
 190 millions. 
 158 
 
 83 
 
 63 
 
 51 
 
 44 
 
 44 
 
 Another authority slates that at the end of the twentieth 
 century the chief European States in their European territories, 
 judging from their present rates of increase of population, will 
 possess in round numbers : 
 
 Russia 
 
 United Kingdom 
 Germany . 
 
 Austria- Hungary 
 France . 
 
 Italy 
 
 250 millions. 
 100 
 
 90 
 
 75 
 
 45 
 
 45 
 
 In the 1 8th century the numbers were: 
 
 German Empire, Austria and Prussia 28 millions. 
 
 France . . . 26 ,, 
 
 Russia . . . 25 ,, 
 
 England . . 12 
 
 United States . . 3 
 
 In the year 1801 the numbers were : 
 
 Russia 40 millions. 
 
 France 26 
 
 Germany 25 
 
 Austria 27 
 
 Italy 17 
 
 United Kingdom 16 
 
 Spain . 6
 
 WITH REGARD TO POPULATION 
 
 139 
 
 In the year 1895 the numbers were very nearly: 
 
 Russia 
 
 United States 
 
 German Empire 
 
 Austria- Hungary 
 
 England 
 
 France 
 
 Italy 
 
 Spain 
 
 108,787,000 
 65,000,000 
 52,244,503 
 44,000,000 
 39,000,000 
 38,260,000 
 31,000,000 
 18,000,000 
 
 The order of precedence of the Great Powers with regard 
 to population has varied : 
 
 1850. 
 
 Russia. 
 
 France. 
 
 Austria-Hungary. 
 
 Germany. 
 United Kingdom. 
 
 Italy. 
 United States. 
 
 1896. 
 
 Russia. 
 
 United States. 
 
 Germany. 
 
 Austria- Hungary. 
 
 United Kingdom. 
 
 France. 
 
 Italy. 
 
 There are some ominous figures with respect to French 
 and German populations which it would be well for the former 
 to gravely consider. The population of Germany in 1890 
 amounted to 49,428,476; in 1895 it had reached 52,244,503, 
 an increase in five years of 2,816,027. The increase in France 
 during the same period amounted only to a paltry 124,000. 
 
 The increase of population in France is very slow; the 
 numbers were: 
 
 1700 
 1801 
 1821 
 1856 
 1881 
 1886 
 1891 
 1896 (March) 
 
 19,660,320 
 27,349,003 
 30,461,873 
 
 36,039,364 
 37,672,048 
 38,218,903 
 38,343,192 
 38,228,969 
 
 " At the beginning of this century the population of France 
 was nearly double that of the United Kingdom, 27,350,000 to 
 I 5>7 1 7>- In 1891 there was only a difference of half a 
 million in favour of France. That difference has since more 
 than disappeared. In 1892, the last year for which French 
 returns are available, the population of France had dropped 
 to 38,323,000. So its continuance in subsequent years may
 
 140 NEO-MALTHUSIANISM 
 
 be presumed. In the United Kingdom, on the other hand, 
 the population had risen in 1893 to 38,440,000. It is there- 
 fore safe to assume that at the present time the population of 
 the United Kingdom is not less than 39,000,000, and the 
 population of France not more than 38,260,000. In other 
 words, the United Kingdom is now three-quarters of a 
 million ahead. The population of the United Kingdom 
 was in 
 
 1712 . . ... 9,420,000 
 
 1754 . . ... 11,485,000 
 
 1801 . . ... 15,717,000 
 
 That of France : 
 
 1698 . . . ... 19,670,000 
 
 1762 . . ... 21,770,000 
 
 1791 . . ... 26,303,000 
 
 1801 . . ... 27,350,000 
 
 In 90 years of last century the population of England only 
 increased 41 per cent.; in 90 years of this century 228 per 
 cent." (H. C., in Daily Graphic, December igth, 1895.) 
 
 The increase per 1000 in decade ending the following years 
 
 has been : 
 
 1820. 1830. 1840. 1850. 1860. 1870. 1880. 1890. 
 
 United Kingdom . 171 150 113 25 56 88 108 109 
 
 France . . 47 69 51 45 27 7 " 37 
 
 The decrease of the population of Paris is very striking. 
 On March 2gth, 1896, the total population there amounted 
 to 2,511,955. Since 1891 the increase has been 87,250, 
 at the rate of 17.450 a year; between 1872 and 1876 the 
 annual average increase was 34,753 ; between 1876 and 1881 
 it was 45,840; between 1886 and 1891 it was 32,752. 
 
 The following rough estimate gives an idea of the increase of 
 the population of the United Kingdom and France : 
 
 UNITED KINGDOM. FRANCE. 
 
 1480 3,700,000 ... 12,600,000 
 
 1580 4,600,000 ... 14,300,000 
 
 1680 5,532,000 ... 18,800,000 
 
 1780 9,561,000 ... 25,100,000 
 
 1880 35,004,000 ... 37,400,000 
 
 1890 38,200,000 ... 38,800,000
 
 WITH REGARD TO POPULATION 
 
 141 
 
 Mulhall gives the increase of the population in the following 
 countries during the past sixty-five years : 
 
 United Kingdom 
 
 France 
 
 Germany 
 
 Russia 
 
 Austria 
 
 Italy 
 
 Other countries 
 
 United States 
 
 British Colonies 
 
 INCREASE. 
 15,300,000 
 
 5,900,000 
 
 5,900,000 
 22,400,000 
 13,500,000 
 10,200,000 
 22,500,000 
 60,700,000 
 
 9,700,000 
 
 PER CENT. 
 63 
 
 75 
 92 
 
 45 
 
 48 
 
 62 
 
 . 626 
 
 The estimated populations of the United Kingdom and 
 France respectively have been as follows, thousands omitted : 
 
 1871 
 1872 
 1873 
 1874 
 1875 
 1876 
 
 1877 
 1878 
 
 1879 
 1880 
 1881 
 1882 
 1883 
 1884 
 1885 
 1886 
 1887 
 1888 
 1889 
 1890 
 1891 
 1892 
 1893 
 1894 
 1896 (July) 
 
 On Wednesday, January 6th, 1897, the complete returns of 
 the census of 1896 in France were given. The total popula- 
 tion of France then amounted to 38,517,975, an increase of 
 only 175,027 since 1891. The department of Seine (Paris) 
 has increased by 198,919 more than the whole of France 
 thus showing how the rural population is declining. 
 
 UNITED KINGDOM. FRANCE. 
 
 
 31,556 
 
 36,544 
 
 
 31,874 
 
 36,103 
 
 
 32,178 
 
 36,281 
 
 
 32,502 
 
 36,460 
 
 
 32,839 
 
 36,638 
 
 
 33,200 
 
 36,906 
 
 
 33,576 
 
 37,048 
 
 
 33,944 
 
 37,147 
 
 
 34,303 
 
 37,366 
 
 
 34,623 
 
 37,519 
 
 
 35,934 
 
 37,672 
 
 
 35,207 
 
 37,769 
 
 
 35,450 
 
 37,866 
 
 
 35,724 
 
 37,949 
 
 
 36,016 
 
 38,128 
 
 
 36,314 
 
 38,219 
 
 
 36,599 
 
 38,320 
 
 
 36,881 
 
 38,390 
 
 
 37,179 
 
 38,460 
 
 
 37,485 
 
 38,430 
 
 
 37,797 
 
 38,343 
 
 
 38,107 
 
 38,323 
 
 
 38,440 
 
 
 
 38,786 
 
 z
 
 142 
 
 NEO-MALTHUSIANISM 
 
 The respective birth-rates per 1000 have been 
 
 UNITED KINGDOM. 
 
 1801-10 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 1811-20 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 1820-30 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 1831-40 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 1841-50 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 1851-60 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 1861-70 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 1871 
 
 
 
 
 337 
 
 
 1872 
 
 
 
 
 34'3 
 
 
 1873 
 
 
 
 
 34 'o 
 
 
 1874 
 
 
 
 
 34 '4 
 
 
 1875 
 
 
 
 
 33'9 
 
 
 1876 
 
 
 
 
 34 '8 
 
 
 1877 
 
 
 
 
 34'4 
 
 
 1878 
 
 
 
 
 34 'o 
 
 
 1879 
 
 
 
 
 33'3 
 
 
 1880 
 
 
 
 
 327 
 
 
 iSSi 
 
 
 
 
 32-5 
 
 
 1882 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 1883 
 
 
 
 
 32-0 
 
 
 1884 
 
 
 
 
 32-2 
 
 
 1885 
 
 
 
 
 31*6 
 
 
 1886 
 
 
 
 
 SI'S 
 
 
 1887 
 
 
 
 
 307 
 
 
 1888 
 
 
 
 
 30-1 
 
 
 1889 
 
 
 
 
 30-0 
 
 
 1890 
 
 
 
 
 29-2 
 
 
 1891 
 
 
 
 
 3 '4 
 
 
 1892 
 
 
 
 
 29-5 
 
 
 1893 
 
 
 
 
 29-9 
 
 
 1894 
 
 
 
 
 28-9 
 
 ., 
 
 FRANCE. 
 
 30-8 
 29-0 
 27-4 
 26-3 
 26-3 
 
 22 '6 
 26-8 
 26'! 
 26'2 
 26-0 
 26 '2 
 
 24-5 
 24-9 
 24-8 
 24-8 
 24-8 
 
 23'9 
 23-5 
 23-I 
 
 23 'o 
 21-8 
 
 22 'I 
 
 The birth-rate all through France is 22 per 1000; this rate 
 varies from Gers only 14 to Finistere 32*6. The death-rate is 
 also 22 per 1000. The excess of births over deaths is only i 
 per 1000 inhabitants. On the average there are 1050 births to 
 1000 deaths. In the Pas de Calais, 1566; in Orne, only 666. 
 The deaths are in excess of the births in from 32 to 60 of 87 
 Departments. 
 
 The average annual surplus of births over deaths was, 
 per 1000 : 
 
 lSlI-20 
 1851-60 
 1881-85 
 
 57 
 
 3 '9 
 r6
 
 WITH REGARD TO POPULATION 
 
 H3 
 
 The number of births in the respective countries have been 
 as follows : 
 
 YEAR. 
 1826 
 1866 
 1867 
 1868 
 1869 
 1870 
 1871 
 1872 
 1873 
 1874 
 1875 
 1876 
 1877 
 1878 
 
 1879 
 1880 
 1881 
 1882 
 1883 
 1884 
 1885 
 1886 
 1887 
 1888 
 1889 
 1890 
 1891 
 1892 
 1893 
 1894 
 
 NITKD KINGDOM. 
 
 FRANCE. 
 
 
 
 992,266 
 
 
 
 1,006,258 
 
 
 
 1,007,755 
 
 
 
 984, 140 
 
 
 
 948,526 
 
 
 
 943,315 
 
 
 
 826,121 
 
 
 
 966,000 
 
 
 
 946,364 
 
 
 
 954,652 
 
 
 
 950,975 
 
 887,968 
 
 966,682 
 
 888,200 
 
 944,576 
 
 891,906 
 
 937,317 
 
 880,389 
 
 936,529 
 
 881,643 
 
 920,177 
 
 883,642 
 
 937,057 
 
 889,014 
 
 935.566 
 
 890,722 
 
 937,944 
 
 806,750 
 
 937,758 
 
 894,270 
 
 924,558 
 
 903,760 
 
 912,838 
 
 886,331 
 
 899,333 
 
 879,868 
 
 882,639 
 
 885,944 
 
 880,579 
 
 869,937 
 
 838,059 
 
 914,517 
 
 866,377 
 
 897,957 
 
 855,388 
 
 914,542 
 
 874,672 
 
 889,242 
 
 855,388 
 
 The births in France to every thousand inhabitants have 
 been as follows : 
 
 YEARS. 
 1770-1780 
 1801-1810 
 1811-1820 
 1821-1830 
 1831-1840 
 1841-1850 
 1851-1860 
 1861-1870 
 1871-1880 
 1880 1890 
 
 INCREASE. 
 380 
 325 
 316 
 302 
 289 
 
 294 
 267 
 245 
 
 220 
 194
 
 1 44 
 
 NEO-MALTHUSIANISM 
 
 The number of children per marriage has been as 
 follows : 
 
 YEAR. 
 1800-1815 
 1816-1830 
 1831-1835 
 1836-1840 
 1841-1845 
 1846-1850 
 1851-1855 
 1856-1860 
 1861-1865 
 1881-1885 
 1886-1889 
 
 RATE. 
 
 3 '93 
 373 
 
 3'2l 
 
 3'io 
 
 3 '03 
 3'o8 
 
 3'3 
 2-16 
 
 2'I 
 
 Out of every hundred families in France the average 
 number of children are : 
 
 18 
 26 
 
 16 
 
 None 
 i 
 
 2 
 
 3 
 
 4 or more. 
 
 The increase per 1000 inhabitants has been : 
 
 YEAR. RATE. 
 
 1806 12.8 
 
 1821 3-3 
 
 1831 4-4 
 
 1841 4'i 
 
 1851 2'2 
 
 1861 6-9 
 
 1871 8-5 
 
 1881 4-1 
 
 1891 6-8 
 
 The yearly increase now per 10,000 in the following countries 
 amounts to : 
 
 United States . 
 Germany 
 United Kingdom 
 France 
 
 260 
 
 "5 
 
 101 
 
 26
 
 WITH REGARD TO POPULATION 
 
 H5 
 
 Mulhall gives the following number of births to a 100 
 
 marriages : 
 
 England 
 
 Scotland . 
 
 Ireland 
 
 France 
 
 Belgium 
 
 Holland . 
 
 Denmark . 
 
 Sweden 
 
 Germany . 
 
 Russia 
 
 Norway 
 
 Switzerland 
 
 Italy 
 
 Austria 
 
 Hungary . 
 
 1861-80. 
 407 
 
 447 
 520 
 
 304 
 408 
 422 
 360 
 414 
 
 1881-85. 
 420 
 439 
 540 
 305 
 418 
 470 
 376 
 408 
 
 439 
 500 
 430 
 398 
 440 
 419 
 404 
 
 Taking the standard of 100 as the birth-rate of the following 
 countries, Nitti gives the following figures : 
 
 ITALY. FRANCE. GERMANY. ENGLAND. BELGIUM. 
 
 1873 I0 I0 ioo ... ioo ... ioo 
 
 1878 . 98 ... 96 ... 97 ... IOO ... 99 
 
 1885 . 101 ... 93 ... 94 ... 87 ... 95 
 
 1890 . ioo ... 87 ... 92 ... 81 ... 92 
 
 He also gives the following figures of the number of legiti- 
 mate births to every marriage in France : 
 
 1800-15 
 1816-20 
 1836-40 
 1856-60 
 1881-85 
 1886-89 
 
 4-24 
 4-08 
 3*26 
 3 '04 
 3-03 
 2-96 
 
 and also the birth-rate for a 1000 inhabitants in the following 
 countries : 
 
 1874. i8;6. 1878. 1880. iSJz. 1884. 1886. 1888. 1890. 
 
 Italy . . 34-9 39-0 35-9 336 36-9 38-9 36-9 37-6 35-9 
 
 France . . 26'2 26'2 25-3 247 24^9 24-9 24'! 23-2 21-9 
 
 Germany . . 40'! 40-8 389 37-6 37-3 37*2 37*0 366 35-6 
 
 England . . 36-0 36*4 356 34-3 337 33-3 32-4 30-6 30-2 
 
 Scotland . . 35-6 35-6 34-0 340 33-3 337 32-9 31-3 30-4 
 
 Ireland . . 26'6 267 25*4 247 241 24^0 23-3 22'9 22'3 
 
 Austria . . 397 40^0 38-6 377 39'! 387 38-0 37-9 367 
 
 Hungary . . 427 45-1 42-2 459 43-9 45-2 44-9 43-6 40-6 
 
 Pelgium . . 32-6 33'2 31*5 31*1 3T2 30^5 29*6 29'! 287
 
 146 NEO-MALTHUSIANISM 
 
 1874. 1876 1878. 1880. x88a. 1884. 1886. 1888. 1890. 
 
 Holland . . 36'! 36-8 35-8 35-4 35- 1 34*9 346 337 32-9 
 
 Sweden . . 307 307 297 294 29*3 29-9 297 287 28*3 
 
 Norway . . 30.6 31-6 309 30^6 31'! 31*2 31.1 31 'o 3<r6 
 
 Denmark . . 30-9 32*6 317 31*8 32*4 33^4 326 317 30^6 
 
 Spain . . 36-2 35-6 36-2 36-8 37-2 367 
 
 Roumania . 47'8 30^6 26-3 31-9 35-2 37-5 396 40-9 38'o 
 
 European Russia 50^4 49^6 46^4 487 5O'6 50^4 48*5 
 
 Massachusetts . 28^3 25^5 247 24^8 24*9 25^4 25^4 25^9 
 
 Connecticut . 253 23^5 22-3 22'2 I9'5 20-5 208 21 '8 
 
 Rhode Island . 24^8 233 24^0 22' i 24^0 24^0 24'$ 24-2 
 
 The average yearly number of births per 100 inhabitants of 
 
 the following countries amounts to: 
 
 United Kingdom 
 
 3'25 
 
 Italy 
 
 37 
 
 Prussia 
 
 3-87 
 
 Bavaria 
 
 3'94 
 
 Saxony 
 
 . 4-17 
 
 Austria 
 
 
 Hungary 
 
 '. 4-18 
 
 Switzerland 
 
 3*08 
 
 Belgium 
 
 . 3'2i 
 
 Holland 
 
 . . 3-56 
 
 Sweden 
 
 3'4 
 
 Spain 
 
 3'57 
 
 Greece 
 
 . 2-88 
 
 Roumania 
 
 3*04 
 
 Russia 
 
 4'95 
 
 Poland 
 
 . 4-23 
 
 France 
 
 . - 2-58 
 
 The births per 1000 in the year 1891 were, in the following 
 countries : 
 
 France . . . . 22 '6 
 
 Switzerland . . . . 30 'I 
 
 Denmark . . . . . 31*2 
 
 Norway . . . 31-4 
 
 Belgium . . ... 32*1 
 
 England . . . . 30^4 
 
 Germany . . . . 38 '2 
 
 Russia . . ... 50*4 
 
 In the year 1891 the average number of children to a 
 marriage was, in the following countries : 
 
 Germany . . . . 5-25 
 
 England . . . . 479 
 
 France . . . 3'3*
 
 WITH REGARD TO POPULATION 147 
 
 The natural increase of population, i.e., the excess of births 
 over deaths, is in 
 
 Europe . . I '06 per cent. 
 
 England . . . . 1*37 ,, 
 
 Spain . ... 0*48 ,, 
 
 France . . . O'l6 ,, 
 
 The rate of population to square mile is in 
 
 Belgium . . . 461 
 
 England and Wales . ... 389 
 
 Germany . . ... 205 
 
 France . . . 181 
 
 Mr. Schooling writes in the Pall Mall Magazine : " When 
 this century opened, France had a population of 27,000,000 
 to 28,000,000. We, in 1801, were under 1 1,000,000 in England, 
 Wales, and Scotland, with say 4,000,000 more in Ireland. In 
 1891 France's population was 38,250,000, and the population 
 of the United Kingdom was also over 38,000,000. In 1896, 
 a census year for France, our population is from 39,000,000 
 to 40,000,000 ; and the result of the French census for April, 
 1896, shows a population of only 38,250,000; so that during 
 the course of the century, and before its close, this country 
 has turned the 1801 home population of about one half of 
 France's 1801 population into an actual majority." 
 
 " The population of France amounted in 1881 to 37,672,048 ; 
 in 1891 to 38,343,192, an increase of 671,143 only. In 
 England, during the same period, the increase amounted to 
 2,855,435, in addition to those who had emigrated, amounting 
 to 604,182." (Whitaker.) 
 
 On this question of the decrease of population in France, 
 The Times remarked so long ago as 1883 : " The explanation 
 of the strange increase of sterility in France is, that the 
 doctrine of Malthus is put into practice there in a way and to 
 an extent never contemplated by the author." 
 
 In consequence of the alarming depopulation occurring in 
 France, a very curious phenomenon is taking place there. She 
 has actually to import foreign labourers to do the work of her 
 own country, which there is not a sufficient number of French- 
 men to do. Belgians, Spaniards, Italians, English, and 
 Germans are pouring into France, and are receiving her wealth 
 in return for their labour. Commenting upon this certain fact, 
 Leroy Beaulieu says that this influx of Europeans, great as 
 it is, is not sufficient, and that if the French nation continues
 
 148 NEO-MALTHUSIANISM 
 
 to practise Neo-Malthusianism as it is now doing, recourse to 
 the Chinese will have to take place. In this manner that silent 
 invasion is coming about in France which Mille writes about 
 and deplores. Marberg says there is constant immigration 
 taking place from Belgium, Germany, and Italy into France ; 
 and to suit his Neo-Malthusian tenets, he actually regards this 
 as an excellent thing, provided that the vicious class is kept 
 out. He quite forgets that all the time France is being 
 robbed by them for the sake of their relatives at home, and 
 denationalized. There is plenty of wealth in France, but 
 there are not sufficient numbers of Frenchmen to produce it. 
 " It is curious, but it is manifestly the case, that France is 
 decaying and diminishing, not by the pressure of poverty, but 
 by the selfishness of individual prosperity." (Lyttelton.) 
 
 France is the only country in Europe which now possesses 
 fewer able-bodied men than in the year 1860. With reference 
 to the United Kingdom, the numbers are (these and the 
 following are given by Mulhall) : 
 
 1860. 1890. 
 
 United Kingdom . 7,530,000 ... 9,730,000 
 
 France . . 10,890,000 ... 10,844,000 
 
 The number of men per 1000 in France of the following 
 the best age was : ,851. 1861. 1866. i8 7 a. 1876. xssx. x8 9 x. 
 
 Between 15 and 60 . 618... 619. ..617. ..606.. .610. ..608. ..596 
 
 There is a marked decline in the number of the men and 
 women of the best age. The ratio is per 1000 : 
 
 1851. x88i. 1891. 
 
 Men between 15 and 55 . 291 ... 281 ... 270 
 Women ,, 15 and 45 . 232 ... 223 ... 214 
 
 The number of men between the ages of fifteen and sixty 
 enumerated in France were : 
 
 1881 . . . . . 11,366,304 
 
 1891 . . ... 11,217,636 
 
 It can be observed from these figures how greatly France is 
 deteriorating On the other hand, the numbers of the same 
 ages were, in England and Wales : 
 
 1881 . . ... 7,375.874 
 
 1891 . . . 8,374,521 
 
 During those ten years France had decreased in men of the 
 best ages by 148,668. On the other hand, England and 
 Wales had increased by 998,647. If this rate of decrease
 
 WITH REGARD TO POPULATION 149 
 
 continues, the collapse of France is easily within the powers 
 of calculation. 
 
 In the year 1857 the number of foreigners resident in 
 France amounted to about 10 in every 1000 of the total 
 population; it now amounts to 30. Mollinari also sees no 
 harm in this, but rather a gain, in order to suit his Neo- 
 Malthusian views. He does not even attempt to prove that 
 the universal adoption of Neo-Malthusianism by France is 
 caused by poverty. All he seeks to prove is that it brings 
 more luxury to each individual. No less than 18 per cent, of 
 the small increase of the population of France consists of 
 foreigners. The decreased death-rate can account for a good 
 deal more; hence it can be imagined how much the French 
 nation pure and simple tends to increase. The nationalities 
 
 of foreign-born in France were : 
 
 1872. 1891. 
 
 Belgians . . . 347,558 ... 482,261 
 
 Italians . . . 112,579 ... 264,568 
 
 Germans . . . 39,361 ... 100,114 
 
 Spaniards and Portuguese 52,954 80,842 
 
 Swiss . . . 42,834 ... 78,584 
 
 Dutch . . . 17,077 37,149 
 
 English . . .26,003 36,134 
 
 The last available French returns, 1891, give the number of 
 naturalized Frenchmen then living in France to be 170,704. 
 Of foreigners resident in France there were then : 
 
 Belgians . . . . 465,860 
 
 Italians 
 
 Germans 
 
 Swiss 
 
 Spaniards . 
 
 English 
 
 Luxembergers 
 
 Russians 
 
 Austrians 
 
 Dutch 
 
 Other Europeans 
 
 Americans . 
 
 Africans 
 
 Asiatics 
 
 Others unknown 
 
 286,642 
 83,333 
 83,"7 
 77,736 
 39,867 
 31,248 
 
 14,357 
 
 11,909 
 
 9,078 
 
 9,705 
 
 11,582 
 
 8i3 
 343 
 
 Total . . 1,130,072 
 
 In 1851 . . . 379,289 
 
 In 1886 . . . 1,126,531
 
 150 NEO-MALTHUSIANISM 
 
 Gosselin stated that there were in France, in the year 1851, 
 378,000 foreigners working for their living; in 1881, 1,000,000. 
 Whitaker states that there are now 1,130,111. Writing on 
 this silent invasion or infiltration, Dr. Joire says : " Our 
 fertile country and our restricted population will be invaded 
 by overwhelming German mobs, as the barbarian hordes 
 overcame and absorbed worn - out Rome." Frary writes : 
 " Our sterility is a wave whose effects are slow but sure. 
 We shall be one day powerless against invasion and totally 
 helpless against infiltration. A nation which decreases in 
 the midst of Europe as we are doing is condemned to quick 
 disaster." See also Cheysson in " La Question de la Popula- 
 tion en France, et a 1'etranger." For very many years France 
 has considered wealth to be the great desideratum. Events 
 are teaching her, as all political economists know, that men 
 are the truest and best possession; without them wealth cannot 
 be produced. 
 
 The Daily Graphic, in its recent articles on alien immigra- 
 tion, told us that in each 10,000 of our own population it 
 amounts to 58; in Germany to 88; in Austria to 172; in 
 France to no less than 297. Frenchmen are at last waking 
 up to the havoc and ruin which Neo-Malthusianism would 
 inevitably bring upon them. The Anthropological Society of 
 France has taken up the matter very warmly, and is warning 
 Frenchmen that if they will persist in practising artificial 
 checks to procreation as they are doing now, they will 
 certainly bring about the degeneration, as well as the de- 
 population of their country. There are many Frenchmen at 
 last beginning to see that a small number of children now 
 must mean a small number of producers in the future. 
 Moreover, the great and continual increase of population in 
 Germany is causing great uneasiness throughout France. 
 "At present the French economists, almost without any 
 difference of school or method, attack the premisses and 
 conclusions of Malthusianism, so severely falsified by the 
 present condition of France." (Nitti.) 
 
 It has had the effect of the French Government issuing an 
 order that education and board should be given to every 
 seventh child in necessitous families. In 1890 the Academic 
 des Sciences wanted to give the father of a family two, three, 
 or four votes according to its size. Lord Acton, the Regius 
 Professor of Modern History in the University of Cambridge,
 
 in his first lecture there, on June nth, 1895, gave utterance 
 to the following very remarkable statement : " Soon after 
 1850, several of the most intelligent men in France, struck 
 by the arrested increase of their own population, and by 
 the telling statistics from further Britain, foretold the coming 
 preponderance of the English race." 
 
 And now I venture to add some extracts from the writings 
 of distinguished Frenchmen, who, perceiving the ruin which 
 the practice of Neo-Malthusianism has brought upon their 
 country, have been obliged to leave their opinions on record. 
 
 Jules Simon: "Our families are dwindling away; our 
 country is dwindling with them; our race is doomed. But 
 to be sure, we shall be able to afford a luxurious burial." 
 
 Guyau, who has admirably written on the interesting ques- 
 tion of religion in connection with the fecundity of races in 
 Ulrreligion de 1'Avenir, condemns Neo-Malthusianism as 
 economically disastrous, morally dangerous, and fatal to civili- 
 zation. Dumont says the great evil which now menaces all 
 civilization is the voluntary limitation of the family. Leroy 
 Beaulieu, the most distinguished political economist that 
 France now possesses, writing so recently as January, 1896, 
 in the Revue des Deux Mondes on the commercial superiority 
 which Germany is attaining over France, says that if these 
 positions are to be reversed, a great change in the habits of 
 the individual Frenchman and family life in France must take 
 place, especially in the latter. 
 
 Writing in the Economiste Francais, March i3th, 1880, 
 " Question de la Population en France," Guyot says : " The 
 birth-rate in France is eighty per cent, lower than in England 
 or Prussia. Does this arise from a plethora of inhabi- 
 tants? Is there no room on French soil for one French- 
 man more? On the contrary, the specific population of 
 France is scanty compared with her territory. In France, 
 taken in her entirety, it is not a daily ration of bread, but 
 a certain amount of comfort. Now there are two ways in 
 which this comfort may be gained and preserved, either 
 by doubling one's efforts, or by reducing one's burdens to 
 a minimum. Most Frenchmen prefer the latter course. We 
 blame the inprudence of the spendthrift who brings children 
 into the world without having the means to maintain them 
 in it, but the prudence which refuses to undertake the duties of 
 paternity for fear of the burdens which they entail is a grave
 
 i5z tfEO-MALTHUSIANISM 
 
 symptom of moral inertia. The spring of life and energy 
 must be broken in a man who, instead of acting, makes it 
 his aim to avoid action. The exaggerated application of 
 Malthus' principles threatens little by little to destroy the 
 French nation." He says that one-fifth of the families of 
 France have no children. 
 
 See also what Levasseur writes in his great work, The 
 History of French Population; also what he writes in his 
 preface to Schone's work on the same subject, and how he 
 comments on the silent invasion now taking place in France. 
 Bertillon : " It is necessary that the rearing-up of children 
 three at least be considered as a kind of impost." Richet : 
 "If anyone takes, for example, a list of the members of the 
 Institute of France senators, deputies, generals, professors 
 it can be seen how small is the number of their children. 
 Many of them are celibates. Some, although married, have 
 none. Many have only one, two, or three at the most. Very 
 rarely is this number exceeded. If the general birth-rate 
 of France was equal to that of the middle class, in two hundred 
 years there would not be a single Frenchman left. France, 
 increasing in numbers less quickly than England, Germany, 
 Russia, and the United States, tends to become a second- 
 rate power. There is the national peril. The day will come 
 when France, surrounded by powerful and jealous neighbours, 
 will not be able to defend herself; and if this diminution of the 
 population goes on, she will fall into the seventh rank. And 
 this will take place because France has the lowest birth-rate of 
 any other country in Europe. Such is the brutal, incon- 
 testable, certain fact. It is not a natural sterility which is the 
 cause ; it is a voluntary one. What everybody thinks about we 
 say out boldly. Middle class, peasants, workmen in town and 
 country, every Frenchman more or less, has given himself up 
 to this absurd and culpable habit. Rich and poor wish to 
 have few children, and they have but few children. It is 
 not chance, nor impotence, nor infecundity of the race which is 
 the cause ; it is the result of calculation that the French have 
 so few children." " The stagnation of our population is the 
 greatest of our perils ; it is the peril of the future. We must 
 look for remedies. We shall without doubt find them. We 
 must apply them at all cost" (Frary in Le Peril National. 
 See the whole book.) He begs his countrymen " Laisser faire 
 la nature et la volonte de Dieu." See also Deschaume's
 
 WITH REGARD TO POPULATION 153 
 
 recent book, La Banqueroute de I' Amour, in which he writes 
 of the "women who have submitted to surgical operations 
 that render motherhood for ever impossible, and which are 
 said to be of criminal frequency in this same Paris. Adding 
 these to the families which have no children, he foresees the 
 time when a real husband and wife will be known only as 
 modelled in bronze, and kept in some Musee de Cluny." He 
 attributes the present depopulation of France to nothing 
 else but the voluntary prevention of conception. 
 
 " Every child you do not have is one man the less, and that 
 man might have been a Papin, a Watt, or a Stephenson." 
 (Letourneau.) Palisse : " We can scarcely attribute to any- 
 thing else but an excessive care for money, and a forethought 
 pushed to timidity, some very disquieting facts in our marriage 
 and birth-rates in France. I will merely recall, by the way, 
 the continually decreasing excess of our births, which, if not 
 stopped by radical social reforms, can only end in our final 
 decay. The fear of marriage and the family is now the 
 particular feature of the French nation." Another writer : 
 "The continued diminution of the birth-rate in France has 
 gradually and necessarily led French biologists, economists, 
 and social writers to abandon all the prejudices and standards 
 of Neo-Malthusianism." Professor Mivart says that France 
 was not in earlier times exceptionally unproductive, and the 
 France of former days, still surviving in Canada, is not so now. 
 I give the statistics : 
 
 TABLE OF FRENCH CANADIAN POPULATION, 1765-1891. 
 
 RATE OF INCREASE. 
 
 CENSUS FRENCH IN RATE OF FRENCH IN PER CENT. 
 
 YEAR. CANADA. INCREASE. UNITED STATES. 
 
 TOTAL. PER DECADE. 
 
 1765 
 
 69,812 
 
 
 
 69,810 
 
 
 
 1784 
 
 98,012 
 
 
 
 
 98,012 
 
 
 
 1805 
 
 215,000 
 
 
 
 
 215,000 
 
 
 
 1822 
 
 310,000 
 
 
 
 
 
 310,000 
 
 
 
 1844 
 
 538,213 
 
 
 
 
 538,213 
 
 
 
 1851 
 
 695,947 
 
 
 (1850) 53,749 
 
 749,696 
 
 
 
 1861 
 1871 
 
 . 880,902 
 . 1,005,200 
 
 (1051-61) 26*4 
 (1861-71) 14-2 
 
 (1860) 102,260 
 (1870) 201,871 
 
 983,162 
 1,207,071 
 
 (1851-61)306 
 (1861-71) 23-0 
 
 1881 
 
 . 1,186,008 
 
 (1871-81) i8'o 
 
 (1880) 325,989 
 
 ii5",997 
 
 (1871-81)25-38 
 
 1891 
 
 1,304,745 
 
 (1881-91) 9-7 
 
 (1890) 500,000 
 
 1,804,795 
 
 (1881-91) 2i'64 
 
 In the Annals of the American Academy for September, 
 1896, Professor Davidson, writing on "The Growth of the 
 French Canadian Race," states that there are at the present 
 time more French Canadians in the United States than there 
 were in the whole of Canada sixty years ago. In 1850 there
 
 154 NEO-MALTHUSIANISM 
 
 were only 53,000 French Canadians in the United States ; in 
 1890 there were half a million. 
 
 "Some hasty economists have attempted to ascribe the 
 diminishing birth-rate to the slight fecundity of the French 
 race. But they forget that this race was very prolific in the 
 fifteenth and eighteenth centuries. From 1715 to 1789 it 
 increased from eighteen to twenty millions." 
 
 The cause which undoubtedly gave birth to the widespread 
 adoption of the artificial check system throughout France was 
 the Napoleonic law which decreed the equal division of land, 
 at the death of the owner, amongst his children. The father, 
 loth to see his real property subdivided, decided that he would 
 have but one child to leave it to. Frenchmen refused to 
 adopt the English principle of colonization as a remedy for 
 over -population. They chose the more pernicious one of 
 restricting the number of their children, with the evil results 
 which they are now witnessing on all sides. Schone writes, 
 that if the peasant could safely will the field and cottage to 
 his eldest son, he would be less inclined to act contrary to 
 nature and the will of God. 
 
 Unfortunately the practice of Neo-Malthusianism seems to 
 be rapidly increasing in England. I mentioned previously that 
 we would, under the heading of Population, examine into some 
 of the evidence which seems to be accumulating on this point. 
 
 One of the most distinguished medical authorities in 
 England, one most competent to give an opinion, writes 
 to me, in answer to a question I ventured to put to him, as 
 follows : "I have no doubt that prevention of conception 
 is greatly increasing in England amongst the better classes. I 
 think it is the exception to find families which are unlimited 
 among those classes, and in most cases this is due to pre- 
 vention of conception. Morbid fear of pregnancy is very 
 common." Dr. Strahan writes : " I can remember the time, 
 and that not so very many years ago, when no respectable 
 woman would have dared to have ventured such matters to her 
 medical attendant. Now it is the everyday practice to ask the 
 family doctor's advice as to the varying efficacy of the various 
 means commonly in use, and to make unblushing inquiries as 
 to better and more modern weapons. In fact, the state of 
 things is fast becoming as bad in this country as it has been 
 for some years past in either France or America. Ask any 
 medical man in practice among the middle and upper classes,
 
 WITH REGARD TO POPULATION 155 
 
 and he will tell you that the married woman among his 
 patients who is not fully alive to these practices is the rara 
 avis. Some women have too high a sense of morality to sink 
 to the level of their sisters in this respect ; but assuredly these 
 are in the minority, and in a minority which is decreasing 
 daily." He quotes the figures from the Registrar-General's 
 Report, and says they speak for themselves : 
 
 PERSONS MARRIED BIRTHS 
 
 YEAR. PER 1000 LIVING. PER IOGO. 
 
 1864 . ... 17-2 ... 35-4 
 
 1874 . ... I7-0 ... 36-0 
 
 1884 . ... I5-I ... 33-6 
 
 1894 ... I5'I ... 29-6 
 
 Although the marriage-rates in 1884 and 1894 were iden- 
 tical, yet the birth-rate has actually fallen 4*0. " From a 
 dispassionate survey of the foregoing facts, it would appear 
 that within a limited number of years England will find 
 herself in the unenviable position which France occupies 
 to-day. The evils to which I refer have been growing for 
 years past, their nature causing them to be winked at rather 
 than dragged into public view for condemnation; and, as a 
 consequence from familiarity, society has come by degrees to 
 tolerate, and even to look upon with favour, conduct which 
 aforetime it would have scouted with abhorrence." Another 
 distinguished doctor writes: "I have no doubt of the existence 
 on a large scale of limitation of families, nor that in selfish 
 hands it does great harm. Families are now widely limited, 
 and this is rapidly increasing." The birth-rate affords very 
 cogent and forcible evidence. This has decreased in the 
 United Kingdom from 34*8 in 1876 to 28*9 in 1894. This 
 decline is as rapid as that which has taken place in France. 
 
 One of the best known and widely read of English journals 
 says : " We often hear it said that the decline of the popula- 
 tion in France is a sure sign of national decay. Moreover, we 
 trace the cause to the canker immorality, which is slowly 
 eating away the life of that nation. The Registrar-General's 
 quarterly returns for England and Wales point to the suspicion 
 that here, too, things are not as they should be. The birth- 
 rate is unquestionably decreasing. Thus, in the first quarter 
 of 1896 it was 29*1, as compared with an average for the ten 
 preceding quarters of 31*7. In Huddersfield it has actually 
 fallen to ig'3. We would fain believe that the diminution of
 
 156 NEO-MALTHUSIANISM 
 
 the birth-rate is due to a decrease in improvident marriages, 
 and the growth of a manly self-restraint. But the open pro- 
 fession of immoral sentiments, in which we seem nowadays 
 to be contesting the palm with other nations, forbids our 
 entertaining the belief." 
 
 I have examined into the extraordinary decline of the birth- 
 rate which took place at Huddersfield in the first quarter of 
 the year 1896, and I am assured by competent authorities 
 that it can be principally traced to the prevalent use of 
 artificial checks. 
 
 It is quite clear that the average number of children to a 
 marriage has decreased in England. The ratio of the increase 
 of the population in the United Kingdom is as follows : 
 
 1861 to 1871 . . ... 8-8 
 
 1871 to 1881 . . ... 10-8 
 
 1881 to 1891 . . ... 8-2 
 
 The Hon. and Rev. A. T. Lyttelton, writing in The Economic 
 Review on this subject of population and Neo-Malthusianism, 
 remarks that there must have been some diminution of births 
 to a marriage, or a postponement of it altogether, to account 
 for the great fall in the birth-rate which undoubtedly has taken 
 place. Some cause or causes, he says, must be at work to 
 account for so alarming a decrease, which seems to be affect- 
 ing the whole country, and checking the rate at which, for the 
 greater part of the century, our population has been growing. 
 He examines into the possible causes of this declension. He 
 says that there can be only four : 
 
 (a) An increased death-rate. This is obviously not the case. 
 
 (&) Increased emigration. This may account in a small 
 degree for it, but is wholly insufficient for so great a decrease 
 as there is. 
 
 (c) A decreased marriage-rate. This is the case undoubtedly, 
 but also is not wholly sufficient to account for either. 
 
 The marriage-rate in England was per 1000 : 
 
 1873 ... 88 
 
 1886 . . . . . . T\ 
 
 1891 . . . ... 7-8 
 
 1893 7 '4 
 
 (d) A diminished birth-rate. 
 
 After an elaborate discussion of all the above possible 
 causes, he comes to the conclusion that the chief cause is the
 
 WITH REGARD TO POPULATION 157 
 
 latter, and upon it he gives utterance to these grave and 
 weighty remarks : " If the natural relationship between the 
 sexual instinct and the increase of the race be severed in 
 England as the French nation is severing it, if the interests of 
 the individual and those of the race are dissociated, we shall 
 see in our own country, as in every other which adopts Neo- 
 Malthusianism, an ominous combination of individual pros- 
 perity with national decadence. If this system is adopted 
 in England which there seems a likelihood of, unless better 
 counsels prevail it will surely bring with it dangers greater 
 than any which Malthus descried as the results of over- 
 population; and, unlike them, these dangers are not merely fore- 
 seen or imagined, but are actually visible by the light of 
 contemporary experience." Foreign writers, commenting upon 
 the great decline of the birth-rate in England, unhesitatingly 
 declare it to be caused by the practice of Neo-Malthusianism. 
 Mayo Smith writes : " It is hardly possible that the decrease 
 of the birth-rate in England has been brought about by lack of 
 food, for that would certainly have had some effect on the 
 death-rate. There must have been some psychological causes, 
 inducing married people to have a less number of children." 
 Mille, in the Revue des Deux Mondes, examines likewise into 
 the causes of this decline, and says : " There only remains 
 one ; it is, that husband and wife have restricted the number of 
 human beings who could have been called into life." Marshall, 
 in his Principles, says : " In France for a long time, and 
 recently in America and England, some of the abler and 
 more intelligent of the working-class population have shown 
 signs of a disinclination to have large families, and this is 
 a source of danger." And yet, notwithstanding all that has 
 arisen in France with regard to the habitual adoption of Neo- 
 Malthusianism, notwithstanding all the outcry of learned 
 Frenchmen themselves against its practice, and the overwhelm- 
 ing arguments raised by them to prove the disastrous results 
 which it must have in France if persisted in, there are 
 some English writers who still maintain that its adoption 
 would be effectual in relieving the excess of population in Eng- 
 land. It is about time they should be brought to see their folly. 
 In no respects whatever is France superior to England, 
 whether in general prosperity or morality; notoriously the latter 
 is not the case. All those who uphold the true principles 
 of love, morality, and honour, and who are interested in the
 
 158 NEO-MALTHUSIANISM 
 
 population question, must have been glad when the Church 
 Times quite recently published the following : " One of the 
 saddest features of our day is the hurrying on of the French 
 nation to self-destruction. Would that some prophet might 
 arise to recall men to their allegiance to first principles. 
 
 "Unhappily, however, the tendency just now is the inter- 
 national communication of vice and falsehood. The untruth 
 which makes men regard family obligations as things to be 
 avoided, and that would present life as a round of pleasure 
 first, and duty a long way, a very long way, afterwards, is 
 rapidly spreading in England, threatening to become as 
 dominant here as for years it has been across the Channel, 
 and with the same inevitable result the destruction of the 
 nation through the ruin of the family. We are almost 
 stupefied at times as we survey the evidence, strong and 
 trustworthy, which, gathered from all quarters and directions, 
 tells of the rapid and thorough disintegration of true family 
 ideals in England, and especially amongst the great middle 
 class, which forms the backbone of the nation. Our astonish- 
 ment at the facts is only equalled by our surprise at the 
 names of men of influence and position who not only 
 countenance the evil we have in mind, but think they are 
 doing a service to humanity by their action. Is there no 
 prophet who will arise and condemn this abomination of 
 desolation? There are amongst us men who know, and 
 whose knowledge, put into strong, stirring words, would 
 command attention ; but they are silent. There are others, 
 leaders in church and state, in politics and literature, who 
 appear not to know, and who, if they do not know, are 
 culpable for their lack of penetration. Not a single bishop 
 or other dignitary of the church have we heard of as attempt- 
 ing to grapple with the devastating policy we have in mind, a 
 policy welcomed by the indolent and lovers of pleasure, and 
 encouraged by men who profess to speak in the name of (un-) 
 natural science. That some of our higher clergy are aware of 
 what is becoming an accepted condition of family life we have 
 reason to know : all the more is their attitude to be regretted. 
 Masters of statistics might speak if they would, but they 
 too are silent. 
 
 " We have passed some severe strictures of late on certain 
 schemes and methods of work allowed and indulged in by 
 churchmen, lay and clerical, which unquestionably tend to
 
 WITH REGARD TO POPULATION 159 
 
 weaken the place and importance of family life as the basis 
 of national well-being. Our strictures have derived strength 
 from the conviction that, all unconsciously, well-meaning 
 churchmen have, by the methods condemned, helped to further 
 the ends of those destroyers of society who teach that 
 parental responsibility is quite undesirable beyond a certain 
 limit, and that the proper end of marriage is sensuality. 
 Against that view of the constitution and work of humanity 
 we must do unceasing battle. 
 
 " Our war against the low view of the family which regards 
 a small family as a higher blessing than the many children 
 of Divine promise, is on the same footing as our antagonism 
 to all forms of church work, clerical or lay, which in any 
 way interfere with or lower the dignity of family life and 
 parental authority and responsibility." 
 
 Unfortunately, from the colonies also comes a similar 
 report, that the birth-rates are also declining there. "The 
 whole business of the reproduction of the species does not 
 show itself in its best light here. In Victoria, for instance, 
 there is a steady diminution in the proportion of children 
 born to a marriage, which the officials can only trace to the 
 increasing desire of married women to evade the cares of 
 maternity; and the same tendency is to be observed in all 
 the provinces, except South Australia." 
 
 From the United States comes similar information. That 
 country also seems to have widely adopted the pernicious 
 custom of Neo-Malthusianism. Large numbers of tracts, 
 etc., advocating the system, come to us from there. This 
 is plainly not caused by any pressure of poverty, or the 
 lack of territory, but simply arises from the disinclination 
 of married women to bear children. 
 
 That Neo-Malthusianism is largely in practice there admits 
 of no doubt whatever. I am told it now runs France hard. 
 Dr. Billings ably deals with the declining birth-rate in America 
 in the columns of The Forum for June, 1893. He has gone 
 more deeply into the matter than anybody else who has pre- 
 ceded him, so he is the more competent to express an opinion. 
 His views of the matter are rendered the more valuable inas- 
 much as they are carried down to the present moment, and 
 moreover, being a medical man, he has a wider knowledge of 
 the matter than any non-professional person or mere compiler 
 of statistics could have. He was Medical Inspector for the
 
 i6o 
 
 NEO-MALTHUSIANISM 
 
 army of the Potomac, Curator of the Army Medical Museum 
 and Library, Director of the Laboratory of Hygiene for the 
 University of Pennsylvania. He was also in charge of the 
 division of vital statistics of the tenth and eleventh censuses ; 
 and is, besides, the author of a great many learned works. 
 His experience, therefore, has been about as wide as anybody's 
 could have been, and it has rendered him peculiarly compe- 
 tent to express an opinion upon these matters. 
 
 First, he tells us that the birth-rate per 1000 in the United 
 States has fallen from 30*95 in 1880 to 26*68 in 1890; that 
 is, equal to a little over 4 per 1000. He gives us general 
 examples of the fall throughout a varied and large extent of 
 territory in the following table. He also most wisely gives the 
 coloured as well as the white decrease : 
 
 BIRTH-RATES PER 1000 OF POPULATION. 
 
 STATES. 
 
 
 WHITES. 
 
 
 
 COLOURED. 
 
 
 
 1880. 
 
 1890. 
 
 Loss 
 er 1000. 
 
 1880. 
 
 1890. 
 
 Loss 
 per looa. 
 
 Alabama . 
 
 37-96 
 
 31-32 
 
 5-64 
 
 37-86 
 
 29-25 . 
 
 . 861 
 
 Arkansas . 
 
 4274 
 
 .. 34-65 . 
 
 8*09 
 
 41-04 
 
 31-48 .. 
 
 9-56 
 
 Florida . 
 
 34-06 . 
 
 .. 28-09 . 
 
 597 
 
 35-20 
 
 28 60 .. 
 
 . 6-60 
 
 Georgia . 
 
 3570 
 
 .. 29-45 
 
 6-25 
 
 38-05 
 
 3^30 .. 
 
 675 
 
 Louisiana 
 
 34 4 36 - 
 
 .. 29-99 
 
 437 
 
 36-14 
 
 29-16 .. 
 
 . 6-98 
 
 Maryland 
 
 29-24 
 
 .. 25-24 . 
 
 4-00 
 
 3604 
 
 28-28 .. 
 
 . 7-76 
 
 Mississippi 
 
 36-63 
 
 30-I3 
 
 6-50 
 
 3874 
 
 30-07 .. 
 
 . 8-67 
 
 North Carolina 
 
 35-29 
 
 .. 2979 . 
 
 5-50 
 
 38-99 
 
 30-I3 
 
 . 8-86 
 
 South Carolina 
 
 34-23 
 
 .. 2875 . 
 
 5-48 
 
 39-63 
 
 32-63 
 
 . 7-00 
 
 Tennessee 
 
 36-26 
 
 .. 30-38 
 
 5-88 
 
 40-42 
 
 31.28 .. 
 
 9-14 
 
 Texas 
 
 4073 
 
 3I-53 
 
 9-20 
 
 40-79 
 
 30-33 - 
 
 .10-46 
 
 Virginia . 
 
 32-85 
 
 .. 26 53 . 
 
 6-31 
 
 3770 
 
 2808 .. 
 
 . 9-62 
 
 Total . 
 
 36-08 
 
 .. 2990 .. 
 
 . 6-18 
 
 38-50 
 
 . 30-22 .. 
 
 . 8-28 
 
 Only four States show an increase. These are : 
 
 1880. 1890. 
 
 Arizona .... 19-21 ... 24-94 
 
 Colerado . . . .21*51 ... 25-09 
 Montana .... 22*45 22'8i 
 New Mexico . . . .33-42 ... 34 "08 
 
 Then he proceeds to compare the birth-rate of the United 
 States with that of certain European countries, and he proves 
 that a similar declension is taking place in them as well as in 
 his own country, but that it is greater there than in Europe. 
 The proportions per 1000 for 1880 and 1890 have been 
 in the following countries as follows ;
 
 WITH REGARD TO POPULATION 
 
 161 
 
 United States . 
 
 England and Wales 
 
 Scotland 
 
 Ireland 
 
 France 
 
 Belgium 
 
 German Empire 
 
 Austria 
 
 Switzerland 
 
 Denmark 
 
 Norway 
 
 Netherlands 
 
 1880. 
 36 - o 
 34'2 
 33-6 
 247 
 24-5 
 31-1 
 37'6 
 38-0 
 29-6 
 3i-8 
 307 
 
 35'5 
 
 1890. 
 
 307 
 30-2 
 
 30-3 
 22-3 
 21-8 
 287 
 357 
 367 
 26-6 
 30 '6 
 30-0 
 32-9 
 
 Now here, in this table, we are confronted with the certain 
 fact that nearly every civilized country in the old world, as 
 well as the United States, is reducing in numbers. From the 
 North Cape to the most southern shores of the Mediterranean, 
 from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico, throughout two continents, 
 human life is dwindling away, owing to the use of artificial 
 checks to conception. Dr. Billings gives the world the causes 
 why this declension is taking place. The reasons for coming 
 to the conclusion he has are so forcible, so fraught with 
 interest to the future of population over the civilized world, 
 that I venture to give them here in extenso. They are just as 
 applicable, be it remembered, to any country of Europe as to 
 the United States. The conditions of life there are much the 
 same as in Europe, and human nature is pretty much the same 
 all over the world. After minutely discussing the various 
 changes in the birth-rates of Europe and the United States, he 
 proceeds as follows : 
 
 " Does this diminution in birth-rates indicate a progressive 
 diminution in fertility, in the power of either or both sexes to 
 produce children ? There is no good reason for thinking so. 
 It is true that it has been suggested that alcohol, tobacco, and 
 syphilis are producing a deterioration of races which is in part 
 responsible for the change, but of this there is no evidence. 
 So far as we have data with regard to the use of intoxicating 
 liquors, the fertility seems to be greatest in those countries and 
 among those classes where they are most freely used. 
 
 "Is the lessening birth-rate due to changes in the mode 
 of life of the people, such as the progressive increase of migra- 
 tion from the rural districts to the cities, the increase of wealth 
 and luxury, the so-called ' emancipation of women,' etc. ? 
 
 " No doubt these things have some influence, by diminish- 
 
 M
 
 i6 2 NEO-MALTHUSIANISM 
 
 ing the proportion of marriages at comparatively early ages, 
 and by favouring an increase in divorce and in prostitution ; 
 but it is probable that the most important factor in the change 
 is the deliberate and voluntary avoidance or prevention of 
 child-bearing on the part of a steadily increasing number of 
 married people, who not only prefer to have but few children, 
 but who know how to obtain their wish. The reasons for this 
 are numerous, but I will mention only three. 
 
 " The first is the diffusion of information with regard to the 
 subject of generation by means of popular and school treatises 
 on physiology and hygiene, which diffusion began between 
 thirty and forty years ago. Girls of twenty years of age at the 
 present day know much more about anatomy and physiology 
 than did their grandmothers at the same age, and the married 
 women are much better informed as to the means by which 
 the number of children may be limited than were those 
 of thirty years ago. To some extent this may also be true as 
 regards the young men, but I do not think this is an important 
 factor. 
 
 " The second cause has been the growth of the opinion that 
 the abstaining from having children on the part of a married 
 couple is not only not in itself sinful, or contrary to the usual 
 forms of religious creeds, but that it may be even, under 
 certain circumstances, commendable. 
 
 " The third cause is the great increase in the use of things 
 which were formerly considered as luxuries, but which have 
 now become almost necessities. The greater temptations to 
 expenditure for the purposes of securing or maintaining social 
 position, and the correspondingly greater cost of family life in 
 what may be called the lower middle classes, lead to the desire 
 to have fewer children, in order that they may be each better 
 provided for, or perhaps, in some cases, from the purely selfish 
 motive or desire to avoid care and trouble, and of having more 
 to spend on social pleasures. 
 
 " In the struggle for what is deemed a desirable mode of 
 existence at the present day, marriage is being held less 
 desirable and its bonds less sacred than they were forty 
 years ago. Young women are gradually being imbued with 
 the idea that marriage and motherhood are not to be their 
 chief objects in life, or the sole methods of obtaining subsist- 
 ence ; that they should aim at being independent, if possible, 
 of actual husbands, and should fit themselves to earn their
 
 WITH REGARD TO POPULATION 163 
 
 own living in some one of the many ways in which females 
 are hoping to find increasing sources of remunerative employ- 
 ment ; that housekeeping is a sort of domestic slavery, 
 and that it is best to remain unmarried until someone offers 
 who has the means to gratify their educated tastes. They 
 desire to take a more active part than women have hitherto 
 done in the management of the affairs of the community, to 
 have wider interests, and to live broader lives than their 
 mothers and grandmothers have done." 
 
 He also gives us the information that the voluntary preven- 
 tion of conception was far more extensively practised, previous 
 to the year 1880, in the Northern and Eastern states, but 
 that since that year it has widely spread throughout the 
 Southern. When I wrote upon the causes of Neo-Malthu- 
 sianism in Europe I had not read Dr. Billings' famous article ; 
 but I am glad to observe that he corroborates what I ventured 
 to assert were the causes generally speaking throughout 
 human nature for its practice, namely, a craving for luxury, 
 and selfishness. Both these vices combined are now threaten- 
 ing to break d6wn all moral society throughout the old 
 and the new worlds. Dr. Billings concludes his remarkable 
 article with these words : " Considered as one of the signs 
 of forces which are at work to modify the existing conditions 
 of society, and some of which appear to be of evil tendency, 
 the diminution of the birth-rate merits careful consideration 
 by statisticians, sociologists, politicians, and all who are 
 interested in the physical and moral well-being of the in- 
 habitants of this country." 
 
 I am quite well aware that close observers of what is 
 taking place in America with regard to the declension of 
 the birth-rate ascribe it more to the general practice of 
 abortion, which is very prevalent there, than to Neo-Malthu- 
 sianism. Indeed, Dr. F. Napheys writes as follows: "The 
 detestable crime of abortion is appallingly rife in our day; 
 it is abroad in our land to an extent which would have 
 shocked the dissolute women of pagan Rome. The crime 
 is common; it is fearfully prevalent. Hundreds of persons 
 are devoted to its perpetration ; it is their trade. In nearly 
 every village its ministers stretch out their bloody hands 
 to lead the weak women to suffering, remorse, and death. 
 Those who submit to this treatment are not generally un- 
 married women who have lost their virtue, but the mothers
 
 1 64 NEO-MALTHUSIANISM 
 
 of families, respectable Christian matrons, members of 
 churches, and walking in the better classes of society. 
 Testimony from all quarters, especially from New England, 
 has accumulated within the last few years to sap our faith 
 in the morality and religion of American women. Both 
 Bishop Coxe and the Roman Catholic Archbishop Spaulding 
 have issued Pastorals upon this great crime." Well, which- 
 ever vice is the most prevalent, the effect on the moral 
 nature of the women and the nations is the same. 
 
 And now I think I have written as much as can conveniently 
 be written, in what must necessarily be a somewhat confined 
 space, upon this question of Neo-Malthusianism, the causes 
 which have brought the system into being, and its results. 
 One thing only now remains to be remarked, and that is, that 
 after having carefully examined most, if not all, of the European 
 and American literature on the matter, I observe that those 
 Neo-Malthusians who at first warmly took the matter in hand 
 and advocated its general adoption through evil and good 
 report, have, after the example of Mrs. Besant, receded from 
 their original position. They have at length been obliged to 
 admit that the monster which they helped to raise would 
 certainly devour the whole nation, and cause havoc and ruin 
 to morality in all directions. This is satisfactory. The 
 crucial example of France, and the effects of voluntary pre- 
 vention of conception there, have proved too much for them ; 
 and they have at length been obliged to come to the only 
 possible conclusion, namely, that this system merely substitutes 
 one evil for another. 
 
 " Neo-Malthusian doctrines are of a most retrograde 
 character. So far from tending to the welfare of the human 
 race, they tend to the steady deterioration of it. They would, 
 in the natural course of things, bring us back to a class of 
 plutocrats, on the one hand, few in numbers, but possessed of 
 superior natures and plenteous wealth, and, on the other, a 
 continually augmenting class of the poor and the degraded, 
 with all the dangerous elements that follow from this class 
 being sufficiently numerous to swamp those who belong to 
 the nobler race." (Father Clarke, S.J.) 
 
 I will now proceed to mention those reforms in existing 
 institutions which would, without much difficulty or revo- 
 lutionary process, be able to cope more successfully with our 
 excess of population than Neo-Malthusianism could ever do.
 
 THE EXCUSES FOR NEO-MALTHUSIANISM 
 
 REMOVED BY A REFORM IN GENERAL 
 
 EDUCATION 
 
 TO be effectual in dealing with a generally congested state 
 of population, education must be fair to all alike to the 
 professional, as well as to all other classes. This is not so now. 
 The tradesman and the very poor enjoy free education, but 
 the struggling professional classes in a higher social grade 
 have to pay for it, and it is very often an immense struggle for 
 them to do so. This is certainly not fair to all alike. We know 
 very well that many of those who receive a free education for 
 their children in National and Board Schools enjoy far larger 
 incomes than very many professional men who have to pay 
 for their children. Under the system of free education for all 
 classes, Eton and Harrow, and such-like schools, could go on 
 just as they do now, with this difference only, that the 
 education in them would be free. Classification could be 
 carried out just as it is now. The aristocrat would have no 
 cause to fear that his son would be soiled by contact with the 
 poor man's; Eton young gentlemen could still revel in as 
 much expenditure as they pleased. All schools would, under 
 such a system, become the property of the State, and the 
 education throughout them all should be identical, thus 
 enabling the poor boy to have the same opportunity of 
 advantages as the rich one. Under the present unequal 
 system, the schools to which the poor boy is fain obliged 
 to go cannot afford to pay the best teachers; hence they 
 are at a grievous disadvantage compared with the rich schools, 
 which latter, after all is said and done, were endowed for the 
 advantage of the poor. 
 
 Education should, moreover, be imparted with a clear, 
 definite object. It should train the young of all classes to 
 take the places most suited for their tastes and skill in all the 
 
 165
 
 i66 NEO-MALTHUSIANISM 
 
 professions and trades which produce the wealth of the country. 
 It should be given for a much longer time, and with much 
 more special object, than it is now. At present it is carried 
 out in the merest haphazard fashion. The only real education, 
 the only really useful one, is to mould the character into a 
 useful one. At present this special education is merely looked 
 upon as something to be tacked on after the ordinary school 
 time is over. 
 
 Let us deal more particularly with the classes which issue 
 forth from our National and Board Schools at much too early 
 an age. Everywhere the evidence is that the boys and girls 
 turned out under the present system are almost useless for the 
 work which they are to perform in life, notably agriculture. 
 It is very sad to see lads and girls leaving country schools 
 totally ignorant of technical agricultural knowledge, which 
 would be most useful to them, and create an intense interest 
 in country life. The system pursued to-day has nearly always 
 the contrary effect. It tends to make them dissatisfied with 
 country life. And yet we are all aware that every advance in 
 agriculture and horticulture can only be obtained by scientific 
 knowledge. It is not I alone who condemn the lack of 
 agricultural knowledge in those who ought to have it imparted 
 to them at an early age. Hear what Sir John Gorst wrote 
 lately on the matter : " If anyone contrasts the elementary 
 and technical instruction imparted to the children of the 
 peasantry in foreign countries and in England, as well as 
 the amounts spent by their respective Governments thereon, 
 there is no reason for surprise at the defeat of English agri- 
 culture ; and it is impossible to refrain from asking whether 
 better education of the people would not tend more to the 
 relief of agricultural depression than remedies like bimetallism 
 or protection. The understandings of all those who are 
 connected with the cultivation of the soil appear to be 
 darkened. The landowners exhibit that dislike to intellectual 
 development which is characteristic of a territorial aristocracy ; 
 the farmers regard the imitation of their forefathers as the 
 highest agricultural art, and scoff at the teachings of science ; 
 and the labourer's children are turned out to scare crows when 
 eleven years old, and often, by the connivance of the school- 
 attendance officers, who are under the thumb of the farmers, 
 at a much earlier age. After leaving school the children get 
 no further instruction ; they have no means of keeping up the
 
 EXCUSES REMOVED BY REFORM 167 
 
 little knowledge they have obtained, and in a few years they 
 forget everything they have learned, and are often incapable 
 even of reading and writing. How can such a population 
 compete with the French agriculturist, carefully trained in 
 schools and colleges in the art they are to practise?" 
 
 It is of the utmost importance that those who are intended 
 to cultivate land or gardens should be instructed, at least in 
 the elementary principles which are so necessary for their 
 successful cultivation. See the present type of agricultural 
 lout turned out of our schools, the despair of everybody. 
 What does he know about the culture of land, fruit, gardening, 
 bees, corn ? What does he know about the various natures of 
 soils, all of which are so essential to anybody whose calling 
 has to do with country life ? In later life, if he is still found 
 on the farm, he has to go to a chemist and pay for such 
 knowledge. Would it not have been better if he had 
 acquired it in early life? The unfortunate boy is ignorant 
 of all this ; he has a slight knowledge of reading, which 
 merely enables him to spell through penny dreadfuls, so 
 making him discontented with the quiet of a country life ; it 
 is just sufficient to make him gravitate towards the more 
 vicious unrest of the town, into the poor, melancholy, 
 wretchedly-paid, dull monotony of the clerk-life of the 
 city. Yet all the time there is a far happier one awaiting 
 him in the country, if it had only been pointed out to him. 
 " fortunatos nimium" 
 
 If English land is at all to hold its own with foreign, it 
 must be cultivated on scientific principles, not on the absurd 
 and antiquated methods which have hitherto been adopted. 
 As long as technical education in agriculture is neglected, and 
 access to the land where it can be put into practice is denied, 
 any profit from English land will soon become a thing of the 
 past. Boys whose calling it is to deal with agriculture ought 
 to be instructed in its science at school, instead of being, as 
 they are now, turned adrift to make a living out of it as they 
 best can, absolutely ignorant of its most elementary principles. 
 We all know something of the woeful ignorance of the national- 
 school girl of fifteen, just turned out of school. She has a 
 faint glimmering of the three R's, but of cooking and such- 
 like domestic work she is totally ignorant. But which would 
 serve her best in life ? "I remember," says a well-known 
 economist, " a little girl who was well up in school history and
 
 i68 NEO-MALTHUSIANISM 
 
 geography, but who was astonished at being told that the 
 ground of her father's garden was the surface of the earth." 
 Horses are useless unless properly trained for the parts which 
 they have to play ; and so are boys and girls, unless trained 
 for the special trades and professions which they intend to 
 follow in life. 
 
 If we compare our present modes of education with those 
 of Germany, we are at once struck by the difference. The 
 German boy's is entirely specialistic, and for that very reason 
 he is ousting the Englishman from almost every field, both at 
 home and in the colonies. He declares what he is going to 
 be, and is brought up to excel in that one direction, and 
 in it he becomes as perfect as he can well be. If he chooses 
 to be a clerk, he is well taught while young the use and 
 advantage of being able to converse and correspond in other 
 languages besides his own, and he strives to make himself 
 perfect in them. The consequence naturally is, that German 
 clerks are far more valuable than those whom we have brought 
 up to be clerks ; these know no language but their own, con- 
 sequently they are at a great disadvantage compared with the 
 foreigner, who has it all his own way. The German boy is not 
 taught to play on the piano, as some of ours are, merely to 
 make a discordant noise upon that instrument, but he is taught 
 how to make one as well as it can be made, which is the most 
 likely to afford him a living when he becomes a man. 
 
 Dr. Fairbairn says : " The real struggle for existence has 
 passed from the high seas and battle-fields to the marts of 
 the world. It is industrial competition which holds in its 
 hands the issues of the future; and in this competition 
 victory will go to the qualities which the school alone may 
 not produce, but which cannot be produced without the 
 school skill and character. The pitiable fear of education 
 in the farmer, or in the mistress, who dislikes a too well-read 
 servant, is, in its essence, the cowardice that would sacrifice 
 the well-being of the state to the convenience of the indi- 
 vidual (note Neo-Malthusians) ; and as this is impossible to 
 us, England must be prepared to spend whatever millions may 
 be necessary on the education of her sons." 
 
 It seems evident that, if we are to hold our own in the 
 industrial competition which seems coming upon the nations, 
 increased efficiency of education must take place. But if 
 one class, the absolutely poor one, is to have this great
 
 EXCUSES REMOVED BY REFORM 169 
 
 advantage at no cost to itself, then the professional class 
 above it is placed at a serious disadvantage. Every reform 
 is an innovation on custom. Those who, through long habit 
 and blinded eyes, have accustomed themselves to an injustice, 
 generally see no harm in it, but great harm in the proposed 
 improvement. Free education to all classes alike is a case of 
 this kind. It may seem somewhat startling at first sight, but 
 when closely examined its justice is evident. If it be con- 
 sidered wise and good, both for the individual and the 
 community, that one class should have, without money and 
 without price, what it cannot pay for, it surely follows that 
 all classes which are in the same predicament, or cannot 
 obtain what is the best for them, should have a similar advan- 
 tage. Free education to all, and the same to all, rich and 
 poor, would be of immense value in removing any excuse for 
 the practice of Neo-Malthusianism by the professional well-to- 
 do class, which has so widely adopted it. No suitable persons 
 would then fear to bring a child into the world lest it should 
 suffer disadvantage by their not being able to educate it. The 
 cost of education can be better borne by the multitude than by 
 the individual. 
 
 Another most serious defect in our present system of educa- 
 tion is that a poor boy must now leave school at much too 
 early an age. This is not the case with the well-to-do. Why 
 should it be the case with the poor? The gasfitters, the 
 plumbers, the carpenters, etc., should be taught while at school 
 everything belonging to their trades. They require as much 
 time to learn them as the learned classes do theirs. Why 
 should lads, after they have left school, be obliged to learn 
 what they might have done there until the age of nineteen? 
 The fact that they must leave at the early age they are obliged 
 to do now is, of course, caused by the pecuniary demands of 
 their parents, who look upon their children, when they have 
 reached the ages of fourteen or fifteen, as valuable stocks- 
 in-trade to add to the family exchequer. (See Mrs. Batson's 
 book, Hodge.') All this is only an additional hindrance to 
 a class which might provide much more wealth if properly 
 trained, for the whole community as well as for itself. It is a 
 miserable short-sighted policy, of course, for the parents to 
 adopt, but they are driven to adopt it owing to the false 
 economic system under which we have the misfortune to live. 
 When the wages of the father are not sufficient to support the
 
 i;o NEO-MALTHUSIANISM 
 
 family, he naturally looks for help to the children of his home, 
 no matter how immature they may be in physical or mental 
 power. This is altogether wrong. The son grows up merely to 
 add one more to the unskilled trades. The father is unable to 
 wait for his more matured and trained services, and so he is 
 sent out into the fields to frighten birds, when he might be 
 acquiring knowledge which would in the end be far more pro- 
 ductive of wealth for all. The wretched parent is forced 
 to snatch at immediate pecuniary advantages, however small 
 they must necessarily be, utterly regardless of the boy's interests 
 in the future. The result of this forced iniquitous system 
 is that the boy never rises above his father, and so the 
 tendency to a very unsatisfactory level, both for the individual 
 and the nation, is prolonged all round with the most disastrous 
 results to all concerned. We have many instances of this 
 in the manner in which foreign nations, better educated in 
 technical skill and trades than we are, have drawn away much 
 of our trade, especially the Belgians and Germans. We no 
 longer dominate the markets of the world. We have entered 
 into a war in which skill and education are the prime factors, 
 not brute force or wealth. If the report of the Commission 
 appointed by the North of England masters and men to look 
 into the causes of the present competition between England 
 and foreign countries and examine its results be read, it 
 will be found that the better positions of Belgium and 
 Germany are entirely owing to the superior special education 
 which is so lavishly bestowed upon the young of those 
 countries. It is about time we should bestir ourselves in 
 the same direction. Dr. Dillon, writing in The Fortnightly on 
 the subject, says : " In Germany love of knowledge for its own 
 sake, apart from its practical and profitable utilization, is 
 studiously instilled and successfully communicated to the 
 rising generation, and the result is writ large, among other 
 things, in the vast strides made by German commerce through- 
 out the world. Their country bristles with technical schools, 
 with commercial training-colleges, and with special educational 
 institutions for every kind of theoretical learning and practical 
 skill from the method of dairy farming to the theory of trans- 
 cendental aesthetics." What have we to show as a set-off to all 
 that ? Absolutely nothing that can be compared to the systems 
 abounding on the Continent. It is no wonder, then, that we 
 are gradually losing ground in invention and initiative.
 
 EXCUSES REMOVED BY REFORM 171 
 
 In addition to the present unsatisfactory mode of education, 
 there is much unfairness to the children. The law enacts that 
 all of them, nolens vo/ens, shall be educated. If the develop- 
 ment of the brain is necessary, which, of course, it is, it 
 equally follows that the due development of the body, without 
 which the brain is useless, should be helped also. It is certainly 
 mental torture to work a brain while the body is starving. 
 The poor child who suffers from semi-starvation should not 
 be forced to go to school to undergo mental torture, or, if it is, 
 it should be fed by the same power which forces it to go. 
 Mere humanity must admit this principle to be right and just. 
 To insist upon a poor half-starved little girl going through 
 hours of agony is a crime against which human nature must 
 protest. To force a child to learn while it is crying from 
 sheer hunger is downright cruelty. Justice and mercy revolt 
 against such inhumanity. "Teachers vainly try to develop 
 brains ill supplied with blood." (Barnett.) Voluntary efforts 
 are being made in all large towns and cities to provide those 
 children who are in absolute want of food with sufficient 
 to have one meal a day while attending school ; but these must 
 necessarily, from the nature of the case, be merely spasmodic, 
 with no certainty of continuity, and quite insufficient. The 
 dinner system is rarely helpful, never thorough, and often 
 merely mischievous. In the year 1890 a special sub- 
 committee of the London School Board reported that, out 
 of the 340,000 children then attending their schools, 110,000, 
 or one-third, had their fees remitted owing to poverty, and of 
 these 43,000 were returned by the teachers as habitually 
 attending school in want of food. For 19,000 of these 
 voluntary effort of some form or another provided some 
 sustenance, but 25,000 were hungry every day. According to 
 the best statistics available now, no less than 51,000 children 
 go to school every day in London alone in a state of semi- 
 starvation. This fact speaks for itself. The time must come 
 when hungry school-children, unless man's inhumanity is to be 
 continued, will have to be fed at the cost of the community. 
 The law says they must go to school, but it is obvious 
 that they are not in a proper physical condition to do so. 
 Either then the law will have to be relaxed in their favour, 
 or it must enact that they must be fed. As I write, a pathetic 
 appeal comes from " The School Dinner Association," signed 
 by Lord Londonderry, appealing for funds to feed the hungry
 
 17* NEO-MALTHUSIANISM 
 
 school-children of London. It mentions "the sorrows and 
 sufferings of little children which it is in our power to 
 prevent." If they were not forced to go to school, there would 
 be no responsibility for their various sufferings upon anybody 
 but the parents. Directly the community steps in and says it 
 is best for us and our welfare that you send these children to 
 school, then at once the community assumes responsibility for 
 their proper condition to conform to its rules. Extreme men 
 say that education means simply to sharpen one's claws 
 that we may fight our neighbours the more fiercely, and 
 destroy them the more successfully. Whatever it be, the child 
 who is forced by an irresistible power to learn should be put 
 into a condition by that power to enable it to do so properly. 
 Surely it must strike home to the consciences of the well-to-do 
 when they see their own children start off to school well 
 fed and happy, and then remember that many thousands 
 of the children of the poor are setting forth for the same 
 place crying from hunger. Rich bachelors and spinsters no 
 doubt would object to free education all round, and to feed 
 the hungry children, forgetting for the moment that the latter 
 is a Christian obligation, but surely it would be better for them 
 to contribute towards these much worthier objects than tailors, 
 hairdressers, and homes for cats and dogs, and other similar 
 miserable eccentricities, upon which they lavish such large 
 sums now. Moreover, in considering this matter, it must 
 be remembered what a great advantage workhouse children 
 have over children outside ; the former are taught while well 
 fed, housed, and warmed, which the latter are not. It may be 
 said that to feed hungry school-children would serve as a 
 premium on improvident marriages. These will be treated 
 of later on. It might be so at first, but as soon as proper 
 teaching on marriage becomes the usual custom, not the 
 exception, which it is, alas ! now, that tendency would most 
 certainly cease. Moreover, under our present nefarious 
 economic system, our efforts should be mainly directed 
 towards the children's interests, so as to bring about better 
 work in the future; their welfare, with a view to increased 
 productive power, and the race, should be considered first. 
 Would it not be better, by exercising this Christian charity to 
 the children in the time of their severest need, to build 
 them up healthy, capable of maintaining themselves as men 
 in later days, than to maintain the present system of being half
 
 EXCUSES REMOVED BY REFORM 173 
 
 starved as children, and then thrown into the workhouse 
 as men to die, at a great cost to England and Wales alone of 
 poor-rate amounting for the year 1895 to ^9,866,605; them- 
 selves in number, the wretched paupers, to 789,288. Surely it 
 would seem best to the most superficial understanding to stem 
 the evil before it had taken root, than to leave it until it 
 had arrived at dimensions rendering any aid almost useless. 
 If these poor starving children were properly treated when 
 young they could learn more, and not grow up rickety and 
 scrofulous, merely to fill pauper lunatic asylums and such- 
 like places. Max Nordau asks us, with a great deal of 
 truth and force, which is the best for a nation, to maintain 
 huge unproductive armies and navies, or to feed our hungry 
 children? The Christian ought to have no difficulty in 
 answering that question. No question causes more opposi- 
 tion than this one of feeding hungry children obliged to go to 
 school. It is communism. It is destroying all parental 
 responsibility. But Mrs. Barnett tells us that "play-rooms 
 for children, clubs, gymnasia, swimming-baths, must be 
 supplied, if need be, at the cost of the State." The fact is, that 
 although providing hungry school-children with sufficient food 
 may, under present conditions, be open to objection on the 
 ground that it would tend to make the idle parent idler, and 
 the drunken parent more drunken, yet it is better to undergo 
 these disadvantages of the State-feeding system for a short 
 time, than that the child, the future producing power, should 
 be hindered in growing up to be an advantage to the 
 community. Another dreadful result of a lack of proper 
 education is the present problem of the unemployed. To this 
 they owe much of their miserable existence. Their origin is 
 to be found in the unskilled labour market, which is the 
 happy hunting-ground of the capitalist, who profits by the 
 frightful competition within it. "When a capitalist has the 
 choice of a great number of working-men, he will choose that 
 one who will work most cheaply." (Turgot) Mr. Hobson, in 
 Problems of Poverty, tells us that it is this unskilled labour 
 market which provides the victims of the sweater. This 
 problem of the unemployed is now one of the most important 
 before the English people. We live in the richest country of 
 the world, wealth abounding amongst a certain class ; yet, 
 on the other hand, we see thousands upon thousands of men 
 standing all the day idle, enforced to do so against their
 
 174 NEO-MALTHUSIANISM 
 
 wishes, longing for work, yet unable to get any. Surely here 
 is a state of things which urgently calls for a remedy. Mr. 
 Hobson, I think, has at last hit upon one in his work, The 
 Problem of the Unemployed. He shows us that one great 
 cause is, that the capitalist, by laying up his possessions 
 and not expending them, tightens the work of the nation, 
 which, if he did otherwise, might be very considerably 
 expanded. In this direction lies a possible help, but in that 
 of a skilled education all round lies the surest. It can 
 very readily be seen what a great part a proper system of 
 technical education can be made to play in dealing with 
 a seeming superabundance of population and in reducing 
 poverty. It is quite evident that those who are ignorant 
 of skilled work are entirely driven out of the field by those 
 who have had the advantage of proper training. We see a 
 remarkable instance of this fact in the case of the Army 
 Reserve man. Notice a number of men at work. You will be 
 certain to observe that the mere hewer of wood, the drawer of 
 water, the mason's and plasterer's helps, are all Army Reserve 
 men, earning but the lowest wages. During all the time 
 which they might have been acquiring skilled knowledge of a 
 trade, they have been kept at unproductive work with the 
 colours. Hence, when they return to civil life, they are unable 
 to do anything better than the commonest and rudest of 
 unskilled work. They are of necessity obliged to be mere 
 diggers or helpers to the skilled artizan. They have failed 
 through adverse circumstances in the battle of life. They 
 have been hindered from learning a useful and well-paid trade 
 in their younger and best days the necessary time and now 
 they are cast out to compete with others incomparably their 
 superiors. Those who love to have large standing armies may 
 learn something of their unproductive work from this fact. 
 Another grievous injustice in this matter of education can 
 be noticed. 
 
 Centuries ago, kings and clergy founded great colleges and 
 schools for the sole benefit of the poor, who could gain in 
 them all the learning which they might wish to obtain, with no 
 expense to themselves but that of mental effort only. Now we 
 see all these priceless advantages swept from them in all direc- 
 tions by the well-to-do, who have no exclusive right to them. 
 It is the same with regard to scholarships, which were originally 
 intended for poor, not rich men's sons. But now the latter,
 
 EXCUSES REMOVED BY REFORM 175 
 
 being enabled, through possession of wealth, to obtain the 
 best education which can be got, carry off all these educational 
 prizes for their sons, and oust the poor man's, who cannot 
 afford to obtain the best education for his son. In this way 
 many a bright and promising lad is kept down by the unfair 
 advantage of wealth, and the lack of similar education all 
 round. Every boy should be given equal opportunities of im- 
 provement ; until that is done, it is nonsense to say that we 
 are all on a par so far as education is concerned, and that the 
 Chancellorship of England is in every boy's knapsack. Here 
 in this particular instance alas! only one out of far too many 
 may be seen the unfair advantages of wealth. Surely only 
 honorary scholarships should in the simplest justice be allotted 
 to the rich, and the emoluments arising out of them granted to 
 the poor. Those who are staunch Tories, of course, do every- 
 thing in their power to oppose every measure which might 
 be calculated to improve the education of the masses, and 
 in doing so they are logically correct. Everybody who, by 
 the power of education, is issuing out of the ranks of the 
 masses must hold Liberal views. Mental cultivation must 
 cause him to be dissatisfied with low, unjust, and unsatisfied 
 conditions of life and surroundings, and he naturally seeks by 
 every means in his power to remove them, and rise into a 
 higher position. New objects and desires are elucidated in 
 him, but he plainly sees that under present conditions and 
 hindrances they are incapable of attainment. 
 
 A great writer says : " The first effect of education upon the 
 masses is naturally to increase the general sensibility to the 
 many disabilities of their lot." But it is in this matter of 
 education, free and open to all, that freedom and peace will 
 be obtained, that everybody will be able to work up his way 
 towards the goal of improvement. Surely this is better than 
 the violent, revolutionary excesses which some more ardent 
 and fiery spirits fondly think they would reach it by. Peace- 
 able endeavours, like free education to all classes alike, will be 
 of more durable benefit than a general scramble for imaginary 
 benefits. 
 
 And now, in the course of considering the good effects 
 which education in its most complete, possible form would 
 be likely to have in removing difficulties out of the way of 
 a large population, we must necessarily discuss the effects 
 which education undoubtedly has on fecundity. This is one
 
 176 NEO-MALTHUSIANISM 
 
 of its most serious and important aspects. It seems to be 
 the rule that the more intellectual power there is the less 
 fecundity. We were reminded the other day by one of our 
 great journals that a very large proportion, perhaps the 
 majority, of our greatest intellectual giants have died child- 
 less, and of those who had any children, a large number 
 predeceased their parents. Few of the greatest names in 
 literature, science, or art are to-day borne by direct descend- 
 ants. The families of Chaucer, Shakespeare, Spenser, Milton, 
 Cowley, Buller, Dryden, Pope, Cowper, Goldsmith, Scott, 
 Byron, and Moore, are all extinct. There is no direct 
 descendant now living of Sir Philip Sidney, Sir Walter 
 Raleigh, Sir Francis Drake, Ussher, Cromwell, Hampden, 
 Monk, Marlborough, Clarendon, Addison, Swift, Walpole, 
 Chatham, Pitt, Fox, Burke, Canning, Disraeli, Bacon, Locke, 
 Newton, Day, Gibbon, Macaulay, Hogarth, Sir Joshua 
 Reynolds, and Nelson. And the journal goes on to say 
 that all these great names are mere reminiscences, no one 
 of them borne by a descendant; and in those cases where 
 the name is yet extant, it is borne by a collateral relative, or 
 has been adopted by a distant connection. "A surprising 
 number of the ablest men have left no descendants." (Gallon.) 
 
 It by no means follows that when there is no issue of a 
 marriage the wife is to blame; frequently the husband is sterile. 
 Shakespeare, Bacon, Milton, Newton, and Locke had only six 
 children between them. It must have been an extraordinary 
 coincidence if they had all married sterile women. Ritchie 
 tells us that the longer a man's family has existed the less 
 likely he is to have inherited any of the ability of its founder. 
 Prussia is the only country in the world which has minutely 
 studied the fecundity of marriage in accordance with the pro- 
 fession of the father. Here we find that artists, literary men, 
 and learned professors have the smallest number of children. 
 (See Mayo Smith on this point.) 
 
 It seems to be the rule that the more the brain and nerve 
 power is drawn upon, the less powerful become the generative 
 instinct and capacity. Spencer declares that cerebral develop- 
 ment hinders fecundity. Greg writes to the same effect in 
 Malthus Notwithstanding: "In other words, that the species 
 will put on more of the philosopher and savant, and let the 
 animal die ; that more books and theories will be produced, 
 and fewer children." Graham and Proudhon say that increase
 
 EXCUSES REMOVED BY REFORM 177 
 
 of mind decreases generative power. Gide and Richet say 
 that as intellect increases population will most certainly 
 diminish, for all intellectual work consumes the generative 
 capacity both in the individual and the race. Education at 
 the expense of animal fibre introduces many twists and 
 wrinkles into the brain, which increases by exercise, while the 
 body is weakened. We have many remarkable instances in 
 lower animal life of this fact, namely, the power of mind over 
 body, and the opposite. Walker, in Beauty, shows us how all 
 animals in which sexual instinct is very strong and powerful 
 are invariably very deficient in mental power and activity. 
 We have only to observe the cases of the mole, the toad, the 
 goat, the boar, and the donkey, to testify to the truth of this. 
 We must also remember, in our own sphere of animal life, the 
 overpowering sexual instinct of the unfortunate idiot; he, as 
 all attendants on such cases sorrowfully know, is a prey to his 
 animal passions. On the other hand, Foret tells us that the 
 increase of intelligence in the ant has led to the sterility of 
 the workers. The latter are a very remarkable instance of the 
 power of mind over body. For countless ages the ant has been 
 a worker in the industrial field, and the result of it is, that 
 those who have worked their little brains most have become 
 absolutely sterile. 
 
 We may yet have to learn or unlearn a great deal about the 
 increase of population from the case of the ant. We can 
 readily imagine that the increase of intellectual power, bringing 
 refinement in its train, would be very likely to reduce animal 
 propensities. Coarseness, animality, gross passions, are not, 
 generally-speaking, found amongst highly intellectual types 
 and organizations. Marshall says : " Education and the habit 
 of using the mind tend almost certainly to diminish the 
 producing power. There is only a certain fecundity of force 
 in the female frame, and if that force is inverted, so to say, 
 in one way, it cannot be used in another." This seems 
 unquestionably to be the case. Women who are intellectually 
 inclined, and who cultivate their minds, are, generally speak- 
 ing, very cold-blooded, without warm affections not quite the 
 objects to which man's love goes out. They do not wish 
 to marry, and maternity is a dreaded thing to them. They 
 would do well to refrain from marriage ; they are doing 
 wrong in reproducing lives like their own. The more that 
 women work their brains, the less becomes their maternal.
 
 178 NEO-MALTHUSIANISM 
 
 power, and consequently they shrink from undergoing what 
 is to them going down into the valley and shadow of 
 death. Who could be so cruel as to wish them to marry and 
 bear children ? Those women who happen to be intellectually 
 powerful, but physically weak, are bound, in duty to the lives 
 which they would be most likely to bring into existence, 
 to refrain from marriage and maternity. In this direction 
 a very considerable reduction of population would take place. 
 Education, by weeding out women unfit to be mothers, causing 
 them to dislike and forego maternity, will doubtless prove 
 a valuable aid in reducing the pressure of too large a popula- 
 tion. Gide says that the fecundity of the human race will 
 very materially decrease, without anything immoral being done, 
 in proportion as the intellectual and moral improvement of 
 individuals increases. What is to the savage woman, who has 
 no intellect, but a matter of a few hours, is to the intellectual 
 product of civilization prolonged misery and frequent death. 
 The higher we seem to advance in evolution and civilization 
 this matter of maternity seems to become more arduous and 
 difficult. Increased pain and danger seem to accompany 
 child-birth whenever the intellect of the mother is beyond the 
 ordinary standard ; the greater the power of the brain, the less 
 the power of the womb. Such is the universal opinion of all 
 those who have studied the subject. Dewey says that it 
 is chiefly the lack of suitable physical exercise that causes the 
 French girl to grow up to be a woman to whom child-bearing 
 is a torture, when not a danger to life itself. This physical 
 inferiority after marriage becomes a motive, working most 
 powerfully on both husband and wife, to avoid the conception 
 of children. The time seems very likely to come when plain 
 but healthy girls will be sought after by men for marriage 
 much more than pretty ones ; the latter would be likely to 
 condemn the men they married to nurse a suffering wife 
 always stretched on a sofa. All women who shrink from 
 maternity, and readily withdraw themselves from the opera- 
 tion of that mysterious law without any remorse and suffering, 
 but rather with satisfaction, certainly admit themselves to be 
 incomplete in their organization, and deficient in that special 
 function of their being. Nature tells them that they are unfit 
 to become mothers, and they should sternly relinquish any 
 idea of it. But their later years will not be such as healthy 
 women of body and mind would be at all likely to envy. They
 
 EXCUSES REMOVED BY REFORM 179 
 
 become miserable, hypochondriacal, and nervous. To be 
 alienated from woman's natural desire is no punishment to 
 them, but very much the contrary. They are nature's nuns, and 
 should be treated as the Romans treated their vestal virgins. 
 Miss Glyn writes on this point as follows : " Civilization 
 brings its cross as well as its crown ; and the high pressure of 
 modern life, which tends to shatter the nervous system, must 
 inevitably intensify the perils of motherhood, and render them 
 a thousand-fold more formidable. Motherhood amongst the 
 animals apparently carries no feeling of dread. It has been 
 left for civilized man to commit those excesses which have 
 transformed the once natural and comparatively easy process 
 of maternity into a dreaded life-and-death struggle." Upon 
 this I venture to remark, that it is somewhat difficult to 
 comprehend how lower animals could acquaint us with the 
 fact that they have no dread of maternity, and also how un- 
 fortunate man has increased the peril of child-birth, and also 
 when child-birth was "comparatively easy." Miss Glyn must 
 disbelieve the sentence which was passed upon her sex : "I 
 will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in 
 sorrow thou shall bring forth children." I have already dealt 
 with the cases of those women who are not unfitted by nature 
 to bear children who accept offers of marriage, and yet refuse 
 to have any. Writing upon this question of women's 
 intellectual achievements with reference to the health of the 
 children of such women, one of the wisest women of the 
 day writes (she must be nameless) : " The intellectual culture of 
 our women is one cause among many of the present degenera- 
 tion of health. The more a woman's mind is cultivated, the 
 less fit she is for the function of maternity. The mind 
 can only be developed at the expense of the body, and, 
 therefore, at the expense of any other organism to be formed 
 from the body. The refined and intellectual woman brings 
 children into the world at terrible cost to herself; and they can 
 only derive from her a physical system of more or less 
 delicacy, which, insufficient as it is, has taken away strength 
 from the mother that can probably never be replaced. The 
 child so produced is most likely to inherit a nervous system 
 conducing to great intellectual development, but with still less 
 prospect of a healthy offspring in the next generation." Many 
 of the wisest physicians of the past and present declare, that 
 by advocating women's intellectual improvement we are most
 
 i8o NEO-MALTHUSIANISM 
 
 seriously injuring them in their most vital point, their own 
 health, and also depriving the unborn of the sound constitu- 
 tions which ought to be theirs. Of all the blessings which 
 a man and wife can transmit to their children, that of a sound 
 constitution is the greatest ; but if women persist in working 
 their brains to too great an extent, their unfortunate children 
 will not rise up and call them blessed. A strain on the nerves 
 of women tells most adversely on their children. What is 
 hysteria in the first generation becomes insanity in the second. 
 (See on this point Jacoby, Studies on Selection; De Candolle, 
 Essay on Selection; and the writings of Delauney, as well 
 as those of many English authors.) Everyone who has studied 
 the subject knows beyond the shadow of a doubt that women 
 of great mental activity are always infertile, for activity of 
 the brain is always acquired at the expense of the bodily 
 vital powers, but where the latter are in full force the brain 
 power is small. Great, powerful, tall men are always stupid. 
 Frederick's grenadiers proved that. The more active the brain 
 and nervous system is, the less is the physical power of 
 the body. This in women especially prevents the proper 
 development of generating power, consequently women of 
 genius are always infertile. This fact, as women become 
 more and more highly educated, will tell largely on population. 
 Women will be able to choose which they will indulge in, 
 books or babies. Thousands of years' experience has un- 
 questionably proved that women are designed more for activity 
 of heart and emotions than for intellectual capacity. What- 
 ever certain women may say, marriage is a woman's natural 
 profession, and any other is exceptional and unnatural. A 
 married woman's life is far healthier than a spinster's. The 
 former has in her children the natural outlet for her emotions ; 
 the latter seeks something to love. She is driven to it by her 
 nature, and finds in pets like cats, dogs, and monkeys 
 miserable substitutes for joyous children. The same in the 
 cases of childless married women. " The reproduction of the 
 species is in woman the most important object in life, almost 
 the only destination to which nature has called her, and the 
 only duty she has to fulfil in human society." (Richerand.) 
 " Love is but an episode in the life of man ; it is the 
 whole history of the life of woman." 
 
 " Love is of man's life a thing apart ; 
 'T is woman's whole existence. "
 
 EXCUSES REMOVED BY REFORM 181 
 
 In an interesting article on the evolution of the family in 
 The Monist for July, 1896, Dr. Tropinard tells us that to all 
 female animals family is a necessity ; to the male a luxury. 
 From the moment she is capable of reproduction, the object 
 of her life is one thing love. The demand for women's 
 education, which contradicts all the natural aspirations of the 
 sex, would not have arisen except for the adverse economic 
 condition which compels her to earn her own living, and 
 which is altogether contrary to her proper condition. 
 
 This very important question of women's education and 
 intellectual activity reducing fecundity, and increasing deteri- 
 oration of children's health, is occupying a great deal of 
 attention in American medical literature. Dr. Cyrus Edson 
 writes : " Expressed in the fewest words, the evil is that an 
 increasingly large proportion of the women of the American 
 race are unable to perform their functions as mothers, and 
 these women include the mentally-best we have among us. 
 The gravity of the evil confronting us lies in this, that we 
 seem to be able to bring the women up to a certain point 
 in mental development, and then they cease to be able to 
 be mothers." Alluding more particularly to the practice of 
 Neo-Malthusianism in America, he says : " I once heard a 
 married woman say women are growing very scientific in 
 these days. It is a fact that a very large number of American 
 women now refuse to bear children. Ideas have changed. 
 The religious sentiment, which forbids efforts to prevent the 
 accomplishment of the natural function of their sex, has been 
 greatly lessened in force for many of them. To no class in 
 the community is the realization of what is going on so vivid 
 as to physicians, because to them the sufferers, from the 
 results of their own acts, must come for relief. It is almost 
 useless to point out the terrible consequences of this inter- 
 ference with nature, or to say the exchange of pain during a 
 short period is avoided, and pain during life secured. So far as 
 the act is a result of a dislike to be deprived of the pleasures 
 of society by the care of children, it is damnably wrong. So 
 far as it results from the dread of pain of child-birth, it is folly 
 so absolute that it may not be expressed in words. But when 
 it is the result of an innate feeling that there is not stamina 
 enough to stand the strain, what then? If the system of 
 education prevents American women having children, and if 
 the influence of those women is strong enough to put a stop
 
 i8z NEO-MALTHUSIANISM 
 
 to any change in that system, or if those women refuse to be 
 mothers, American men will, so far as they can, marry girls of 
 other races. In time there would gradually permeate through 
 the minds of men the understanding that health was a 
 requisite in the women they would make their wives. 
 Healthy girls, girls with stamina, would then have the same 
 advantage over their less fortunate sisters that is now possessed 
 by the pretty girls over those that are ugly." 
 
 We have sufficient grounds, then, for believing that women 
 who possess intellectual powers, and who delight in giving them 
 the freest scope, are not fitted to perpetuate the race, if, 
 indeed, they desired to do so, which they do not. Books, 
 not children, are their pleasures and enjoyments. This is a 
 matter which the advocates of the higher education of women 
 must take into serious consideration sooner or later. If it 
 should be the intention of nature by largely increasing 
 the intellectual power of women there should be less genera- 
 tion, and that by this means population, having served its 
 ends, should decrease, well and good; if not, and that the 
 higher education of women inevitably means their own 
 physical deterioration, as well as that of their children, when 
 they happen to have any, terrible results are certain to 
 ensue, one of which will be the numerical decay of the nations 
 which would encourage such women. Compare the Celtic 
 wife, Scotch or Irish, on her native hill-side magnificent in 
 physique, with flowing tresses, the mother of six or eight 
 healthy children, splendid in proportion, limbs perfectly 
 modelled, smiling and happy in the enjoyment of perfect 
 health with the unmarried woman, the product of civilization 
 pale, nervous, hair scanty and short, spectacled, a book in 
 her hand ; and then say which product, that one of nature or 
 that one of civilization, ought to be the type of woman which 
 should prevail in the future. 
 
 Those of us who are interested in women's questions, and, 
 wanting to know what women are thinking and saying about 
 them, attend socialistic meetings at home and abroad which 
 are addressed by women, must be very much struck with 
 the mental power of the women of all nationalities who 
 speak at them. Their physical appearance, however, is 
 disastrous. Keen, vigorous in mind, ready and perfectly 
 competent to give replies to most able questions, they exhibit 
 very remarkable intellectual powers. But judging from the
 
 EXCUSES REMOVED BY REFORM 183 
 
 sparkling eyes blazing with light, the quivering figure, the 
 nervous tension, the short hair, the spectacles, they certainly 
 present about the very last specimens which one would be 
 likely to choose to be mothers. In accordance with their 
 natures, such women loathe the idea of maternity, and are 
 unquestionably right in refraining from it. 
 
 If what we familiarly term nature and natural sexual 
 instinct are mere animal propensities, to be escaped from by 
 the mentally-cultivated, and left to be indulged in by the 
 more or less idiotic, then by degrees the race, becoming 
 gradually more and more intellectual, will become extinct, 
 and Terra will become similar to her satellite Luna. Is in- 
 creased brain-power and intellectual activity arranged so as to 
 bring procreative energy to an end? A very long period, 
 however, must elapse before the animal type of mankind will 
 be impelled by educational impulse to bring itself to self- 
 extinction. " Furthermore, the effect of education, for 
 instance, in reducing sexuality will tell most where it is 
 least wanted, namely, among the best types." (Evolution of 
 Sex.} 
 
 At the dawn of history we find that the race which then 
 dwelt in the valley of the Nile was the most developed in 
 mental power of all other races then on the earth. At 
 that period the men who lived in the north of Europe were 
 mere savages, but great in animal power. In course of time, 
 through developing mental power to the utmost, the Nile race 
 became extinct, and the savage one took its place. That one 
 has now in its turn developed equal mental superiority. Is 
 the same process to be repeated? Is some future develop- 
 ment of the present Central African savage destined to stand 
 on London Bridge and gaze on a decayed civilization, as 
 we gaze now on that of the Nile valley ? Many most thought- 
 ful observers of the increased demand for the higher education 
 of women at the present day attribute it to economic 
 influences, and say that if these had not been adverse to the 
 natural custom of marrying and giving in marriage the 
 question of the higher education of women would not have 
 arisen ; that in an ideal society women would have been 
 too much occupied with their proper cares their children 
 to have either wished for or attempted anything outside the 
 sphere of maternity. One thing is certain. It is only 
 within the last twenty-five years that the demand for women's
 
 1 84 NEO-MALTHUSIANISM 
 
 education has arisen, and that coincides with the advent of an 
 increased population and its inevitable accompaniment 
 pressure of competition. Hence women are called away from 
 their natural domestic sphere to undertake duties which are 
 detrimental to their nature and best physical interests. Up to 
 twenty-five years ago no women of any nation in the whole 
 world ever attempted to take upon themselves the work and 
 duties of men. History plainly tells us that when women 
 confined themselves to their natural duties they were far 
 happier than they can ever be under different conditions. 
 Close observers say that all these questions of women's rights, 
 etc., are merely the unnatural desires of unmarried women, 
 who are forced by lack of marriage into an unnatural condition 
 of mental disturbance. "Love and marriage are the only 
 normal conditions of women's life. Without them both 
 men and women for ever miss the best part of themselves. 
 They suffer more, they sin more, they perish sooner." 
 (Napheys.) Very carefully-prepared statistics prove that 
 between the ages of twenty and forty-five more unmarried 
 women die than married, and no remarkable longevity in a 
 spinster has ever been recorded. Hufeland says that to live 
 long one must be married. In France, Bavaria, and Prussia, 
 Napheys says that out of five insane women four are un- 
 married, and that throughout the whole civilized world the 
 rate is three or four unmarried women to one married. In 
 Belgium, Mulhall says there were lately only 813 insane 
 married women to 3394 unmarried; in Italy fifty-eight 
 married to 100 unmarried. Professor Mivart says : "I 
 deem the married state to be the best for the vast 
 majority of women." In consequence of marriage being 
 unattainable through want of means and pecuniary pressure at 
 home, women are driven into the markets of the world to seek 
 their bread in competition with men, some with their brains 
 and some in the factory. All this is inverting the laws of 
 nature. Far too many girls say, " I cannot starve ; I must 
 either work my hands or my brains ; I must do something to 
 earn my living." It is wholly unnatural, and most certainly 
 detrimental to their own health and the physical welfare 
 of the race. It is a natural law that men should struggle with 
 each other in many of the pathways of life, but women should 
 not. It enfeebles them and their children. Sir J. F. Stephen 
 cynically wrote on the liberty, equality, and fraternity which
 
 EXCUSES REMOVED BY REFORM 185 
 
 can be witnessed in the present unequal struggle between 
 women and men. When women have to fight with men 
 in the industrial market with their hands, their bodies must 
 inevitably fail. If they do so with their brains, nervousness, 
 hysteria, and all their attendant maladies follow as a matter of 
 course. And yet numberless writers of the day, both men and 
 women, unite in congratulating themselves and the world 
 upon the opening-out of many more " fields of labour " 
 for women, upon the many more "trades and professions" 
 which are now being entered into by them in which they can 
 " earn their living," and how thankful we ought to be that such 
 is the case. We ought rather to grieve at the shocking 
 necessity there is for women to work. The only "fields 
 of labour " which ought to exist for women are their homes, the 
 only " profession or trade " marriage. For those who have a 
 vocation for it, nursing is the only profession outside the 
 domestic one which women ought to undertake. That 
 affords an outlet for their love and affections. That gentle 
 women should have to turn out from home in the cold of 
 winter, or in the heat of summer, to work, is a disgrace to men 
 and society. Christianity abolished and overcame slavery. 
 Its next most wholesome work would be to raise women out of 
 the bonds of toil and exhaustive labour. The present struggle 
 to live is bad enough amongst men ; but between men and 
 women it becomes doubly hurtful, and trebly so, for it injures 
 the children. Women's greatest attraction ought to be their 
 helplessness, which appeals so touchingly to man's tenderest 
 side, and even the savage felt it. He hunted, he worked, for the 
 wife and children at home. " Domi mansit et lanam fecit." 
 The husband went out to seek the food, thus fulfilling his 
 natural part, and the wife remained at home and ruled the 
 household ; but now the woman fights for her food against 
 the man, and so all is chaos. With moil and toil of arm and 
 brain, gentle women are driven to work against the man 
 by taking lower wages. Yet their Creator intended the woman 
 to be the weaker vessel, to be a helpmeet for the man, 
 and always to seek his aid and protection. Cruel, merciless 
 competition drives her to work in leadworks, which are 
 detrimental enough to men, but to women simply appalling 
 in their pernicious effects to health. On no account whatever 
 should child-bearing women be allowed to work in factories, or 
 indeed anywhere. Statistics prove beyond all doubt that the
 
 1 86 NEO-MALTHUSIANISM 
 
 rate of mortality amongst children of the women who work 
 during pregnancy is enormous. The wages of the breadwinner 
 are not sufficient to maintain the family ; hence the mother is 
 compelled to work, thus injuring the breadwinner of another 
 family. The fact is, that women working in factories lower 
 their own physical powers, and also degrade the moral and 
 chivalrous nature of the man. As for the little they earn, all 
 who have paid serious attention to the matter unite in declar- 
 ing that they would be better off, even from a pecuniary point 
 of view, if they remained at home. Jalin's report from 
 Belgium, and Wright's from America, amply prove this. Max 
 Nordau says that when this dreadful competition between 
 men and women becomes worse, all gallantry will be lost, and 
 women will be unmercifully dealt with and crushed. It will 
 become a genuine wrestling-match, and there can be no doubt 
 which will have to succumb first. How differently the poet 
 wrote of men and women's work 
 
 " Thy husband 's one that cares for thee ; 
 And for thy maintenance commits his body 
 To painful labours, both by sea and land, 
 To watch the night in storms, the day in cold ; 
 Whilst thou liest warm at home secure and safe." 
 
 The census of 1891 tells us that out of the female popula- 
 tion of the United Kingdom no less than 1,840,898 were 
 employed in industrial labour of some sort, 1,759,555 in 
 domestic service, and 52,026 in agricultural pursuits. The 
 two latter, of course, nobody can object to. It is the work in 
 the factory which means such great physical exhaustion to 
 them. Mr. Hobson says that the number of women engaged 
 in trades has been gradually advancing during the last 
 four decades, and that now it amounts to over two millions ; 
 also that their most sedentary occupations, and the longer 
 hours they work in many cases outside the operation of 
 the Factory Acts, makes the evils of overcrowding, bad ventila- 
 tion, bad drainage, etc., more detrimental to the health of 
 women than of men-workers. 
 
 If women had been able to remain at home and carry 
 on their proper vocations there, these modern questions, with 
 regard to the education of women and unnatural callings for 
 them, would not have arisen. 
 
 In addition to the barrenness of offspring, which we have
 
 EXCUSES REMOVED BY REFORM 187 
 
 ample grounds for believing higher education brings about, 
 there is to be added to it another most serious result, that of 
 increased suicide. It is a certain fact that self-destruction is 
 far more prevalent amongst highly-educated nations than in 
 ignorant ones. Saxony is the best-educated country in the 
 world, and there we find the highest rate of suicide in the 
 world ; while Ireland and Portugal, the most illiterate, have 
 the lowest. During the year 1893 the number of suicides in 
 the following countries were, per million : 
 
 Saxony . . ... 340 
 
 Denmark . . ... 253 
 
 France . . ... 218 
 
 Ireland . . ... 24 
 
 In France, we are told, the rate is terribly increasing, but in 
 others it is about stationary. The rates in France have been, 
 per million : 
 
 1830 . . . ... 51 
 
 1840 . . . ... 82 
 
 1850 . . . ... 103 
 
 1860 . . . ... 112 
 
 1870 . . . ... 133 
 
 1880 . . . ... 178 
 
 1885 . . . ... 205 
 
 In cities, Paris has the highest rate. The figures are at 
 present, per million : 
 
 Berlin . .170 
 
 Brussels . .271 
 
 Copenhagen . 302 
 
 Dresden . . 240 
 
 Florence . . 76 
 
 Frankfort . . 344 
 
 Genoa . . 64 
 
 London . . 85 
 
 Milan . .133 
 
 Naples . . 60 
 
 New York . 144 
 
 Paris . . 422 
 
 Rio Janeiro . 60 
 
 Rome . . 53 
 
 St. Petersburg . 206 
 
 Stockholm . 272 
 
 Turin . .no 
 
 Vienna . . 287 
 
 (Mulhall). 
 
 It is a most curious fact that the rate according to other 
 countries practically remains the same. If in highly-educated 
 nations an increased rate of suicide is to be accepted as an 
 indication that people, after having received the best educa- 
 tion possible, then find that it makes them dissatisfied with 
 life in consequence of not being able to satisfy the new desires
 
 1 88 NEO-MALTHUSIANISM 
 
 which have been evoked in them by education owing to 
 repressive economic conditions, there is much scope for fear 
 and imagination of what increased education may involve the 
 world in. A strong disinclination to live is becoming more and 
 more perceptible every day. Suicide by the young is becoming 
 far too common an occurrence. They seem to flinch from the 
 struggle for life, to shrink from having to undergo the daily 
 repugnant task which is the unhappy lot of far too many. 
 Mr. Hobson says that by striving to educate the poor we 
 have made them half conscious of many needs they never 
 recognized before. They were once naked and not ashamed, 
 but we have taught them better. We have raised the standard 
 of the requirements of a decent human life, but we have 
 not increased to a corresponding degree their power to attain 
 them. 
 
 Again, if suicide be taken as an indication of want and 
 misery and all economists unite in affirming this France has 
 an unenviable notoriety, as she ranks third in the list. It 
 would consequently seem that she is not in the very flourish- 
 ing condition which the Neo-Malthusians would try to persuade 
 us she is. Morselli says that France annually loses through 
 suicide 7896 men in the prime of life ; Prussia, 4096. 
 
 The connection between education and suicide is, of course, 
 easily discernible. Education makes men feel very acutely 
 the horrors of failure. This has much more effect upon an 
 educated than an uneducated man, upon a refined brain than 
 upon one which is of a lower and coarser type. Among 
 savages and idiots suicide is very rare. Among the Chinese 
 it is very common indeed; but the cause in that country is, of 
 course, the miserable government under which they have to 
 live. The effect which education has on promotion of suicide 
 can also be explained by the fact that mental development 
 brings greater increase of insanity, nervous disorders, and 
 greater sensitiveness to mental and physical suffering. (See 
 Mayo Smith on this point.) Morselli and Wagner, the two 
 greatest authorities in the world on suicide, clearly show how 
 nervous development and suicide invariably increase side by 
 side. We all know very well that a very refined, highly-bred 
 person suffers far more pain, both in mind and body, than one 
 of a lower type does. A coarse, brutal man will undergo an 
 operation without anaesthetics, and suffer very little ; a highly- 
 sensitive, nervous person would die under it. A bird or
 
 EXCUSES REMOVED BY REFORM 189 
 
 animal will move about and seem very little the worse for a 
 gunshot wound which would instantaneously kill a human 
 being. For instance, how frequently one sees a pheasant, 
 wounded in the air, fall with a tremendous thud to the ground, 
 and yet instantly run away, and give a man a difficult task to 
 catch it. The fact is, that the more refined animal life be- 
 comes, whether by education, selection, or surroundings, the 
 more insanity and nervousness it develops. Witness the cart- 
 horse and the thoroughbred, the ploughman and the refined 
 aristocrat of letters, the dairy-maid and the educated lady of a 
 thousand years' inherited selection and refinement. Insanity, 
 the result of nervousness, is the unnatural heritage of educa- 
 tion and refinement. It is the heavy price which we have to 
 pay for surrendering our purely animal type. For instance, 
 for 52 peasants who become insane, no less than 525 persons 
 of the learned professions do so. 
 
 We are all aware also of the well-known fact how constantly, 
 under these two potent factors, old families die out. Refine- 
 ment and education have married refinement and education 
 for centuries, and the result is nervousness, insanity, and 
 barrenness. The peerage and the family become extinct. 
 They are only kept from their fate by marrying into a more 
 animal type occasionally, which enriches, by a healthier strain, 
 that one which was worn out. It brings it back into a 
 healthier, more natural, invigorated condition. Maudslay, in 
 his Physiology of the Mind, tells us that the last members of 
 an old family are nearly always consumptive or insane. Too 
 refined breeding tells its own tale. Darwin says that 450 per 
 10,000 marriages among the nobility of England are con- 
 sanguineous, being six times the average of such marriages in 
 England; and 19 per cent, of the English nobility are child- 
 less, more than three times the average for England. " Our 
 aristocracy, by exclusive intermarriage among ancient families, 
 proceed blindly to breed in contempt of deformities, or 
 feeble intellect, or of hereditary madness, under the instiga- 
 tion of pride, or the love of wealth, until their race becomes 
 extinct." (Sir A. Carlisle.) 
 
 The proof that brain and nerve development produce in- 
 sanity can easily be seen in the case of savage races. In them 
 insanity is of the very rarest occurrence ; in fact, it may be 
 truthfully said to be non-existent. In them there is no worry, 
 no wear and tear of life, no strain on nerves and brains ;
 
 190 NEO-MALTHUSIANISM 
 
 animality is triumphant, and consequently insanity is unknown. 
 It is rapidly increasing in all civilized countries, but in the 
 races where savagery still exists there is not the very slightest 
 indication that such is the case. In the animal stage of man's 
 existence insanity cannot gain an entrance ; it is the product of 
 civilization. Those who think will naturally ask themselves, 
 is all this nervousness, insanity, and infertility of women caused 
 by advanced education, a rebellion of nature against inter- 
 ference with its laws? Insanity amongst lower animals is 
 unknown. It certainly seems to be an evil production of 
 increased mental attainments. If evolution by mental selec- 
 tion is to lead future generations to a general condition of 
 insanity, we may well have compassion upon them. As we all 
 know very well, there are many who believe that all mental 
 ability is nothing but the genius of insanity, or a form of 
 epilepsy; in other words, that to be clever one must needs 
 have a dash of insanity in his blood. 
 
 If we take it by itself, nature revolts against education. 
 About one child in a thousand learns from the pleasure of 
 acquiring knowledge, and that child learns with pleasure 
 merely from heredity the result of one of its ancestors 
 having acquired that taste. Mental power is not a product 
 of nature itself, it is a habit acquired mostly in opposition 
 to nature. Take the case of the average boy, and we all 
 know how irksome and disagreeable it is to him to acquire 
 knowledge, but how naturally the chase, the sports, the games 
 come to him, and what a delight they are. Our natural bent 
 is to return to nature, not to rise out of it ; whatever is done 
 in that direction is against the grain. Nature plainly informs 
 us that it abhors education and mental development, and she 
 punishes those who break her laws by inflicting upon them 
 infertility, nervousness, insanity, and suicide. All lower 
 animals, and even vegetable life, seem to be included in 
 this category. We are all well aware of the infertility of 
 highly-bred animals and plants. The more we bring them out 
 of that condition in which nature has placed them the less is 
 their fertility. We have a very curious instance of this in the 
 case of very highly-bred pigeons. Every pigeon-fancier knows 
 that high-class breeding of pigeons has a tendency to reduce 
 the food from pigeons' crops most suitable for young pigeons, 
 and therefore they keep common pigeons to provide it for 
 them. In zoology higher productions are very infertile, the
 
 EXCUSES REMOVED BY REFORM 191 
 
 inferior very much the reverse. We know the great difficulties 
 we have with regard to flowers in this respect also. Villey 
 points out to us that the rose in its natural condition has only 
 five petals, but it multiplies very rapidly. When cultivation per- 
 fects it, and the stamina are changed into petals, the develop- 
 ment proceeds at the expense of fecundity, and it can only be 
 reproduced by planting fresh trees. The Neo-Malthusian 
 might then find, in promoting education by every means in 
 his power, a remedy for an excess of population. The more 
 education, the less fecundity; so the future need give him 
 no cause for alarm. " Another important commentary on 
 Malthus' Essay, which subsequent study has brought into 
 prominence, is suggested by the reflection that we have not 
 yet arrived at a full knowledge of the physiological laws which 
 govern the increase of population. There may be relations 
 between the nervous strain, which often accompanies a higher 
 standard of national comfort and intellectual acquirements, 
 and the growth of population which have not yet been com- 
 pletely disclosed and investigated." (Price.) 
 
 So far then as our arguments have led us on this matter of 
 education, we can gather that our evolution by force of educa- 
 tion means that in the future we have to expect nerveless, 
 effete men and barren women. As time goes on, each 
 person who is raised by education out of the less cultured 
 classes will add one more to the infertile ; in due course all 
 will be absorbed into that class ; they themselves in the course 
 of mortality will pass away, and leave nobody to take their 
 places. Or will the opposite be the case? Will mankind 
 learn in time that the intellectual type is contrary to the nature 
 and feelings which the Creator has implanted in the human 
 race ? Education, then, may well have its terrors as well as its 
 advantages so far as population is concerned. 
 
 The question we all, I suppose, ask ourselves sometimes is, 
 Does civilization improve the physical condition of human life? 
 It cannot be said that it does. If we compare what our armies 
 have done when engaged in battle with savages and it is a 
 very fair test we can easily see that if our men had been 
 armed only as savages were they would have been massacred 
 to a man, they would have had no chance whatever. The 
 plain fact is, that the nearer the man is to the animal the 
 better is his physical condition. If the water of the stream 
 be purer nearer its source than at a distance from it, it
 
 192 NEO-MALTHUSIANISM 
 
 naturally follows that man must be in better physical con- 
 dition nearer his origin. Even if we take into account all the 
 inventions of civilization, it is very questionable, as Mill said, 
 if they have lightened human toil in the least degree. It seems 
 to be the unerring law that the longer man lives upon the earth 
 the greater are his wants, the greater is his expenditure of mental 
 effort, the greater is the strain upon his nerve force. Shall 
 we, after all, be obliged to acknowledge the truth of Holy 
 Scripture, " that in much wisdom is much griefj and he that 
 increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow " ? 
 
 It would be well for us to bear in mind these words of 
 Fouille*e : " On compte annuellement dans 1'ancien monde 
 environ trois cent mille fous, dont la majeure partie se trouve 
 en France, en Allemagne, et en Angleterre, dans les pays de 
 plus grande activite intellectuelle."
 
 THE EXCUSES FOR NEO - MALTHUSIANISM 
 REMOVED BY A REFORM IN MARRIAGE 
 
 HPHOSE who wish to study the great and complex problem 
 -*- of population must first study that of marriage, its only 
 legitimate source amongst civilized nations. Whatever may 
 have been the custom amongst primitive savage races there 
 are many different opinions held by competent authorities 
 promiscuous intercourse, under the influences of an advancing 
 civilization, soon disappeared. Some say that promiscuous 
 intercourse was never the rule amongst the higher anthropoid 
 apes or mankind in its most savage state. All close observers 
 of the habits of the orang-outang, the gorilla, and all anthro- 
 poid apes existing in present times, declare that promiscuous 
 intercourse is not their custom. The male is accompanied 
 by three or four females only. Many affirm that the anthro- 
 poids are monogamous. This question can be studied in 
 the interesting works of Starcke, The Primitive Family, 
 Letourneau, The Evolution of Marriage, Westermarck, Tylor, 
 McClennan, etc. Sir Henry Maine shows us how promiscuous 
 intercourse always ends in sterility, and that primitive man 
 soon found this out and stopped it. Dr. Carpenter also tells 
 us that slave-owners in early times also had to prevent it, 
 in consequence of the slave women becoming totally infertile. 
 An additional proof of this is that prostitutes are always 
 infertile. " II ne passe pas d'herbe dans les chemins ou tout 
 le monde passe." In the case of the sterility of these women 
 nature gives us an indication of her healthy working. They 
 are bad types of humanity. Generally-speaking it is the soft, 
 easily-led girl, a weakened product of humanity, who gives 
 herself up to prostitution. If the supply was not kept up, the 
 class would die out in the first generation. It must be 
 remembered that there was no such custom in primitive times 
 as prostitution. Every man had a wife or wives; every
 
 i 9 4 NEO-MALTHUSIANISM 
 
 woman a husband. It is the result of what we too frequently 
 and inaccurately term an advanced civilization. The women 
 themselves loathe the life. No girl adopts it for love's sake, 
 but to gain a living. 
 
 "Old, ere of age, worn-out when scarce mature, 
 Daily debased to stifle my disgust 
 Of forced enjoyment in affected lust, 
 Covered with guilt, infection, debt, and want, 
 My home a brothel, and the streets my haunt. 
 For seven long years of infamy I 've pined, 
 And fondled, loathed, and preyed upon mankind, 
 Till the full course of vice and sin gone through, 
 My shattered fabric failed at twenty-two." 
 
 Marriage, in some form or another, is now the rule, and 
 it is evident that there can be no greater question before 
 mankind. That, and its result, the reproduction of human 
 life, affect the whole duties and relationships of life. In some 
 form or another they lie across the threshold of every path of 
 economic or individual reform. Human prosperity and its 
 opposites poverty and misery all have their origin there. 
 The questions arising out of the customs of polygamy and 
 polyandry have no concern for us, as they are in use only 
 amongst uncivilized, semi-barbarous nations, and have no 
 effect on the populations of Europe which we are treating 
 of. Marriage, Christian marriage, is what concerns us. 
 Before it all other questions must give way. It lies at the 
 core of all civilized thought. It touches everybody. Nobody 
 can escape from its consideration at some time of life. It 
 affects all the ramifications of human interests. Marriage and 
 the family are the basis of all civilization. Without them the 
 human race would retrograde to the condition of the brutes 
 which fight with each other to enable them to satisfy 
 their carnal appetites. Yet there are some found amongst 
 us to-day who advocate a state of morality which could only 
 end in a pandemonium like this. Wisely, most wisely, has it 
 been laid upon every man that his only proper moral condition 
 in these respects is to be joined to one woman for life, and 
 that he is to leave all else for her. At the creation of man the 
 Almighty laid down that law for mankind to follow un- 
 reservedly ; and its divine origin and human utility are amply 
 proved, for wherever it is disregarded men and women fall 
 into savagery and decay. But man has been given the power
 
 EXCUSES REMOVED BY REFORM 195 
 
 of choice. Ought marriage and the generative instinct of 
 mankind to be indulged in and given full expression to, under 
 no matter what circumstances or times, in every degree and 
 form ; or ought man himself to place some restrictions on his 
 reproduction ? Undoubtedly, in early, ignorant stages of his 
 career, besides the positive checks which then prevailed in the 
 shape of wars and famines, he adopted merciless, brutal ones, 
 such as abortion and infanticide. Even later on, in consider- 
 ably more civilized times, these were in use. The advanced 
 learning and civilization of Greece and Rome made use of and 
 sanctioned them. Aristotle approved of their adoption, and, 
 moreover, stated that when population became excessive they 
 should be enacted by law. On the other hand, Roman writers 
 condemned the practice, although they state it was very 
 common, and that the patrician women practised abortion to 
 preserve their figures, which we are told is the same object for 
 which Frenchwomen now practise Neo-Malthusianism. The 
 better educated, more far-seeing Roman policy was to induce 
 population, but it was outwitted by the pernicious habits 
 of the time. The Greek policy was to repress it at all 
 hazards. (See Lecky's European Morals.} Mommsen shows 
 us how in early times the Roman considered a home, wife, 
 and children to be the very essence of proper life and citizen- 
 ship ; but how in later, more degenerate times, when luxurious 
 habits had developed, all these fell into disrepute, and that the 
 Gracchian laws, the Lex Julia et Papia Poppaa, had no effect 
 in curing the disorder. Rossbach also tells us that the earlier 
 Romans always regarded the procreation of children as the true 
 end of marriage. Directly, he says, this was despised, and 
 abortion and infanticide adopted, the empire fell. Notwith- 
 standing their adoption of so-called prudential checks, savage 
 races, given over to reckless and heedless procreation, know- 
 ing no self-restraint in sexual matters, increased inordinately ; 
 and for that very reason, tribes such as the Scythian and the 
 Hun, issuing forth out of their forest lairs, overthrew a world 
 in arms, because hunger pressed them on. Their means 
 of subsistence was disordered, and they were forced to seek 
 new sources of food. Tacitus gives us a full description of all 
 this exodus. In very early times, however, when population 
 was scanty, and had to make its way in the face of outward 
 repressive influences, men, actuated by self-preservation, by no 
 means restricted the increase of their species.
 
 196 NEO-MALTHUSIANISM 
 
 Alison, in his great work, The History of Population, enters 
 very minutely into this aspect of the matter, and shows us how 
 in very primitive times man's only hope of existence and pre- 
 servation consisted in increasing his numbers, and thus be able 
 to conquer and overcome the wild beasts by which he was 
 surrounded. But when this was accomplished, this impetus to 
 increase was not necessary. Yet population was still recklessly 
 allowed to increase ; hence the means of subsistence, owing to 
 lack of agricultural knowledge, became disordered. This 
 heedless procreation has gone on ever since. Man has utterly 
 disregarded all rules and order for his own reproduction, and 
 now we are reaping the fruits of his neglect. 
 
 There are now no new worlds to conquer, except by the 
 peaceful paths of immigration, which are not, alas ! made 
 sufficiently smooth, yet man recklessly increases his species. 
 Owing to an unwise system of generation, and being unable, 
 through an adverse and unnatural so-called civilization, to 
 obtain sufficient work to maintain himself and children, or 
 outlet to where he could do so, he is necessarily driven 
 to compete within himself to the utmost, most merciless 
 stretch of fury; hence all our present troubles. All rule and 
 order in marriage that which of all terrestrial matters most 
 affects all human life, especially under such unnatural condi- 
 tions as we are now living are completely cast aside as of no 
 importance. From this arises what we are pleased to term the 
 survival of the fittest. Thousands upon thousands of miser- 
 able babies are born tired, merely to die almost immediately 
 poor weakened infants who ought not to have been conceived ; 
 some drag out a few years of more or less pain, and then 
 perish; others grow up to struggle in the general scramble, 
 they themselves to be soon overcome and go under. The 
 strongest only survive; and this cruel, inhuman, merciless 
 system is called "weeding-out," " nature at work," " the survival 
 of the fittest." It is considered quite the proper course. All 
 this human wreckage cast upon the earth is only the working of 
 a beneficent nature. It is too absurd. If it was not truly 
 awful in its results, the system might be termed sheer waste. 
 And yet it continues. People have grown up in it, grown 
 accustomed to it, think it quite natural, that man cannot help 
 it, it is part of the order of the world. Yet, if he thought, he 
 would certainly see that abortion and infanticide would be far 
 preferable, from a humane point of view, and save much
 
 EXCUSES REMOVED BY REFORM 197 
 
 human suffering. We are told that all this dreadful system is 
 most excellent and effectual in preserving the best types and 
 crushing out the unfit. If the goal or summum bonum of the 
 human race can only be attained by means of a laissez faire 
 evolution, or the survival of the fittest from among multitudes 
 of sufferers as age by age rolls on, as Darwin, Spencer, and 
 others teach, we can only reply, that that kind of evolution does 
 not accord with Christianity or the most elementary notions of 
 justice and mercy. It would inevitably lead us to believe that 
 the Creator, by laying down such a cruel law for mankind to be 
 improved by, is a ruthless monster, regardless of all individual 
 suffering. It would cause us to believe that our ordinary 
 feelings of justice and sympathy are not the attributes of 
 God. 
 
 Behind all the piteous scramble and melancholy aspect 
 of human struggles now taking place for food and life amongst 
 mankind, we Christians fully believe that there is a design of 
 a loving God, who pities it all, yet still leaves man to work out 
 his own destiny, which course will be far better and more 
 advantageous for man himself than if He was to interfere 
 directly. Tangled and difficult to understand all this suffering 
 has been in the past and present stages of the world's history ; 
 but it must be always remembered that now we see through a 
 glass darkly, but in the end we faithfully believe that all 
 its purpose will be amply explained. 
 
 It was the argument of the Deists that if God was proved 
 to do what our sense of justice and mercy could not approve 
 of, or consider to be in accordance with the perfection of any 
 divine character, no evidence could make them believe in 
 Him. Some of us are familiar with Clark's insistence of the 
 divine morality as identical with our moral consciousness. 
 Goldwin Smith calls it the grand doctrine of Clark as to 
 the identity of human and divine justice. 
 
 If the survival of the fittest through long ages of struggle is 
 the proper law of nature and nature's God, then we are oppos- 
 ing it by every means in our power, for we are attempting 
 to heal, to bolster up, to prolong lives, which we ought not if 
 that system be the right one ; we ought, on the contrary, 
 to hasten them on to their end as quickly as possible. 
 
 We Christians believe that Christ revealed the Creator, His 
 Father, and that His greatest care and consideration is love for 
 mankind. Surely, if God is love, it cannot but be that whatever
 
 198 NEO-MALTHUSIANISM 
 
 hurts man, or is an injustice to him, must be hateful in 
 the eyes of his Creator. Proper evolution, no doubt, has its 
 place in design ; but we ought to believe that this, so far as 
 man himself is concerned, is intended to take place through his 
 reason and intelligence, not through blind crassness and 
 opposition to nature's most simple laws. We surely ought to 
 believe that man's evolution, in the true and proper sense 
 of the word, ought to take place through reason, which he 
 alone of all animals has had given him, instead of through 
 the multiplication of the unfit, with only a few of the least 
 diseased surviving. That evolution is the law of laws concern- 
 ing everything which can apply to man's nature and surround- 
 ings there cannot be the slightest doubt. 
 
 " There wanted yet the master-work, the end 
 Of all yet done a creature who, not prone 
 And brute as other creatures, but endued 
 With sturdily of reason, might erect 
 His stature, and upright, with front serene, 
 Govern the rest, self-knowing, and from thence 
 Magnanimous to correspond with heaven." 
 
 Without entering into the question whether man was 
 gradually raised from an arboreal anthropoid ape to a higher 
 grade of being, and then at a certain further stage the spirit 
 of God was infused into him, thus weaning him from the 
 brutalizing effects of the reminiscences of his animal origin, 
 or created at one moment mostly as he is now, nobody 
 can deny that evolution plays, and has played, a most crucial 
 part in man's mental and physical development. 
 
 Gradually man has become master of everything; and the time 
 has now come when he can rule his own evolution. Formerly, 
 when he was ignorant and savage, brutality ruled him ; but he 
 was led by degrees out of a lower into a higher life, and no 
 doubt the rule of the survival of the fittest acted ruthlessly 
 in the process. But as man becomes more intelligent, more 
 self-restrained, less savage, less ruled by animal passion, this 
 survival of the fittest and massacre of the unfit ought to cease 
 to be. Such a system, with its inevitable consequences, cannot 
 be a part of man's improved, intelligent, more matured nature. 
 Is it to be believed that in these days of superior know- 
 ledge everything which bears upon man's reproduction is 
 to be left to the blind passions of his lower nature? It is 
 impossible. Moralists tell us that man's highest life should be
 
 EXCUSES REMOVED BY REFORM 199 
 
 a struggle to overcome all lower passions and desires. Surely 
 we have arrived at the time when man is not to be considered 
 a mere generating animal. 
 
 " The pestilence that springs 
 From unenjoying sensualism has filled 
 All human life with hydra-headed woes. " 
 
 When man looks back on the disordered condition of a 
 lower nature, out of which he no doubt issued, he sees all the 
 chaos there ; he sees the struggle for life going on throughout 
 savagedom, in which his species once played so piteous a part, 
 but out of which a divine care and guidance has led him. 
 He surely ought to profit by what he sees and what his species 
 has experienced. Whatever may be the conditions of a lower 
 creation and nature, the survival of the fittest cannot have any 
 due and recognized part in the evolution of civilized man. It 
 must be remembered that the struggle for life between the 
 lower animals cannot for a moment be compared with that 
 between man and man. The lower creation has no mind, no 
 foreknowledge, no idea of what the future may bring. Man 
 possesses the faculties of memory, reflection, and anticipation, 
 which lower animals do not. They eat, they drink, they sleep, 
 they give free licence to every animal desire, they indulge in 
 sexual gratification under all circumstances, at every available 
 time, in every place ; and as long as they can have all these 
 ad libitum they are supremely happy, with no haunting cares 
 to harass them. Poignant grief is unknown to them ; anxiety 
 for the future has no place in their lives. The pig wallowing 
 in his sty is the essence of animal happiness; he has no 
 trouble until the momentary cut of the knife ends his mortal 
 career. Lower animals have no nerves like ours, and far less 
 physical sufferings to undergo than man ; to them the past 
 and the future are blanks. How is it possible, then, to com- 
 pare man's struggle for life with theirs ? The former is affected 
 by it both in mind and body, the latter in body only, and that 
 only momentarily. 
 
 We Christians must refuse to believe that the strong are to 
 trample on the weak, and that by their doing so man is to be 
 evolved into his Utopia in ages to come. Many, seeing the 
 struggle for life continually proceeding amongst the lower 
 types of creation, think that the same must necessarily be 
 a part of man's nature and environment also, but it certainly
 
 200 NEO-MALTHUSIANISM 
 
 need not be so ; if it is, it is caused by neglect of proper rules 
 of marriage and reckless procreation. Man is capable of 
 adjusting his own reproduction as he pleases. Lower animals 
 have not that power of discernment. There is a fixed gulf 
 between him and them in this most important respect. They 
 can only act in accordance with a blind instinct which impels 
 them on regardless of the future. In all lower animals the 
 generative appetite is itrestrainable. In man it is not so ; he 
 has had reason given him, which Butler described as the 
 " candle of the Lord," to guide him in this as well as in all 
 ' other matters which come before him. Moreover, experience 
 adds to his reason in this matter of reproduction. He alone 
 has learned to guide and help nature. We know very well 
 that nature, bountiful as she is, is most materially helped on to 
 improvement by man's guidance. If left to herself, she runs 
 riot everywhere. In the case of a garden, nature, unrestrained 
 by man, fills it with useless weeds. We do not suppress nature 
 there, but guide it into more convenient channels for man's 
 benefit. We know the difference between hot-house and out- 
 of-door grapes, and many other such-like things. We know that 
 if a man imbibes poison, and be left to nature alone, he dies; 
 if nature be helped, he survives. So precisely ought it to be, 
 without anything immoral or destructive to the individual or 
 the nation being done, with regard to man's reproduction 
 of himself. Lower animals are quite incapable of doing this ; 
 but man can, and always so acts in animal and vegetable 
 cultivation. In the selection of all animals which are useful 
 to him he always acts with a view to help nature. What are 
 our prize cattle, our thoroughbred horses, our best produced 
 of all animals, but the result of man's guidance and help 
 to nature ? In dealing with his own stirpiculture, alas ! he 
 acts without the exercise of any reasoning power whatever. 
 Old and young, strong and weak, whole and diseased, mentally 
 powerful and mentally weak, all marry and are given in 
 marriage, utterly regardless of what the issue of such marriages 
 will be. Is it any wonder, then, that the multiplication of the 
 unfit and the survival of the fittest takes place amongst man- 
 kind? It is perfectly clear that all these piteous results are 
 caused by man's own wilful neglect of the reason with which 
 God has endowed him, and not from God's indifference to the 
 welfare of His children. In this matter, as in all others, 
 God will only lead man to better things by allowing him
 
 EXCUSES REMOVED BY REFORM 201 
 
 to exercise the reason which He has given him ; when he 
 breaks away from it, he is surely punished in some way. 
 " When a being, whose safety depends on the perfection 
 of a system of laws, abandons the system by which he lives, 
 he becomes subject to that lower grade of laws which govern 
 lower intelligences." (Cope, Origin of the Fittest,} In gratify- 
 ing their sexual appetites, the lower animals, bereft of reason, 
 have no other object but present self-indulgence; they have 
 no idea that the result of their sexual intercourse will be the 
 reproduction of lives similar to their own. At certain times, > 
 not of their own choice, they are driven by nature to reproduce 
 themselves, and they cannot resist sexual feelings and instinct. 
 They act upon the spur of the moment ; they have no moral 
 power, no power of self-control in the slightest degree, whether 
 in this or any other matter appertaining to the senses. 
 
 It is somewhat difficult to imagine a greater mistake than 
 Lady Henry Somerset makes in her article, "The Welcome 
 Child," when, arguing that a wife ought to be left the power 
 to choose when, if at all, she shall become a mother, she says, 
 "Whoever doubts this has only to study the laws of God 
 written in the life of the animal world, and he will find that 
 the whole creation, in a natural state, is founded on the principle 
 of the mother's right to choose when she will become a mother." 
 Greater nonsense was never written. Utterly irrespective of 
 her own choice, the female of all lower animals is acted upon 
 by nature at certain times for the purpose of reproduction, and 
 she associates with the first of her species she happens to meet 
 with. Not the slightest vestige of a choice of time, oppor- 
 tunity, or place is left her. To human nature is allotted by 
 its Creator a totally different state of action with regard to its 
 reproduction. Man is perfectly well aware of what the result 
 of his sexual intercourse will be, hence the enormous differ- 
 ence between man and the lower animals. They have no 
 powers of discernment. It is therefore quite in accordance 
 with our ideas concerning the fitness of things that amongst 
 lower creations of nature we should find a most disordered 
 condition of existence, ending in a survival of the fittest after 
 much suffering had been endured by the weakest. But man, 
 not only in his own case, but also in that of the lower animals, 
 can remove them out of the struggle. He was created to 
 have dominion over them ; and so, when he brings them under 
 his control by domestication, he protects them from the bitter-
 
 202 NEO-MALTHUSIANISM 
 
 ness of the struggle for life. The lower animal under man's 
 guidance, both as regards its life and reproduction, is in a very 
 different condition to what it is in its wild and savage state. 
 Its young are carefully fed and tended, no more life is allowed 
 to be produced than what is necessary, and so the survival of 
 the fittest is attained without any cruelty. In its wild state 
 the animal has to seek its food as it best can, in all manner of 
 struggle, and with divers means of torture; but in a domesticated 
 state all these hardships of existence are removed. The lion 
 in the zoological gardens is maintained in a very different way 
 from that in which it would support itself in a wild state. 
 
 People say that one of the greatest mysteries of life and 
 difficulties of belief is the existence of pain and suffering, 
 which are the consequences of creation. Look at the wild 
 beasts, they say, carniverous animals, which cannot exist with- 
 out causing pain to others. They cannot help themselves ; if 
 they do not inflict pain and suffering upon others, they die 
 themselves in pain. What a mystery it all is ! Why did their 
 Creator create them so ? How is all this to be reconciled with 
 the belief that God is good, and loves all His creatures ? But 
 surely, if we think a little more, we can see that this mystery 
 is capable of some explanation. As long as these animals are 
 in a wild state they massacre and devour one another, but 
 when man comes upon the scene the whole situation under- 
 goes a transformation at once. When they come under his 
 dominion, which was intended, all their cruelty to each other 
 ceases at once. In the cases of those which have to live on 
 animal food, they are given it by him at little or no pain to 
 those who have to die to give it. Moreover, as man penetrates 
 further and further, in his mission to subdue the earth, into the 
 haunts and lairs of the carnivora, he destroys them, and only 
 keeps alive those which are useful to him, and those are not 
 many. The useless he extirpates, and thus more and more 
 reduces the suffering. 
 
 Everything tells us that man was to be the master of nature, 
 and guide it into channels most productive of good and 
 utility to him. He is the being which was created to bring 
 order out of disorder, regularity out of irregularity, fitness out 
 of chaos, both in the animal and vegetable kingdoms. When 
 men cast away their reasoning powers with regard to their 
 own reproduction, the inverse order of these things must 
 ensue. They bring themselves thereby under the disorder
 
 EXCUSES REMOVED BY REFORM 203 
 
 of an uncontrolled nature they relapse into an unprotected 
 state ; and thus they inevitably bring about in themselves the 
 survival of the fittest. Malthus' advice of prudent marriage 
 holds as good now as it ever did, and will as long as the world 
 lasts, no matter what perfection of distribution or nature of 
 food we may arrive at. Properly-regulated marriage with- 
 out undue postponement, without anything immoral, without 
 anything detrimental to either the individual or the nation 
 being done will afford a very great solution to the difficulties 
 attendant upon an excess of population. As Malthus truly 
 observed, the checks to population may come from either 
 man or nature. They are preventive or repressive moral 
 restraint; vice, or poverty. We have hitherto adopted, without 
 bounds, the two latter. Surely the time has now come when 
 moral restraint ought to have more power and force than 
 it has hitherto had in checking an excess of population. 
 Chastity for too long a period of time is not demanded, 
 but only for that time which the personal health of the 
 individual rightly requires, and the economic prosperity of the 
 nation justly demands. Increasing power of self-control, which 
 we are now happily acquiring over our lower nature, will in the 
 end be the means of producing that self-restraint which all 
 nations must have recourse to sooner or later in dealing with 
 population. Those who uphold the laissez faire system of 
 dealing with population as the best and soundest, ought 
 logically to believe that life is not a good thing, that for the 
 vast majority it is not worth living, and the sooner it is 
 crushed out the better. They believe that nature cannot 
 abide in lower types. Quite so ; but those who can command 
 nature might compass those ends better by not permitting 
 nature to have any inferior type upon which to wreak its 
 salutary laws. Marx very forcibly says, with regard to this, 
 that an abstract and unchangeable law of population only 
 exists for plants and animals, and for these only in so much as 
 they are independent of man's influences ; in other words, 
 according to Schaffle " Bau und Leben " there is a natural as 
 well as a human selection. See also the force of Dr. Reich's 
 writings on the function of reproduction in man being placed 
 under the dominion of his will, and also Mr. Lang in Problems 
 of the Future, where he takes a pessimist view of the future, 
 and declares that, if the present excess and multiplication of 
 the unfit does not diminish, he can see no other palliation
 
 204 NEO-MALTHUSIANISM 
 
 of the trouble but a huge increase of the death-rate. In 
 addition to the struggle for life, and the survival of the fittest 
 out of the struggle, which takes place amongst animals and 
 plants in a purely natural state and the lower we descend 
 in the scale of creation the greater we find it the great 
 fecundity which takes place amongst them is always accom- 
 panied by great mortality. It is precisely the same amongst 
 human beings who recklessly propagate their species. When 
 man was in his savage state he knew nothing of self-control 
 in sexual matters, consequently population increased abun- 
 dantly. Then nature stepped in, and removed the overplus by 
 a great mortality. We have not yet, notwithstanding increased 
 morality, reached a much better state of things. At the 
 present time a quarter of the population of the world dies 
 before it reaches the age of seventeen. Leslie Stephen and 
 other great thinkers believe that the advantages of this 
 crushing-out, survival of the fittest system, outweigh its 
 disadvantages, and that all is well. But it is contrary to 
 Christian morality, justice, and mercy. It would inevitably 
 lead us to fatalism. Is Hartmann's pessimism to be our only 
 consolation? Are we to weave garlands and sing songs of 
 joyful deliverance over the coffin one sufferer less in the 
 world, and weep over the cradle another weary pilgrim 
 entering upon his journey of sorrow and woe ? Is man, 
 rebelling against this doom of the survival of the fittest, to 
 find the only solution for misery and pain in bringing himself 
 to extinction by refusing to propagate his species ? Are the 
 sufferings of this mortal life under this nefarious system only 
 to be ended when man shall deny himself all sexual gratifica- 
 tion, and thus cause death itself to die ? 
 
 Turgot said that everything comes back to life to perish 
 again, and what remains behind bears the impress of what 
 has passed away. If that idea be correct, each generation 
 would profit by the sufferings of those who had gone before, 
 and learn how to avoid them. By this means, it might be 
 supposed that we are to reach forward in time to the attain- 
 ment of better things ; but surely the thought must naturally 
 arise, how much greater the reward should be for those by 
 whose sufferings and miseries the future race of mankind will 
 gain a greater peace. Surely those who have been baptized 
 with the baptism of sorrow, misery, and poverty, in the course 
 of evolution to better things, deserve a greater reward than
 
 EXCUSES REMOVED BY REFORM 205 
 
 those who, through no storms of life, are destined to sail 
 peacefully into the calmer havens of rest which the sufferings 
 of former generations have won for them. Although evolution 
 may be creation's final law, it need not be carried out by 
 reasoning beings, at any rate, by means of a fratricidal struggle 
 the one against the other the man against the woman, one 
 person longing for the death of another so that he might fill 
 the vacant place, one man to gain a better position or merely 
 his food by trampling on the bodies of his massacred fellow- 
 creatures, whom he has slain in his struggles to succeed, as the 
 Amazonian creeper overwhelms everything else in the forest 
 in its struggles to reach the sun. Even in the earliest times 
 of which we have historical knowledge, reckless marriages, 
 with their inevitable results the survival of the fittest and 
 great mortality had occupied the attention of thinkers. 
 Buddha, attempting to remedy them, went too far in the 
 opposite direction, and wished to have no human propagation 
 whatever. He taught that the only cure for all the ills of 
 life was to suppress all sexual desire. He said that the carnal 
 instinct in man to reproduce his species was sharper than 
 the iron hook with which wild animals were trained, it was 
 more ardent than fire, it was like an arrow planted in the 
 heart of man. He was, of course, a pessimist, and considered 
 that all human life was the incarnation of evil, and meant only 
 suffering; that as long as it existed in the world the latter 
 would only be an inexhaustible field of human suffering and 
 misery ; and that the only solution of the mystery was to 
 abolish marriage, all sexual connection, and thus bring life 
 itself to an end. It was a thing which had no right to exist; it 
 was contrary to the will of a good god ; it was the production 
 of an evil one. Annihilate therefore all human sexual cravings, 
 he said, and aim only, by overcoming all human passions, at 
 being absorbed into final extinction within the eternal rest of 
 Nirvana. In the Dhammika Sutta he says : " A wise man 
 should avoid marriage as if it were a pit of burning coals." 
 
 This, of course, is the opposite extreme. The practice in 
 vogue then was to reproduce life everywhere ad libitum, 
 regardless of all consequences; the other, do not reproduce 
 it at all. Hartmann and Schopenhauer teach the same 
 doctrine as Buddha did, namely, human suffering and death 
 will continue until the race, by man's own self-denial, will 
 cease to exist.
 
 206 NEO-MALTHUSIANISM 
 
 The teeming populations of Buddhist countries are, how- 
 ever, a quite sufficient answer to the human attainment of 
 Buddha's doctrines, and the hold they have on the nations 
 which he addressed. As a guide to real life his theory has 
 utterly failed, as it was certainly bound to do, inasmuch as it 
 ignored a higher divine law that man was to increase, and 
 multiply, and replenish the earth. Buddha's teaching is 
 supposed to be in accordance with that theory which has 
 prevailed in all ages and throughout all countries, namely, 
 that Adam and Eve were forbidden to indulge in sexual 
 gratification that was to be their probation, their trial, 
 imposed upon them by God ; that they disobeyed, hence all the 
 misery and death in the world ; and that these will continue 
 until man voluntarily returns to the condition Adam and Eve 
 were in previous to their fall. Then, and only then, will all 
 man's sufferings cease. The theory does not pronounce 
 upon the fate of the lower animals. We are reminded, as 
 a proof of the truth of this theory, that the woman who 
 tempted the man was punished by the pains of child-birth. 
 The Christian thinks of the verse in i Timothy ii. 15, that 
 through the child-bearing, i.e., bearing Christ, she would be 
 the means of redeeming the world and herself. It is curious 
 how long this theory of sexual extinction has existed in the 
 world. "'Woe unto them that are with child, and to them 
 that give suck in those days.' They said that He had come 
 to destroy the works of woman, and that Salome having asked 
 Him, 'How long will men continue to die?' He replied, 
 'How long will women continue to bear?'" (Clement of 
 Alexandria, Stromata, iii. 9.) 
 
 Many of the ancients taught that to multiply life was merely 
 sowing death. Tatian, believing this, declared that marriage 
 was merely legalized prostitution. "Some said Satan 
 had created woman. They found life bad, and would not 
 multiply it. Why prepare a harvest for death ? Why involve 
 in the Fall, by birth, the undeveloped souls who sleep, still 
 virgin of stain, in the bosom of the unknown Father? The 
 pleasures of sense are only snares of the cosmic powers, who 
 wish to associate us, in spite of ourselves, with the accursed 
 work of the generation of creatures. To escape them, and 
 ascend to the highest heavens, the soul must declare that it 
 had not sown for the Prince of this world." (See Les Femmes 
 et la Morale Chretienne. Renard.)
 
 EXCUSES REMOVED BY REFORM zoj 
 
 I have mentioned these theories merely to show how very 
 much the thought of marriage and its results have occupied 
 the minds of thinkers from the earliest times, and how much 
 even then the dismal science was affecting the thoughts of 
 mankind. In fact, there has never been a time when marriage 
 has not formed the absorbing consideration of the human 
 race. Its result population came home so forcibly to the 
 minds of all, that nobody could regard it without either hope 
 or fear, according to the point of view from which it was 
 observed. At the present time it is difficult to foresee what 
 the future of marriage and population will be. Old rules and 
 customs are breaking down everywhere, and new ones seem- 
 ingly not for the best are taking their places. Some take a 
 hopeful view with regard to both, and that without anything 
 immoral being done. They think that there will be no greater 
 pressure than there is now, and that that is, even now, very much 
 diminishing, for the birth-rate is falling everywhere throughout 
 all civilized countries. (See, with regard to this, " The Proba- 
 bility of a cessation of the growth of Population in England 
 and Wales during the next century." Economic Journal, 
 December, 1895. Cannan.) It is very difficult to predict 
 what will happen in the immediate or distant future with 
 regard to it. We have some grounds, however, for believing 
 that reason will at length prevail, and that population will not 
 increase so marvellously and recklessly as it has done during 
 the present century. We have some grounds for hope that all 
 the extreme pressure and evils resulting from an unrestrained 
 growth of population which we are now experiencing is only 
 temporary, and will cease as soon as wisdom, prudence, and 
 self-control in marriage have permeated the classes which now 
 set these virtues at defiance. 
 
 It is reasonably to be expected that as soon as the human 
 race becomes more highly individuated, improved in morals, 
 in thought and requirements, population will decrease. 
 Everybody's attention is being called to the necessity for 
 reforms in the marriage system. Reform in every' degree of 
 sexual relationship is in the air, and great good must result 
 from it. The question of marriage, its seriousness, the awful 
 responsibility of increasing life, is now being considered in a 
 manner which it has never been before, and a vast improvement 
 must ensue. Women declare that at length they are permitted 
 to say what they think about it. Formerly their thoughts were
 
 208 NEO-MALTHUSIANISM 
 
 only interpreted by men ; now they can give utterance to their 
 own, and this is no doubt quite right. Until men and women 
 are placed under equal rights in marriage and all its responsi- 
 bilities, justice will not be granted to women. For instance, 
 can there be anything more outrageous, more unjust, more 
 deliberately insulting to women than that a husband may 
 wallow with loathsome prostitutes, and then disease his 
 wife and children ? Yet, horrible be it said, the pure wife 
 and mother is bound by law to submit herself to this monster, 
 whether she likes it or not. He can divorce her for one 
 fault ; she cannot him, unless his many are accompanied with 
 cruelty. It is time that such inequalities between men and 
 women should cease. 
 
 How long is such an injustice to be inflicted on pure 
 English wives and mothers? It is in such cases as these 
 that women's voices should certainly be heard. With regard 
 to the freedom, when married, to decide when they shall 
 be mothers I have previously dealt. Duty to a good man 
 and husband must be their guide in this, as well as in all 
 married life. 
 
 That men should place some moral limit, in consideration for 
 wife and children, on their own reproduction admits of no 
 doubt whatever. Even in the most ideal state of prosperity 
 and equal distribution there should be some attention paid 
 to tKis point. Nature itself God's law tells us that it should 
 be so. "Be fruitful and multiply" must be acted upon in 
 accordance with man's reasoning powers and dictates of 
 conscience. For instance, girls can conceive and bear 
 children as soon as puberty commences, but will any 
 civilized being I am not now including, of course, nations 
 of warmer climates, where the age of puberty and full 
 development is reached much earlier than by those of 
 colder regions advise or permit them to do so? In the 
 former, girls attain that period at a very early age, followed 
 equally by an early old age, no woman being a mother after 
 she has reached the age of twenty-five. 
 
 If we permitted our girls to bear children as soon as they 
 had reached the age of puberty, population would enormously 
 increase. But we exercise our reason here ; we guide nature, 
 we hold it in check, where otherwise it would run riot and 
 bring great trouble. For instance, nature tells us, by constant 
 menstruation even in the case of a mere child, that her con-
 
 EXCUSES REMOVED BY REFORM 209 
 
 dition, according to its own harsh rules, is wrong ; for what is 
 menstruation but a revolt of nature ? Before that period the 
 womb has been prepared by nature for the reception of the 
 ovum, and menstruation is but an angry revolt against its law 
 of conception not being carried out. Nature in man must be 
 controlled. An immense number of cases occur in which it 
 cannot be left to itself; if it is, we most certainly suffer in 
 some way. Nature is not a safe guide in all circumstances 
 of life, especially in the matter of conception by young girls. 
 If they married at fifteen, and lived married lives without 
 artificial checks to conception, they would bear, on an average, 
 nine to twelve children, instead of the lower average which 
 our reason brings about. 
 
 In every civilized state young gentlemen and young ladies 
 can only be permitted to look at each other through the grille 
 of the preventive check which Colonel Perronet Thompson 
 suggested. Inferior animals only obey their natural sexual 
 instinct in this respect ; but where man rules he restrains his 
 own, for he is well aware, through experience, that the produce 
 of immature beings is not so strong and healthy as that born 
 of matured strength. Imagine any society of a civilized con- 
 dition allowing its boys and girls, say at fourteen, to become 
 fathers and mothers. Nature, taken alone, tells us that they 
 could perform those functions, but we keep them, and 
 consequently the extension of the race, in check. 
 
 From this fact and many others we learn that population 
 should not be recklessly allowed to increase, but that man, 
 by exercising supervision and necessary restraint, should keep 
 it just at that point where it would afford a due and proper 
 stimulus to increase subsistence, that is, to keep the latter 
 always on the stretch. In this respect unassisted nature 
 seems to afford us some clue to the manner in which 
 necessity might be balanced. The ratio of the natality 
 of boys and girls is generally, with regard to the nations 
 of which we have the possibility of such statistics, as 103 
 to 100. For instance, in England from 1881 to 1891 the 
 average was 1037 boys to 1000 girls, but of these the death- 
 rate was in the proportion of 1123 boys to 1000 girls. This 
 can be easily accounted for by the risks and hardships which 
 boys have to undergo. 
 
 There are some very curious facts with regard to sexuality. 
 In the tropics, and in all hot countries, many more girls than
 
 210 
 
 NEO-MALTHUSIANISM 
 
 boys are born ; hence the saying of the Moslem, " Allah has 
 given us more girls than boys ; hence it is certain polygamy 
 is from God." Amongst the Jews there are notably more 
 boys born than girls. Letourneau says that the rate of Jew 
 natality in Russia is 113 boys to 100 girls; in Breslau, 114; 
 in Livonia, 120. In certain professions masculine births far 
 exceed feminine. Bertillon says that more boys are born to 
 the English clergy than to any other in the whole civilized 
 world. I have inquired into this so far as is possible, and I 
 find Bertillon's statement to be amply confirmed. The return 
 of the Registrar-General of the number of births in England 
 and Wales in 1890 was : 
 
 Males 
 Females 
 
 In 1891 : 
 
 Males 
 Females 
 
 Excess of Males, 14,203. 
 
 Excess of Males, 17,163. 
 
 . 442,070 
 427,867 
 
 . 465,960 
 448,497 
 
 But this excess of male natality is soon transformed : 
 
 AGES OF MALES AND FEMALES IN ENGLAND AND WALES 
 IN 1891 UNDER ONE YEAR : 
 
 374,432 
 . 380,101 
 Excess of Females, 5669. 
 
 Males 
 Females 
 
 Males 
 Females 
 
 UNDER 25 AND OVER 20: 
 Excess of Females, 151,720. 
 
 1,247,346 
 i,399,o66 
 
 Professor Mayo Smith gives the following figures, showing 
 the proportion of boys to girls in the following countries : 
 
 Italy 
 
 Austria 
 
 France 
 
 Switzerland 
 
 German Empire 
 
 Holland . 
 
 Belgium . 
 
 Scotland . 
 
 Ireland 
 
 England and Wales 
 
 1865-78. 
 
 189*. 
 
 104 
 
 1058 
 
 106 
 
 1058 
 
 103 
 
 1046 
 
 99 
 
 1045 
 
 
 
 1052 
 
 102 
 
 1055 
 
 102 
 
 1045 
 
 106 
 
 1055 
 
 106 
 
 1055 
 
 104 
 
 1036
 
 EXCUSES REMOVED BY REFORM 
 
 211 
 
 
 1865-78. 
 
 1892. 
 
 
 
 
 1046 
 
 
 
 
 1072 
 
 
 
 
 1049 
 
 
 104 
 
 
 
 
 103 
 
 
 
 104 
 
 
 
 
 III 
 
 
 
 
 '05 
 
 
 
 
 105 
 
 
 
 94 
 
 
 
 104 
 
 
 
 
 106 
 
 
 
 Massachusetts 
 Connecticut 
 Rhode Island 
 Hungary . 
 Bavaria . 
 Prussia 
 Servia 
 Roumania 
 Russia in Europe 
 Greece 
 Spain 
 Sweden , 
 
 From these figures it can be seen that England and Wales 
 have the lowest rate of all, and it is certain that this decrease 
 is becoming greater every year. The origin of sex has not 
 yet been discovered. (See Evolution of Sex, and the article 
 "Sex" in the last edition of The Encyclopaedia Britannica ; 
 also Busing, Das Geschlechtverhaltniss im Konigreich Preussen.) 
 
 Mulhall gives the following natality per thousand in these 
 countries : 
 
 England 
 
 Scotland 
 
 Ireland 
 
 United Kingdom 
 
 France 
 
 Prussia 
 
 Russia 
 
 Austria 
 
 Italy 
 
 Spain 
 
 Portugal 
 
 Holland 
 
 Belgium 
 
 Denmark 
 
 Sweden 
 
 Norway 
 
 Switzerland 
 
 Greece 
 
 Roumania 
 
 Europe 
 
 From these figures it can easily be seen how greatly in error 
 Miss Glyn is when she says, "The female is said largely 
 to exceed the male birth-rate." What ought to be the standard 
 rules of a proper marriage system under which population 
 might, without any injustice or unfairness to anybody, be kept 
 
 
 Bovs. 
 
 GIRLS. 
 
 
 511 
 
 489 
 
 
 5H 
 
 486 
 
 
 
 485 
 
 
 512 
 
 488 
 
 
 
 . 487 
 
 
 514 
 
 486 
 
 
 508 
 
 492 
 
 
 516 
 
 . 484 
 
 
 517 
 
 - 483 
 
 
 516 
 
 484 
 
 
 515 
 
 485 
 
 
 
 . 487 
 
 
 5J4 
 
 486 
 
 
 512 
 
 '. 488 
 
 
 
 486 
 
 
 512 
 
 488 
 
 
 
 481 
 
 
 521 
 
 479 
 
 
 
 487
 
 212 
 
 NEO-MALTHUSIANISM 
 
 at an effective strength ? Well, in the first place, immoderately 
 youthful marriages should be avoided ; temperance should 
 always be exercised by the married in sexual matters ; and no 
 diseased couples should marry. As regards the first, people 
 must learn that, whether there happens to be an excess of 
 population or not although in the former the matter is greatly 
 aggravated youthful marriage is most prejudicial to all 
 concerned to society, parents, and children. Especially it 
 should be laid to heart that too youthful marriage is very 
 fatal. Commenting upon youthful marriage in France, which 
 the Neo-Malthusians assert to be most beneficial, and which 
 their system would very greatly promote, the Rev. A. T. 
 Lyttelton gives us the death-rate in France. Men per 
 
 1000 : 
 
 AGE. 
 
 l8 to 2O 
 2O ,, 25 
 25 ,, 30 - 
 
 30 35 
 Women per 1000 :- 
 
 AGE. 
 
 IS to 20 
 20 25 . 
 25 30 
 30 35 
 
 MARRIED. UNMARRIED. WIDOWERS. 
 
 5O'O 
 8-9 
 6-2 
 6-8 
 
 6-9 
 12*9 
 
 I0'2 
 "'5 
 
 MARRIED. UNMARRIBD. 
 
 9-9 
 9-0 
 9-4 
 
 8'3 
 9-0 
 9-9 
 
 49 -6 
 21-8 
 14-2 
 
 WIDOWS. 
 I2'3 
 23-6 
 16-9 
 15-0 
 
 Unfortunately, we have no means of ascertaining the death- 
 rate of the youthful married in England, but what occurs in 
 France in this respect would no doubt be equally the case 
 in England. The rate of maternal mortality in England per 
 100,000 is said to be as follows : 
 
 Between 15 and 25 
 
 25 35 
 
 35 .. 45 
 
 45 ,. 55 
 
 668 
 
 425 
 663 
 
 This proves the danger for women to bear children at too 
 early or too late an age. An additional danger awaits women 
 who bear children after having passed the age of forty-five ; 
 the number of their stillborn children amounts to six and 
 seven per cent. Lionel Beale warns us against too youthful 
 marriages. It stands to reason that imperfectly developed 
 parents cannot produce healthy children, and that the strain
 
 EXCUSES REMOVED BY REFORM 213 
 
 upon the parent must be very great. " There can be no doubt 
 that in the human race early death is by no means an in- 
 frequent result of the premature exercise of the generating 
 organs." (Carpenter.) All physiologists assert the same. (See 
 the works of Acton, Lippert, and Duchatelet.) The old 
 German proverb says, " Give a boy a wife, a child a bird, and 
 death will soon knock at the door." Aristotle warned young 
 men against too early marriages, asserting that they were fatal 
 to life. "It is very common for those who marry young to 
 die young." (Napheys.) We must teach the young that con- 
 tinence in sexual gratification until mature age is reached is 
 absolutely necessary for everybody's welfare. " Early marriages 
 and frequent child-bearing destroy the health and strength of 
 the woman, and reduce the whole family life to the level of the 
 brute." 
 
 At the present time marriage is undertaken by far too many 
 without any order, without consideration, in the vast majority 
 of cases unadvisedly, without understanding, like brute beasts, 
 and yet it lies at the whole root of most of our present evils. 
 Boys and girls in their teens rush headlong into the holy estate 
 of matrimony without exercising the least foresight, and 
 without making the slightest preparation for the future. If 
 they have no consideration for themselves, they should be 
 made to consider the children who will be born to them. 
 If the parents are not fully developed, especially the mother, 
 neither can their children be. Dr. Cyrus Edson, Health 
 Commissioner for New York, commenting upon the folly of 
 too youthful marriages, says that all abnormal tendencies come 
 from the mother's side, and that if she is not fully developed 
 her children will be mere weaklings, both morally and physi- 
 cally; also that children of older parents are wiser and stronger. 
 
 Professor Korosi, of Buda Pesth, says that the ratio of the 
 deaths of children born of mothers below the age of twenty 
 is twice as great as that of children born of older parents ; and 
 he also states that the vitality and stamina of the children 
 who may happen to survive are very little. 
 
 Darwin wrote as follows on this matter: "Children born 
 of mothers during the prime of life are heavier and larger, 
 and therefore probably more vigorous than those born 
 at other periods." The town of Bar le Due once made 
 an interesting experiment in this matter. For many years 
 an accurate registration was kept of all children born
 
 zi4 NEO-MALTHUSIANISM 
 
 to parents under twenty-one years of age. The average 
 number born to such a marriage was 3*1 6, the remaining 
 average was 2*34 ; but forty-three per cent, of the children 
 born to the former died before they reached the age of twenty. 
 Schone, writing upon early marriages, says : " There is in them 
 a loss of men, of wealth, in addition to the diseases undergone 
 by those who bear children too young to do so without danger, 
 the misery, the tears, absence of good spirits, which tend 
 so much to make a population contented. These kind of 
 unions also add largely to the class which cries out for 
 help." 
 
 Marriage at too early an age, while both parents are still un- 
 developed, is condemned by every writer on the subject. Burns, 
 Litzman, Hecker, and Mitchell go deeply into the subject, and 
 all unite in utterly condemning it. The latter says that imma- 
 ture mothers are specially liable to produce idiot children. 
 Statistics amply prove this statement to be true, for the 
 vast majority of idiots are first children. " Premature con- 
 junctions produce imperfect offspring, females rather than 
 males, and them feeble in make and short of stature. That 
 this happens in the human race as well as in other animals is 
 visible in the puny inhabitants of countries where early 
 marriages prevail. To the female sex premature wedlock 
 is peculiarly dangerous, since, in consequence of anticipating 
 the demands of nature, too great a strain is placed upon 
 them." Nature always shows us that the young of immature 
 lower animals are smaller and weaker than those born of the 
 matured in their full vigour and prime. A young hen, for 
 instance, always lays smaller eggs than the full-grown one. 
 When age comes on the same rule applies in all animal 
 creation ; there comes the growth, the equilibrium, and the 
 decay. No reproduction of life should be permitted during 
 the former or the latter. 
 
 "Marriage at eighteen," said a woman of the world who 
 had tried it, "is what no mother would desire for her 
 daughter. The average girl of twenty is but a girl, insuffi- 
 ciently developed ; she attaches too little value to life, to the 
 importance of motherhood, to the dignity of her own person, 
 in a word, to woman's rights as a wife and mother, to enter 
 matrimony at that age." 
 
 Previous to the twenty-third year a man is incapable of 
 producing healthy children ; if he has children, they are most
 
 EXCUSES REMOVED BY REFORM zi$ 
 
 likely to be weak and deformed. " The children of immature 
 marriages are rarely healthy. They are feeble, sickly, under- 
 sized, often with some fault of mind or body. They inherit 
 more readily the defects of their ancestors, and, as a rule, die 
 at earlier years than the progeny of better-timed unions." 
 Joulin, the greatest of French authorities, said that no girl 
 should marry until for a year at least her stature had ceased to 
 increase, and that if the contrary took place the race would 
 degenerate. Women do not reach their full stature until 
 the age of twenty-five. (See Matthews Duncan on this point 
 in Fertility, Fecundity, and Sterility.} Everybody who breeds 
 sheep knows that the lamb of a one-year-old ewe generally 
 dies, and the same occurs in the case of heifers. Sussmilch 
 said that the cow which has a calf while still young never 
 reaches her fullest development. No matter where we look in 
 animal life, we always find the fact that the young should not 
 perpetuate their species staring us in the face. The class out 
 of which spring too early marriages must be taught that this 
 world is not intended solely for mere animal gratification. 
 When Malthus was remonstrated with for the pessimistic 
 tendencies of his book, he replied that this world was not 
 intended to be one of enjoyment, but of probation, and that 
 men were called upon to keep their appetites in check, and 
 were warned that the laws of nature would punish them if 
 they did not. The young must be taught the necessary rules 
 of marriage and purity ; generally speaking, these are thrown 
 to the winds. Sexual instinct exists, and the young of 
 certain classes never imagine that it should be kept under 
 control. (See Richard Jefferies' description of the morals pre- 
 valent in the country villages of England.) The artizan class 
 in general is growing up quite heedless of restraint in marriage. 
 "The morality of men should tend to overcome physical 
 impulses, and every state of civilized society must have 
 recourse to moral restraint." (Cohn.) 
 
 Gallon condemns Malthus' principle of prudent marriage, 
 because under it the best types would be likely to die out, 
 for those only would follow it whose progeny would be the 
 best; the least beneficial would crowd out the highest 
 natures. But Malthus' advice was to postpone marriage to 
 far too late an age, and only applied it to one class the 
 poor one. We must endeavour to teach all classes, whether 
 rich or poor, that too early marriages are most injurious, not
 
 *i6 NEO-iViALTHUSIANISM 
 
 only from a pecuniary, but from a moral and reproductive 
 point of view also. The earlier years of this century in 
 England saw terrible effects from too youthful marriages 
 and their results an enormous number of children, who 
 were brought into the world to act as their parents' slaves 
 and helps. 
 
 Those who have made themselves acquainted with the 
 inner history of those times know the awful condition which 
 the factory children were in. Brutal and merciless it was, 
 so much so, that then the world saw, for the first time in 
 history, the suicide of children, carried out by them as a 
 means to free themselves from the misery of despair. The 
 strain of competition caused parental love to be an unknown 
 quantity, and parents forced their children, while yet almost 
 infants, to work for them. Youthful marriages and children 
 were the fashion, unrestrained licence was the rule. It might 
 have been hoped that we had now learned better. Not even 
 in savage countries, amongst the most savage nations, are 
 youthful marriages allowed ; there is very considerable control 
 kept over the young with regard to marriage in them. No 
 man can marry until he is a warrior, and until he has 
 sufficient means to marry upon. Yet in England, where 
 it might naturally be supposed we have reached some im- 
 provement on savagery, we are in a worse condition with 
 regard to our marriage system than any savages. Even in 
 countries inhabited by the latter, where there are no extremes 
 of poverty or wealth, where the communal system is supreme 
 as in the islands of the Pacific, where all have unlimited 
 access to the soil, where all live out of it, and where it 
 teems with produce, where nobody wants for food youthful 
 marriages are not permitted ; the bridegroom must be a man, 
 a warrior, not a precocious stripling, as is the case now in the 
 artizan class of modern civilized England. Youthful marriages 
 here, especially in the cities and towns, is a matter which now 
 imperatively needs controlling in some way, unless our evils 
 of over-population are to be magnified. It is a matter which 
 all teachers of the young will have to grasp before long, that 
 is if they wish to do their duty to the present and future 
 generation. 
 
 Volumes upon volumes have been written upon the terrible 
 and disastrous issues of these unnatural and untimely boy- 
 and-girl-marriages ; but I think everything which has been or
 
 EXCUSES REMOVED BY REFORM 217 
 
 can be written upon them is admirably summarized in The 
 Contemporary Review, in the article by Mr. Dendy on this 
 subject. Here is the extract, which condenses all previous 
 writings : " You will find the results (of those improvident 
 marriages) most manifest in the lower-class Board Schools. 
 The troops of ragged, dirty, stunted little urchins, neglected 
 and crippled in mind and body, that you will see there, are 
 the offspring of these reckless marriages. Follow them home, 
 and you will see the ruined lives of their parents ; the mothers 
 are either worn-out drudges before they have reached middle- 
 age, or have developed into the careless slatterns who live 
 on the door-steps, gossiping with like-minded neighbours ; the 
 fathers, with all self-respect crushed out of them, are reduced 
 to picking up odd jobs at the street corner, and live more in 
 the public-house than in their wretched homes. If we think, 
 further, what the children brought up under such surroundings 
 must become, the question of improvident marriage shows 
 itself as one of the most serious of modern social life." 
 
 We are all very well aware that the power of population is 
 not to be found merely in its numbers, but in its stamina and 
 vitality. The birth-rate may be very high, but those who reach 
 manhood and womanhood may be very few ; so that it is the 
 quality, not the quantity, of the birth-rate which is the most 
 important point and factor in the matter. There cannot 
 be any profit in a large birth-rate if the children die in the 
 first year. This is the test from which we are in a position 
 to judge of the state of affairs in France. There we have 
 a falling birth-rate, and also a rapidly-falling decrease of men 
 at the best age, namely, between fifteen and sixty; therein 
 lies the future ruin of France. It will not be of such bad 
 import to us, if we have a falling birth-rate, if those children 
 who are born are strong and individuated, capable of reaching 
 to adult vigour, and not mere human wreckage. 
 
 "In our present state of society the majority of children 
 do far otherwise than increase the productive power and 
 the success of the labour of the parent; and, on the contrary, 
 it generally happens that the lowest ranks of society are 
 those where there are most characteristic anti-social qualities 
 and apathy." We are told by medical authorities that the 
 whole tendency of modern civilization is to reduce the 
 children of the more refined type, and to increase those of 
 the lower. Rich feeding and luxurious habits are particu-
 
 218 NEO-MALTHUSIANISM 
 
 larly liable to interfere with conception. The fecundity of 
 the human race is diminished by the life prevalent among 
 the rich, and augmented by the habits and spare diet of the 
 poor in the proportion of over six to one. 
 
 If this reckless procreation by the class least fitted for it, 
 with its consequent high death-rate, which is the present 
 pernicious custom, continues, our higher birth-rate will not 
 benefit us in the least nobody but the insurance offices and 
 the undertakers. The classes among which these improvident 
 marriages take place are really deserving of our pity. They 
 offend through ignorance; they have had nobody to warn 
 them against their own folly. Nobody tells them how fatal 
 to life youthful marriage is likely to be to the man, how 
 detrimental to the girl, and how shockingly inhuman to the 
 child. They have been left to writhe in their ignorance of 
 such matters; no man cared for their welfare, hence the 
 results we see to-day. If the girls of these classes had 
 been taught by their more delicately nurtured and refined 
 sisters that a girl's life is not intended to be a mere scene 
 of animal gratification, if they had been spoken to on these 
 matters of purity when they were at an impressionable age, 
 the lamentable evils which we all so bitterly deplore would 
 not have been called into being. When girls have had this 
 most necessary teaching they soon learn to cast off animal 
 desires, marry later in life, and do well for themselves and 
 all concerned. The daughters of the well-to-do are better 
 taught in these matters, and carefully guarded. It is the 
 poor, uncultivated, ignorant, sensual hoiden of the streets 
 who recklessly increases population and laughs at the future. 
 She never thinks for a moment of the obligations which 
 rest upon her of making provision for a home and children ; 
 yet, if she looked at lower nature, she would see that her 
 sex even there always makes provision for them. More 
 often than not all the capital which the modern girl-bride has 
 is the week's wages of the boy-bridegroom, and those, 
 generally speaking, are consumed in drink on the wedding- 
 day. Nothing has been saved, nothing laid by for illness 
 or want of work; hence much of our present miseries and 
 distress ; hence arises over-population, and that mostly help- 
 less and diseased. 
 
 Mr. Dendy writes of these marriages : " All the morning 
 there has been a noisy crowd round the church gates, and a
 
 EXCUSES REMOVED BY REFORM 219 
 
 row of the shabbiest vehicles and most broken-down horses 
 in London has stood waiting to carry off the wedding parties 
 to the railway station or to the nearest public-house. In this 
 way they will spend the day, sampling the public-houses, and 
 making merry among their friends, until any lingering traces 
 of the sobering effects of the morning ceremony have been 
 well washed away. One wonders, watching them, at the 
 light-hearted way in which they take this step. For the 
 girls especially it means burdens which seem almost too heavy 
 to be borne of care and sickness and poverty, of hopeless 
 squalor or unceasing toil, leading to premature old age or death. 
 By the time they are twenty-five all the elasticity and vigour of 
 youth are crushed out of them, and those who maintain their 
 self-respect have nothing to look forward to but drudgery. 
 These early marriages are the curse of the poor. Couples 
 such as these will not even wait to get a decent home together. 
 An old bedstead and bedding, two rickety chairs and a table 
 to match, a strip of greasy carpet, and two or three 
 cracked cups and saucers, these will be collected from 
 sympathizing neighbours, or picked up for a few halfpence 
 from the costermonger's stall. There are thousands of such 
 homes, which have not cost ten shillings to put together." 
 
 The following anecdote reveals something of the manner 
 in which the holy estate of matrimony is entered upon at the 
 present day. A wedding of a youthful couple took place 
 recently somewhere in Haggerston, at which the bridegroom 
 offered a handsome pipe to the officiating clergyman by way 
 of payment of the fee. Times were bad, he said ; he had no 
 money, all he could do was to give the pipe as the fee; the 
 manufacture of pipes was his trade, so he could do that much. 
 The offer was well meant, but what of the home-life set up 
 upon such an insecure foundation ? " The boy -and -girl 
 marriages of our great cities form a scandal of the worst and 
 most loathly type. It is high time that the marriage laws 
 were revised." 
 
 The results of these improvident marriages are homes for 
 waifs and strays, workhouse children affected with ophthalmia, 
 hospitals for poor, wretched, miserable children tiny helpless 
 sufferers doomed to life-long misery, orphan asylums ad libitum, 
 baby farms, infanticide, child ill-treatment and massacre, temp- 
 tation to hardened women to murder cast-off infants, multitudes 
 of children in workhouses, to be supported by those who,
 
 220 NEO-MALTHUSTANISM 
 
 knowing the responsibilities of life, refrain from giving it. The 
 youthful and unfit marry ; hence there arises a mass of 
 humanity in which the survival of the fittest acts with merciless 
 severity. Of course, by such means nature preserves the 
 balance ; but oh, the pity of it, to cause nature so to act ! 
 Surely here prevention is better than cure. Intense is the 
 misery all round when there has been no provision made 
 for illness or death by the bread-winner; the wife or widow 
 and children are hawked about pleading to the generosity and 
 charity of others. 
 
 If the wisest course, as some say, to adopt is the public 
 maintenance of children by the State, there would then be 
 strict rules enacted with regard to human generation ; under 
 the present system we have all the evils and none of its 
 advantages. For instance, it is outrageous that young villains 
 should be allowed to seduce girls wholesale, leave them and 
 their babies to be cast into the workhouse for honest people 
 to support, while they march off into unknown lands scot-free, 
 having satisfied their sexual appetites as they pleased, and 
 leave to others to pay for their results. It is simply incredible 
 and unbearable that, under our present state of civilization, the 
 men who do such things should not be severely punished by 
 being brought under the laws which govern felony. We see 
 certain crimes of vice, which do no harm to anybody except 
 to those primarily engaged, punished in the most vigorous, 
 exemplary manner by exceedingly long sentences of penal 
 servitude; but seductions of girls, most harmful to all, are 
 treated as of no importance. What inconsistency there is in 
 the English nation and in English legislation? It seems 
 incredible that those who do such wrongs to girls and children, 
 leaving them to the charge of society, should not be more 
 severely punished than those who adopt the habits and 
 customs which prevailed in the cities of Sodom, Gomorrah, 
 and the plain. What a scene for wonder and amazement the 
 streets of our cities and towns present at the present time 
 when the hour for closing school arrives. What multitudes 
 of mostly helpless and uncared-for children visible every- 
 where, and every year additional school -buildings become 
 necessary more and more children. What is to become of 
 them all ? Yet still they pour in upon the world in countless 
 hordes. Their origin is reckless and improvident marriages. 
 
 How far some of our contemporary types of humanity can
 
 EXCUSES REMOVED BY REFORM 221 
 
 be considered fit to reproduce and protect human life the 
 following extract from The Chiles Guardian can show. 
 These are "some of the smaller cases" which the S.P.C.C. 
 have dealt with. " Punishing a child by putting pins into its 
 nostrils ; putting lighted matches up them ; biting a child's 
 wrist till a wound was made, and then burning the wound 
 with lighted matches; burning the hands of a boy of 
 six with matches ; biting, till they bled, the limbs of a 
 seven-months-old baby ; forcing bone ring of feeding-bottle 
 up and down the throat of a three-months-old baby till it 
 bled; throwing a little girl of two years, ill with bronchitis, 
 out of her bedroom window, breaking her bones and ending 
 her life ; breaking a two-year-old baby's limbs in three places, 
 both arms and a thigh, leaving them untended, when it 
 moaned in its pain irritably taking it up from its cradle by 
 the broken arms, shaking it by them, and throwing it down 
 again ; leaving a baby unlifted out of a cradle for weeks, till 
 toadstools grew around the child out of the rottenness ; leaving 
 another to lie for days and nights on a mattress alive with 
 maggots; keeping the stumps of little amputated legs sore, 
 to have the child with its little face puckered up in pain to 
 excite pity ; tying a rope around a boy of six, dipping him 
 into a canal, leaving him immersed till exhausted, bringing 
 him up, recovering him, and putting him in again, repeating 
 the misery time after time ; shutting up for hours in a dark 
 closet a two-year-old child, and so ending its life; keeping 
 a child always in dark cellars till its flesh became green; 
 knocking down with a fist a dying boy; knocking out the 
 first teeth of a baby with a fist ; scourging a child till it was 
 a mass of bruises, then breaking its jaw ; tying cords tightly 
 round little thumbs, then tying them with extended arms to 
 the foot of a bedstead, then beating it with a thorn bush." 
 Not only are large numbers of people unfit to procreate 
 children, but also to treat them properly. 
 
 The young of both sexes in England must be taught that 
 self-control of sexual instinct, with its moral consequences, 
 the production and care of human life, is absolutely essential 
 to their own physical and moral advantage, as well as to that 
 of the community at large. They must gradually learn to 
 clothe themselves with the virtues of prudence and continence, 
 which are higher phases of life than self-indulgence and excess. 
 Scientific Meliorism says that it is quite useless to appeal to
 
 222 NEO-MALTHUSIANISM 
 
 the finer feelings of the masses with regard to sexual restraint, 
 and that we can only do so with effect when we appeal to 
 their lower and more selfish ones, and that Neo-Malthusianism 
 is the only thing they will listen to. " Unless the method we 
 adopt is fitting to their purely selfish or egoistic state of 
 feeling, we must fail. There is no force that we can rationally 
 expect to influence them but one, namely, their own personal 
 interests." This, of course, is a confession that Neo-Malthu- 
 sianism cannot form the ground of an appeal by morality. It 
 also means that the masses are incapable of being touched by 
 righteousness and moral truths, which I deny, and it also implies 
 that we may do evil to cause good. 
 
 Many believe, and continually remind us, that moral 
 restraint in sexual matters has never been practised, and 
 never will be, and that economic restraints are the only ones 
 which have had, or will ever have, any effect upon the 
 birth-rate. This is, of course, admitting that moral improve- 
 ment in such matters is impossible, which is certainly not 
 the case. When men become educated, refined, less of the 
 animal, then moral power becomes supreme, and guides all 
 the actions of life and duty. Education in these matters of 
 sex is beginning to tell a tale at last. Since the year 1874 the 
 marriage-rate of those under age has declined in England 
 from 8 -4 per cent, of men and 227 of women to 5^9 and 19 
 respectively. People are beginning to learn that self-control 
 is the first condition of all morality. To command, and not 
 to be a slave of the passions, is man's proper state. When 
 this most desirable condition is reached, we can have some 
 hope that the present disordered excess of population will 
 lessen in intensity. "The primitive savage could have no 
 limit or restraint in his sexual relations; but as men became 
 civilized, the moral feelings were developed and the sentiment 
 of responsibility widened, the physical factor also came to be 
 restrictive of the birth-rate." (Nitti.) 
 
 The moral man exercises moral, prudential self-control in 
 these matters ; the ignorant and brutal economic only. But 
 surely the time must come when education and refinement 
 will influence larger numbers than they do now, and thus 
 much trouble will cease. The more these act upon the 
 multitude, the more higher views on marriage, with its 
 attendant stupendous responsibilities, will become the rule 
 and not the exception. If the church would only do her
 
 EXCUSES REMOVED BY REFORM 223 
 
 duty in these matters, and teach young men and women what 
 they ought to know in these sexual matters, how very different 
 things would be ! Mr. Dendy says on this point : " Nor are 
 those who should be the teachers of the young on such im- 
 portant matters wholly without blame ; their doctrine that to 
 discourage early marriage is to encourage immorality is a 
 gross injustice to the majority of the poor, perhaps, if they 
 did but know it, the greatest of which they have, as a class, to 
 complain of at the present day. Evil enough there is, as all 
 know who have much to do with the poor ; but those amongst 
 whom these marriages take place are just those who still have 
 a respect for such obligations as they have been taught to 
 recognize, and they are far more likely to sink to a lower level 
 in consequence of their imprudence than they would be in 
 consequence of judicious teaching and warning. As it is, they 
 are acting up to the highest standard which has been set 
 before them, and we have no right to assume that if they are 
 shown one still higher they will not aim at that also. To 
 realize that the people have a capacity for rising as well as 
 falling is the next step towards the social Utopia, in which no 
 one will enter upon the responsibilities of marriage without a 
 fair prospect of being able to bring up a family in decency and 
 comfort." Everybody admits the terrible evils consequent 
 upon these youthful marriages, and yet nothing is done to 
 save these poor children from themselves. The evil must still 
 be reduced. Those who know the internal life of our large 
 cities are well aware of the manifold troubles arising from 
 these immature marriages the feebleness, the diminutive 
 stature, the wizened look of the generation now growing up. 
 We surely cannot be wrong when we attribute the existence of 
 many of the unemployed to reckless youthful marriage. The 
 nation must be taught that if it is to prosper, to produce 
 healthy children, it must control sexual desire, it must hold 
 animal passions in check; it must learn to give expression 
 to them only within lawful limits, at proper age, in God's 
 appointed manner, and that such action is the highest phase of 
 religion and morality; that the union of the man with the 
 woman should be undertaken " reverently, discreetly, advisedly, 
 soberly, in the fear of God." No class has more responsi- 
 bility, in this most necessary course of action, thrown upon, 
 it than the clergy, yet the subject is far too much neglected 
 by them.
 
 224 NEO-MALTHUSIANISM 
 
 In a speech the other day in London, Sir Walter Besant 
 and who is more competent to give an opinion on these 
 matters ? said : " I urge the need of the clergy speaking to 
 the young on self-respect. We have bitterly to mourn over the 
 terrible things which happen through boy-and-girl marriages." 
 The clergy are, as a rule, far too much reserved and reticent 
 in speaking to the classes which most need advice on these 
 matters of sex. What they treat with the utmost levity and 
 familiarity, and converse together upon at every available 
 opportunity (see Richard Jefferies' works), the clergy are far 
 too shy to speak out openly upon. Moreover, on these very 
 matters far too many of the clergy set a very pernicious 
 example themselves. Here are some examples of reckless 
 marriages undertaken and entered into by some of the clergy, 
 taken from a report of the Friends of the Clergy Corporation : 
 
 (1) A vicar with eight children under seventeen years of 
 age, with a gross annual income of ^140, now much reduced 
 owing to agricultural depression. 
 
 (2) A vicar with seven children under seventeen, with an 
 annual income of ,^145. 
 
 (3) A curate with seven children under eighteen, and a 
 yearly stipend of ^130. 
 
 (4) A rector with six children under eighteen, and ^"105 
 annual income. 
 
 (5) A vicar with seven children under seventeen, and ^89 
 annual income. 
 
 (6) A chaplain with five children under eleven, and an 
 annual income of ;ioo. 
 
 (7) A curate with six children under thirteen, and a stipend 
 of ,-115. 
 
 People naturally look to those who preach to practise, and 
 it must be confessed that there is much room for improve- 
 ment amongst the ranks of the clergy in these matters. The 
 Master of Trinity College, Cambridge, said some time ago : 
 "The cases of distress which come before the Poor Clergy 
 Societies would form a melancholy page in the history of 
 human suffering." The other extreme, of unduly late or 
 no marriage at all, is equally destructive to social morality. 
 "The desirable system is marriage at a reasonable age." 
 (Mayo Smith.) We must not attempt or endeavour to pro- 
 mote an unjust, unworkable, and unduly prolonged 
 marriage system. To enforce such a scheme would be an
 
 EXCUSES REMOVED BY REFORM 225 
 
 injustice, an absurdity, and an impossibility. Undue restraint 
 to marriage, which would have a tendency to postpone it too 
 long, would inevitably destroy social morality, and produce 
 widespread illegitimacy on a gigantic scale, as well as all kinds 
 of vice, as indeed the present enforced system of too late 
 marriage does now. The great question of marriage, or 
 abstention therefrom, must, in rightly-ordered communities, 
 always be left to conscience, and to properly -guided indi- 
 vidual and public opinion. Bavaria once experimented upon 
 legal suppression of marriage, with the result that illegitimacy 
 reached enormous dimensions. In striving to avoid Scylla 
 we must not fall into Charybdis. We must take care, when 
 we rightly deprecate the foolish custom of too youthful 
 marriage, not to fall into the opposite extreme of advocating 
 unduly deferred marriage. Such a scheme would be just as 
 pernicious as too early a one would be. This was the weak 
 point of Malthus' pessimistic arguments. At the present time 
 marriage amongst the better well-to-do classes is postponed 
 far too long. This happens because marriage without large 
 means is considered far too great a luxury. The holy estate 
 of matrimony is made far too much a question of money only. 
 The dowerless girl, good and beautiful as she may be, is cast 
 aside by the man because she has no money, and this is 
 equally the case of the man by the girl. This is an untoward 
 state of things. I have commented upon it before, and I need 
 say no more about it here. In a proper state of society 
 and distribution such reproaches and injustice would not 
 exist. Their consequences are deplorable for the gentler sex, 
 that unnatural product the unwilling spinster; for the uncon- 
 trolled man, vice. It is said that the marriage-rate rises or 
 falls according to general prosperity. Formerly it seemed to 
 depend altogether on the local price of wheat. Now, in 
 consequence of the annihilation of distance, this order is 
 changed, and now it seems to depend on the rate of exports. 
 When these decline, it invariably follows suit, and vice versa. 
 This is hardly the best moral standard by which to estimate 
 the holy estate of matrimony. In discussing this question 
 of youthful marriage, it must be remembered that it is the age 
 of the woman which influences the results most, and which 
 ought to be taken into the greatest consideration. Under 
 present conditions, and indeed under all, it would be better 
 for her own welfare and her children that she should not
 
 226 NEO-MALTHUSIANISM 
 
 marry until she had reached the age of twenty-five. She 
 would then have a less number of child-bearing years before 
 her than if she had married at the foolish age of twenty, which 
 the generality of working-girls do now. If marriage at twenty- 
 five was the rule, the possible number of children born to 
 a woman would be about seven or eight, instead of twelve 
 or fourteen, which latter is far too much the case at present. 
 It is to the growing intelligence of women that we must look 
 as a means to bring about a reform in this matter of proper 
 restraint in marriage and population. " The whole population 
 question is less a man's than a woman's question. I cannot 
 doubt that the main avenue of hope that the destitution and 
 misery may be checked at their source is in the growing 
 intelligence and divine discontent of working-women." 
 (Arnold White.) We are told by Ogle that if the marriage 
 age now prevalent amongst women was only postponed five 
 years, the average number of children born to a marriage, 
 which is now 4-2, would fall to 3-1. Matthews Duncan gives 
 the following table : 
 
 AGE OF MOTHER AVERAGE 
 
 AT HER MARRIAGE. FERTILITY. 
 
 15-19 . . ... 9'12 
 
 20-24 ... 7-92 
 
 25-29 . . . . . 6-30 
 
 30-34 ... 4-60 
 
 The proper age for men to marry at is thirty. The law 
 of Sparta was thirty ; Rome, twenty-five. Hesiod said thirty ; 
 Plato the same; Aristotle, thirty-seven. It must be readily 
 admitted that causes at present exist in England and else- 
 where for promoting youthful marriages. These in a properly- 
 ordered state of society, and with a juster distribution of 
 wealth, would not exist. Early marriages and large families 
 are now sought for as means whereby the parents may be 
 kept out of the workhouse in the future. The children are 
 expected to do this for their parents, and, of course, the more 
 there are of the former the better is the chance of the latter. 
 But if there was a better distribution, this goad to over-popula- 
 tion would be removed. If there was a good and workable 
 system of old-age pensions inaugurated, and if some such help 
 and additions were made to pre-marriage savings as Mr. 
 Burdett suggested in his articles in The Times, this trouble 
 would be much alleviated.
 
 EXCUSES REMOVED BY REFORM 227 
 
 It is also said, as an excuse for early marriages, that the 
 artizan class is as well off at twenty-one as it is ever likely to 
 be. But it can be replied with, I think, considerable force, 
 that if young men would exercise some slight control over 
 themselves, and utilize the years between twenty-one and 
 thirty to save money, and thus have sufficient capital to start 
 a home with, it would be considerably better for themselves 
 and the community at large. They should learn that by 
 exercising this self-control they would benefit themselves 
 morally, physically, and pecuniarily. Such a course of action 
 on their part would be beneficial all round. " If it be said 
 the poorest class of labourers have no superfluous wealth from 
 which to make provision, Political Economy answers, with 
 undeniable force, that they can at any rate defer the responsi- 
 bility of marriage and increasing the population until they 
 have secured the minimum required for security against the 
 pecuniary demands of ordinary misfortune." (Sidgwick ) 
 There is another cause for early marriage put forward, namely, 
 that in consequence of the confined space in the houses of 
 artizans, young men are driven into the streets out of their 
 homes at a very early age, and therefore naturally betake 
 themselves to marriage as a means of providing a home for 
 themselves. I quite admit the force of this plea; but if the 
 laws for the better housing of that class were carried out, 
 which they are not, much of the force of this argument 
 would be reduced. I hope to put forward later a scheme 
 which would also very much tend to reduce this difficulty. 
 Another argument raised for the utility of early marriage is, 
 that by them vice is much reduced. But it surely does not of 
 necessity follow that the submission to a reasonable patience 
 and continence should be productive of vice. The pro- 
 fessional class, in very many instances, postpones marriage 
 until the age of thirty is reached, and this class is not given 
 over to vice; consequently it ought not to be beyond the 
 power of the artizan class to follow the same dictates of 
 morality. Yet I know many a young man of the latter class 
 has said, " If I keep single I know I shall sin ; I will marry, 
 and if I have many children I am sure God will not forsake 
 me, for I took Him simply at His word." It is a sublime faith. 
 In this argument he follows Luther, who said, " God makes 
 children, and He will provide for them." Nitti terms this " an 
 optimistic fatalism." In all the actions of life, especially in
 
 228 NEO-MALTHUSIANISM 
 
 sexual matters, we must act in accordance with the reason 
 which God has given us to use in the decision of such matters, 
 in accordance with the dictates of conscience, and that cardinal 
 virtue prudence. We have certainly not the slightest wish to 
 separate the divine will from the instrumentality of men ; but 
 the latter are not justified in acting imprudently, and then 
 think, or expect, that God will interfere and work a miracle in 
 their behalf. They may rest assured that He will never leave 
 or forsake them if they look to Him for help, but they must 
 remember that man's prudence has a rightful place in God's 
 economy. If the unjust causes of poverty were removed by 
 the healthful action of men, and the world was more in the 
 condition which God intended it to be, while at the same time 
 men exercised their prudence and reason, we would have suffi- 
 cient grounds for believing that the children who are given life 
 would not be in the condition far too many are compelled to 
 be in now. It is all very well for people to write as the 
 following extract shows they do : " They say, ' God sends the 
 little babies.' Of all the dastardly revolting lies men tell to 
 suit themselves, I hate that most. I suppose my father said 
 so when he knew he was dying of consumption, and my 
 mother when she knew she had nothing to support me on, 
 and they created me to feed like a dog from stranger hands. 
 Men do not say that God sends the books, or the newspaper 
 articles, or the machines they make, and then sigh and shrug 
 their shoulders, and say they can't help it. Why do they say 
 so about other things ? Liars ! God sends the little babies ! 
 When people are married, though they should have sixty 
 children, they throw the whole onus on God. When they are 
 not, we hear nothing about God's having sent them. When 
 there has been no legal contract between the parents, who 
 sends the little children then ? The devil, perhaps ! Odd 
 that some men should come from hell and some from heaven, 
 and yet all look so much alike when they get here ! " (Olive 
 Schreiner.) 
 
 Elsewhere we read : " A man's children are not really sent 
 any more than the pictures on the wall are sent, or the horses 
 in the stable are sent; and to bring people into the world 
 when we cannot afford to keep them decently is by no means 
 an accomplishment of the divine will, or a fulfilment of nature's 
 simplest laws, but is contrary to reason and the will of God." 
 (Culture and Anarchy.}
 
 EXCUSES REMOVED BY REFORM 229 
 
 The action of the spendthrift who so treats human life 
 cannot be defended for a moment, and is entirely contrary to 
 the moral action which God rightly demands from man. The 
 man is guilty ; the laws of God are not at fault or to be blamed. 
 The act of conceiving a child is putting a law of God into 
 action. God acts through the co-operation of the human will, 
 but does not force it. Man can set God's law in motion 
 whenever he pleases, but at the same time God has given 
 man the power to decide whether or not it would be for his 
 own or the child's benefit that he should do so. The moral 
 aspect, the duty to God in the act of procreation, has to be 
 taught to all much more than it is. Again, very much is made 
 by infidel writers of the fact that no consultative voice is given 
 to the child whether it would wish to be born or not. No, the 
 responsibility of bringing life into the world is given to men 
 and women who possess the powers of reason and choice. 
 No doubt whatever but that those who have lost that power, 
 such as the insane and idiots, should be prevented from doing 
 so. Those who have no power of free will should not be 
 allowed to put a law of God into action. 
 
 In summing up the whole matter, as Christians, we must 
 believe that whatever men's imprudent sexual actions may be, 
 we are in the world not by mere accident, but in fulfilment of 
 a law of nature ordained by God, and we express that thought 
 in our prayer, "We bless thee for our creation." The pro- 
 priety or not of putting that law of God and nature into action 
 is left to man to decide. All things may be lawful, but all 
 things may not be expedient. Marriage, population, and all 
 matters relating to sexual instinct require to be treated in a 
 much more scientific and comprehensive manner than they are 
 at present. No greater questions concerning our present and 
 future exist than these, yet they are only spoken of with bated 
 breath by those most vitally concerned. Absolute ignorance 
 prevails throughout the whole class of the young of both 
 sexes, i.e. among those who would profit most by proper and 
 judicious counsel being given them. 
 
 The law of God will hold good for ever, " The sins of the 
 fathers shall be visited on the children." Knowing this, is it not 
 incumbent on every Christian to do his utmost in advising the 
 young about their marriages? to tell them that to reproduce 
 their lives is "not to be enterprised, nor taken in hand 
 unadvisedly, lightly, or wantonly, to satisfy men's carnal lusts
 
 230 NEO-MALTHUSIANISM 
 
 and appetites like brute beasts that have no understanding, but 
 reverently, discreetly, advisedly, soberly, and in the fear of 
 God " ? It is sad to see what numbers are launched into life 
 wholly ignorant of all the simplest laws of nature and an 
 elementary knowledge of physiology. This is where that 
 golden axiom can act with wonderful good, "Prevention is 
 better than cure." If he had been advised in the days of his 
 boyhood, Burns would not have written as he did 
 
 " If I have wandered in those paths 
 Of life I ought to shun ; 
 As something loudly in my heart 
 Remonstrates I have done ; 
 
 " Thou know'st that thou hast formed me 
 With passions wild and strong ; 
 And list'ning to their witching voice 
 Has often led me wrong." 
 
 A very distinguished writer says : " In total ignorance, and 
 unassisted by advice or counsel, our boys and girls are left to 
 contend with the fiercest passions that can assail human 
 nature." Rabbi Schindler writes, in Innocence at the Price of 
 Ignorance, on the great mistake which is committed by far 
 too many in allowing the young of both sexes to go ignorantly 
 into the world, no information having been given them on 
 such important matters. Mantegazza writes : " Let there be a 
 wiser and more liberal education, to teach girls what they 
 do not know, or know indifferently, so that they can freely say 
 their ' yes ' before the altar with perfect knowledge and under- 
 standing, that ' yes ' which may make a paradise on earth, or 
 a hell of every twenty-four hours for every day in the three 
 hundred and sixty-five." Surely it is better for the young 
 to be taught all they should know in these matters by 
 responsible persons, than that they should learn it from the 
 vicious and depraved in the streets. A vast deal of informa- 
 tion on matrimonial matters and the proper rules of ante- 
 nuptial chastity must be imparted to all classes ere a reform 
 can be brought about. All that the young learn now of these 
 matters is in a most haphazard fashion, more by accident 
 and behind the scenes than anywhere else. They surely 
 ought to be taught that sexual gratification and excess should 
 not be treated of with levity, and that marriage, with all its 
 responsibilities of reproducing life, should not be undertaken
 
 EXCUSES REMOVED BY REFORM 231 
 
 lightly, wantonly, or unadvisedly, to satisfy man's carnal 
 appetite. 
 
 Boys and girls are sent to school with very little knowledge 
 of self-control in sexual matters, merely to become the prey of 
 those who happen to be vicious there. Both run the greatest 
 risk of learning the depraved habits of self-abuse and nympho- 
 mania. How much better it would have been for them if 
 they had been warned ere they left their homes. The Dean 
 of Canterbury wrote in Eric: "The innocence of mere igno- 
 rance is a poor thing ; it cannot, under any circumstances, be 
 permanent, nor is it at all valuable as a foundation of character. 
 The true preparation for life, the true basis of a manly character, 
 is not to have been ignorant of evil, but to have known it and 
 avoided it ; not to have been sheltered from temptation, but to 
 have passed through it and overcome it by God's help." 
 
 In the histories of many sad cases of lunacy we learn that 
 solitary indulgence, learned while mere children, has been the 
 primary cause of the malady. The fact is, that everybody 
 who has the care of the young should realize the enormous 
 utility of teaching them something of human physiology. 
 Instead of keeping in the background, as unnatural, all teach- 
 ing upon what, after all, are God's laws, it should be given at 
 due times and to proper recipients. Sex knowledge will come 
 to all sooner or later; better it should come from those 
 qualified to give it morally than immorally. (See an admir- 
 able letter by a Preparatory Schoolmaster on these subjects in 
 The Guardian^ January i3th, 1897.) It is a false Christianity, 
 mere prudery, which conceals from the young those who 
 are most deeply interested in being acquainted with it a 
 sufficient knowledge of how their species is reproduced. Mrs. 
 Barnett says : " In this question early training goes for much, 
 and until the teaching of physiology breaks down the policy 
 of silence, improvement in our schools is almost impossible." 
 Of course, it may be said that a knowledge of physiology 
 may be made use of for a bad as well as good purpose, 
 and Dr. Billing says it has been so used in America. Dr. 
 Strahan also alludes to this, and says that such a bad 
 result as that is not the fault of education in such matters. 
 " Knowledge per se does not prompt to immorality or crime ; 
 it is only the criminally-minded who will put it to such uses. 
 What we want is not less education, but a purer moral feeling, 
 a higher moral standard among the community generally."
 
 232 NEO-MALTHUSIANISM 
 
 No more important words on this matter of sex instruction 
 to the young were ever written than by Canon Butler, once 
 Headmaster of Harrow : " The question of impurity is 
 closely connected with the sacred cause of education. In 
 dealing with it you cannot begin too early ; you cannot safely 
 begin even with boyhood, you must begin with childhood. 
 Experience has convinced me that no boy ought ever to go 
 to school without learning from his father or mother, or from 
 some brother or friend older than himself, the simple facts as 
 to the laws of birth, and the terrible danger of ever coming 
 to talk of these phenomena as matters of frivolous and filthy 
 conversation. We all know that the subject of the relation of 
 the sexes must come before boys sooner or later. From 
 whom should they" first learn this knowledge? Should it 
 be with every accompaniment of coarseness, or levity, or 
 obscenity ? from the conversation of some wicked servant 
 who has stolen into the stables, the household, or the nursery? 
 from some brother, only a year or two older, who has just 
 received his initiation into impurity at a private school, and is 
 too young to understand its dangers? worst of all, from the 
 idlest, most corrupt, and worthless set of boys at this same 
 private school, who surround the new-comer within a few days 
 of his first joining, and, with knowing looks and enticing 
 words, try to probe his childish knowledge, and leave him half 
 ashamed of himself, and keenly inquisitive for full initiation, if 
 he finds that he knows nothing of this engrossing mystery. Is 
 it right, is it fair, is it consistent with either religious duty 
 or with common-sense, that a little boy of eight or ten or 
 twelve should be sent, at this impressionable age, to hear for 
 the first time of facts about human nature which must ere 
 long be known, and are part of God's appointment? Does 
 not every dictate of humanity and reason point to the con- 
 clusion that the dawn of this knowledge, this necessary, 
 exciting, and even fascinating knowledge, should be invested 
 with all that is tender, loving, pure, and sacred, instead of 
 being shrouded in the mists of innuendo, or blazoned forth 
 in the shamelessness of indecency? There is really no 
 answer but one to such a question ; and the plain truth is, 
 that fathers, still better mothers, must recognize the duty 
 which lies upon them to teach their children at such times, 
 in such words, and with such reservations as the character of 
 the child may suggest, the elements of that knowledge at least
 
 EXCUSES REMOVED BY REFORM 233 
 
 which will otherwise be learned, but a very little later on, from 
 a widely different set of instructors." 
 
 These are words from a man who knew what he was writing 
 about, and should be acted upon in every family. If they 
 were, the moral condition, indeed also the physical one, of 
 England would be very different from what it is at present. 
 We know very well that the children of the well-to-do classes 
 are better cared for with regard to morals, and better protected 
 from vicious companions, than the children of the poor are; 
 yet we are equally well aware that purity and morality have 
 very great struggles to maintain themselves amongst them. 
 We know what the condition of certain schools is. This 
 being so, we can easily imagine what the moral condition of 
 the poor is, seeing everything, hearing everything, as they have 
 to do from their earliest years, through adverse circumstances, 
 surrounded and accompanied with all that is low, coarse, and 
 sensual. (See what Richard Jeffries wrote on this point.) How 
 can they be blamed if they fall into sex troubles ? The blame 
 should be on those who, by their sinful neglect, by their 
 refusal to surrender an atom of their luxuries, have left the 
 poor to wallow in the mire of their lower senses. 
 
 It must be the rule for all, rich and poor, to teach their 
 children, in a proper manner, the obligations and the duties 
 of sex. When this is done we shall see a vast improvement in 
 proper marriage, and, consequently, a regulated population. 
 It is incumbent upon parent and teacher to point out to the 
 young of both sexes the snares and temptations which will 
 inevitably come upon them in later life in this respect. To 
 warn them against the moral and physical consequences of 
 giving way to sexual temptations is a most solemn duty cast 
 upon all who have charge of the young. If left to themselves, 
 they are apt in some cases to indulge in the wildest ideas 
 and extraordinary mental delusions concerning sexual matters. 
 Such can be read of in Des Aberrations du Sens Gen'erique. 
 (Moreau), Le Roman du Marriage (Krafft-Ewing), Psycho- 
 pathia Scxualis (Westphal), and in the works of Charcot, 
 Magnan, and Max Nordau. "The thoughts continually 
 revert to the sexual organs and things pertaining to them, 
 lascivious images and morbid imaginations constantly haunt 
 the mind." It is owing to want of instruction in these 
 matters that such multitudes of quacks nefariously reap the 
 golden harvest they do. It is dreadful to think of the
 
 234 NEO-MALTHUSIANISM 
 
 numbers of both sexes who have suffered in mind and body 
 the ravages of remorse and disease, until death ended their 
 sufferings, in consequence of having been launched into the 
 world totally ignorant of all matters concerning sex and purity, 
 totally unprepared to meet all the pitfalls and temptations 
 which they were bound to do. Many a poor soul has fallen 
 unwittingly, not through sin, but through ignorance, into 
 misery and death. Nowhere in the world, amongst no 
 civilized nations, do temptations in these sexual respects 
 exist more rampantly than in England. They are a disgrace 
 and an infamy to any nation. Hence it is no wonder that the 
 young are contaminated and the race diseased. Colonel 
 Howard Vincent said, in his evidence before the Lords' 
 Committee on the Protection of Young Girls : " The evil of 
 juvenile prostitution is not confined to girls ; it is applicable to 
 a very large extent indeed to boys. I mean that everything 
 centering in London, as it does in this country, all examina- 
 tions are held in London, everybody sends their sons to 
 London; and a boy must be a paragon of virtue who, at 
 the age of sixteen or seventeen, can walk, from eleven o'clock 
 at night till half-past twelve in the morning, from the top 
 of Grosvenor Place to the Haymarket without being solicited 
 to such an enormous extent that he is almost certain to 
 fall. I do not know whether your Lordships have ever 
 considered the enormous amount of disease which exists 
 among these wretched girls. I was in the army, and had 
 opportunities of knowing that this state of things does exist to 
 a frightful extent with regard to boys and girls of sixteen 
 and seventeen. There is scarcely a senior boy at Eton, a 
 cadet at Sandhurst, or a subaltern in the army, who will 
 not agree with me as to the enormous danger there is." This 
 being the state of things which exists in London and in 
 all large cities, does it not seem criminal that the young 
 should be sent out into the world absolutely ignorant of what 
 they should properly be instructed in with regard to sexual 
 matters ? " Unsuspecting innocence is the prey of systematic 
 vice." The army returns disclose a terrible state as existing 
 now. It cannot but be thought that if English lads had been 
 instructed in sex matters ere they enlisted we would not be 
 obliged to read the following dreadful statistics of the British 
 army. The ratio of admissions for venereal disease per 1000 
 of strength in England and her possessions into hospital is :
 
 EXCUSES REMOVED BY REFORM 
 
 England 194 "6 
 
 Gibraltar 306-5 
 
 Malta 157-5 
 
 Cyprus 185-3 
 
 Canada 97 ' I 
 
 Bermuda 43 "9 
 
 Barbadoes 402 I 
 
 Jamaica 190-0 
 
 South Africa 2557 
 
 Mauritius 1597 
 
 Ceylon 205 '2 
 
 China 380-5 
 
 Straits 3 56 '4 
 
 India 5 22 '3 
 
 Egypt 408-3 
 
 (United Service Magazine. Brigade-Surgeon Climber). 
 
 Yet in foreign armies the rate is very low : 
 
 United States 77 '45 
 
 German 27 -3 
 
 French 43 '8 
 
 Austrian 63 '6 
 
 Italian 71-3 
 
 Russian 43 'o 
 
 Japanese 33 "6 
 
 See also the article, "The Soldier and his Masters," 
 Contemporary Review, January, 1897. 
 
 Every lad of sixteen should be given a copy of The 
 Preservation of Health (Dr. Dukes), as well as another of 
 Gerald and his Friend the Doctor, by the Rev. H. Solly. 
 With both of these he will be forewarned and protected for life. 
 Dr. Dukes writes : " I am fully persuaded in my own mind, 
 from a very large experience, that if immorality is to be 
 lessened in this country, it can only be by a proper knowledge 
 on such matters being furnished to the young of all classes." 
 
 Another reform which would be very productive of an 
 improved condition of morals and marriage would be the 
 reduction of temptation. We are continually reminded, in- 
 deed vehemently urged, by temperance reformers to reduce 
 the temptations to drink by lessening the number of public- 
 houses ; that it is not just and fair to alcoholically- inclined 
 people to be continually brought face to face with temptation 
 at every turn, that it is too great a temptation for them to 
 resist. Yet what can be more disastrous than the laisser faire 
 system in which the morals of our streets are left to struggle ? 
 Immoral women, unrestricted in number and unrestrained in 
 behaviour, are permitted to solicit young men and boys as
 
 236 NEO-MALTHUSIANISM 
 
 they please. Places of amusement and the streets teem with 
 them ; everywhere, and on every occasion, they are allowed 
 to disease our youth ad libitum. It is a disgrace to Christianity 
 and to civilization. We despise the Moslem, but the streets 
 of his cities are a pattern for Christianity ; not a drunken man 
 nor a fallen woman is ever seen in them. 
 
 Mistaken philanthropists think that these evils can be cured 
 by suppressing places of amusement, but their course of 
 proceeding is absurd. People must, and should, have oppor- 
 tunities of amusement, and any attempt to suppress them will 
 always be resisted to the uttermost ; but to separate the evil 
 from the harmless is the point to be aimed at, and the 
 Continental authorities understand this principle much better 
 than we do. Those women who wish to be vicious can be so 
 on the Continent, but they may not put themselves into the 
 paths of the pure. What a temptation to the innocent girl, 
 working honestly for her living, is the well-dressed harlot 
 flaunting her ill-gotten gains in her face ! 
 
 Dr. Parkes, commenting, in his book on Hygiene, on the 
 lamentable state of English law which permits women of this 
 class to appear openly in the streets, says : " The effect of this 
 upon the virtuous female population is very serious. Every 
 servant in London sees the fine clothes, and hears of the idle 
 and luxurious lives of the women of the town, and knows that 
 occasionally a respectable marriage ends a life of vice. What 
 a temptation to abandon the hard work and the drudgery of 
 service for such a career, of which she sees only the bright 
 side. It is a temptation from which the State should save her. 
 She should see prostitution as a degraded calling only, with its 
 restrictions and inconveniences." The fact is, that the time 
 has fully come for a Royal Commission to inquire into the 
 condition of English morality. The evidence which could be 
 given would be startling. 
 
 It should be enacted that women who deliberately choose 
 that life should be prohibited from appearing in the streets or 
 at places of amusement. It is nonsense to say that this would 
 be interfering with the liberty of the subject. When women 
 choose to live that life, they should be made to know that, in 
 the interests of the nation and mankind, as well as their own, 
 they should be cut off from their fellow -creatures of both 
 sexes. If this was done, there would soon be less disease and 
 a better system of marriage.
 
 EXCUSES REMOVED BY REFORM 237 
 
 The next great factor, in addition to a reduction in the 
 number of youthful marriages, would be that of sexual 
 temperance in the married. This would not only prove of 
 considerable benefit to the health of those primarily concerned, 
 but also would not fail to prevent, without anything immoral 
 being done, an excess of population. Evolution of Sex says 
 that in this, more than in artificial control of fertilization, the 
 ideal of a proper balance of population is to be sought, in an 
 ethical rather than in a mechanical prudence after marriage. 
 " It seems to us essential to recognize that the ideal to be sought 
 after is not merely a controlled rate of increase, but regulated 
 married lives. We must protest against regarding artificial 
 means of preventing fertilization as adequate solutions of 
 sexual responsibility." By the adoption of temperance among 
 the married we can have some hope for a solution of many of 
 the difficulties by which we are at present surrounded. I quite 
 admit, however, that a very long time must elapse before the 
 less individuated will adopt it. A considerable period of self- 
 control, and a full exercise of morality, must be undergone ere 
 the more animal type will see the propriety and the necessity 
 for a family of seven or eight children, instead of fourteen or 
 sixteen. It is to the educated, to those who year by year are 
 added to that desirable class, that we must look for improve- 
 ment in this respect, especially to the women. 
 
 I do not see how it is possible to gainsay the fact that this 
 is a matter in which their voices should be heard. Medical 
 evidence is clear on the point. Indeed, it must strike every- 
 body who thinks at all, that continual pregnancy saps the 
 wife's health to a most deleterious degree, and also enfeebles 
 the children born of such a mother. There are some women, 
 we are thankful to know, still left us who can bear children 
 without the least harm biennially, but they are the exception, 
 not the rule. These women inherit the priceless blessings 
 of rude health and a good constitution. 
 
 If a woman's health and happiness are worth anything at 
 a man's hands, surely they are worth some amount of 
 self-control and repression on his part. Yet I have known 
 cases in which, after due medical warning had been given 
 the husband that his wife's next confinement was impossible 
 per vias naturales, or very perilous, yet he was brutal enough 
 to kill her. We must endeavour to teach men of the lower 
 animal types that to keep their bodies in temperance, sober-
 
 238 NEO-MALTHUSIANISM 
 
 ness, and chastity is just as necessary for the married as the 
 unmarried. We must teach men that, although sexual impulse 
 is more continuous in man than in any other animal, yet he 
 has been given power to restrain and check it. The cynical 
 Beaumarchais told us that the only thing which distinguished 
 man from the beast was drinking without being thirsty, and 
 making love at all seasons. Man can learn a lesson from the 
 lower animals in this respect ; their sexual impulses are not 
 continuous, it is only at certain seasons that these come upon 
 them. There are many biologists who teach that this was also 
 the case with man in primitive times. Man had his pairing- 
 time as well as all other animals in the earliest stages of his 
 career, and gaining greater knowledge, he wished to prolong 
 it, and did so. Biologists point to certain indications taking 
 place even now which seem to bear them out. 
 
 The largest number of births in Europe always takes place 
 in February, thus proving conception to have taken place at the 
 usual pairing-time of all animals May and June. Statistics 
 amply prove that children born in the spring have far more 
 vitality, and less mortality takes place among them, than 
 children born at other times during the year. We need not 
 enter any further into this point ; all that we can lay to heart 
 about it is, that when we look at the lower animals we see 
 that their sexual intercourse is not possible to be carried on 
 at all times as man's is, however it was brought about. (See 
 Westermarck, and Giraud-Teulon's Les Origines du Mar- 
 riage et de la Famille.} 
 
 We need not here indulge in the luxury of examining into 
 all that has been written to prove that the origin of sex was 
 in a hermaphrodite, and that all sexual impulse is but the 
 attraction of one cell to the other from which it has been 
 separated. "The more aggressive and impulsive among 
 hermaphrodite types, exercising at last only the active half of 
 their functions, have finally become males ; the more passive 
 and recipient, exercising at last only the accumulative and 
 receptive half of their functions, have finally become females." 
 
 On the woman's side two incontrovertible facts stand out 
 pointing to the truth of the idea which biologists entertain, 
 that there Was once a pairing-time amongst all animal nature. 
 First, she is the only female animal in existence which 
 menstruates monthly. This is a condition which seems 
 unnatural. Why should she alone of all female animals be
 
 EXCUSES REMOVED BY REFORM 239 
 
 condemned to this? Secondly, she can only conceive at 
 certain times ; at others, like the lower animals, she is sterile. 
 All moralists, all physiologists, lay down that that knowledge 
 ought to be taken advantage of by men to save their wives 
 from continuous pregnancy. In this there cannot be the very 
 least taint of immorality, it is merely adopting nature as a help, 
 and if it was more widely adopted there would be far less trouble 
 than there is at present. It is merely acting in perfect accordance 
 with a law of nature, and that law is also, be it remembered, 
 God's law. The Jew knows it well. (See Leviticus xv. 19.) 
 
 The Christian World, writing on this point, says : " Apart 
 from certain methods of limitation, the morality of which is 
 gravely questioned by many, there are certain easily-under- 
 stood physiological laws, the failure to know and observe 
 which is inexcusable on the part of either men or women 
 in these circumstances." Evolution of Sex says the sugges- 
 tion is obviously in harmony with that increased temperance 
 which all must allow to be desirable. Taking due advantage 
 of this useful knowledge, and combining it with temperance, 
 would soon work out a very different state of things than 
 there is at present, both for the poor overburdened woman 
 and the terrible competition which results from an excess of 
 population. 
 
 I think it was Mill who said that when an Englishman 
 married such things as continence and temperance never 
 entered into his head. Yet savage nations practise them 
 to an extraordinary degree. The North-American Indians, 
 the Malays, the Maories, the Ashantees, the Africans of 
 Sierra Leone, all these not only abstain during the whole 
 time of their wives' pregnancy, but until the child is able to 
 walk or speak, amongst the Mkonde till it speaks, and among 
 the Fijians and all the Pacific islanders, as I have myself been 
 told by them, until it is weaned. "Mr. Seeman, in his 
 Mission to Fiji, tells us how horrified the natives of Fiji were 
 to hear that children are born annually to Europeans. They 
 thought that it explained why so many white people were mere 
 shrimps." Civilized nations act otherwise, it can hardly be 
 said for the better. It is a piteous spectacle to see an unfor- 
 tunate woman condemned year after year to an excessive 
 pregnancy, her strength, both physical and mental, being 
 rapidly broken in upon and shattered. Not for a moment 
 must it be admitted that a woman is bound to have as many
 
 240 NEO-MALTHUSJANISM 
 
 children as she can bear. If the laws of nature and God were 
 observed and carried out by man, men would marry at thirty, 
 women at twenty-five, and these would bear during twenty 
 years ten children as an extreme limit, not fifteen or sixteen as 
 we so often see now, when the age which the girl marries at is 
 seventeen. No wife is bound to have as many children as she 
 possibly can ; indeed, very much the reverse. She is perfectly 
 justified in making use of the knowledge which has been 
 granted to her, and which is quite in accordance with nature ; 
 but she is not justified in adopting any means which are 
 injurious to health, anything that can savour in the least 
 degree of immorality, or which, interfering with conjugal rela- 
 tions, may drive her husband into immorality with other 
 women. 
 
 Nature always punishes those who break her laws in some 
 way ; and when we look upon an unfortunate woman of, say, 
 thirty, having married at eighteen, with twelve children, worn 
 out before her time, weak and enfeebled, we can see in her 
 case an instance of a broken law of nature. When we look 
 at her children, equally enfeebled, we can see an additional 
 proof. We know what Sismondi wrote of such cases, how 
 justice and humanity revolted against treating women so ; yet 
 go to the mining country, go to the manufacturing districts, 
 go to the fields, go anywhere, and you will see such women at 
 every door, married at seventeen, old and broken down from 
 too frequent child-bearing. All their vitality has been sapped, 
 all that can make life pleasant and agreeable has been annihi- 
 lated in them. Now active messengers of Neo-Malthusian 
 doctrine are at work amongst them, and their propaganda 
 is being rapidly adopted. The inequalities of wealth and an 
 utter disregard for temperance in sexual matters are rapidly 
 driving the English nation into a national sin. If there were 
 equally active messengers on the other side that of morality 
 who would teach that by self-sacrifice, self-control, and a 
 little necessary physiological knowledge, the same result, with- 
 out anything immoral being done, could be equally well 
 attained, it would be better for all. One would produce 
 extinction of the nation, the other would produce a more 
 powerful and moral one. People must learn that fewer 
 children, born according to nature's law, a proper time having 
 elapsed between each, are far better for the parents and the 
 State than hordes of weakly, rickety children generated
 
 EXCUSES REMOVED BY REFORM 241 
 
 annually, merely to afford profit to the undertaker. We are 
 seeing the health of the nation deteriorating by such action 
 both in the case of the mothers and the children. Professor 
 Mayo Smith sums up the whole argument when he says that 
 the proper course for the family and the nation to adopt is the 
 birth of a sufficient number of healthy children to keep up 
 family life and recruit the population without anything immoral 
 being done. Gynecologists assert that a period of two years 
 at least should elapse between each birth ; this is now the 
 exception, not the rule. 
 
 If a mother nursed her child, I suppose it would be so, as 
 it was in olden time ; but now that artificial means of nursing 
 are so widely adopted, the yearly birth amongst the reckless is 
 the usual thing ; hence excess of population, more or less en- 
 feebled. It is unnatural. Surely temperance in sexual matters 
 by the married is just as requisite as temperance in eating and 
 drinking; all are fleshly lusts, and when we repress them, 
 we are acting in accordance with the virtue of temperance. 
 Men must learn that the children of continence are far 
 healthier and wiser than the children of excess. Shakespeare 
 knew this well when he wrote of the "dull, stale, tired beds, 
 and the tribe of fops which had their origin in them." It is 
 the cold-blooded woman, who is not sensual, who always bears 
 the strongest and best children. Medical opinion is decisive 
 that those who wish to have good issue should abstain for long 
 periods, and also that those who do not do so through lack of 
 self-control are precisely those who have the worst. We know 
 what Montaigne tells us of his birth after many years con- 
 tinence by his parents, and also what Rousseau says of his 
 birth after the same by his parents ; the tendency always is 
 for continence to produce the best type. Marshall says on 
 this point of continence in the married: "It is best to marry 
 early, provided there is sufficient self-control to keep the 
 family within the requisite bounds without transgressing moral 
 laws." 
 
 A well-known writer says that temperance in sexual matters 
 is not to be found amongst the masses. That is so no doubt, 
 at present, but it is the result of a lack of appeal to their 
 better qualities, and also to a lack of instruction in the matters 
 of sex. As I previously wrote, it is not owing to an impossi- 
 bility or a disinclination to a higher standard of self-control 
 and repression, but to sheer ignorance. I quite admit that
 
 242 NEO-MALTHUSIANISM 
 
 the improvement may, most probably will only be reached by 
 persistent and long-continued efforts, but surely these will be 
 better in the end than to follow the immoral and destruc- 
 tive counsels of the Neo-Malthusians. To proceed slowly, 
 painfully, but with sound advance, to a more intellectual 
 and moral improvement in these important matters of sexual 
 morality, is far better for individual character than to give 
 way to licentious immorality. By such means, self-control, 
 which is the foundation of all moral improvement, both in 
 the individual and the nation, will be drawn out and made 
 effectual in all the sexual actions of life. The Neo-Malthu- 
 sian is in too great a hurry to compass his ends ; he destroys 
 the higher feelings of the man, he appeals to his baser ones of 
 selfishness and self-indulgence. He aims at the same desirable 
 goal as we do, namely, a healthy, vigorous, properly-balanced 
 condition of population ; but his scheme sacrifices all that is 
 best and noblest in human nature, his plan panders to what is 
 mere lust and animalism. Better to reach our common aim 
 by elucidating the nobler side of human nature than to 
 acquiesce in its lower and corrupt one. His object can only 
 be gained by self-abasement, ours by the exercise of those 
 virtues which in the end would ennoble the man and the race. 
 Surely it would be better for the married to learn the beauties 
 of self-control than to degrade themselves by giving way to 
 artificial restriction of their children, which latter can never be 
 satisfactory to the conscience. That temperance and self- 
 control in the married is absolutely needed must be admitted 
 by all who think upon this matter of excess of population. 
 Under the present unrestricted licence in married life women 
 are compelled to bear children much too rapidly. A certain 
 writer, who has paid much attention to the matter, says: 
 ''Internal discomfort arises, and by the time they have three 
 or four children, the daily life has become a drudgery, a 
 constant strain upon the nerve force. They strive to keep up 
 to the mark by dram-drinking and tea-drinking. The one 
 induces loss of self-respect and control and ends in utter 
 degradation, the other induces horrible dyspepsia; mental 
 depression steps in, and the constitution gradually gives way." 
 How much misery, how much ill-health of both mother and 
 child, would cease if boy-and-girl marriages were not the rule, 
 and if self-control prevailed in married life both amongst rich 
 and poor.
 
 EXCUSES REMOVED BY REFORM 243 
 
 A poor, wretched, hard-working woman, not by any means 
 utterly hardened, has been known to say, " I 've had my 
 fifteen on 'em, but, thank 'eaven, the churchyard has stood my 
 friend ! " What a hideous condition of selfishness and self- 
 gratification in the man is represented by that saying, and 
 what a miserable state of morality and religion, what an 
 indifference to human life. The fact is, that the church is 
 very much to blame for not teaching her people much more 
 about sexual morality and elementary physiology than she 
 does. She must be, if she fulfils her mission, a teaching 
 church, addressing herself to all which comprises the man 
 his body, soul, and spirit ; if she does not, she wofully fails in 
 her duty to God and man. The problems of marriage, popu- 
 lation, divorce, sexual purity, and vice, would very soon present 
 very different aspects from what they do now, if the church was 
 all things to all men that she might win some. The married 
 have much to learn yet concerning the responsibility of pro- 
 ducing other lives. 
 
 We are getting to know how much the health and minds 
 of children depend upon the condition of their parents in 
 these respects at the moment of conception. If children 
 sound in mind and body are to be born, the health, the 
 thoughts, the feelings of the parents must be perfect at that 
 time. Yet how little attention is given to this most important 
 point. We now know, beyond a doubt, that if either or both 
 the parents are under the effects of alcohol at that time 
 the child will run the gravest risk of being idiotic or epileptic. 
 In the cases of these children there is a most peculiar arrest 
 of growth and development of body. (See the Lancet, 
 March 6th, 1869.) Hufeland very plainly says, in The Art of 
 Prolonging Life : " In my opinion it is of the utmost importance 
 that this moment should be confined to a period when the 
 sensation of collected powers, ardent passion, and a mind 
 cheerful and free from care, invite to it on both sides." The 
 different appearances in the children of a family can be 
 traced to the condition of the parents at the time of conception. 
 Some will resemble the father, some the mother, both out- 
 wardly and inwardly. This truth is as old as Jacob's time. 
 He seems to have acted with his flocks in the way he 
 did as if it was the most natural thing in the world. Not 
 a hint of such a thing as a miracle or especial strangeness is 
 recorded about it. The Greeks understood this truth also.
 
 244 NEO-MALTHUSIANISM 
 
 Galen wrote graphically about it. (See Naphey's The Physical 
 Life of Woman, p. 98.) In no other way can we account for 
 the various differences in children and adults of the same 
 family. If it be true, and there seems no doubt about it, that 
 men and women while under the influence of alcohol at 
 the moment of conception can affect the child, everything and 
 anything else surely follows as a matter of course. Jacob 
 knew it well ; so do those who have paid the greatest atten- 
 tion to breeding prize cattle and thorough-bred horses. If 
 such matters relating to the terrible responsibility of reproduc- 
 ing life were better understood and taught unreservedly, how 
 different the question of population would be. Touching 
 this point of temperance and self-control in the married, 
 we may just remark that living separate lives by husband 
 and wife has often been suggested, and no doubt adopted 
 by some, but it is not to be encouraged. It is open to the 
 objection that consent is seldom mutual, and also that the 
 power to live such lives varies with the temperament of the 
 two. Such a solution of the problems we are considering 
 is very dangerous where either of them is possessed of strong 
 passions. One more point remains to be discussed, it is that 
 of second marriages, by which more children are called 
 into life. These are never satisfactory, and Canon law 
 forbade them both to clergy and laity alike. The former are 
 forbidden to do so by the Greek Church. The stepmother 
 is not generally a satisfactory person. Of course, amongst the 
 poor they are almost a necessity ; not so among the rich. It 
 is to the widow that the case most applies. The man 
 who marries a widow can never be sure that the children 
 she bears him will either resemble him outwardly or mentally. 
 Every breeder knows that if a thorough-bred female of any 
 species has had for her first mate a low-bred specimen, she can 
 never afterwards be relied upon to produce a perfect inheritor, 
 of her own purer- bred type. We have two remarkable 
 instances of this rule of nature in the mule and the jennet'. 
 The former is the product of the he-ass and the mare, and is 
 merely a large ass; the latter is the product of the she-ass and 
 the horse, and is merely a small horse. (See also the Abbe 
 Quillet's extraordinary books on this subject of callipcedia 
 written two centuries ago.) It is the same in every kind 
 of animal life. If a negress has had for her first husband 
 a white man, and then marries for her second one of her own
 
 EXCUSES REMOVED BY REFORM 145 
 
 race, she will often give birth to children by him marked with 
 all the characteristics of the white race. Sometimes the colour 
 of the child will approximate much more nearly to the white 
 than to the coloured. We know the case of Darwin's zebra. 
 Such a result is only to be expected. Marriage to a woman is 
 such a complete transformation of life, such a great physio- 
 logical change, that the man who brings it about for the first 
 time is indelibly fixed upon her whole mind and constitution. 
 
 Our next consideration must be that of the marriage of the 
 diseased, and consequently the multiplication of the unfit. 
 That this is one of the most certain causes of undue com- 
 petition and all manner of distress there cannot be the 
 slightest doubt. 
 
 Life is of transcendent importance to everybody; it 
 follows, therefore, that we should seriously consider what 
 kind of life is brought into the world. But what little 
 care there is expended upon this. " In point of health our 
 children are our reproach. Where is there a healthy child ? 
 You may put before me a child in all its innocence. It has 
 done no wrong that it should suffer. It may show to the 
 unskilled mind no trace of disease, and yet I know that if 
 I, or any skilled observer, were to look into the history of 
 the life in question it cannot be found intrinsically sound." 
 (Richardson.) 
 
 Those who have the misfortune to be diseased, either 
 physically or mentally, are bound by all laws of morality not 
 to perpetuate their defects. Abstinence from marriage is a 
 duty they owe to themselves and society. It is impossible to 
 imagine a greater wrong and injustice than to bring children 
 into existence who are doomed to live lives of more or less 
 suffering and agony. Yet we are all well aware, from the 
 sights we see and the things we hear, how frequently this 
 rule of simple morality and justice is utterly disregarded 
 both by rich and poor alike. It may, with awful truth, be 
 said to be more honoured in the breach than in the obser- 
 vance. Is it not terrible to see the daily increasing army 
 of the helpless, the diseased, the idiotic, and the insane 
 swarming into the world in countless numbers, these again in 
 their turn to produce further swarms of still more diseased 
 life? Greg writes, in Mai thus Notwithstanding: "With us 
 thousands with tainted constitutions, frames weakened with 
 malady or waste, brains bearing subtle and hereditary mischief
 
 246 NEO-MALTHUSIANISM 
 
 in their recesses, are supplied, to transmit their terrible inherit- 
 ance of evil to other generations." 
 
 There has never been a time when civilized society has not 
 condemned such a state of things. Moral opinion and 
 medical statements have all been thundered against it for 
 ages ; yet still it goes on unchecked, waxing more pernicious, 
 more ghastly in its results every day. Mrs. Besant once 
 stated that scientific materialism must forbid parentage to any 
 but healthy couples. It does not need to be a scientific 
 materialist to hold such an excellent belief; Christian morality 
 teaches it and upholds it before all men. For centuries past, 
 and especially in recent times, volumes have been written on 
 the subject, showing that people, if they wish to act justly and 
 morally, should earnestly ask themselves this important ques- 
 tion, Will the world and society be the better for more of my 
 life being brought into it ? 
 
 According to the present code of thought, everybody, no 
 matter what his mental or physical condition may be, is free to 
 degrade human life. The result, of course, is what everybody 
 deplores and condemns. Was there ever a more piteous sight 
 than Charles Lamb leading away his insane sister by the hand 
 from the inquest to guard for life, he himself bordering on the 
 same condition ? Who did sin, this man or his parents ? We 
 read of insane married persons going in and out of asylums, 
 and yet procreating with the utmost freedom while they are 
 outside; deaf and dumb intermarrying with one another, 
 and their weddings described as so " interesting and pretty " ; 
 couples saturated with alcohol, steeped in consumption, 
 stamped with syphilis, and marked with strumous ulcers, 
 all propagating their like just as they please; idiots produc- 
 ing worse and worse forms of idiotcy, until we have at last 
 reached a new product of civilization. 
 
 "A child that has no control over its involuntary muscles, 
 that notices no light unless it be one of great intensity and 
 brilliancy; that can stare the sun full in the face without 
 winking ; that prefers salt to sugar, the smell of assafoetida 
 to the odour of the rose ; that enjoys having its teeth pulled 
 out, and is rapturous with the delight of being pricked with 
 pins; that runs its fingers roughly along the sharp blade of 
 a razor, and marvels with curious eyes at the sudden red 
 flow from its severed flesh"; these are no creatures of 
 imagination ; they can be seen in hundreds at Elwyn. New,
 
 EXCUSES REMOVED BY REFORM 247 
 
 horrible types of humanity are being produced in all direc- 
 tions ; and yet the mischief goes on ; nothing whatever is being 
 done to hinder it. 
 
 If people would but think before they reproduce life and 
 increase population ! If people who would be likely to produce 
 idiots would but refrain from piteous cruelty ! "Of the idiots 
 two-thirds are scrofulous, about twenty per cent, are paralysed, 
 about the same proportion crippled and deformed, some out 
 of all resemblance to humanity, a like number are blind, and 
 as many more mute. A large number of these creatures are 
 more degraded than any brute -beast. Their habits are 
 beyond description. They know nothing of pleasure and 
 little of peace. Indeed, a large number are wholly incapable 
 of experiencing pleasurable feelings. The only sensations 
 which they experience in their course through life are painful, 
 and when not in pain their lives are as void of sensation as 
 that of a cabbage. Their lives may be said to be vegetable, 
 with the unfortunate power added of experiencing pain. 
 These trebly-cursed creatures only exist to suffer. Their 
 existence is a dark pathway from the cradle to the grave, 
 punctuated by periods of suffering, but not illuminated by a 
 single ray of pleasure." Shakespeare says: "The miserable 
 have no other medicine, but only hope " ; but these, the miser- 
 able of the miserable, are denied even the pleasures of hope ; 
 for them there is no hope. These poor creatures are the 
 results of unions which should not take place. 
 
 Disraeli wrote against all this dreadful sin and degradation in 
 Lothair, saying that it was the first duty of a good government 
 to attend to the frame and health of the subject, and how the 
 Spartans understood their duties in such respects. They per- 
 mitted no marriages the probable consequences of which might 
 be an enfeebled progeny. The fate of the nation will ultimately 
 depend upon the health and vigour of its population. If some- 
 thing effectual is not done to curtail the deterioration we are 
 rapidly falling into, a very dreadful state of things must ensue. 
 Those who have to consult a doctor know very well that the 
 first question they are asked is, What is the family history? 
 Those who insure their lives know how full are the questions 
 they have to answer about the health of their relatives. It is 
 not from ignorance that people marry who ought not; it is 
 from want of self-control, and thorough perverseness. "Such 
 marriages as these, which bear fruit in idiots and lunatics, and
 
 248 NEO-MALTHUSIANISM 
 
 the deformed and warped in body as well as mind, are things 
 accursed by the law of nature and nature's God, and should 
 be accursed by the law of man." 
 
 One of the worst features of all this reckless and unwise 
 procreation is that the wise, the prudent, the self-controlled 
 have to pay largely for the lack of these virtues in others by 
 maintaining their multitudes of diseased and helpless pro- 
 ductions. What can be done to stem this horrible state of 
 things? Whatever the future may bring, we have not yet 
 arrived at the time when we can isolate or sterilize the diseased 
 and the criminal members of the human race, nor can we 
 adopt lethal chambers or infanticide. We are told that out 
 of all this mixture the fittest will eventually evolve, and all will 
 be well ; that out of it all will emerge a perfect humanity, the 
 culminating point of evolution, a perfect man. It seems 
 difficult to foresee it, for diseased life is being now everywhere 
 assisted to prolong itself in endless successions of human beings. 
 Science may, in ages to come, succeed in discovering a mode 
 of transferring disease into health, but for the immediate 
 future the outlook is very dark. The solution of the many 
 difficulties involved is indeed hard to discover. We can only 
 appeal at present to the moral feelings, especially to those of 
 women. To them the appeal for mercy to children will never 
 be made in vain. If by neglecting, or setting justice, mercy, 
 and reason at defiance, men and women have perversely repro- 
 duced their own tainted lives, the cure will certainly not be 
 found in adding cruelty to cruelty, injustice to injustice, by 
 illtreating and destroying in lethal chambers, which some 
 advocate, the terrible productions which have been brought 
 into the world. 
 
 In considering the problems of the multiplication of the 
 unfit, we must steadily bear in mind that often, far too often, 
 these untoward productions are the evil results of human life 
 having been forced, by an unnatural condition of society, into 
 surroundings which have tended in no slight degree to produce 
 them in the first instance. The cure for it all can only be 
 found in recalling men and women to those paths of morality 
 and righteousness from which they have, either wilfully or 
 ignorantly, stepped aside. To cure one evil by putting another 
 deliberately into its place is certainly not improvement. To 
 destroy unfit life would only be increasing human agony to a 
 frightful extent. Infanticide would be less painful. But surely
 
 EXCUSES REMOVED BY REFORM 249 
 
 we have arrived at the time when all must admit that moral 
 methods to obtain improvement are better than those of brute 
 strength. How many poor, suffering creatures would be driven 
 to despair and suicide if they thought that the lethal chamber 
 awaited them. Neither can we isolate those who are unfit 
 to reproduce their species ; the cost would be too great, and 
 the rebellion by those primarily concerned too widespread to 
 be overcome. No, the appeal to stop these horrors can only 
 be made by a Christian society to the moral feelings of man- 
 kind, not to its lower, more brutal ones. 
 
 The time has undoubtedly come when that appeal can, with 
 some degree of hope, be addressed to those who have acquired 
 a high degree of justice, righteousness, and morality. These 
 can be appealed to by such means to refrain from marriage if 
 unfit. With regard to those who have, unfortunately, only 
 acquired a lower standard of these virtues, legislators can do 
 something. They can point out to them the serious injury 
 they are doing to themselves and everybody else by propagating 
 the unfit. This they can do by affording them the necessary 
 information they now are so sadly in lack of, and which would 
 greatly remove the trouble. I am confident such methods 
 would not be adopted in vain. There is sufficient conscience 
 in all men and women, no matter how blunted and distorted 
 it may be, which, if awakened, would convince them that to 
 reproduce their own unfortunate lives in others is a grievous 
 sin against God, nature, and morality. 
 
 In this matter of the multiplication of the unfit, we can 
 readily observe another instance of how adverse to the pros- 
 perity of the nation are the social influences of this evil 
 generation upon which we are fallen. Many men and women 
 best calculated to reproduce lives which would be the glory 
 and boast of England are prevented from doing so in 
 consequence of the lack of means ; yet immense numbers of 
 those who are totally unfit to reproduce theirs, and to whom 
 economic hindrances have no power of appeal, do not hesitate 
 to do so. Hence, of course, arises the survival of the unfittest. 
 The time has come when clergy and doctors must unite in 
 appealing to all to rise to a higher standard of morality in 
 marriage, and all things relating thereto. People must be 
 made to understand that where prudence in marriage is cruelly 
 disregarded, and proper consideration for children miserably 
 outraged, nature, which is God's law, will infallibly assert itself,
 
 250 NEO-MALTHUSIANISM 
 
 and cause millions, who ought not to be so doomed, to suffer 
 years of agony. " It is time, therefore, as we heard a brave 
 parson tell his flock lately, to have done with that blasphemous 
 whining which constantly tries to look at a motherless and 
 fatherless crowd of puny infants as a dispensation of mysterious 
 providence." (Evolution of Sex.} 
 
 People who are unfit to marry must be taught that, instead 
 of making life a blessing to others, they would, by their selfish 
 action, transform it into a curse. " These persons' lives are a 
 curse to themselves, and a cause of incessant suffering to their 
 best friends. When at length they succumb, all who cared 
 for them rejoice. Most people can picture for themselves 
 what the latter end of such a life is. The diseased one, an 
 object of horror and loathing to those who love him most, 
 praying (when not stupefied with drugs to deaden his pain) to 
 God for relief in death ; while those around echo the prayer in 
 hiding, and become impatient that their united prayers have 
 remained so long unanswered." Who, possessed of an atom 
 of pity or morality, would not refrain from bringing such lives 
 into the world ? The time will assuredly come when a medical 
 certificate declaring fitness for marriage will be considered as 
 necessary as the certificate stating that the banns have been 
 published. It will be considered admirable self-denial, sound 
 wisdom, and which will become more and more apparent as 
 life draws on, for the diseased, or those with a tendency to 
 disease, to abstain from marriage both on moral and physical 
 grounds. We are all bound to teach and maintain that it is an 
 undoubted sin for diseased people to marry ; that they will, in 
 doing so, be guilty of a great wrong against the children whom 
 they would bring into the world, and also of an outrage against 
 all the higher laws of morality. "Few would deserve better 
 of their country than those who determine to live celibate 
 lives, through a reasonable conviction that their issue would 
 probably be less fitted than the generality to play their part as 
 citizens." (Gallon.) 
 
 We can look forward with some degree of confidence to the 
 cessation of all these wrongs if we appeal to the humane and 
 moral feelings of mankind. Public opinion will also be of 
 much help ; sometimes it is of much force ; when it has right 
 on its side it is irresistible. In no holier cause can its help be 
 invoked than in this. The time will undoubtedly come when 
 a purer and more sensitive morality will look askance on those
 
 EXCUSES REMOVED BY REFORM 251 
 
 who will persist in committing the great crime of propagating 
 unfit life. Mill's aphorism cynical, heartless as it is, and which 
 need not be repeated here may then be applied to all those 
 who, contrary to all feelings of mercy and consideration for 
 others, act so unwisely and unnaturally. The selfish man will no 
 doubt always gratify his fleshly lusts, regardless of the misery and 
 sufferings which he will by so doing inflict upon others, whom 
 he dooms to live and perish miserably. The moral man will 
 refrain, he " whose passions are trained to come to heel by a 
 vigorous will, the servant of a tender conscience " ; and when 
 his life's work is done, he will have the blessed satisfaction of 
 knowing that, by self-sacrifice and denying himself, he has 
 lessened the sum of human agony. The Neo-Malthusian steps 
 in here with his arguments, and says that the adoption of his 
 system would enable the diseased to marry, and that if ex- 
 ception be taken to its practice on economic grounds, such as 
 limiting the power of production, it cannot apply here, as the 
 children born would do more harm than good. Well, of 
 course, under his system they could marry, and the world 
 would be none the worse by the multiplication of their unfit, 
 but morality would apply to their case just as much as to the 
 sound when they adopt it. 
 
 I leave it to those who ought not to marry to consider 
 which is the most righteous and moral course to adopt to 
 give licence to sexual passion in an immoral manner merely 
 to gratify a fleeting sensation, or to deny oneself for the sake 
 of a higher code of morals and religion. The one would 
 bring a stricken conscience and remorse in the end, the other 
 would bring peace and satisfaction. Dr. Holmes says on this 
 particular point : " Those who know that they would transmit 
 diseased bodies and weakened predispositions to their offspring 
 should choose voluntary celibacy. How much more honour- 
 able is such a course, and typical of a higher education 
 and moral training, than is the example set by many who claim 
 to be leaders of modern society and civilization, who have 
 acquired the knowledge that enables them to enjoy the 
 intoxications of wedlock without being parents." And now 
 I trust I have sufficiently dealt with those three most necessary 
 reforms in marriage, which would, if adopted, tend so materially 
 to reduce the manifold troubles which we are now suffering 
 from, caused by an excess of population. First, cessation 
 of immature marriages ; secondly, temperance in the married ;
 
 252 NEO-MALTHUSIANISM 
 
 and thirdly, only healthy couples to marry. None of these 
 reforms involve the least trace of immorality, and would be 
 productive of far more good to the individual and the race 
 than Neo-Malthusianism. The former would bring out the 
 best qualities of human nature ; the latter would degrade it.
 
 NEO-MALTHUSIANISM WITH REGARD TO 
 THE LAND QUESTION 
 
 IN considering this aspect of the matter I do not intend 
 to enter into the very complex matter of Land Nationaliza- 
 tion. That has been already sufficiently dealt with by Pro- 
 fessor Wallace in his successful book, Land Nationalization. 
 That something of the kind must come in time is sufficiently 
 clear, but the settlement is not for our generation. Those 
 who come after us will see vast changes in the tenure of land, 
 and will smile with contempt at the manner in which we 
 carried on the affair ; but in the meantime there are very many 
 minor reforms in this matter of land tenure which could easily 
 be effected, and which would undoubtedly be of much present 
 utility in reducing many of the troubles arising from the 
 plethora of population which has arisen in our modern life, 
 and consequently would minimise the so-called necessity for 
 the practice of Neo-Malthusianism. We may follow the 
 precept of the poet who wrote : 
 
 1 ' To do the thing we can, and not presume 
 To fret because it 's little." 
 
 It seems to me, as indeed it must do to all who know 
 anything about, or take any interest in land questions, that if 
 there was a better cultivation of the soil, as well as a firmer and 
 longer tenure, many of the difficulties and troubles which 
 necessarily arise from the present congested condition of 
 population would be at least mitigated. Owing to the lack of 
 technical instruction in scientific agriculture, the British farmer 
 is far behind the times. By nature he is slow to take advan- 
 tage of inventions, and pecuniarily he is unable to do so. 
 Combined hostile influences force him to keep on in the 
 old style of agriculture which was in vogue a century ago, and 
 consequently, in the competition with others better situated in 
 
 253
 
 254 NEO-MALTHUSIANISM 
 
 these respects than he is, he comes to the ground. He is the 
 most conservative of mortals, and is loth to move with the 
 times. Moreover, he fights for his own hand, and resents any 
 interference which might show to the outside world what 
 position he was in. Anxious to assist farming interests, the 
 railway companies lately made an effort to carry agricultural 
 produce at as low rates as could be made to pay ; but this 
 necessitated a concerted action on the part of the farmers, 
 which they do not seem so far to be able to attain to. 
 Naturally the Railway Companies could carry a large quantity 
 at one time, from one station, easier and cheaper than many 
 small quantities from many small stations at different times. 
 Yet the system has failed because the farmers seemed unable 
 just to make this combined effort to send their goods from one 
 point instead of from many. Yet we hear a vast amount 
 of complaint that the producer cannot get his produce to the 
 consumer in consequence of railway difficulties. We often 
 read disheartening letters in the newspapers, written by 
 despairing small cultivators, stating that all the possible profits 
 on a consignment of perishable commodities are lost through 
 delay in transit ; and yet, when the opportunity was given 
 of not losing them, the want of co-operation amongst the 
 farmers wrecked the possibility of helping them. It was not 
 the custom of proceeding in olden times, hence the difficulty 
 of the modern farmer to grasp the improvement. Moreover, 
 he despises technical education. It is with the utmost 
 difficulty that classes are got together to teach those who 
 would profit by it most. We read of many country villages 
 where no classes can be held in consequence of utter 
 indifference. 
 
 In almost everything connected with agriculture we need 
 improvement and reform. What can, for instance, be more 
 absurd and hindering to successful cultivation than that a 
 man who farms land should never be certain that he would 
 not be obliged to surrender it all, owing to some whim of his 
 landlord, at a six months' notice? It is a great hindrance to 
 an increased production of the soil, that whatever a tenant 
 may put into the soil with a view to its improvement belongs 
 to the landlord. Who, under such a system, would be so 
 foolish as to plant orchards ? Who seems at the present time 
 to have any interest in causing the land to produce its very 
 utmost ? Nobody. Hence the poor suffer ; the yeoman and
 
 WITH REGARD TO THE LAND QUESTION 255 
 
 the peasant flee from the country, and become mere wage- 
 earners in the towns. Mr. Wallace proposed that after all 
 existing lives interested in possessing land die out it should 
 become the property of the State. The proposal was met by 
 cries that it was robbery and disinheritance But how many 
 younger sons at the present time are being disinherited of any 
 share in their father's land by the ridiculous law of entail; 
 the eldest son succeeds to an inheritance in land which he 
 cannot maintain or improve, as he is a mere figure-head, the 
 nominal owner of a part of the soil which he cannot spend 
 any money upon to improve ; hence all interested in extreme 
 production suffer. Can anything be more absurd, in these 
 days of agricultural depression, than a tenant for life ? If he 
 has younger children, he naturally does all he can to save all 
 that is possible for them, to the terrible detriment of the land. 
 He has consequently no money to spend upon buildings, or in 
 improving the soil. In the meantime all connected with it 
 suffer, every sort of harm is incurred, merely to uphold a 
 territorial family and pride, which latter is really as hurtful 
 to the persons most concerned themselves as it is to others. 
 The tenant for life leads but a dreary life after all he cannot 
 look upon his estate as really his, he is hampered on every 
 side, unable to make the land produce all it could. Hence all 
 the decay of agriculture and the exodus to the town. Every- 
 body connected with the cultivation of the soil becomes more 
 and more dispirited, and gives it up. If agriculture is at all to 
 succeed in England, the old ideas will have to be trampled 
 upon, especially that one which treats everything put into the 
 soil as the property of the landlord. Who would plant that 
 another might reap ? Nobody with a grain of sense would 
 improve another man's property. If the owners of English 
 land intend to hold their own with the rest of the world, they 
 must abolish all absurd restrictions with regard to its culti- 
 vation, and part with what they cannot cultivate or improve 
 themselves to those who can. In time the sooner the better, 
 if the land of England is not to go out of cultivation 
 altogether the State will have to take over large quantities of 
 practically ownerless land, and let it to tenant labourers, who 
 could become the owners after having paid, in course of years, 
 the necessary rent, plus a sinking fund to repay any money 
 advanced. All this combined would be less than the present 
 rent, which seems to be productive of no good to anybody.
 
 256 NEO-MALTHUSIANISM 
 
 Take the case of a landlord, the nominal owner of an im- 
 poverished estate, with no margin of profit after all outgoings 
 are paid, unable to spend a penny on improvements. Would 
 it not be better for him, and especially for the land, that the 
 State should take it up and deal with it ? This system is being 
 adopted in Ireland with excellent results. Why should it not 
 be the same in England ? 
 
 We should also work to remove the grievous injustice 
 connected with local taxation, and which so greatly hinders all 
 improvement in the cultivation of land. Most of these should 
 be paid from Imperial and not from local sources. A vast 
 number of people who have large fortunes invested in consols, 
 railways, etc., contribute nothing whatever to local taxation. 
 For instance, a man with ;i 0,000 a year from such sources, 
 paying, let us say, 500 a year for a house and gardens, only 
 pays local rates on ^500, the remainder, ^9500, escapes scot- 
 free ; while the man who has all his money coming from land 
 pays on every penny of it. Is this justice ? Is it fair to the 
 land ? Is it fair to anything connected with it ? The reason, 
 of course, is obvious. When these taxes were imposed there 
 was only the land as a means of investment, such things as 
 modern modes of investment were unheard of; yet, notwith- 
 standing the revolution which all such affairs have undergone 
 during the present century, we stand to-day in the same mode 
 of taxation with regard to land as we did a hundred or more 
 years ago. Is it not ridiculous ? Even in the present time, at 
 the present moment, we see numbers of people, who ought to 
 know better, zealously eager to impose all financial school 
 support on the rates, instead of on Imperial sources. This 
 idea of rate-aid is simply adding additional burdens to the 
 land. The question arose which would be best, rate or 
 Imperial aid, and many short-sighted individuals voted for 
 local rather than Imperial taxation. Under this pernicious 
 system of piling on local taxation, the land of England has 
 no chance of successfully competing with land which has now, 
 by means of better transit, been brought into close proximity, 
 and which has none of these heavy burdens to bear. 
 
 The improvement of our mercantile shipping, the vast 
 extension of foreign railways, and other obvious causes, have 
 had the result that the harvests of the world can be brought 
 from places where they are produced, and sold in countries 
 where they are required, at a price only a little above that in
 
 WITH REGARD TO THE LAND QUESTION 257 
 
 the country of their origin. Yet, notwithstanding all the 
 foreign competition which we have to contend against now, 
 every hindrance to the land producing its utmost is still main- 
 tained, and everything is put in the way of those who would 
 be glad to make it to do so. For instance, if the tenant of 
 an arable farm transformed it into a garden to supply fruit, 
 vegetables, etc., instantly the rate-collector pounces upon him, 
 and informs him that he must pay three times the rates he 
 did formerly; when he has departed, the tithe-owner calls 
 upon him, and tells him his tithe must now be extraordinary, 
 instead of ordinary, as his land is now garden. Is it any 
 wonder that under such systems of taxation the land of 
 England is fast becoming useless ? The case of ground land- 
 lords is very monstrous. Although they derive enormous 
 incomes from houses built upon their land, yet they contribute 
 nothing whatever towards local taxation. Is this as it should 
 be, is it fair to the land ? A few figures will show how unjust 
 the present system of taxation for the poor-rate is. The 
 total income of England and Wales now amounts to about 
 ^600,000,000, yet the poor-rate is charged upon only 
 ,50,000,000 ; so that no less than ^450,000,000 escapes 
 all taxation towards the ; 18,000,000 raised for the poor- 
 rate. The time has certainly come when, if the land of 
 England is not to go out of cultivation altogether, a radical 
 reform will have to take place in the removal of some of the 
 taxes which press so heavily upon the land, and placing them 
 on Imperial sources. When any attempt is made to remove 
 the poor-rate from local to Imperial sources, an immediate 
 outcry is made that the cost of maintaining the poor would 
 largely increase, owing to the lack of local representation and 
 management, for the men who are elected Guardians of the 
 Poor have a natural interest in keeping down the cost. It is 
 somewhat difficult to see why the cost should so increase. 
 The management might remain the same, and none of the 
 Guardians would be more likely to adopt measures which would 
 tend to increase their income taxation than to increase their 
 local one. The only difference would be, that then the tax 
 would be distributed over a larger number of contributors 
 than it is at present. 
 
 Another great help to the land would be to replace the duty 
 on malt. When it was placed on beer, barley fell ten shillings 
 a quarter at once. It was placed on beer to the detriment of
 
 NEO-MALTHUSIANISM 
 
 both the farmer and the consumer of beer. As much beer is 
 drunk now as ever there was, but other matters besides barley 
 are put into it. 
 
 Again, what greater hardship can there be than in forcing 
 the farmers, and all interested in land, to maintain the roads. 
 Surely those who use them most should do so. I am told that 
 since the days of turnpikes brewers have added enormously to 
 their incomes. They make use of the roads more than any 
 other class, yet they contribute nothing to their maintenance 
 now. We see the absurdity of this present system in the case 
 of the clergy, who do not, generally speaking, use the roads 
 very much, yet pay as much as others who use them very 
 much more. All land-tax should be expended on the parishes 
 from which it is drawn, instead of being transmitted elsewhere, 
 as it is now. 
 
 A great reform will have to take place in the mode of tenure. 
 Besides all the local taxation which the land has at present to 
 bear, we have no less than four classes to maintain out of it 
 the landlord, the farmer, the clergy, and the labourer. Is this 
 possible under present conditions, when, owing to improved 
 modes of communication, we have very distant parts of the 
 globe as near to London now as Liverpool was fifty years 
 ago? Yet the present system still continues, with the in- 
 evitable result that the land of England is going out of 
 cultivation ; it cannot continue, under the present system, to 
 be worked at all. 
 
 The following statistics, just published by the American 
 Department of Agriculture, prove how greatly English land 
 is ceasing to be productive : 
 
 NUMBER OF ACRES UNDER WHEAT FOR EACH 
 
 100 INHABITANTS. 
 
 America 
 
 Russia 
 
 Argentina 
 
 Denmark 
 
 Roumania 
 
 Canada 
 
 Austria 
 
 France 
 
 Germany 
 
 Italy 
 
 Belgium 
 
 United Kingdom 
 
 230 
 200 
 150 
 150 
 140 
 130 
 
 IOO 
 IOO 
 
 75 
 70 
 40 
 26
 
 WITH REGARD TO THE LAND QUESTION 259 
 
 The wheat grown for each inhabitant in the following 
 countries amounts to : 
 
 America 
 
 Denmark 
 
 Canada 
 
 Russia 
 
 France 
 
 Germany 
 
 Belgium 
 
 Ireland 
 
 Italy 
 
 Great Britain 
 
 2400 Ibs 
 20OO 
 
 1500 
 
 I20O 
 IOOO 
 
 900 
 600 
 
 500 
 
 400 
 
 350 
 
 These figures go to prove that English land has no chance, 
 borne down as it is with local taxation, and four classes to 
 support out of it, of successfully competing with countries 
 where none of this outrageous taxation exists. During the 
 last twenty years no less than 2,137,000 acres of arable land 
 have been lost in the United Kingdom. In the year 1875 
 there were four million acres under wheat; in 1895 only one 
 and a half. In 1870 the wheat crop amounted to fourteen 
 million quarters; in 1895 it was below five. In 1870 the 
 price per quarter of wheat amounted to fifty-five shillings ; in 
 1895 to about a pound. In 1870 the value of the whole 
 wheat crop of the United Kingdom amounted to thirty-six 
 millions sterling; in 1895 it was only five millions and a half. 
 These figures prove how the land of England is going out 
 of cultivation as regards cereals. Levasseur shows us how 
 England was supplied with wheat during the year 1889 : 
 
 Russia 
 
 United States 
 India 
 Roumania 
 Germany . 
 Australia . 
 Canada 
 
 4,264,335 qrs 
 3,403,250 
 1,843,466 
 
 572,497 
 
 507,725 
 
 281,212 
 23,366 
 
 " Even England, which is the most advanced agricultural 
 country, has an extent of unproductive fields equal to a fifth of 
 its whole surface." (Nitti.) It has been ascertained that each 
 person in the United Kingdom consumes five bushels of wheat 
 per annum. When we consider, then, that an area of England 
 equal to five times the size of Devonshire could produce seven 
 bushels of wheat to every person in England this moment,
 
 260 NEO-MALTHUSIANISM 
 
 we can readily imagine from this what the United Kingdom, if 
 it was properly cultivated, could produce. The merest child 
 knows very well that England could produce million-folds 
 more than it does. We import each year on an average 
 as much as 119,000,000 Ibs. of dairy produce, all of which 
 could be produced in England. Belgium easily supports, out 
 of her own produce, a population of 533 to the square mile; 
 England has to import immense quantities of food to support 
 483. Without taking into consideration any other foods, 
 there were no less than ^22,531,176 worth of wheat imported 
 into Great Britain during the year 1895. All of this could 
 easily be produced at home. During that year the total value 
 of all kinds of human food imported into the United Kingdom, 
 not an atom of which could not be produced at home, 
 amounted to ^147, 778,866. What a different country 
 England would be if she kept that sum of money at home 
 instead of giving it to others ! All that she needs to do so is a 
 fair chance, which she has not now. We are told that the farmer 
 of the far West declares that he can grow wheat to pay at a 
 shilling a bushel, and that two shillings and a penny give him 
 a large profit. We may gather from this what England has to 
 expect. The carriage of wheat from Chicago to Liverpool 
 only amounts to two shillings and twopence per quarter, or 
 nine shillings and ninepence a ton. (See, for further informa- 
 tion on this point, the article, " Can the Empire feed its 
 people ?" in the Nineteenth Century for January, 1896.) The 
 impossibility of growing cereals under the present systems of 
 land tenure and taxation has changed the whole aspect of 
 England. Arable land is being everywhere converted into 
 permanent pasture. This, of course, does away with the 
 labourer ; hence we have the rural exodus, the depopulation of 
 the country, the accumulation in the towns. The present pro- 
 portion of arable to pasture land in the following countries 
 is : 
 
 FRANCE. GERMANY. BELGIUM. UNITED KINGDOM. 
 Arable . 49-20 ... 48-46 ... 53*48 ... 29-17 
 Pasture . 11-02 ... 12-07 I 3'i9 32'o8 
 
 If the soil of England was cultivated as that of Belgium or 
 France is, and much of the unfair local taxation was trans- 
 ferred to Imperial sources, if the absurd and antiquated rules 
 concerning its possession were abrogated, if a general reform
 
 WITH REGARD TO THE LAND QUESTION 261 
 
 all round would only take place, England could feed many 
 millions more from her own resources than she does now. 
 This is what the Coming Reign of Plenty says : 
 
 " If the soil of the United Kingdom were cultivated only 
 as it was thirty years ago, 24,000,000 people, instead of 
 17,000,000, could live on home-grown food ; and that culture, 
 while giving occupation to at least 750,000 men, would give 
 nearly 3,000,000 wealthy home customers to the British 
 manufacturers. 
 
 "If the 1,590,000 acres on which wheat was grown thirty 
 years ago only these, and not more were cultivated as the 
 fields are cultivated now in England under the allotment 
 system, which gives on the average forty bushels per acre, the 
 United Kingdom would grow food for 27,000,000 inhabitants 
 out of 35,000,000. 
 
 " If the now cultivated area of the United Kingdom 80,000 
 square miles were cultivated as the soil is cultivated on the 
 average in Belgium, the United Kingdom would have food for 
 37,000,000 inhabitants, and it might export agricultural pro- 
 duce, without ceasing to manufacture, so as freely to supply 
 all the needs of a wealthy population. 
 
 " And, finally, if the population of this country came to be 
 doubled, all that would be required for producing the food for 
 70,000,000 inhabitants would be to cultivate the soil as it is 
 cultivated in the best farms of Lombardy and Flanders, to 
 cultivate the fields, which at present lie almost unproductive, 
 around the big cities in the same way as the neighbourhoods 
 of Paris are cultivated by the Paris maraltfors." 
 
 Anybody who looks at allotment grounds and sees all the pro- 
 duce there, and then looks over the hedge and sees the condition 
 of the ordinary farmed land, can well realize what good and bad 
 farming means, what the soil of England is capable of produc- 
 ing when well treated. If it was, the United Kingdom could 
 supply 140,000,000 of mouths with wheat. And yet at the 
 present time, owing to all the restrictions heaped up upon our 
 land, we have actually to import food from other countries at 
 a cost of over ^140,000,000 a year, all of which could be 
 saved to our population if access to the land and freedom of 
 dealing with it were granted. To appreciate the meaning 
 of all this better, we may learn that at the present time there 
 are no less than 27,000,000 acres of land in Great Britain 
 lying waste, a fifth of its whole surface, most of which could be
 
 262 NEO-MALTHUSIANISM 
 
 more or less cultivated with considerable profit. Yet the 
 towns are crowded with unemployed, starving people. Surely 
 there is a fault somewhere. 
 
 With reference to the number of classes which are supported 
 directly out of the land, it is impossible that that number the 
 landlord, the farmer, the clergy, the labourer can continue to 
 be maintained ; one must go which is it to be ? The land- 
 lord cannot ; he would if he could, as, alas ! the possession of 
 land has ceased to become either a happiness or a source of 
 wealth to him ; the clergy cannot, although they groan under 
 the present loss of tithe ; and there must be the labourer to till 
 the ground; the farmer is alone left. Everything points to 
 him as the present useless appendage to the soil, and the 
 reasons why he is so are sufficiently obvious. The landlord 
 in the future will have to deal directly with a newly-created 
 class, but which is really not so, as none other existed down to 
 the Hanoverian period. The class of tenant labourers will 
 have to be revived, a class of men who, with the assistance of 
 their relatives and households, will be able to properly cultivate 
 a small farm. 
 
 The land of England cannot continue any longer, under 
 present competition with foreign produce, to directly support 
 three classes landlord, farmer, and labourer; but it could 
 two landlord and tenant labourer. The time will not come 
 in our day when only one class, the owner, will both hold and 
 cultivate it. In the meantime we must abolish the middle- 
 man, the farmer, in the modern sense of the word, and intro- 
 duce the tenant labourer, who really is the yeoman of old 
 days. In having his own family to help, he will avoid most, if 
 not all, external labour expenses. It is in these small farms of 
 fifteen to fifty acres each to which we can look for alleviation 
 of our present stress of population. The present farms are 
 far too large ; no farmer is able to do his duty to the land, 
 which, under such untoward circumstances, does not produce 
 all it could do if it had all the advantages which an ample 
 fertilization affords. The labourer is crying out for more and 
 more land, and says that, notwithstanding all the present com- 
 petition, he could live well out of it, and in addition pay a 
 sufficient rent. The proof of this is the extraordinary demand 
 there is for allotments by the labourers, which the farmers 
 are always loth to grant, and which they look askance at, 
 knowing that if the demand was granted, the labourers would
 
 WITH REGARD TO THE LAND QUESTION 263 
 
 not be forthcoming when the farmers needed them for their 
 own sowing and reaping. The half system suggested by some, 
 namely, that the labourer should work three days with the 
 farmer and three days for himself, is absurd; it never could 
 answer, as when the busy time came each interest would conflict. 
 There can be nothing between the labourer working altogether 
 for the farmer at a miserable pittance, with plots of ground 
 for allotments and a garden, out of which there never can be 
 any rise of condition for him, and a tenant labourer on a 
 small farm. We will consider later on what might be the 
 most suitable size of these farms. 
 
 The dual system could never be satisfactory to either party. 
 It would be returning to the boon service of feudal times, 
 when the villein was forced to harvest the lord's crops at the 
 expense of his own. The tenant labourer and his family 
 would require sufficient land to occupy their time all the year 
 round, and that would seem to be about fifteen to fifty acres. 
 If it be said that such a class of men could not undertake 
 such farms without some capital, I reply, that under the system 
 of advance from the State now proved so very satisfactory in 
 Ireland, where the Arcadia of farming seems to be setting in 
 at last, this could be done, and repaid in a term of years. 
 The only difficulty that might arise in the small farm scheme 
 would be a lack of farm-buildings at first; but that difficulty 
 might be met by temporary ones at the beginning, and more 
 durable ones later on ; besides, there are many larger-sized 
 cottages which could be utilized. (See an admirable article on 
 small farms by Lord Wantage in The Fortnightly Review.} 
 Even if the tenants or proprietors of these proposed small 
 farms were obliged to live in the village, some distance from 
 the farm, they would be very willing, and indeed eager, to 
 accept them on such terms. In many cases, at the present 
 time, farm labourers on an estate or farm have to tramp long 
 distances to and from their work night and morning merely 
 for a pittance of wage. How different the case would be if 
 the man walked to and from his own land, and how different 
 the interest in each case. Again, in the present days of 
 such abundance of capital, where no satisfactory investments 
 can be had, would not a purchase of fifty acres of land be 
 better than the sweet simplicity of the two per cents. ? 
 
 Another great disadvantage to the successful treatment of 
 the land of England is the mode of purchase and transfer.
 
 264 NEO-MALTHUSIANISM 
 
 If the soil could be bought and sold in the open market as 
 other possessions are, how much better it would be. What 
 can be more absurd than the antiquated load of legal jargon 
 with which it is considered necessary to surround all present 
 transfers of land ? No matter how small the plot may be, 
 folios of written matter, bearing enormous legal expenses, 
 seem necessary. In the Middle Ages half-a-dozen lines con- 
 veyed a territory, as anybody can see who has an antiquarian 
 acquaintanceship with old deeds and charters. All these 
 needless expenses and hindrances to purchasing land act as 
 very great preventatives to persons acquiring it, although 
 in many cases they are anxious to do so ; they disgust the 
 would-be purchaser. How much better for the land, and all 
 who might desire to purchase any of it, that a twenty-five 
 years' undisputed possession at the present could give a regis- 
 tration title. This could be lodged in the County Court, and 
 be visible to any intending purchaser. Even those most 
 interested in the matter the lawyers admit that conveyancing 
 has become a chaos. 
 
 Thorold Rogers told us that the conveyance of real estate 
 in the United Kingdom is mulcted in law charges, exclusive of 
 taxes, to the extent of ^12,000,000 annually. Imagine what 
 a help there would be towards the better production of the 
 soil if such a useless expenditure was abolished. If we look 
 at countries which we foolishly consider to be behind us in such 
 things, we can see how for centuries past land-transfer there 
 has been conducted with very small expense, yet in the most 
 satisfactory and expeditious way. I need not expatiate upon 
 them here ; they will be found in that most valuable Report of 
 Mr. C. Fortescue Brickdale, of the Land Registry Office. He 
 was commissioned by the Government to report on the systems 
 of land-transfer in Germany and Austria-Hungary. He tells 
 us that the whole cost of transferring an estate, the price of 
 which is 5000, is only four pounds five shillings ; compare 
 that with what it would be under our present system in 
 England. No effort is made to diminish all the adverse and 
 hindering influences which are destroying English agriculture, 
 and consequently increasing the misery of the towns. Many 
 of those most versed in agricultural knowledge say that, in this 
 proposed scheme of returning to yeoman and small farms, 
 there is a very great possibility of recovery for English land. 
 At the present time we see large isolated farmhouses, sur-
 
 WITH REGARD TO THE LAND QUESTION 265 
 
 rounded by farm-buildings more or less dilapidated, inhabited 
 by a class of men who cannot pay their way under present 
 conditions, and who are altogether out of their true social 
 position, living in a style altogether out of proportion to their 
 dwindling incomes. On the other hand, under the small farm 
 system, we would see moderately-sized buildings, and far more 
 than the present isolated ones, inhabited by families who all 
 worked on the farms in the true sense of the word. Owing to 
 the demands made upon them, and made in consequence of 
 their fictitious social position, the farmer's wife and daughters 
 now live altogether out of their proper sphere. If the tenant 
 labourer could step in, his wife and daughters would merely 
 resume the life Englishwomen of that class lived in days gone 
 by. 
 
 Nobody knew English life better than Richard Jefferies, 
 and his writings on this point may well be studied with profit. 
 We have arrived at the time, for good or evil, which the earlier 
 economists of this century predicted would arrive, and which 
 they condemned, when we would be entirely dependent on 
 foreign produce for our food, and home cultivation is conse- 
 quently being utterly neglected. It was not until after the 
 time of the Great Rebellion that the present pernicious system 
 of farmer and labourer arose. Formerly these two classes 
 were combined in one ; that class which only held enough 
 land for one family to cultivate. Afterwards, when things 
 began to settle down, and agriculture became very profitable, 
 there arose the ruinous system of a man taking more land than 
 he and his family could cultivate, and keeping others to do it. 
 These latter then became mere wage-earners, instead of being 
 directly supported out of the land as they previously had been. 
 If we study the history of those times, especially the literature 
 of Parish Enclosures, we can readily see the origin of much of 
 our present-day troubles; and yet there is much hesitation 
 now exhibited to return to the system which preceded the 
 present evil generation, and which answered so remarkably 
 well in former days. " The first step taken was to divide the 
 land in parcels amongst those who had formerly shared in the 
 whole, and it was not long before the adding of field unto 
 field, often by right of force or fraud rather than by law, to the 
 possessions of the larger landlords, created throughout rural 
 England a landless multitude where such had never before 
 existed, who were left to the precarious livelihood which wage-
 
 266 NEO-MALTHUSIANISM 
 
 labour provided." When, under the present absurd system, 
 the collective power of the labourers is prevented from being 
 utilized on the land, and wages are given instead, both the 
 labourers and the land suffer. 
 
 There is no land question, no rural exodus, no rural poverty 
 problem whatever in Japan, which we still foolishly consider to 
 be an uncivilized country. Why are there not such things in 
 Japan? Simply because in Japan everybody has some land 
 to cultivate and profit by. The Japanese are not divorced 
 from the soil, as the English are, by means of the absurd and 
 antiquated restrictions prevailing with regard to land tenure 
 and purchase. Whenever a population is prevented from 
 having its due and proper share of the land, out of which are 
 derived all the necessaries of life in abundance, so long will 
 there be privation and misery in the towns. The slaves and 
 the serfs of bygone times were far better off than the present 
 class of English agricultural labourers are now ; the former 
 had plenty to eat and drink, the latter are half starved. The 
 agricultural rents of England amount to about ; 16,000,000 a 
 year; the number of agricultural labourers is about 750,000. 
 This speaks volumes as to which class receives most from the 
 soil. The wages of the latter amount to about twelve shillings 
 a week. As long as the agricultural labourer is a mere wage- 
 earner he loses all interest in the soil ; if he had some of it to 
 cultivate, he would have a link to bind him to it, and would 
 not rush to the towns and factories as he is doing now, with 
 such evil results to himself and the general population. 
 
 Loria says that all evils arising from an excess of population 
 are the results of adverse economics with regard to land. The 
 whole aspect of the matter is transformed when the agricul- 
 tural labourers are given the possibility of acquiring land for 
 themselves. Many a man who is farming a few acres says, 
 " I am getting on very well, and have nothing to complain of. 
 Yet my neighbour, the large farmer, with five hundred acres, 
 says he cannot live. Is it not strange ? " The reason of this 
 is obvious. One has only sufficient land to work well, and 
 has sufficient capital and strong arms to do it with ; the 
 other has far too much, and is obliged to employ others 
 to work for him, and in nine cases out of ten has only 
 enough of capital to work a hundred instead of five hundred 
 acres. Such men give vent on all possible occasions to a last 
 despairing cry Protection ; but is it likely that the millions
 
 WITH REGARD TO THE LAND QUESTION 267 
 
 of consumers in England would consent to pay more for 
 their food than they need, merely to bolster up directly 
 the farmer and indirectly the landlord? Protection may 
 be suitable for other countries not situated as England is ; for 
 her it is utterly impossible. England has become, for weal or 
 woe, a vast hive of manufacturers, sending out their manufac- 
 tured products to all parts of the earth, and receiving back 
 their food, or the means to acquire it with, instead. If those 
 who term themselves Protectionists would seriously consider 
 the questions involved, they would easily see that Free Trade 
 is absolutely necessary for England's existence. We import 
 raw material from every part of the globe, we manufacture it, 
 and sell it to the world ; in other words, we sell our work, so 
 that if any hindrance was placed on the importation of the raw 
 material, it would act as a preventative to our obtaining wages. 
 Whether or not it would be better for the population of a 
 country to be entirely agricultural, and not manufacturing, is a 
 question which it is not my object to discuss. We purchase 
 at present about ^'30,000,000 worth of cotton in a year ; we 
 sell about ^55,000,000 worth of cotton manufactured goods. 
 The difference, namely, ^25,000,000, represents what we earn 
 by the transformation. With regard to the import of food, we 
 must buy that in the best and cheapest market, whether that 
 be at home or abroad. English rents and taxes render it 
 cheaper now, owing to improved transit, in the foreign than in 
 the home markets, for distance has no longer to be considered. 
 This is a fact which all connected with land must realize. 
 England can still produce as much wheat as ever it did. The 
 soil has in no degree whatsoever deteriorated. If both farmers 
 and labourers, those two classes now most interested in 
 the soil, were to unite in saying that all hope of improvement 
 had gone by for ever for English land, under the present 
 economic and free trade conditions, and that a better produc- 
 tion than there is now was impossible, the future of English 
 agriculture would be dark indeed ; but, on the other hand, we 
 find the latter (and who ought to know better?) giving us 
 the most positive assurances and proofs that the soil could be 
 made to produce much more abundantly than it does, 
 and that they could easily do it if they were given a chance of 
 dealing with it. The earth-hunger now exhibited by all agri- 
 cultural labourers throughout the kingdom is most remarkable. 
 That class knows very well what the soil is capable of,
 
 268 NEO-MALTHUSIANISM 
 
 and never loses a chance of acquiring some of it when the 
 opportunity offers. Let us take, for instance, the case of a 
 parish in Essex, which county, we all know very well, is suffer- 
 ing from the most tremendous form of agricultural depression. 
 The Parish Council of Burnham-on-Crouch took over on 
 agreement with the owner twenty acres of land at a rental of 
 two pounds an acre, and cut this up into allotments, varying 
 in size, and re-let them at 2 133. 6d. an acre. Tenants were 
 immediately found for every plot, yet they had to pay in 
 addition the local rates, which amount to four and sixpence an 
 acre. Is it not ridiculous, then, for farmers holding large 
 farms in the same county to say that farming cannot be made 
 to pay even if they had the land rent-free ? Their system, of 
 course, does not, but the small farmer says he could manage 
 very well. What greater question can there be before us than 
 this one of the land, when so many interests have their origin 
 directly or indirectly in it? It must not be imagined for 
 an instant that those who have no direct interest in it are not 
 concerned. The contrary is the case. The pressure arising 
 from an excess of population in the towns, and the outcry for 
 the adoption of Neo-Malthusianism, have their origin there. 
 " A better country means a better town." (See Dr. Cox on 
 country life in Lent in London, 1895.) Any nation that is 
 divorced from the soil, as the English nation is now very 
 rapidly becoming, driven as it is into the stifling atmosphere of 
 dreary and unwholesome cities and towns, can never be a 
 vigorous one. " To anyone who has compared the physique 
 of militia and volunteer battalions recruited in the country 
 with the like recruited in the town, this will be painfully 
 suggestive for the future of the people of England." (Long- 
 staffe.) 
 
 "The loss of pure air, sunshine, and other 'free' goods, 
 and its effect on the physique of city dwellers, is not adequately 
 compensated by hygienic reforms of town life itself, while the 
 increased number and complexity of sensations impose a 
 greater strain upon the nervous system. The nervous degene- 
 ration which thus accrues may perhaps be checked in time by 
 further hygienic improvement of the town, and by a gradual 
 readjustment between the nervous system and its changed 
 environment. But meantime grave physical injuries arise 
 directly from those very economic changes which have raised 
 the economic condition of the great mass of the workers, and
 
 WITH REGARD TO THE LAND QUESTION 269 
 
 have probably reduced the quantity of purely economic poverty. 
 When we reflect that the physical injuries of town life, attested 
 by rates of mortality and impaired muscular activity, fall most 
 heavily upon the poor, we shall see grave reason to doubt 
 whether the modern conditions of industrial and social life 
 are generally favourable to the physical vitality of the low-paid 
 worker or the ' residuum,' that is to say, whether he gets any 
 net vital advantage out of the higher rate of real wages which 
 he obtains when he is working. When we also bear in mind 
 that each year a higher proportion of the workers are living in 
 large towns, where the duration of life is about 15 per cent, 
 less than in the country, and that the age of enforced retire- 
 ment from regular wage-earning is, by reason of the strain of 
 competition and the regulations of trade organizations, con- 
 siderably earlier than it was formerly, and that an increased 
 irregularity of employment is discernible in many or most 
 trades, we may hold it doubtful whether the average worker of 
 the lower order makes a total life-wage which is any higher 
 than he made formerly. The conclusion applied by Mr. 
 Charles Booth to the whole body of workers, that 'in one 
 way or another effective working-life is ten years longer in 
 the country than in the town,' has an important significance, 
 when we remember that each decennial census shows a 
 growing proportion of workers subject to the conditions of 
 town life." (Hobson.) 
 
 Nobody can help observing that in consequence of the son 
 of the soil being unable, owing to adverse conditions, to obtain 
 any part of the soil to cultivate, he is really driven into the 
 town to seek a livelihood there. This rural exodus leaves the 
 country unfilled, the village without life and depopulated, 
 except by the aged and those more or less helpless those 
 who cannot by any means escape from it. Is this natural, 
 is it as it should be for the welfare of the nation ? The con- 
 sequence, of course, is that the unnatural life of the town is 
 increased, the natural one of the country decreased. "We 
 can see what the growth of town population and the decay of 
 the country one really means. It means that, in the first place, 
 each year brings a larger proportion of the nation within reach 
 of the higher rate of mortality, by taking them from more 
 healthy and placing them under less healthy conditions, where 
 the chance of death in a given year is doubled to them." 
 In 1851 there were 1,253,000 agricultural labourers; in 1891
 
 270 NEO-MALTHUSIANISM 
 
 that number had fallen to 780,000, a reduction in forty years 
 of no less than 473,000. Between 1881 and 1891 74,000 
 had left the country for the town. 
 
 The following figures are of interest : 
 
 1861. 1871. 1881. 1891. 
 
 Urban population . 62-3 ... 64*8 ... 66'6 ... 717 
 Rural . 377 .- 35'2 33'4 - 28-3 
 
 In 1891 the case in England alone was : 
 
 Urban population . ... 20,802,773 
 
 Rural ,, . . . 8,198,248 
 
 " Permanent pasture food for horses, cows, and sheep is 
 being laid down at the rate of 100,000 acres per annum. 
 Already 16,000,000 arable acres have so been disposed of, 
 and as horses, cows, and sheep have come, the tillers of 
 English soil have gone. There are in England and Wales 
 over 13,000 rural parishes; and to such a deplorable extent 
 has the cold-blooded work of depopulation been carried, that 
 6000 of these now have less than 300 inhabitants each." 
 (Davidson). At the present time it is computed that there 
 is but one labourer, on an average, to 180 acres of land; 
 formerly, not so long ago, the average was ten or twelve. The 
 agricultural labourer has ceased to care for anything in con- 
 nection with the land ; he has become a mere machine for 
 others, he has lost all interest in the soil ; it does not matter 
 to him whether it produces abundantly or the opposite, which 
 ever it does brings him no good ; he is in the country, yet he 
 is not of the country ; as long as he can, by hook or by crook, 
 get his miserable pittance of twelve shillings a week, he is 
 obliged to be content. 
 
 So far for the head, the father of a family. But education 
 has changed the son ; he sees no hope in the country ; he 
 pities his unfortunate sire. Naturally he thinks that con- 
 nection with the failing land has brought him to the pitiable 
 condition in which he sees him ; he flees from the country, and 
 seeks his fortune in the city. Mr. Hobson shows us how all 
 the men required for great physical labour in London are 
 drawn from the country ; for instance, in the year 1888 the 
 London Police afforded the following statistics : 
 
 LONDON-BORN. COUNTRY-BORN. 
 
 Metropolitan Police . . 2716 ... 10,908 
 City Police . . . 194 ... 698
 
 WITH REGARD TO THE LAND QUESTION 271 
 
 He says a pure Londoner of the third generation is seldom 
 found, the vital stamina has decreased so rapidly. " The want 
 of air and light, of peaceful repose out of doors for all ages, 
 and of healthy play for children, exhausts the energies of the 
 best blood of England, which is constantly flowing towards 
 our large towns. These absorb all the best blood from the 
 rest of England ; the most enterprising, the most highly- 
 gifted, those with the highest physical power and the strongest 
 character, go there to find scope for their abilities. But by the 
 time their children and their children's children have grown 
 up without any healthy play, and without fresh air, there is 
 often little trace of their original vigour." 
 
 Professor Marshall says that three generations of city life 
 practically works a family out. In the well-to-do classes we find 
 that the young men and women are physically better developed 
 than they were in the last generation, but precisely the opposite 
 is the case with a large proportion of the working-classes in 
 cities to-day. The strength and health of the great bulk of 
 the producing classes are being practically rotted out of them. 
 All this is exeedingly serious, and the more so inasmuch as 
 soon there will be no agricultural population to draw upon, 
 the recruiting-ground for the fires of Moloch in the cities 
 will be no longer available. Unless a radical change in the 
 conditions of labour shortly takes place, the population of 
 England will wofully deteriorate. 
 
 As long as we persist in maintaining absurd modes of tenure 
 of land and its cultivation, as long as we pursue the disastrous 
 course of preventing the labourer from having free access 
 to the land, we are increasing the suffering population of the 
 fetid alley; we are, in a word, doing all we can to cause a 
 too -abundant birth-rate, without any check or limit. It is 
 notorious that the atmosphere, surroundings, and temptations 
 of the town and factory enormously contribute to sexual 
 excitement, and, consequently, to increase of population. The 
 present miserable modes of dealing with land matters are 
 creating a class which we bid have no hope of raising itself, no 
 hope of any improvement, buried, as it is, in the many 
 degrading influences of the city. We are driving out the 
 hind, the son of the soil, the ruddy peasant, who was once the 
 pride of England, the glory of our race, not to be found else- 
 where in the whole world the fair-haired, the blue-eyed 
 Anglo-Saxon, from which the American prides himself he
 
 272 NEO-MALTHUSIANISM 
 
 sprang out of the country into the devastating town, to moan 
 away his life, to perish in his prime, to fill the urban cemetery, 
 to die before he has reached thirty ; we are converting a 
 healthy population from the country into a stricken and 
 diseased one in the town. If all hope of raising or improving 
 itself is removed from mankind, it invariably gives itself up to 
 the lowest sensual pleasures only. Loria very forcibly says : 
 "As the process of redistribution, made necessary by the 
 cessation of the freedom of land, has for its last result an 
 excessive capital which injures production, and is disastrously 
 spent in speculation and crisis, so the process of population, 
 equally produced by the same cause, has for its last result 
 an excessive population, which becomes lost in the voiceless 
 ruins of poverty and degeneration." He also says that when the 
 earth ceases to be free, the new members of the population 
 depend for their subsistence upon the goodwill of the capitalist 
 class, that is to say, upon the increase of profit, which it con- 
 sents to distribute under the form of food among the other 
 class. The cessation of the freedom of land begets, by means 
 of wages, an economic limitation of country production, and 
 also, by means of salary and its oscillations, an economic 
 stimulus to human generation ; thus it necessarily affects poverty 
 and the excess of population. Populations in which all 
 things tend to degrade invariably are influenced by their 
 surroundings, and give themselves up to all that is sensual and 
 forbidding. Where there is material comfort, where there are 
 mental and moral influences at work, these are necessarily 
 restrained, sexual control is acquired, and such cases as 
 fourteen or more children are unheard of. "Everything," says 
 Laveleye, " is summed up in the question whether discomfort 
 or ease lead to an increase of population." Loria says again : 
 " The fact is, that the worker of to-day is led by two motives to 
 an improvident fecundity. On the one hand, he very soon 
 arrives at the apex of his career, at the ultimate limit of his 
 aspirations, hence every effort of ulterior improvement, and, 
 indeed, every idea of foresight, is completely cast aside ; while, 
 on the other hand, the possibility of employing children in 
 factories leads to the idea of increasing the income of his 
 family by increasing the number of his children." Montesquieu 
 said : " Those who, like beggars, have absolutely nothing, have 
 many children. It costs the father nothing to teach his trade 
 to his children, and they, being born, are even the instruments
 
 WITH REGARD TO THE LAND QUESTION 273 
 
 of his trade. Such people increase because they do not bear 
 the burden of society, but they are themselves the burden 
 of society." "The beggar has many children because he cares 
 little about their fate. They can always be beggars as their 
 fathers were before them." (Yves Guyot.) It would be well 
 for those who are interested in this matter to study all 
 that Nitti writes on this point. He says the lower the 
 economic situation and the moral feelings of the general 
 population are, the more restricted are their pleasures to those 
 of sense, so much the more is their birth-rate abundant and 
 disordered. But, on the other hand, every improvement of the 
 general condition, every diffusion of wealth, every increase of 
 wages and of the standard of living, exercise a useful influence 
 on their birth-rate. He says that a great birth-rate always 
 answers to a great depression of the working-classes, to small- 
 ness of wages, to a bad distribution of wealth, to an absence of 
 social capillarity. The countries where public wealth is most 
 largely divided, such as France, Switzerland, and Belgium, are 
 those where the birth-rate is least ; while, on the other hand, 
 Russia, Servia, Hungary, and Germany, that is, where the dis- 
 tribution is worst, are those which have the largest birth-rate. 
 As the peasant gradually sinks to the condition of a mere 
 wage-earner, he loses that prudent foresight which the 
 mediaeval farmers maintained for centuries, and generates 
 recklessly, impelled by the need of supplementing his own 
 insufficient wages by those of his children. All history assures 
 us of the truth that when men had free access to the land, and 
 held it in possession, the birth-rate was less than it is now. It 
 is the same with regard to all wealth ; remove the possibility of 
 acquiring any from human nature, and the intoxication of the 
 senses alone remains for it to indulge in, and it certainly does. 
 We have only to study foreign writings on this point very care- 
 fully to observe how they all agree on this point Foreigners 
 have written upon it much more than we have Virchow, 
 Courcelle-Senuil, Passy, Cheysson,Quetelet,Schwabe, Villerme, 
 and Chateauneux; of our own writers see Adam Smith, 
 Marton, Wallace, Farr, and Jefferies. Again, Nitti says that all 
 this excessive generation in a hopeless class is not only evident 
 from an economic and statistical standpoint, but also from a 
 psychological point of view. If a man falls into poverty, and 
 is hindered from every participation in the superior benefits of 
 civilization, it will be seen that he will find no other pleasures
 
 274 NEO-MALTHUSIANISM 
 
 than those of the senses. Such has been the rule at all times 
 and in all countries. The argument of the heedless and 
 desperate class can be aptly summed up in Dr. Johnson's 
 famous saying, " A man is poor, he thinks he cannot be worse, 
 so I '11 take Peggy." (See also what Doubleday and Thornton 
 say on this point.) Virchow asked a very poor working-man 
 of Berlin why he had begotten so many children. He replied, 
 with a smile, " This is the only pleasure left us." We have 
 also Richard Jefferies' testimony corroborating all this. " He 
 
 minded when that sharp old Miss was always coming 
 
 round with tracts and blankets like taking some straw to a lot of 
 pigs, and lecturing his missus about economy. What a fuss 
 she made, and scolded his wife as if she was a thief for having 
 that fifteenth boy ! His missus turned on her at last, and said, 
 ' Lor, Miss, that 's all the pleasure me and my ole man have 
 got.'" The agricultural labourer of the present day very 
 plainly sees under the prevailing adverse economic conditions 
 the utter impossibility of a provident life, and so becomes quite 
 regardless of all issues. Give him some land of his own to 
 deal with, and the man changes at once. He instantly 
 appreciates the great economic advantage of marrying at thirty 
 instead of twenty. Everybody who has ever inquired into the 
 matter assures us that whenever people become possessed 
 of land, marriages become less reckless and improvident. 
 Guillard tells us that when the condition of the serfs improved 
 and their comforts increased, when they became real land- 
 owners, they had a very weak birth-rate, although nothing 
 whatever immoral was done. It arose, of course, from prudent 
 marriages. 
 
 " Every diffusion of wealth and every increase of solidarity 
 imply a development of individuality. Every development of 
 individuality implies a decrease of fecundity." (Nitti.) It will 
 be well for all those who have the best interests of the nation 
 at heart to bear in mind all the evils, both economic and 
 moral, which the rural exodus means. Everywhere the 
 number of peasants is diminishing, that of the wage-earners 
 in the unhealthy factory is increasing. Wherever we look, 
 into whatever agricultural system of any country we examine, 
 we invariably find that where the population has sufficient 
 of the soil to own and cultivate, it is contented to remain 
 connected with it, and does not seek expulsion from it. No 
 matter what country Jersey, Ireland, England, or any part of
 
 WITH REGARD TO THE LAND QUESTION 275 
 
 Europe wherever the peasant is an owner, or tenant on 
 proper terms, his condition becomes more hopeful, and the 
 birth-rate decreases. Reasons for thrift, suitable marriage, 
 immediately take possession of his mind, and the impulses 
 of the senses are restrained. He has gained something to live 
 for, something to hope for; the mere gratification of the 
 moment is despised for the higher call of duty and self- 
 respect. 
 
 Back to the land, out of which there is still a good living to 
 be got, where health is to be found, where life is more innocent, 
 simpler, more wholesome, out of the city, out of its crowded 
 streets and vicious life, would not this be a better work for 
 the Neo-Malthusian to take in hand than to advocate his own 
 crude and exploded idea that poverty must always be caused 
 by a teeming population ? This question of the depopulation 
 of the country, and the consequent intense pressure in the 
 towns, is a terrible one, much more concerned with the welfare 
 of every individual than is generally believed or recognized, 
 not merely in the economic side, but in the more important 
 ones, namely, the health, the vigour, and morality of the race. 
 How can anybody suppose that a healthy race can be produced 
 in the fetid atmospheres of our large cities ? It is in the cities 
 that the greatest increase of population is taking place, and it 
 must be patent to all that it is an inferior and less vigorous 
 one than which the country could produce. " The persistent 
 breeding of the diseased semi-pauper will never swell emi- 
 gration lists. Nor is our colonial empire one whit the fuller, 
 nor our kingdom the stronger, for the tens of thousands of 
 under-sized and narrow-witted children who are everywhere 
 being added to our population by town-bred, poverty-stricken 
 parents." (H. C., in Daily Graphic.} 
 
 It is indeed lamentable to look on both sides of the picture 
 to-day. On the one side, to see the stricken country, upon 
 which the discontented and disgusted peasant has turned his 
 back with no regrets, and, on the other, the overcrowded 
 and unhealthy streets and alleys of our cities ; all this caused 
 by the miserable, faulty systems of dealing with the land now 
 rampant. The city life of the poor is well described by 
 Froude : " An England of brick lanes and chimneys ; an 
 England sounding with the roar of engines and the tinkle 
 of the factory bell ; with artificial recreation grounds, and a 
 rare holiday in what remained of wood and meadow for those
 
 276 NEO-MALTHUSIANISM 
 
 who without it would never see a wild flower blooming or look 
 on an unpolluted river ; where children could not learn to play 
 save in alley or asphalted court ; where the whole of the life 
 of the immense majority of its inhabitants, from infancy to 
 the grave, would be a dreary routine of soulless, mechanical 
 labour such an England as this would not be described 
 by any future poet as 
 
 " 'A precious gem set in the silver sea.' 
 
 Still less would the race hereafter to grow there maintain either 
 the strength of limb or the energy of heart which raised their 
 fathers to the lofty eminence which they achieved and 
 bequeathed. It is simply impossible that the English men 
 and women of the future generations can equal or approach 
 the famous race that has overspread the globe if they are to 
 be bred in towns such as Birmingham and Glasgow now are, 
 and to rear their families under the conditions which now 
 prevail in those places ; morally and physically they must and 
 will decline. Even the work so much boasted of is degrading 
 on the terms on which it is carried on. What kind of nation 
 will that be which has constituted its entire people into the 
 mechanical drudges of the happier part of mankind, forced by 
 the whip of hunger to be eternally manufacturing shirts and 
 coats which others are to wear, and tools and engines which 
 others are to use ? This is no life for beings with human souls 
 in them. You may call such a nation free. It would be a nation 
 of voluntary bondsmen in a service from which hope is shut 
 out. Neither the toilers who submit to such a destiny while a 
 better prospect is open, nor the employers who grow rich upon 
 their labour, can ever rise to greatness, or preserve a greatness 
 which they have inherited. Fine men and women are not to 
 be reared in towns, among taverns and theatres and idle clatter 
 of politics. They are nature's choicest creations, and can only 
 be produced on nature's own conditions under the free air of 
 heaven, on the green earth, amidst woods and waters, and in 
 the wholesome occupation of cultivating the soil." 
 
 No matter whether in animal or vegetable life, we find that 
 overcrowding is ruinously destructive to their health and best 
 interests. It is somewhat curious to observe that the rate 
 of stillborn children is much higher in the town than in the 
 country. The following countries where these rates are taken 
 give the following results per 1000 births :
 
 WITH REGARD TO THE LAND QUESTION 277 
 
 Italy 
 
 Sweden 
 
 Prussia 
 
 France 
 
 Belgium 
 
 Holland 
 
 TOWN. 
 31 
 41 
 45 
 53 
 So 
 54 
 
 COUNTRY. 
 22 
 
 31 
 
 40 
 
 39 
 
 Taking only one parish in London, we can gain some idea 
 what overcrowding means. The length of St. Augustine's, 
 Stepney, can be walked in four minutes, its breadth in two 
 minutes, yet within this confined space 7500 people live ! In 
 other countries there is the same overcrowding taking place in 
 the towns, and just the same exodus from the country to the 
 town. " In modern France, and especially in the cities and 
 large towns which are continually drawing to themselves the 
 youth and vigour of country districts, the aggregate of human 
 beings no longer reproduces by births the yearly losses by 
 death." (Dewey.) 
 
 French physicians have begun to write very vigorously 
 against the habit of all classes concentrating in Paris and 
 large cities. Brouardel writes : " The inhabitants of a large 
 town, even the richest, who are surrounded by the greatest 
 luxury, are continually being exposed to unfavourable in- 
 fluences, which diminishes their vital powers far more than 
 what is inevitable. They breathe an atmosphere charged with 
 organic detritus, they are in a state of continual nervous 
 excitement, and we can compare them, without exaggeration, 
 to the inhabitants of a marshy district. The effect of a large 
 town on the human organism offers the closest analogy to that 
 of the Maremma, and its population falls victim to the same 
 fatality of degeneracy and destruction as the victims of malaria. 
 The death-rate in a large town is more than a quarter greater 
 than the average for the entire population ; it is double that of 
 the open country, though in reality it ought to be less, since in 
 a large town the most vigorous ages predominate, during which 
 the mortality is lower than in infancy and old age. 
 
 The children of large towns who are not carried off at an 
 early age suffer from the peculiar arrested development which 
 Morel has ascertained in the population of fever districts. 
 They develop more or less normally until fourteen or fifteen 
 years of age, and are up to that time alert, sometimes brilliantly 
 endowed, and give the highest promise; then suddenly there
 
 278 NEO-MALTHUSIANISM 
 
 is a standstill, the mind loses its facility of comprehension, 
 and the boy who only yesterday was a model scholar becomes 
 an obtuse, clumsy dunce, who can only be steered with the 
 greatest difficulty through his examinations. With these 
 mental changes bodily modifications go hand-in-hand. The 
 growth of the long bones is ejrtremely slow or ceases entirely, 
 the legs remain short, the pelvis retains a feminine form, 
 certain other organs cease to develop, and the entire being 
 presents a strange and repulsive mixture of incompleteness 
 and decay." We also read in the French returns that the 
 general mortality throughout France was, from 1886 to 1890, 
 22' 21 per 1000. But in Paris it rose to 2 3 '4; in Marseilles 
 to 34*8 ; in all towns with more than 100,000 inhabitants to a 
 mean of 28*31 ; in all places where there were less than 5000 
 inhabitants to 2174. 
 
 It is within the power and possibility of a great number of 
 people, although not directly connected with the land, to 
 improve the conditions under which so many of the poor 
 are now obliged to live, and mitigate the necessities which 
 have caused the rural exodus. Owing to that unfortunate 
 craving for exciting pleasures which is so characteristic of 
 English society now, many families leave England and live 
 on the Continent, where these doubtful pleasures are to be 
 had in profusion. But such people should ask themselves, Is 
 it fair to spend the money which English sweat and blood has 
 provided for them amongst aliens, to the detriment of their 
 own people and country? How many rich but idle families 
 there are who prefer to bask in the sunshine of the south of 
 France and Italy during the winter, and to wander aimlessly 
 over the Continent in the summer, than to remain in their 
 own country and do something to help their poor, suffering 
 fellow-creatures. It seems extraordinary that, notwithstanding 
 all the agricultural depression which is now taking place, not- 
 withstanding the exodus from the country to the unhealthy 
 town, English people should be so indifferent, so callous, to 
 the sufferings of their fellow-countrymen as to prefer to spend 
 the money which they have gained from their hard and unjust 
 labour in foreign countries. Would it not be more patriotic, 
 more charitable, more considerate for such people to return to 
 or continue to live in the country parts of England, where 
 their presence is so sorely needed, than to drawl out their 
 lives and spend their money in miserable foreign places of
 
 WITH REGARD TO THE LAND QUESTION 279 
 
 amusement ? Do these people imagine how much they could 
 contribute towards making English country life brighter and 
 happier, as it used to be, than it is now ? Upon the slightest 
 excuse, when English people are now ordered to seek a holiday, 
 their first thought is to go abroad; but if they would but 
 think for a moment, they would at once realize that this course 
 of action is not fair to their own nation. The time has come 
 when everything which tends to the welfare of one's fellow- 
 creatures or the contrary, no matter how seemingly insignifi- 
 cant it may appear, must be considered. Christian feeling 
 for the poor has become stronger, and it condemns those who 
 contemptuously turn away on the other side, and show by 
 their inconsiderate actions that they care nothing for suffering 
 humanity, especially when that is at their own doors. Public 
 opinion is fast condemning that unfair economical course 
 which induces English people to voluntarily turn their backs 
 upon rural life at home and spend English money abroad, 
 thereby benefiting others instead of their own kin, who are 
 perishing in the fetid cities of England. 
 
 Those landowners who go abroad for the winter should 
 consider how much better it would be for the land they own, 
 for the peasants who live upon it, if they spent the money 
 which they spend upon foreign hotels on the cottages of the 
 poor at home, thus rendering them fitter for healthy dwelling- 
 places for their fellow-Christians to live in. Squalid cottages 
 which the tenant for life is, in too many instances, unable, 
 owing to the necessity of providing for his own flesh and 
 blood, and which he cannot sell, to render fit for human 
 habitation. Wretched cottagers and cottages which the landlord 
 turns his back carelessly upon, while he seeks health and 
 happiness for himself and his elsewhere, regardless of what 
 those who are dependent upon him suffer. 
 
 " Parson do preach and tell us to pray, 
 And to think of our work, and ask no more pay ; 
 And to follow the ploughshare, and never think 
 Of crazy cottage and ditch-stuff stink, 
 That doctor do say breeds ager and chills, 
 Or, worse, the fever that kills ; 
 And a' bids me pay my way like a man, 
 Whether I can't or whether I can ; 
 And as I hain't beef to be thankful for bread, 
 And bless the Lord it tain't turmit instead ; 
 And never envy the farmer's pig, 
 For all a' lies warm and is fed co big,
 
 280 NEO-MALTHUSIANISM 
 
 While the missus and little ones grow that thin, 
 You may count their bones underneath their skin. 
 I 'm to call all I gits the chast'ning rod, 
 And look up to my betters, and then thank God ! " 
 
 This is the picture which the English peasant now draws of 
 himself, his life, and his career, and it is a very sad one. Do 
 English people, again, ever consider how much they increase 
 the misery of the town and the wretchedness of the village by 
 they themselves departing from country life and crowding into 
 the West End of London ? If they would but study the point, 
 they would see how much healthier they would be, how much 
 longer they would live, how much better it would be for every- 
 body, if they remained at the manor-house, or in the country, 
 enjoying their simpler but yet healthier pleasures, than the 
 more vivacious, but yet more vicious ones of the town. If 
 they would only desist from leaving the country for London 
 they would confer many blessings upon peasant life, not least 
 in setting an example to the rustic, who naturally, seeing the 
 well-to-do depart from the country, does precisely the same 
 himself. How many men there are living idle, discontented 
 lives, yet with every luxury in London, who would do 
 enormous good to themselves and England if they sought 
 occupation in the country. Do these men ever consider how 
 much they could contribute to their own happiness and to that 
 of others if they found some work to do in the country ? how 
 much brighter life they might introduce into the village, 
 how much more hope for agriculture, if they left the selfish 
 pleasures and luxuries of the club for the country? Their 
 lives would then be very much more useful spent in activity, 
 than dragged out in the armchair of the club, and consequently 
 much happier. Above all, how much they could contribute 
 towards making English country life a little more "merrie" 
 than it is at present. What a much greater amount of interest 
 they could cause to arise in country and local matters if they 
 transferred themselves from the enforced idleness of the town 
 to the greater activity of country life. " The heavens above, or 
 the earth beneath, or the waters under the earth, do not 
 contain anything more monstrous than an idle man." Yet 
 how many hundreds of thousands of these are living useless 
 lives in London and health resorts. Life insurance statistics 
 tell us that of all classes the idle one has the greatest mortality. 
 Yet what innumerable works there are in the country waiting
 
 WITH REGARD TO THE LAND QUESTION 281 
 
 to be taken up. In these days of impossibility to obtain 
 investments for money, how many sources of profit and 
 pleasure await tapping in the country. In these days of 
 agricultural depression many people who would like to farm 
 are obliged to leave it alone, consequently the old English 
 gentleman-farmer is fast disappearing. But there is a modern 
 industry which is fast spreading, and which can be made 
 to some extent a substitute for the older pursuit, namely, fruit- 
 farming ; for it supplies a real want, that is to say, something 
 which can occupy a man's time and keep him contented in his 
 country life. 
 
 "O Fortunatos nimium, sua si bona noriht, Agricolas." 
 
 During the last few years glass-farming in England is 
 increasing very much. By it country life is made pleasant as 
 well as remunerative, and it is a wonder that more people do 
 not enter into these undertakings, where ideals seem so well 
 within grasp ; for when the day's work is over there is leisure for 
 music, art, or literature, or for paying attention to some hobby 
 or for indulging in the sports and pastimes of the country, and 
 even, should one not be an imitator of Marius or Virgil 
 
 "At secura quies et nescis fallere Vita." 
 
 Furthermore, hours are not binding, and an occasional 
 holiday can be taken. A capital of 2000 invested in a 
 little property and glass-houses would not leave so large a gap 
 even in a small income ; and yet upon that twenty or twenty- 
 five per cent, profit can easily be made, that is to say, from 
 ^400 to ^500 a year. It is possible to make even thirty per 
 cent, or more on the actual money expended upon the glass ; 
 surely a good enough return in these days of two per cents. 
 Grapes, tomatoes, cucumbers, mushrooms, wall-fruits, and 
 flowers of all sorts pay very well. The people who judiciously 
 lay out a couple of thousand pounds for this sort of culture 
 recoup themselves remarkably well, can make a good income, 
 have an interesting occupation, further their hobbies, and 
 indulge in all country sports and amusement, at the same time 
 helping others to lead happier lives. How much better such 
 occupations, such lives, would be than the unhealthy ones of 
 the clubs and towns. One of the great attractions of glass- 
 farming is that ladies can work at it without any inconvenience.
 
 282 NEO-MALTHUSIANISM 
 
 In this way many women could find work suitable for them, 
 much more so than in the factory. 
 
 What manifold opportunities there are for those who are at 
 present living idle lives in health resorts to organize and 
 inaugurate rural industries such as those at Compton Green- 
 field and Keswick, and which confer so much local benefit on 
 country life, the villagers, and the village. People ought to 
 realize how much cheaper they can live in, the country than 
 in the town ; how much more material prosperity they could 
 bring back to the country if they would but cease to live 
 in the town ; above all, how much misery they could remove 
 from the overcrowded cities. How thankful the isolated 
 clergy and villagers would be for a revival of English country 
 life, for a little more society, for a little more self-sacrifice by 
 Christian people for the Christian poor. How much happi- 
 ness might be brought into each home ; how much brighter the 
 long winter evenings in the country might be. As surely as 
 the country-side is kept at its deadly dulness for the labouring 
 man on a winter's evening, so surely will the pith and marrow 
 of our English rural life find its way up to the bewildering 
 cities, and lose itself, its simplicity, its freshness, its very life, 
 in the flare and glare of our monster towns. 
 
 If wealthy men would but consider how many are drawn 
 from the country to minister to their families in the town 
 or city, they would at once see the harm they are doing all 
 round. It is computed that each family spending a thousand 
 a year has no less than seventy people working in some way or 
 other for them, more or less. Now, taking this into consider- 
 ation, it may well become a matter for serious thought how 
 many people are dragged out of the healthy country to minister 
 to the wealthy families of the West End. " It may by-and-bye 
 be perceived that equity utters dictates to which we have not 
 yet listened ; and men may then learn that to deprive others of 
 their rights to the use of the earth is to commit a crime inferior 
 only in wickedness to the crime of taking away their lives or 
 personal liberties." (Spencer.) 
 
 If the well-to-do classes will only relinquish the fatal habit, 
 so prevalent now, of rushing abroad, and to London and else- 
 where, out of the country, and set an example of living in it, 
 and expending their money, their energies, and their charity in 
 it, much to relieve present want, much to relieve an excessive 
 population, much to restrain immoralities would be accom-
 
 WITH REGARD TO THE LAND QUESTION 283 
 
 plished. It is sometimes curious to hear those wealthy people 
 who leave the country voluntarily, regretting and bewailing the 
 depopulation of the villages and the pressure in the towns, yet 
 forgetting all the time that they are contributing more to all 
 this than anybody else. They do not seem capable of under- 
 standing that a better country is a better town. Another 
 serious factor in augmenting the decay of country life and 
 labour arises from the fact that many companies, corporations, 
 cathedral establishments, colleges at Oxford and Cambridge, 
 and charitable institutions, derive a very considerable portion 
 of their revenues from English land; yet in consequence of 
 their trusts they are unable, however willing, to return a just 
 proportion to the lands from which they come. It might be 
 supposed that the revenues from those who pay for their 
 education at colleges should be sufficient to support those 
 institutions; but it is not so, they have to rely very much 
 on the produce of the lands they own. It should be re- 
 membered that when these grants were made, and such trusts 
 created, the land of England was in a very different situation 
 to what it is at present, and more allowance should be made for 
 the difference. The modern problems which have arisen since 
 that day require a much more serious consideration than that 
 which has been vouchsafed to them. 
 
 When we realize the fact that the exodus from the country 
 to the town means an increased natality, and not only that, but 
 the excess of population which is thereby augmented is merely 
 a multiplication of the unfit, we can see what harm the 
 exodus is doing in all directions. For instance, the birth-rate 
 in the mining towns of Durham amounted in 1891 to 38-2 per 
 1000, but in none of the purely agricultural counties did it 
 exceed 2 7 '5. Another proof of how the country populations 
 are being transferred into the towns can be seen from the 
 following figures : 
 
 In England and Wales, during the year 1891, 717 per cent, 
 of the population lived in urban sanitary districts ; these had 
 increased since 1881 only by 15*3 per cent, but during the 
 same period of ten years the rural sanitary districts had only 
 increased 3^4 per cent. In some counties there has been an 
 actual depopulation. Cornwall, since 1861, has lost 46,801 
 of its inhabitants; Hereford, since 1871, 9571; Huntingdon, 
 since 1861, 6478; Rutland, since 1851, 2536; and Shropshire, 
 since 1871, 11,795. ^ r< Hobson says that in the period
 
 284 NEO-MALTHUS1ANISM 
 
 1881-1891 no fewer than twelve English and 'eight Welsh 
 counties show a decrease of rural inhabitants, taking the 
 higher limit of urban population. In 1861 377 per cent, 
 of the population were living in the country; in 1891 the 
 proportion had sunk to 28-3 per cent. 
 
 We need not consider any further the fact of the rural 
 exodus; it is patent to all who have eyes to see and 
 ears to hear, and has been treated of by writers who have 
 made it a special study. My point is merely to note how 
 it tends to increase population by bringing it under tempta- 
 tions and conditions productive of sexual excitement in the 
 cities and towns which it would not be under the more 
 natural and simpler life of the country. The streets, the 
 glare of the lamps, the music halls, the theatres, the increased 
 mingling of the sexes, whatever amusement is provided by the 
 city, all tend to increase sexual desire, and consequently im- 
 mature marriages with all their results. Even if all these 
 excitements to sexual passion existed in the country, the evils 
 would not be so bad as in the town ; for even if the excess of 
 population which is now occurring in the towns were to take 
 place in the country, still it would be a healthy one, physically 
 able to make its way under stress of circumstances. No 
 matter what multiplication might take place in the country, 
 it never could be considered to be a multiplication of the 
 unfit. Without going into the matter any further, the con- 
 dition of the country child and the town one is quite 
 sufficiently palpable to all to prove this. Education is also 
 playing a part in the depopulation of the rural districts. 
 There are many who think that it plays a very great part. 
 They say that its tendency is to disfigure the farm servant for 
 servitude, the agricultural labourer for his work and station, 
 for anything of rural work. A good deal of evidence seems 
 rising up to corroborate this belief. Many teachers in country 
 schools tell us that education undoubtedly has the effect of 
 making lads dissatisfied with country life and work. If this 
 is the case, the good effected by education will have to be 
 considerably qualified, for many tell us it causes country 
 lads to yearn for the clerk-life of the town, in preference to 
 that of the ploughman. Education, we may well believe, has 
 a tendency to cause the country-bred boy to despise the 
 humble but necessary work of digging, thatching, hedging, 
 and ditching. In fact, many reports from the country tell
 
 us that as the old men are dying off there is nobody left to 
 take their places in doing these things. On the other hand, 
 if the education given in all schools had for its object increased 
 interest to arise in country life and production, this evil could 
 be easily remedied. If given in town schools, it would cause a 
 desire to live in the country ; if given in the country, it would 
 create a satisfaction in remaining there. The idea of causing 
 a national pride to arise by the use of flags, etc., in schools, 
 which has lately been advanced, is no doubt an excellent one, 
 but a still better one would be to do something towards 
 causing a renewed interest to arise in country life and work. 
 
 With regard to the question of the most suitable size of 
 farms for the newly-created class of tenant labourers to have, 
 no one single rule can be laid down. Circumstances and the 
 counties of England change very much. Where there is much 
 pasture, a fifty-acre farm would be none too large for one family 
 to undertake. It is when the question of arable farms arises 
 that difficulties enter in. It is obvious that in a dairy farm of, 
 say, fifty acres, there would be very much less manual labour 
 required than on an arable one. All that would be needed as 
 broken surface in such a farm would be sufficient to maintain 
 the family and provide suitable food, such as roots, comfrey, 
 etc., for the cows. To cultivate such a farm would be well 
 within the powers of a family, or two families combined. One 
 of the most profitable returns still happily left to the British 
 farmer is the sale of milk. He, generally speaking, contracts 
 with a milk merchant in the nearest town or city to supply 
 him with all the milk he can produce, and so arises the 
 frequent complaint amongst the country districts now that the 
 labourer cannot get any milk at all for himself or his children. 
 Very often the clergyman of the parish has to keep cows 
 merely to supply those who need it most, but who cannot 
 obtain it from the farmer. Under the system of small farms 
 this difficulty would cease. 
 
 When we come to enter into the question of arable farms, 
 many difficulties beset us. The chief object of research 
 is what is the amount of average productive land which 
 a labourer can undertake with profit. The experiment 
 has been tried over and over again with as yet not a 
 completely satisfactory result. In many cases men who 
 have undertaken such farms without some kind of ex- 
 ternal help have failed. Lord Wantage's experiment at
 
 286 NEO-MALTHUSIANISM 
 
 Lambourne is being watched with a considerable degree of 
 interest as to what the result will be. At Minster Lovel, 
 in Oxfordshire, Fergus O'Connor's scheme on these lines 
 miserably failed ; but that was chiefly owing, so I am assured 
 by the present proprietors, in consequence of the first owners 
 being people from the towns, who knew nothing whatever 
 of agricultural work. They very soon gave up, and the plots 
 of ground passed into the hands of others, who seem to 
 have succeeded fairly well. At the present time the farmers 
 who are cultivating these small farms tell me that, without 
 doing anything very extraordinary in the acquisition of wealth, 
 they have nothing to complain of. Their produce is varied. 
 One thing which I noticed very plainly in going through this 
 district was that the proprietors of these small farms lived on 
 the produce, and had a considerable amount of overplus 
 to exchange for their needs. None were poor, yet none could 
 say they were making a fortune ; but all were contented, which 
 was certainly not the case with others who were tenants 
 of large farms not far off. When a family consists of man and 
 wife and small children only, of course he could not undertake 
 so large a piece of ground as if he had stalwart lads to aid him 
 in its cultivation ; but when these were present in the family it 
 would not be impossible for the man to undertake an arable 
 farm of twelve to fifteen acres, and yet be under no necessity to 
 engage external labour. It is the wage-bill, the cost of keeping 
 the horse, as the large farmer knows very well, which consume 
 all the profits on a farm, no matter how small. When these 
 are not undergone the profits are much more tangible and 
 remunerative. It is the initial cost of the horse and cart, and 
 the loss sometimes incurred by death, which curtails the profits 
 of the small farmer so much. Generally speaking, where 
 many of these small farms exist there is somebody who hires 
 out a horse or horses, and so this difficulty is overcome. 
 I noticed that this was the case at Minster Lovel. It seemed 
 to answer remarkably well. Of course, the aspect of the 
 matter varies very much upon the distance from a market town 
 and railway communication. Where these are available, it 
 is much more possible for a man and his family to deal 
 with more land than if he was at disadvantages concerning 
 them. His small farm would be in that case more of the 
 nature of a market garden than a mere arable one. Many 
 comparisons have been made between the systems of large
 
 WITH REGARD TO THE LAND QUESTION 187 
 
 farms in England and the small culture of France ; but here, 
 again, the opinions of those most competent to judge are very 
 conflicting. Some say that in France the tendency is for small 
 holdings to increase into large ones; others, that it is not 
 so. All, however, agree in stating that the small farmer there, 
 or rather proprietor, only exists by the exercise of the strictest 
 economy and thrift. It is said that they practise these so very 
 extensively that no Englishman would be found to do the 
 same. But the reason the Frenchman does it is to maintain 
 his independence, a word dear to the hearts of all men. If 
 Englishmen had the same hope in view they would most 
 certainly do the same. The class out of which the tenants or 
 proprietors of these proposed small farms would arise has 
 never yet had the chance of testing the matter. If the 
 opinions expressed by the better class of agricultural labourers 
 be worth anything, they all unite in affording us the strongest 
 and weightiest evidence that a most complete revolution in 
 the production of English land would ensue, as well as a very 
 great improvement in the financial condition of the class which 
 all ought to desire should remain in the country. The 
 question of diminishing returns, or the impossibility of land 
 returning the value of its cultivation and expense, is one which 
 requires a great deal of qualification. Mr. Lawe's experiments 
 at Rothampstead have demonstrated how land can be made 
 to produce wheat year after year for many years, and that the 
 value of the crop increases instead of decreases. Moreover, 
 the question would not be likely to arise for a very long time. 
 Immense areas of English land are now not producing any- 
 thing like what they could do under better cultivation. Much 
 has been left to become mere prairie land. The landowner of 
 the present day has very serious responsibilities cast upon 
 him. He must realize, the sooner the better, that the manner 
 in which he deals with his land affects the whole community, 
 rich and poor, to a most alarming degree. If he continues to 
 present impossibilities and obstacles in the way of a very 
 deserving and thoroughly capable class from obtaining some 
 land to deal with, he should understand that he is increasing 
 the mortality and miseries of his fellow-creatures. This is 
 a point of view which the landowner should carefully study. 
 He would be compelling the agricultural labourer to transform 
 himself into the wage competitor of the town. But yet, 
 no matter how eager he might be to give facilities to the
 
 288 NEO-MALTHUSIANISM 
 
 labourer to become a tenant or proprietor of a small farm, he 
 is confronted with the same difficulty which clogs the path of 
 the aspiring labourer, namely, the want of capital by the latter. 
 Here it is where the State or a syndicate of wealthy philan- 
 thropists could effect so much. Surely it would be better for 
 both of these to prevent the necessity for the exercise of 
 a doubtful charity, or that of dealing with a congested 
 pauperism in workhouses throughout the cities and towns, 
 by advancing financial help to those who would profit by it in 
 the country. 
 
 The manner in which the funds of the Disestablished Church 
 in Ireland have been utilized, and the extraordinary integrity 
 by which the interest on the advances and the principal itself 
 have been repaid by the hitherto supposed thriftless Irish 
 tenant, is a very remarkable proof that the saving English 
 labourer would be no whit behind the Irishman in doing 
 likewise. Fully recognizing the necessity there is for labour in 
 commercial and trade centres, such as cities and towns, yet 
 there is ample room for a diminution of that labour. It has 
 become a serious overplus, and hence most of the suffering 
 and misery of the towns and cities. Here the Neo-Malthusian 
 finds a wide and expectant field for his evil teaching, here it is 
 where it is mostly preached, and now beginning to be extensively 
 practised. When the conditions of labour in the towns become 
 more suitable to the lawful and just demands of humanity, 
 when the rural exodus is made to cease, when the natural 
 demands of the agricultural labourer are conceded, then we 
 have certain grounds for believing that the moral condition 
 of our working population will be improved, and the practice 
 of Neo-Malthusianism die out.
 
 EMIGRATION CONSIDERED AS A HELP TO 
 REDUCE AN EXCESS OF POPULATION 
 
 A MOTHER very potent factor capable of bringing our 
 ** population within due bounds, and consequently reduc- 
 ing competition and poverty, and also removing the so-called 
 necessity for Neo-Malthusianism, would be a well-ordered 
 system of emigration. This, to be of any real service in 
 reducing excess of population, should not be left as it is now, 
 in haphazard fashion, to individual tastes, necessities, whims, 
 or capabilities. It should be undertaken by authority in a 
 much more comprehensive and scientific manner than it is 
 at the present time both by the exporting mother country and 
 the importing colony. 
 
 The home life of England, with all its tender associations, 
 which so many have been accustomed to and nurtured in, 
 should not be ruthlessly broken up by one or two of its 
 members being obliged to emigrate. There should be no such 
 violent wrench, no necessity for so grievous a separation. It is 
 this separation which brings about the great sting and the great 
 preventative to emigration. Many a stalwart man with children 
 says, " I want to go so much, but I cannot leave my old parents 
 who are dependent upon me." Under a proper system of State- 
 aided, general, not individual emigration, these hindrances would 
 not arise, and in addition the colonist would not always have 
 uppermost in his mind that thought and desire to return home 
 to enjoy the home life of England with his relatives, from 
 which he had been torn against his will in his younger days. 
 Under a just and useful system of emigration there would be 
 no breaking up of social or affectionate ties, as there is, alas ! 
 in far too many cases now, and which has a most disastrous 
 effect upon the increase of emigration. It is only natural that 
 there should be a great reluctance to sever home ties and 
 relationships. If this difficulty were removed a great eager- 
 
 289 u
 
 igo NEO-MALTHUSIANISM 
 
 ness, not a strong disinclination to emigrate as we see now 
 existing, would most certainly follow. 
 
 We have much to learn and profit by from the example of 
 Greek colonization. Even so long ago as those days the 
 question of undue severity in separating relatives was fully con- 
 sidered and remedied. The Greek system did not leave it to the 
 individual to decide whether it was best or not for him to go ; 
 it deported the populations of whole districts and villages from 
 Greece to the new country, and we know very well how the 
 whole three the mother country, the colony, and the de- 
 ported population prospered. Under the Greek system all 
 that underwent the necessary change was the condition, not the 
 family, that went on as before ; husband and wife, brother and 
 sister, were not separated as they are under our present 
 pernicious individual system. The work of the Greek colonists 
 continued just as it did in their own native valleys, all lived and 
 worked together as they had previously done in their former 
 homes. This it was which made the Greek system so wonder- 
 fully prosperous, and made the Greek so anxious to emigrate. 
 Our system is the exact opposite to this, and does not succeed 
 because the principle of human love and affection is ignored. 
 I venture to say that if it was now rendered possible for whole 
 families to leave England together for a colony, hundreds of 
 thousands would most gladly go. We have some grounds for 
 believing that such would be the case. Those who have 
 studied the reports of the great and helpful work done by Mr. 
 Tuke know very well how marvellously successful his scheme 
 of assisting whole families to emigrate from the west of 
 Ireland has been. This, too, in a peculiar district, and 
 amongst the most sentimental nation in the world, where 
 the love of the wretched cabin which is called home is more 
 intense than anywhere else in the world. We know what great 
 efforts were made by the people themselves to qualify for the 
 emigration rules, and how touching were the instances in 
 which persons and families helped one another to gain what 
 all so eagerly desired. If anybody should question the truth 
 of the statement that families taken together would gladly 
 emigrate if they had the opportunity, then let him read the 
 reports of Mr. Tuke's work in Ireland, and learn from them 
 how gladly the boon offered to Irishmen was accepted. (See 
 Contemporary Review, June, 1896.) It is the opposing in- 
 fluences necessarily existing between individual and social
 
 EMIGRATION REDUCES POPULATION 
 
 291 
 
 emigration which make all the difference between successful 
 emigration and the contrary. This is what Cardinal Manning 
 wrote ten years ago on this subject : " I have come to the 
 conclusion that the emigration of people one by one is a 
 feeble way of doing the work, which requires energetic action 
 at the present day. I support the view that the right way of 
 colonization is by sending out a population to form the nucleus 
 of new settlements in various parts of the empire. The efforts 
 of individuals and of societies are unequal to this task, and I 
 therefore hold that the State should aid the aims of those who 
 would relieve the mother country of the evils of overcrowding 
 in the great cities here." This plan of deporting populations 
 of an entire district is the only one which can possibly relieve 
 our present pressure of population so far as emigration is 
 concerned. 
 
 Individual emigration, supported by philanthropists or 
 societies, merely touches but the very fringe of the great 
 question, and has no real effect in reducing population. 
 Besides, it is productive of much sorrow and regret in the 
 mind of the individual emigrant at having to leave his home 
 and relatives, instead of what there should be on departure 
 hope and courage. It is a grievous injustice to those who are 
 leaving, and who by doing so diminish the pressure at home, 
 that they should leave under melancholy instead of joyful 
 circumstances. The present system is ludicrously inadequate 
 to reduce the present excess of population, moreover the 
 number of emigrants is diminishing instead of increasing. 
 
 The figures are as follows : 
 
 YEAR. 
 1881 
 1882 
 1883 
 1884 
 1885 
 1886 
 1887 
 1888 
 1889 
 1890 
 1891 
 1892 
 
 1893 
 1894 
 
 1895 
 
 243,002 
 279,366 
 320,118 
 242,179 
 207,644 
 232,900 
 281,487 
 279,928 
 
 253,795 
 218,116 
 218,507 
 210,042 
 208,814 
 156,030 
 185,181
 
 292 NEO-MALTHUSIANISM 
 
 It is somewhat curious that at the very time when popula- 
 tion is enormously increasing at home, causing all manner of 
 trouble, emigration, which should be the great outlet for it, is 
 decreasing. It seems contrary to what one might naturally 
 expect. With regard to the whole question of emigration, and 
 the beneficial results which would accrue from a proper system 
 being adopted, we may be well satisfied that the aim which we, 
 as well as the Neo-Malthusians, have, namely, to avoid the 
 results which flow in upon us from an excess of population, 
 can be better attained by dispersing than by artificially limiting 
 it. The proof of the wisdom of the former is displayed by 
 France, which has adopted the latter to her decay and con- 
 fusion. 
 
 The time has come when England will have to adopt some 
 wiser schemes of emigration than she does now. Even when 
 Oceana was written, the relief was obvious which emigra- 
 tion could afford, and yet no improvement has been effected 
 since that time. Froude wrote then : " These islands cannot 
 bear a larger population than they have at present without 
 peril to soul and body. It appears as if the genius of England, 
 anticipating the inevitable increase, had provided beforehand 
 for the distribution of it. English enterprise has occupied 
 the fairest spots upon the earth, where there is still air and 
 sunshine boundless and life-giving ; where the race might for 
 ages renew its mighty youth, bring forth as many millions as it 
 would, and would still have means to breed and rear them, 
 strong as the best which she had produced in her early prime. 
 England could pour out among them year after year those 
 poor children of hers now choking in fetid alleys, and, 
 relieved of the strain, breathe again fresh air into her own 
 smoke-encrusted lungs. Some years ago a Colonial Premier 
 spoke to me on this subject. I said that thousands of boys 
 and girls would now annually be leaving our board schools 
 with a rudimentary education who had no parents, no friends, 
 and no prospects. I asked him if his colony would take some 
 of them, fetch them out, and apprentice them till they were 
 twenty-one. He replied that nothing would be received more 
 warmly and gratefully by the colony." 
 
 If the usual objection be made that the cost of State-aided 
 emigration would be very great, surely the answer which 
 at once arises in the mind is that it would be wiser policy to 
 transfer some of the gigantic cost incurred by keeping paupers
 
 EMIGRATION REDUCES POPULATION 293 
 
 at home who are unable to earn their living, to a better system, 
 which would give them boundless opportunities to attain 
 to prosperity. Surely it would be better for all to have 
 shiploads of the young leaving our shores for new and happier 
 homes in the colonies than to build workhouses and undergo 
 enormous expense in maintaining armies of officials to guard 
 them and their unfortunate inmates. If the nation would but 
 consider the great advantages which would be derived all 
 round, an emigration rate would be more acceptable to every- 
 body than a poor one. The former would afford more satis- 
 faction to those who had to pay it, inasmuch as it would be a 
 sure means of helping others to a new career in life under 
 fairer prospects of success, under better conditions than they 
 could ever expect to attain to if obliged to remain in our 
 crowded cities. In the colonies are boundless opportunities of 
 improvement; the very air breathes freedom and expansion. 
 At home we are circumscribed at every turn ; opponents by 
 the hundred meet us whenever we apply for a vacancy. 
 There seems no hope, no possibility of improvement, sur- 
 rounded as so many are now by circumstances which degrade 
 instead of elevate. " How shall a child of the slums, ill-fed in 
 body and mind, brought up in the industrial and moral 
 degradation of low city life, without a chance of learning 
 how to use hands or head, and to acquire habits of steady 
 industry, become an efficient workman?" Even before 
 Malthus published his work Botero had pointed out how 
 efficiently State-aided emigration would work towards relieving 
 a congested condition of population. In our own day Thorold 
 Rogers advocated emigration of children by the State as an 
 admirable means of enriching the colonies, and removing the 
 pressure which lies so heavily upon us all at home. Of course, 
 the excellence of his plan lies in the point that children could 
 not have formed sentimental ties to home and surroundings. 
 Wherever it has been tried by individuals, such as Dr. 
 Barnardo and Miss Rye, the plan of rescuing children and 
 despatching them to our colonies has succeeded beyond the 
 most sanguine expectations of those who have undertaken 
 it. The time has come when such a beneficial work to all 
 concerned should not be relegated to individual, and neces- 
 sarily spasmodic effort, but should be undertaken by the 
 State. The benefit of this is palpable. It must be borne in 
 mind that individual interests are protected by the community
 
 294 NEO-MALTHUSIANISM 
 
 and vice versa. The individual, therefore, owes something to 
 the community, and by withdrawing himself, not, however, to 
 his own detriment, but the contrary, from its hurt, he benefits 
 it as well as himself. Under a judicious and effective system 
 of State-aided emigration both the community and the 
 individual would benefit, the individual inasmuch as he would 
 have better opportunities for advancement in life put before 
 him, and the community inasmuch as it would have one 
 less to trouble it. This it would do in contributing the funds 
 necessary to bring about this benefit to itself, and the money 
 would be well expended, for it would lessen the expense which 
 would necessarily ensue if the individual had remained within 
 it. Even in its own self-interest the community should under- 
 take a large system of wholesale emigration. No greater 
 question for statesmen to solve can exist than how to deal 
 with the vast army of the unemployed which is arising up 
 in these modern days. It is altogether a new problem, 
 and requires the most serious consideration. No such ques- 
 tion has ever arisen before, that men who are anxious to work 
 should have it denied them. In it are involved interests 
 which it appears nothing but emigration, on a large State-aided 
 scheme, can solve. Lamentable and terrible as the conditions 
 are at present under which many worthy Englishmen have to 
 live, they will not have existed in vain if they succeed in calling 
 the attention of everybody to the necessity for their relief, and 
 to the priceless boon which we have in our colonies towards 
 reducing so many grievances. Major Seton Churchill writes : 
 " What an immense field lies open for the excess of population 
 in England in the unoccupied parts of our empire." He 
 recalls to our recollection Livingstone's remark of the dislike 
 evinced by the people of England to having children, it was a 
 sure indication from God that they ought to move on into 
 another country. " We bring Australian meat to England to 
 be eaten by Englishmen instead of sending out Englishmen to 
 eat it there, and thus, by reducing the demand in England, 
 lower the price of meat here." He attributes all the miseries 
 and wants of our poor suffering fellow-creatures, living in semi- 
 starvation here, to the lack of a wise system of emigration. 
 " Send off emigrants," he says, " and the number of hands in 
 the crowded markets of England will be reduced, wages then, 
 like water, would find a proper level, and the extremities 
 of poverty would be lessened."
 
 EMIGRATION REDUCES POPULATION 295 
 
 At the Manchester Church Congress Bishop Barry, late 
 of Sydney, where he derived the foundation for his remarks, 
 said : 
 
 "I tell you a simple remedy for over-population is to be 
 found by means of emigration to that magnificent colonial 
 empire which God has so prominently given to England above 
 all other countries." The opponents of emigration say that it 
 is at the best but a very mixed blessing, as it is only the most 
 vigorous, enterprising, and daring of the race who go, and that 
 only the weak and careless remain behind. But under a whole- 
 sale, judicious, and systematic system of emigrating families 
 this need not be the case ; the best would not be picked out, 
 and the worst left behind. The system would deal with 
 averages, and not with extremes. None but those physically 
 or mentally incapable would be retained. 
 
 Under the present ill-regulated and insufficient schemes of 
 emigration, the arguments of those who oppose emigration on 
 the ground of the best leaving and the worst remaining are 
 very solid and true ; such is no doubt the case, and will always 
 be so as long as the question of emigration is left to the 
 individual to decide. In that sense it is weakening, because 
 it is only the daring who go, provided always that they have 
 the means. All this needs a radical reformation. Under a 
 general mode of emigration, from which all except the 
 diseased would profit, these objections could have no founda- 
 tion. Moreover, if it be said that the fairly prosperous would 
 not go, and that only paupers would, the former would have to 
 be reminded that their prosperity at home could only be main- 
 tained as long as somebody went, and that whatever prosperity 
 they enjoyed at home could be doubled in the colonies, 
 together with a firm assurance that they would be enabled 
 to bequeath a much larger inheritance to their children, who 
 in their turn would also have much better chances of succeed- 
 ing in life than if they had been born at home. " Colonization 
 from such a country as ours ought to be of hope, and not of 
 despair. It ought not to be looked upon as the last and worst 
 shift that a family can come to, but the performance of an 
 imperative duty to our blood, our religion, and to our human 
 kind. As soon as children grow up, parents ought to provide 
 for their removal to parts of the world to our own colonies, 
 of course where every addition is an accession of strength, 
 and every member of the colonial community feels in his
 
 296 NEO-MALTHUSIANISM 
 
 inmost heart the more the merrier. It is a monstrous evil 
 that all our healthy, blooming, and handsome daughters of 
 England have not a fair chance at least of becoming the 
 centre of domestic affection. The state of society which 
 entirely precludes so many of them from occupying the 
 position of wife and mother, and which Englishwomen are 
 so well calculated to fill, gives rise to enormous evils in the 
 opposite sex." (Livingstone.) 
 
 In old days to " list as a soldier " was considered about the 
 greatest degradation a young man could undergo, and only the 
 worthless did so. As soon as the condition of the soldier was 
 improved the situation underwent a vast change, and what was 
 formerly considered to be a degradation is now considered as 
 an honour. So precisely was it reckoned with regard to 
 emigration, and is even far too much so still. Wherever there 
 was a scapegrace, spendthrift, ne'er-do-well son, the last remedy 
 was to send him to the colonies, but things are happily changing 
 in this respect, and would a great deal more if the proper, 
 necessary conditions for emigration were sufficiently explained, 
 and help given to carry it out. Let us hear what Darwin wrote 
 on these subjects of Neo-Malthusianism and its most effective 
 remedy, emigration : " I cannot but doubt greatly whether 
 artificial checks would be advantageous to the world at large. 
 Suppose that such checks had been in action during the last two 
 or three centuries, or even for a shorter time, in Britain, what a 
 difference it would have made to the world, when we consider 
 America, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa ! No 
 words can exaggerate the importance, in my opinion, of our 
 colonization for the future history of the world. If it were 
 universally known that the birth of children could be pre- 
 vented, and this was not thought immoral by married persons, 
 would there not be great danger of extreme profligacy amongst 
 unmarried women, and might we not become like the arreois 
 societies in the Pacific? In the course of a century France 
 will tell us the result in many ways. We can already see that 
 the French nation does not spread or increase much." (Letter 
 to Mr. Gaskell, dated November i5th, 1878.) 
 
 The chapter on colonies in Seely's Expansion of England 
 should be carefully studied by all who are interested in this 
 urgent question of population and its results. Here is an 
 important extract : " We may be very sure that never was any 
 nation half so much crowded for want of room in the olden
 
 EMIGRATION REDUCES POPULATION 297 
 
 time as our nation is now. Populations so dense as that of 
 modern England are a phenomenon quite new, at least in 
 Europe. We continually speak of our own country as crowded, 
 and as the rate of increase of population is tolerably constant, 
 we sometimes ask ourselves with alarm what will be the con- 
 dition half a century hence ? The territory, we say, is a fixed 
 quantity, we have but 120,000 square miles, it is crowded 
 already, and yet the population doubles itself in about seventy 
 years ; what will become of us ? Now here is a curious 
 example of our habit of leaving our colonies out of account. 
 I find that the territory governed by our Queen is almost of 
 boundless extent. If there is pauperism in Wiltshire or 
 Dorsetshire this is but complementary to unowned wealth in 
 Australia; on the one side there are men without property, 
 on the other there is property waiting for men. And we do 
 not allow these two facts to come together in our minds, but 
 brood anxiously, and almost desparingly, over the problem of 
 pauperism, and when colonies are mentioned, we ask what is 
 the good of colonies." 
 
 At the present time we see a further expansion of the 
 Anglo-Saxon race taking place in Canada and the United 
 States. The overplus population of both of these countries 
 is moving eastwards ; yet this movement is not looked upon 
 with fear lest the older settled parts westward should be im- 
 poverished of their best men. It is considered to be nothing 
 else but the natural result of an already congested population 
 seeking its proper outlet. Emigration there, of course, does 
 not present the same difficulties to overcome as it does in 
 England ; it is easier to travel by land than to sail over the 
 ocean. If this did not flow between England and Canada, 
 the pressure caused by an excess of population in England 
 would not have arisen. 
 
 One important economic point necessarily connected with a 
 large State-aided system of emigration remains to be com- 
 mented upon. It is that some at least of the emigrants would 
 certainly require some small amount of capital to maintain 
 themselves in the colony until there was work found for them 
 to do. This could be considerably overcome by the importing 
 colony making sufficient arrangements for their incoming, and 
 so could have the work or the land waiting for the men. 
 None need be sent until places were ready to be filled. It 
 would be but a matter of detail. It certainly would be better
 
 298 NEO-MALTHUSIANISM 
 
 than the present laissez faire system of leaving the emigrant 
 to find a place, as he has to do now, which, more often than 
 not, he has to wait for until all his savings have been uselessly 
 wasted in enforced idleness. Even if the expenditure of some 
 capital to each emigrant was required, the same remark applies 
 here as to the whole system of State-aided emigration, namely, 
 that it would be better to expend this on a hopeful future for 
 the emigrant than upon a hopeless one of pauperism, and con- 
 sequently a still greater expense for all, in the old country. 
 It would be a judicious expenditure for the community, as by 
 it pauperism at home would largely decrease, and the expense 
 of the poor-rates would be considerably lessened. Surely it 
 would be better to help the willing and deserving poor to earn 
 a life long competence by emigration to the colonies than to 
 be at the great expense of building large workhouses and 
 lunatic asylums, to which latter enormously-increasing numbers 
 are being annually driven through anxiety, drink, and poverty. 
 Our wealth is daily increasing, but so also is our poverty. 
 Would it not be best to expend some of the former upon 
 decreasing the latter by what manifestly seems the only 
 effective way of doing so, namely, the adoption of a large 
 system of emigration? 
 
 Our colonial empire is the glory of our race, and the envy 
 of the entire world. Surely the time has come when it should 
 be populated by means of economic science rather than by an 
 absurd laissez faire system of individual needs or temperament. 
 By such means two most desirable objects would be gained 
 increased prosperity at home, and further grandeur and im- 
 portance obtained for our colonies. Those whose desire it is 
 to cope successfully with the increased difficulties which an 
 excess of population always engenders, with the ever-augment- 
 ing wish to adopt Neo-Malthusianism, will certainly find in 
 emigration the only real remedy for these evils. If some wise 
 and comprehensive scheme for dealing with the enormous 
 population which has lately arisen in the United Kingdom, 
 and which seems to be most likely and successfully found in 
 emigration than in anything else, is not soon adopted, we shall 
 soon be face to face with two very portentous facts either 
 those who have succeeded in the present unfair battles of life 
 will be called upon in a continually-increasing ratio, until 
 it becomes too gigantic to be borne with equanimity any 
 longer, to support those who have not so succeeded, or Neo-
 
 EMIGRATION REDUCES POPULATION 299 
 
 Malthusianism will be adopted upon a very large scale both 
 by rich and poor. Let us be wise while we are yet able ; there 
 is still time for improvement in many social matters before 
 these evil necessities beset us. If it is not vigorously and 
 judiciously undertaken now, social difficulties will become so 
 magnified, that what might have been effectual in restraining 
 them while in the bud will be useless when they have become 
 full blown.
 
 TEMPERANCE CONSIDERED IN ITS 
 RELATIONSHIP TO NEO-MALTHUSIANISM 
 
 IT is to be hoped that what has been already written 
 may prove sufficient to enable the Neo-Malthusian to 
 understand that an abundant population, in which no artificial 
 and unjust restrictions to an equal share of general production 
 existed, can never be a cause of poverty, but, on the contrary, 
 the chief producer of wealth. The Neo-Malthusian has yet to 
 learn that his chief object should be to remove or reduce all 
 adverse conditions to creating and acquiring equal wealth. It 
 is only beating a dead horse to say that intemperance is one 
 of the great causes of poverty, disease, and crime. The late 
 Sir Andrew Clark stated as his conviction, that seven out 
 of every ten cases in hospitals were there in consequence of 
 the use of alcohol. We learn that twenty-four per cent, of the 
 lunacy of Europe is caused by hereditary influence, but the 
 same percentage is allotted to drink. The fiftieth report 
 of the Commissioners in Lunacy, January ist, 1896, assigns 
 intemperance in drink to be the cause of 20*9 per cent, of 
 male and 8'i per cent, of female lunacy. Everybody who 
 thinks at all must be aware of the immense amount of disease 
 which intemperance generates. It is said that if the nation 
 became temperate half of the present hospital accommodation 
 would be sufficient. So much for the point of intemperance 
 and disease. With regard to the poverty which it causes one 
 may well stand aghast. When we think of the gigantic sum 
 of money which the nation annually spends on alcohol, we 
 have indeed cause for wonder and horror. When we learn 
 that that amount of money reaches ^"140,000,000 a year 
 we may well be amazed. When one thinks of the overwhelm- 
 ing amount of good which this stupendous sum of money 
 would be capable of effecting towards reducing poverty, and 
 yet that it is the chief cause of it, we may well wonder at man's 
 
 300
 
 TEMPERANCE AND NEO-MALTHUSIANISM 301 
 
 folly and crime. This is indeed aggravated by the fact that all 
 medical authorities assure us that alcohol is not a food, but, 
 on the contrary, waste, and, moreover, a substance detrimental 
 to human life. The waste which it brings about in the very 
 classes where thrift is needed most is tremendous. " Drink 
 wastes ^"60,000,000 a year of workmen's wages." (Woodhouse.) 
 We spend on our army and navy, that is to say, upon our 
 national insurance, about thirty millions ; yet five times that 
 amount upon an almost useless commodity. It is appalling. 
 Taking the whole of Europe into consideration, the amount 
 of money which is spent upon alcohol must be indeed almost 
 beyond comprehension. Professor Denis, of Geneva, gives 
 the annual amount of alcohol consumed per head of popula- 
 tion as follows : 
 
 France 
 
 Switzerland 
 
 Belgium 
 
 Italy 
 
 Germany 
 
 England 
 
 Sweden 
 
 Norway 
 
 Canada 
 
 13 quarts 
 
 10 
 
 10 
 
 10 
 
 9 
 9 
 
 4 
 
 It can be seen from this that France has entered into the 
 unenviable post formerly held by England, and so for the future 
 nobody must believe that the French are our superiors in 
 temperance. Writing in the Revue des Deux Mondes, January 
 i5th, 1897, Fouillee says: "From 1861 to 1865 the average 
 number of the insane in France through alcoholism amounted 
 to three hundred ; in 1 896 it had risen to three thousand five 
 hundred. In Normandy, where alcoholism rages with an 
 extraordinary intensity, the stillbirths and infant mortality have 
 increased to 28 per 100; the number of rejected conscripts 
 has trebled; marriages have decreased by an eighth, the 
 ratio of illegitimacy a quarter; the birth-rate, which was 
 28 per 1000 in 1880, has fallen to 18 in 1894; the death- 
 rate has increased to 28 per 1000. Fourteen communes 
 in the neighbourhood of Caen to-day only contain 5028 
 inhabitants, instead of 9200 in 1880. During this period 
 there were only 95 births for 171 deaths, 21 marriages 
 against 13 filles-meres, and 44 conscripts, 24 of whom were 
 rejected."
 
 302 NEO-MALTHUSIANISM 
 
 The average expenditure of the people of Great Britain 
 upon alcohol is four pounds two shillings a head ; in Ireland 
 two pounds thirteen. The taxation upon the two, how- 
 ever, is most unequal. The Englishman, Scotchman, and 
 Welshman, who spend four pounds two shillings each, are 
 only taxed fifteen shillings and sixpence each ; while 
 the Irishman, who spends only two pounds thirteen, 
 has to pay thirteen shillings and sixpence. When we look 
 into the whole of the matters connected with temperance, 
 there is room for much searching of heart. A great deal 
 of the intemperance which we all so deeply deplore is caused 
 by misery. The cynic believes the poor to be wholly given 
 over to drink, and therefore passes them by on the other side ; 
 but such is not always the case. Even if all the poor of England 
 were wallowing in drunkenness, is there not a cause ? To the 
 great credit of some of the extremely poor, they are able, in a 
 wonderful way, to refrain, but they are the exception, not the 
 rule. Environment is too much for the majority, acting, as it 
 does, upon already weakened constitutions. When we speak 
 of drunkenness amongst the poor, do we always make sufficient 
 allowance for the terrible lowering circumstances and surround- 
 ings in which the large majority of our fellow-countrymen have 
 to live the cruel monotony, the exhausting toil, the dreadful 
 anxiety, the unwholesome house ? If we had to live amongst 
 these, would we not likewise fall victims to the desire and 
 craving for some sedative to assuage our sufferings ? We can 
 never lessen intemperance by Acts of Parliament. We may 
 reduce the number of houses of temptation, but the morals 
 and customs of the people can only be touched by higher 
 methods. Surely our manifest duty is to attack the causes of 
 this intemperance, which is doing so much harm throughout 
 the world, and not the effects. First, and before all, two things 
 are absolutely necessary, omitting others for the present 
 better housing for the poor and better sanitation. These 
 would be better and nobler objects to work for than to seek to 
 deteriorate morality. We know very well that when the 
 nervous system is lowered by impure air it seeks support 
 in alcohol. A Dean of Manchester said that if he had to live 
 as many workers in our towns have to do he would infallibly 
 become a drunkard. 
 
 It is a blot upon our national profession of Christianity, 
 upon our entire administration, that capitalists who feed upon
 
 TEMPERANCE AND NEO-MALTHUSIANISM 363 
 
 the rents of unwholesome houses in our cities should be 
 allowed to do so any longer. Sixteen or seventeen years have 
 elapsed since the Commission on the Housing of the Poor 
 presented its report, yet what has been done towards relieving 
 the unjust conditions under which the poor have to suffer in 
 this respect ? If the working classes had better houses, better 
 sanitation, better surroundings, there would not be the same 
 temptations to deaden their miseries in drink. The homes of 
 the people, the producers of wealth, the backbone and sinew 
 of the country, should not be left to greedy and unscrupulous 
 capitalists to build cheaply and scandalously, and then grow 
 fat and rich upon their exorbitant rents. The homes of the 
 people, not merely artizans' dwellings, but homes, sweet homes, 
 should be built by the municipalities, by the community, by 
 the help of a consolidated fund, and then they would not be 
 miserable barracks, but comfortable homes. The people of 
 England would then be enabled to live amidst wholesome 
 surroundings, instead of the conditions of to-day, and build 
 up again capable populations to take the places of those 
 whom we see festering in the dens of the cities at the present 
 time. Guthrie described them well as they existed even in 
 his time, and how much worse they have grown since his time 
 we are well aware : " The unfurnished floor, the naked walls, 
 the sickening atmosphere, the patched and dusty window, 
 through which a sunbeam, like hope, is faintly stealing, the 
 ragged, hunger-bitten, and sad-faced children, the ruffian man, 
 the heap of straw, where some wretched mother sleeps off 
 yesterday's debauch. They called the street at Jerusalem 
 where the Saviour bore His cross the Via Dolorosa, and I 
 have thought that many of our streets to-day can be baptized 
 with the sorrow of as awful a name with so many counte- 
 nances that have misery stamped upon them as plain as if it 
 were burnt in with a hot iron, hunger staring at us out of 
 those hollow-eyed, drink-palsied men, and those drink-blotched 
 and bloated women ; sad and yellow infants who pine away 
 into slow death, with their weary heads lying so pitifully on 
 the shoulders of some half-dehumanized woman; this poor 
 little child who never smiles, without shoe or stocking on his 
 ulcerated feet, limping along, with a bottle in his emaciated 
 hand, to buy a parent drink with the few pence he would fain 
 spend on a loaf of bread. How has it wrung my heart to see 
 a ragged boy staring greedily in at a window on the food he
 
 304 NEO-MALTHUSIANISM 
 
 dared not touch, to watch him as he alternately lifted his 
 naked feet lest they should freeze to the icy pavement He 
 starves in the midst of abundance, neglected among a people 
 who would run to the rescue of a horse fallen on the slippery 
 road. Poor wretch, he knows not a Bible or a mother's 
 prayers ! If he did, would he not bar our way as we go to 
 church, and, holding out his gaunt arms, tell us that in God's 
 book it was written that pure religion and undefiled before 
 God the Father would be best exemplified by clothing his 
 naked limbs and filling out his hollow cheeks ? " 
 
 It would be very instructive to examine the statistics of the 
 convictions for disorder and drunkenness in the cities, and 
 compare them with the same in the country. The former 
 vastly preponderate over the latter. The population of East 
 Anglia, the most agricultural in the kingdom, is also the 
 soberest. "The bad state of the atmosphere of our large 
 cities certainly inclines men more to drink than the better air 
 of the country." (Bagehot.) 
 
 In this most useful work of obtaining better housing and 
 surroundings for the poor, with a view to reduce the tempta- 
 tions of drink, the Neo-Malthusian would find a better field 
 for his philanthropic energy than in promoting immorality. 
 With regard to this important matter of temperance, we are 
 told that the one essential condition of real improvement and 
 help can only now be found by changing men's characters, but 
 how can character change as long as it is kept deteriorated 
 and degraded by most cruel and evil circumstances and 
 surroundings ? 
 
 We are, after all is said and done, most certainly nothing 
 but the creatures of environment; that makes character. Take 
 a child of a patrician, delicately bred and nurtured for some 
 years in refinement, and place it in the midst of plebeian, 
 degraded surroundings, and then see how soon it will respond 
 to its new associations. Our invariable tendency is to retro- 
 grade, not to improve. As long as people are forced to live 
 in environment which continually tends to degrade them, it is 
 utterly useless to reason with them of temperance and its 
 many virtues ; the spirit to act may be present, but the powers 
 warring against the flesh will always prove too insurmountable 
 for poor human nature to overcome. Pestiferous, steaming, 
 stinking alleys and dens can only produce intemperance. It 
 would indeed require a heroic character, moulded in a different
 
 TEMPERANCE AND NEO-MALTHUSIANISM 305 
 
 form to which the majority are, as well as gigantic physical 
 power, to be able to withstand all the temptations to deaden 
 the misery which the inhabitant of the city has necessarily to 
 undergo. Brutalizing sights, crowded rooms, unhealthy houses, 
 drive our poor flesh and blood to crave for some alleviating 
 comfort, and this it readily finds in what is cheap and nearest 
 at hand alcohol. In a recent sermon, Canon Gore said: 
 "Why do people drink too much? It is at least very largely 
 to escape from themselves and their surroundings." There 
 is a terrible but exceedingly striking saying of one of Her 
 Majesty's judges when he had been to Manchester : "I 
 understand why people get drunk ; it is the shortest way out 
 of Manchester." 
 
 Consider the amusements which the slum-dweller has, and 
 then compare them with the ceaseless round of pleasures 
 which the rich are able to indulge in from year's end to year's 
 end. Think of the few holidays which the poor man can 
 have in the course of the year, always remembering the 
 deductions from his wages which they entail. Think of the 
 annual excursion can anybody call it a day of pleasure? 
 up at 3 a.m., home at midnight; heat, crush, strife, mothers 
 with screaming babies ; if the day be wet, nothing but the 
 public-house. We even hear of whole trains full of people 
 arriving at the place of their destination early in the day with 
 all their passengers helplessly drunk, and the trains drawn 
 into shuntings, leaving the drunken in them to recover as they 
 best can. Every possibility of rational and innocent pleasure 
 is denied the toiler in the slums. England has indeed long 
 ceased to be " Merrie England " ; yet we wonder why people 
 drink for mere drinking's sake. The man who lives in the 
 dens of the city, and who is at the same time a total abstainer, 
 is indeed a far higher, more abstemious, more moral specimen 
 of humanity than the well-to-do abstainer. In the case of 
 the former the physical temptation to give way is almost 
 overwhelming, in the latter it is only what idleness and 
 viciousness engender. People wonder how it is that increased 
 general prosperity always means a heavier drink bill. The 
 reason is obvious; it is that increased wealth means greater 
 ability to obtain the means whereby misery can be deadened. 
 Writing on the differences between town and country life, 
 Mr. Galton says : "The feeling of insufficient and pure air are 
 manifested in the forms of faintness, sense of exhaustion and
 
 306 KEO-MALTHUSIANISM 
 
 weariness. These are obviously due, not to the lung sense 
 alone, but to the lowered conditions of town life." In a 
 recent article in the Contemporary Review^ Mr. Mallock wrote 
 that it is weakness of will which in the first instance leads to 
 drunkenness. But how is this weakness of will caused but 
 by the lowered powers of the body suffering from horrible 
 environment? Remove the latter, and both would soon 
 recover their proper tone. "One of the worst features of 
 this destructive town life is, that the actual physical power 
 to work is considerably reduced." (Woodhouse.) No right- 
 minded man ever objects to work, and hard work; all he 
 claims is proper and fit places to do it in, with no pestilential 
 atmosphere which irresistibly compels him to imbibe noxious 
 drugs. 
 
 It is dreadful to think of all the waste of human life, the 
 waste of producing power, the waste of wealth which goes on 
 throughout England, all caused by alcohol. The poor, the 
 wretched are daily more and more robbed ; their hard-earned 
 wages are being transferred to rich brewers and brewery 
 syndicates. Many a man who could be in excellent health if 
 he had had but a fair chance in life is staggering on to an 
 early and a drunkard's grave, and yet it is not his fault; he is the 
 unhappy victim of what we are pleased to call our advanced 
 civilization. Unjust distribution has transformed what might 
 have been an excellent specimen of our race into something 
 lower than a brute. Ancient nations were not drunken, they 
 could not have done what they did if they were; neither are 
 savages until our so-called civilization forces it upon them. 
 
 With regard to this question of drunkenness following in 
 the train of what we term civilization, let us bear in mind 
 Maudsley's remark that civilization can make brutes still 
 greater brutes, and certainly more dangerous than if they were 
 in a state of nature. Preaching upon the example which 
 English civilization sets with regard to drink, the Archdeacon 
 of Manchester said : " When these centuries are looked back 
 upon, as we look back upon the age of Babylon, or Athens, 
 or Rome; looked back upon, it may be, from centres of 
 civilization as remote from England as we are from those 
 ancient capitals, what will be the verdict ? Will it not then be 
 said that we corrupted every nation we touched by our drink ? 
 It was lately said by the Archdeacon of Bombay that in India 
 we had made a hundred drunkards for every Christian. Every
 
 TEMPERANCE AND NEO-MALTHUSIANISM 307 
 
 Hindoo patriot complains that under our patronage drinking 
 spreads like an epidemic. In nearly every village, I hear that a 
 Government liquor shop is annually sold to the highest bidder, 
 who is then bound to force the sale in order to recoup himself. 
 It is deadly to their health and their morality, it is in flat 
 contravention of their religion. The Hindoos are temperate, 
 the Mahometans are abstainers, but the Christians so-called 
 are undermining both. When a man is seen drunk the saying 
 is, ' That man has left Mahomet, and gone to Jesus.' " 
 
 The curse of drink has not only fallen upon English men 
 and women, but upon their children ; it has been left to these 
 times to produce that terrible specimen of humanity the 
 "whisky child." How difficult, it is said by many, to under- 
 stand the designs of God in this matter of children's care and 
 protection. How some are born into surroundings which 
 cannot but elevate and hinder from sin and degradation, 
 where there are boundless opportunities of elucidating the 
 best side of human nature, of practising virtue, and improving 
 all the faculties of mind and body. Yet, on the other hand, 
 the large majority of children are born into surroundings 
 where none of these ennobling possibilities are found ; begotten 
 by vicious parents, literally reared by alcohol, bred in dens of 
 iniquity, how can they ever grow up to be respectable citizens, 
 and, which is of still greater importance, how can they be fit 
 to enter God's kingdom ? 
 
 The same remark which I made before on the struggle for 
 life equally applies here. These conditions are not of God's 
 but of man's making. From him to whom much is given shall 
 much be required. Those who have had no advantages here 
 will, we may be sure, be judged in accordance with God's pure 
 and perfect justice. Do we fully realize the piteous conditions 
 under which we force the poor to drag out their lives until 
 death releases them? When the rich feel "out of sorts" 
 change of air is immediately ordered the sea, the mountain, 
 the health resort, and yet the air from which they are ordered 
 to remove themselves from is comparatively perfect. Then let 
 us consider what chance the poor have of removal from the 
 vitiated atmosphere which they have to breathe year after year. 
 Is it possible that human nature could resist alcohol under the 
 conditions which the poor have to live? Professor Wallace 
 says: "The great cities contain within their bounds dense 
 masses of people living in cellars and hovels, and airless, filthy
 
 3oS NEO-MALTHUSIANISM 
 
 courts, again and again condemned as unfit for human habita- 
 tion. People live in unsightly and unwholesome houses, 
 packed together in rows like pens for cattle. They have 
 no field or garden-ground for profitable occupation or healthy 
 enjoyment, their young children can get no wholesome milk, 
 and often no playground but the alley and the kennel." It is 
 utterly useless to speak of temperance, religion, or morality to 
 unfortunate creatures doomed to live under such conditions as 
 the extreme poor have to do now. Steeped to the hilt in 
 chronic want and bitter privations as they are, living under 
 such depressing influences, minds always haunted with the 
 terror of not being able to find sufficient food, how can they 
 give any heed to the call of a higher life ? We bitterly regret 
 and feel the disgrace which attaches to England for carrying 
 the blighting influence of drink wherever it goes ; but where 
 has the desire for it been born and bred but in the dens and 
 pestiferous streets of our cities ? The agricultural inhabitants 
 of England are not drunken. Surely our work should be, if 
 we want to remove this blot from English character, to 
 render the atmosphere and surroundings of our cities more 
 bearable for human nature. Those who oppose the Christian 
 Social Union and its work say that the present social move- 
 ment merely panders to the physical needs of the body, 
 and leaves out of consideration altogether the higher things of 
 the soul, and that " seek ye first the kingdom of God, and all 
 these things shall be added unto you," is the only true rule of 
 life; that there were workpeople at Corinth, etc., and that 
 St. Paul did not minister to bodily wants there, but preached 
 to them the first precept of the Gospel, which was to conquer 
 self and sin. I reply that the workpeople of Corinth did not 
 live under the terrible social conditions which our poor have to 
 do now; they were not pent up in stifling dens, crushed 
 by monotonous, ever-increasing toil. Cardinal Newman said 
 long ago that the quasi-heathens of our large towns did 
 not exist in the beginning of the Gospel, and that most of the 
 moral degradation of the world arose entirely from physical 
 drawbacks, and thus consequent misery and despair. In our 
 Lord's time the Jews were a thoroughly sober nation. They 
 only drank their native, harmless wines, and alcohol was 
 unknown to them. The stupefying, vile, spirituous concoc- 
 tions of modern days were happily not then discovered. The 
 large majority of our city and town populations are growing up
 
 TEMPERANCE AND NEO-MALTHUSIANISM 309 
 
 utterly irreligious, wholly agnostic, without God in the world, 
 without any hope in the future, without moral order of 
 any kind. In spite of church and board schools, juvenile 
 crime is increasing. If this statement be doubted, then read 
 the pages of the recently-published Blue Book on the statistics 
 of crime, and note what is written there on Government 
 authority. Notwithstanding that the Education Act has been 
 in force since 1871, the morality of boy and girl life is worse 
 than ever it was. Does education, then, fail to improve moral 
 character? Not altogether; but in the case of the large majority 
 the struggle to live has become too hard to let moral power 
 have its full sway and exercise. Honesty, it is said, is 
 impossible to be met with either in the individual or the mart. 
 The shopman and shopgirl tell us that if they were scru- 
 pulously honest they must needs starve. Clerks, traders, 
 merchants, et hoc genus omne> tell us that honest trading 
 has ceased to exist; everybody cheats, and everybody is 
 cheated. Commercial morality has become a byword. The 
 struggle to live has become so terrific, competition has become 
 so keen, the " cutting " so close, that the trader is forced 
 to sail very close to the wind in all his transactions. Let him 
 be as honest-minded as ever he will, if he is to live at all 
 he must do as others do. The fact is, that before we can 
 introduce a higher morality with any degree of success we must 
 improve and cultivate the surface on which its seeds are to be 
 sown. 
 
 No people on the earth, no matter how savage, have ever 
 had to live the lives which the poor of Europe have to do 
 now, confined as they are in filthy, stifling dens. Their lives 
 cannot for a moment be compared with those of savages. 
 The savage, even if he hungers sometimes, has the pure air 
 of heaven to draw into his lungs. What has the poor man of 
 modern civilization to breathe ? The savage has no cruel, 
 monotonous, never-ceasing toil to undergo; in very many 
 respects his condition is far superior to the European work- 
 man. 
 
 It is a question if his morality is not also much higher; 
 certainly the Moslem system is much purer and better ; it 
 does not produce drunkards and prostitutes. No Moslem city 
 in the East could produce what our boasted civilization does 
 in only the West End of London at night, not taking into 
 consideration thousands of such scenes in other cities of
 
 310 NEO-MALTHUSIANISM 
 
 England. " One who lives amidst the courts and alleys of 
 a great city, and sees the filth of human life; one who can 
 see the girls of twelve, lost to all sense of shame and decency, 
 proceeding on their way to infamy, with no hope of a friendly 
 hand to stay them on their downward path; one who knows 
 that, as rats undermine a building, squalid crime is at work 
 upon the very foundations of morality and law, must not, 
 cannot, till he has left these scenes for peaceful nature, be an 
 optimist. I pass through filthy lanes, I see the most squalid 
 beastliness, oaths, quarrels, fights, drunkenness. These people 
 pursue the same dull, never-thinking course of existence, the 
 only variation to which they look forward being that of hard 
 drinking. At four years old the children swear like troopers, 
 taught to do so by their parents. Yet England is a nominal 
 Christian country !" 
 
 The late Bishop Thorold used to tell us that when he first 
 went to St. Giles an old man said to him, "Ah, you won't 
 be long here before you'll see there's no God." The fact is 
 that Christianity has utterly failed to influence those who are 
 compelled by most cruel and adverse economic conditions to 
 lie in darkness, in the valley and shadow of an enforced moral 
 death. We have yet to adopt the religion of Christ. He 
 never spoke to people while He was on earth who were 
 obliged to live the lives our poor have to do now. Even then 
 He censured and warned the rich. What would He say to our 
 modern plutocrats and capitalists? Up to the present time 
 religion has kept men back from desperate revolutions; but 
 now many millions are growing up throughout the world, not 
 merely indifferent to, but absolutely hostile to Christianity as 
 it has hitherto been presented to them. They are learning to 
 live without any morality or religion whatever. What will the 
 future bring? Even in England political jealousies, horrible 
 rivalries between sects, are doing their utmost to prevent 
 Christian parents from obtaining the special religious instruc- 
 tion which they desire for their children. All this miserable 
 squabble between nominal Christians goes on, while the 
 devastating enemy of infidelity is at the gate, only waiting 
 for the moment to rush in and submerge all the foundations 
 of morality. 
 
 If those people who desire a mere secular education for the 
 children of England would but study an article in the Revue 
 des Deux Mondes, January i5th, 1897, by Alfred Fouille,
 
 TEMPERANCE AND NEO-MALTHUSIANISM 311 
 
 de 1' Academic des Sciences Morales, termed "Les Jeunes 
 Criminels, 1'Ecole et la Presse," they would change their 
 opinions. Remarking upon what an irreligious education 
 produces, he says : " En somme, la criminalite a triple chez 
 nous depuis cinquante ans, quoique la population ait h peine 
 augmente. Dans la peroide 1880 a 1893 la criminalite 
 grandit encore beaucoup plus rapidement; en dix ans on 
 voit le nombre des enfans criminels s'accroitre du quart. 
 La pre"cocite est une des marques characterisques, un des 
 traits douleureux de notre temps. Une exaggeration de 
 ferocite, une recherche de lubricite, la prostitution enfantine 
 va aussi croissant, et on a estime a 40,000 en dix ans le nombre 
 des enfans atteints. En 1830 on constait 5 suicides par 
 100,000 inhabitants; en 1892, il y en avait 24; les suicides 
 des enfans au-dessous de seize ans, extremement rares jadis, 
 atteignaient deja en 1887 le nombre de 55. Dans cette 
 meme annee nous avons en 375 suicides de jeunes gens 
 ages de seize a vingt et un ans ; les suicides d'enfans ages de 
 moins de seize ans ont ete de 87." He also tells us that out 
 of every hundred convicted boys and girls only two have 
 come from religious schools. Out of every hundred convict 
 children imprisoned in La Petite Roquette, the average is 
 eleven from a religious, eighty-nine from a secular school. 
 We can hardly imagine such a state of things; but he also 
 tells us that not long ago the Minister of Justice declared 
 in the Chamber that every day in Paris more than thirty 
 thousand grossly obscene pamphlets were distributed gratis at 
 the doors of all the schools. Notwithstanding all this evidence, 
 we are still told that France has reached a very high standard, 
 one which it would be well for England to follow, but the fact 
 is, that France is in far greater difficulties than we are with 
 regard to immorality and drunkenness. The causes, however, 
 of these things have a similar origin in both countries. 
 
 Formerly it was taught that all the evils arising from 
 unequal distribution of wealth and injustice were inevitable 
 in the conduct of human affairs, and that all we could do was 
 to drag out a miserable existence here, and that afterwards, in 
 heaven somehow, it would all be made up to us. Such was 
 the Puritan's faith and practice. But surely the kingdom of 
 Christ, His church, is militant here on earth against cruelty 
 and injustice. Are we to teach that, although Christ is with 
 us here on earth in His church, yet His attributes of love and
 
 312 NEO-MALTHUSIANISM 
 
 justice are not ? Are we to believe that there is no place or 
 room for justice on earth, that it must be relegated to heaven 
 alone ? It most assuredly is not God's will that justice 
 should not reign here; and when we work to establish it more 
 fully in this present world, we may be sure that we are on 
 God's side. 
 
 Before we can successfully impose the structure of the whole 
 religion of Christ upon the suffering multitude, we must first 
 introduce the simple, natural, moral law of justice. Let us 
 take the case of London alone. The church has been in 
 possession for twelve hundred years. What is the result? 
 Let us see, and ex uno discs omnes. Its population to-day 
 amounts to 6,048,555, out of which the communicants of the 
 church amount to but an insignificant three per cent. ! It 
 seems hardly possible that such should be the deplorable fact, 
 but so it is. When we examine the numbers and conditions 
 of those who attend any place of worship, we can easily 
 observe how the poor are conspicuous by their absence. Note 
 the appearance of an ordinary congregation anywhere, and 
 then see if the Gospel is now preached to the poor and needy. 
 Speaking upon the present religious tendencies of the masses, 
 the Bishop of London said: "The condition of life for them is 
 that of perpetual struggle for existence, and they have no time 
 or thought for education, art, patriotism, or religion. Religion 
 requires time, and they have no time." Hundreds of 
 thousands hear and see nothing of religion during the week, 
 and on Sundays are so tired that they stay in bed all day, else 
 they could not drag out their wearied, worn lives. Ask the 
 omnibus and tram people what opportunities they have for any 
 religious duties, and then let Christian consciences dwell upon 
 the answer. That Christ is with His church there cannot be 
 the slightest doubt. All that is needed is loyalty to Him and 
 it. We cannot but observe the divinely-guided destiny which, 
 after the long-stagnant Erastianism of the Hanoverian period, 
 brought into being the evangelical movement and the 
 enthusiast John Wesley. Then in later times came its 
 complement, the Catholic admixture, and its leader Pusey. 
 And now there is being added, to complete the structure, the 
 necessary truth of the great brotherhood of man, that in Christ 
 we are all brethren, and that when one suffers in soul or body 
 all suffer likewise; that in Him there is neither Jew nor 
 Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor
 
 TEMPERANCE AND NEO-MALTHUSIANISM 313 
 
 female, for we are all one in Christ Jesus. Let this be more 
 fully taught and practised, and then the world will be nearer 
 its regeneration than it has ever been before. The reasons 
 whereby the present Christian social movement has arisen are 
 obvious. They are not merely humanitarian or philanthropic. 
 Those clergy who, seeking to save the souls of the lost and 
 fallen, have gone down into the dens and alleys of the suffering 
 poor, have been obliged to admit that so long as the physical 
 circumstances under which the poor have to live are so 
 adverse, it is impossible for them to learn anything of morality 
 and righteousness. Wherever, throughout the neglected 
 districts of our large cities, university settlements or missions 
 are founded by the clergy, their first objects are to open clubs 
 of all sorts, out of which it is hoped in time to collect 
 congregations for their churches. The opponents of these 
 measures are always to be found amongst the ranks of those 
 who are ignorant of the distress which extreme inequality 
 of wealth always brings in its train. Many trust in education 
 as a means to produce morality and refined types of humanity ; 
 but how can it have such an effect when old and young, men 
 and women, boys and girls, are herded together in one or two 
 rooms, where the decencies of a civilized life are utterly 
 impossible? Moral platitudes may be given in the school, 
 immoral examples are copiously poured out in the streets and 
 at home, and which are the most likely to be acted upon by 
 the children? When we speak concerning temperance and 
 purity to boys and girls who are compelled to live under evil 
 circumstances of life, we speak to beings who are altogether on 
 a different plane concerning them to what our boys and girls 
 are. They have been nurtured up in surroundings where 
 everything that treats of intemperance and purity is hidden 
 from their eyes. Not so the poor boy and girl ; from their 
 earliest years they have been only too familiar with sights and 
 language which drown out all temperance, morality, and 
 purity. Comparing again for a moment, for the sake of 
 argument and knowledge, the present conditions of life, which 
 the church has been left to deal with, with those which 
 prevailed in the time of the Apostles, we can readily observe 
 how much more difficult it is to carry on the work of Christ 
 now. Opponents of the present Christian social movement 
 may say, Consider the slavery and the utter disregard 'for 
 human life which existed then. Quite so ; but it must be
 
 314 NEO-MALTHUSIANISM 
 
 remembered that a slave is and was a chattel, a possession of 
 considerable pecuniary value, and most certainly did not live 
 then under the pitiable conditions of life which our poor have 
 to do now. The English mind is familiar with a false idea of 
 slavery. Except in the conveyance of slaves to their destina- 
 tion, their condition in modern times even, much more 
 the case in ancient, when they were very leniently treated, is 
 not nearly as pitiable as that of our white slaves is now. It is 
 ridiculous to say that it is. I have seen a good deal of slavery, 
 where it was and is still to be witnessed, both in the Pacific 
 and Brazil, and I am quite sure that it cannot be compared 
 for a moment, as regards human suffering, with the present 
 condition of many of our white slaves in our great cities. 
 If we turn to Africa for further evidence, where slavery 
 still exists on a large scale, we invariably find that it is only in 
 the transit that the slave suffers. The Universities' Mission 
 to Central Africa is a very good judge of what slavery really is, 
 and this is its report : " When with their masters it does 
 not appear that slaves are, as a rule, cruelly treated, but rather 
 the contrary." (Central Africa, September, 1895.) All that 
 the commonplace English mind knows about slavery is through 
 Uncle Tom's Cabin, that product of a hysterical genius, which is 
 very inaccurate in many particulars. It is contrary to human 
 reason to suppose that a slave-owner would, contrary to his 
 pecuniary interests, ill-treat, or do anything to diminish the 
 working power of his slaves. Moreover, slaves were not 
 tortured in mind with the continually-recurring anxiety whence 
 the means to provide, and in addition to that the fear of illness, 
 or where the food for themselves or their children was 
 to come from ; board and lodging they had in plenty, and cold 
 they knew nothing of. I know very well that, if I had to 
 choose, I would infinitely prefer the life of the modern slave to 
 that which many of our English poor have to undergo at 
 present. If we desire to improve the morality of our working 
 population we must improve their present degrading surround- 
 ings. All must admit that environment creates character, and 
 as long as the former continues to be productive of abasement, 
 so must also be the latter. It makes one very impatient some- 
 times to hear some sleek, well-to-do temperance lecturer 
 boast of his abstinence, and thank God he is not as others are ; 
 but compel him to live in Flower and Dean Street in London, 
 or in the neighbourhood of Paddy's market in Liverpool, and
 
 TEMPERANCE AND NEO-MALTHUSIANISM 315 
 
 then see what he would be. It is so very easy to be religious 
 and devotional when the circumstances of life are easy and 
 comfortable ; but change them into what is low, squalid, and 
 degrading, and then see how difficult it is to grow into a saint. 
 Before we can successfully attempt to suppress the evils of that 
 hydra-headed monster drink, we must first descend in thought 
 to the level of those who suffer from evil environment, and 
 then consider if we could, under similar conditions, resist the 
 fatal fascinations which drunkenness affords. How can 
 we with any hope of success preach temperance, urgently 
 needed as it is, when even pure water, one of the necessaries 
 of life, is made a vehicle of profit for the shareholder in water 
 companies? Is it a wrong thing to advocate that the State 
 should possess the means whereby the poor should freely have 
 what the savage has, pure water to drink? When some of 
 these necessary reforms come to pass we may hopefully 
 expect the triumph of temperance, and consequently a 
 diminution of waste and an increase of wealth. Until then we 
 are merely beating the air, so far as the poor are concerned, 
 when we speak to them of temperance. When we examine 
 further into the whole present economic condition of the poor, 
 we can easily observe that we are rapidly returning to the con- 
 dition of things which existed at the beginning of the century, 
 when the capitalists and the manufacturers resided in hand- 
 some, luxurious residences in the country, and the workers, 
 who produced the profits by which they were able to do 
 so, huddled together in the alleys. Whole cities, where work- 
 men only live, are rising up every year; and these men 
 are labouring for syndicates and companies who are unable to 
 spend their shareholders' dividends upon the moral welfare of 
 their servants, and these, owing to the bare pittances which they 
 receive, are unable to contribute anything towards providing 
 themselves with churches or spiritual help of any kind. The 
 outlook, unless the moral consciences of the rich are awakened, 
 is very, very black. 
 
 We cannot also fail to observe that, owing to the difficulty 
 which at present exists for large numbers of people to obtain 
 their necessary food, a great deal of the criminal type of 
 mankind is being developed. It does not always bring itself 
 within the meshes of the law, but nobody can deny that much 
 of human cruelty, vice, and craftiness are fast coming into 
 being. It is surely impossible for the Christian to look upon
 
 316 NEO-MALTHUSIANISM 
 
 human society, as it is now constituted, and say that, after all 
 the centuries of Christianity which have passed over it, it has 
 improved as much as might have been expected. The true 
 spirit of Christ has yet to conquer the world, that one which is 
 able to kindle the fire of devotion to God and one's neighbour. 
 Commenting upon what ought to be, and what one day will be, 
 Professor Heron, of Iowa, writes in The New Redemption: "A 
 great idea is now leading the world's thought and lifting its 
 hopes. Everywhere are the signs of universal change. The 
 race is in an attitude of expectancy, straitened until its new 
 baptism is accomplished. Every nerve of society is feeling 
 the first agonies of a great trial that is to try all that dwell on 
 the earth, and issue in a divine deliverance. We are in the 
 beginning of a revolution that will strain all existing religious 
 and political institutions, and test the wisdom and heroism of 
 the earth's purest and bravest souls. It will not do to say the 
 revolution is not coming, or pronounce it of the devil. Revolu- 
 tions in their wildest forms are the impulses of God moving in 
 tides of fire through the life of man. The dangerous classes in 
 every age and nation are they who, in the interest of religious 
 or political parties, say that the wrong cannot be put right, 
 that selfishness, injustice, and inequality are natural virtues, 
 essential to progress and the stability of civilization. They 
 who say that man's conception cannot be enlarged and purified 
 are the ones who bring disaster and wrath upon the world. 
 There is enough in this world for all to have and enjoy in 
 abundance, if there were a system by which there could be an 
 equitable distribution of that abundance upon the principles of 
 the divine economy. The social revolution marking the 
 closing years of the present century and the dawning of the 
 next is the most crucial and formative since the crucifixion 
 of Christ, it is the call and opportunity of Christendom to 
 become Christian." 
 
 It must certainly be admitted that the progress of England 
 in wealth has been out of all proportion to its progress in 
 morality ; but we well know that it is in the latter, not in the 
 former, that the family and the nation can alone acquire 
 character and safe progress. With regard to the general 
 laxity in temperance, it is both disheartening and humiliating 
 to have to witness the apathy with which the matter is regarded 
 by Parliament. Vested interests, the monetary versus the 
 moral aspect of the matter, is considered of far too great an
 
 TEMPERANCE AND NEO-MALTHUSIANISM 317 
 
 importance. There are far too many within those walls who 
 make their pecuniary interests to rank higher than the moral 
 improvement of the nation. In the meantime the condition 
 of the people, owing to houses of temptation being unneces- 
 sarily increased that others may grow rich, is steadily deteri- 
 orating, drunkards are propagating their diseased progenies on 
 all sides ; yet we stand feebly by, seemingly helpless. We 
 send the drunken parents to prisons and workhouses, we 
 send their children to industrial schools, we pay highly to 
 maintain these poor creatures in all these places. Would not 
 prevention be better than attempted cures, which are seldom, 
 if ever, attained ? It is said that if beer English wine alone 
 was consumed drunkenness would materially decrease, that it 
 is the vile spirituous compounds which make men become 
 " mad drunk," as it is called. Surely it is not too much to 
 hope that legislation might do something to repress this part 
 of the evil at least, and that if people are so foolish as to wish 
 for spirits, they should have what is fit to drink, not mere 
 fusel oil. As long as the French drank their own wines they 
 were a temperate nation ; now, since they have gained access 
 to what is known as "alcohol d'industrie," they are rapidly 
 becoming one of the most drunken. 
 
 We need not discuss here all the evidence which over- 
 whelmingly proves that nearly all the degradation and crime 
 which are so prevalent are caused by indulgence in alcohol. 
 Judges' charges, admissions into hospitals, amply prove the 
 truth of that. One fact, however, must come home to the 
 hearts of all ; it is that the sum-total of all the rents, not only of 
 workmen's dwellings, but of all the houses, all the land of 
 England, is less than the sum of money annually spent on 
 drink in England. How wonderful the transformation of the 
 nation would be if it spent on more profitable and healthy 
 objects what it now spends on the useless and hurtful drug 
 alcohol? Strive as we may to inaugurate beneficial social 
 reforms, do what we may to bring about a better distribution 
 of wealth, all will be of no use as long as we do nothing to 
 remove the causes which minister to the sway of the demon 
 drink ; we are merely pouring water into a sieve. 
 
 It is said that we cannot look to legislation to promote 
 reform in this matter, that it is in moral pressure alone that 
 relief can be found. No doubt it is to the latter that we must 
 look for an abiding reform, but legislation can do a great deal
 
 3i8 NEO-MALTHUSIANISM 
 
 in lessening poverty from drink. It can enact that when the 
 head of a family or others are ruining themselves and all 
 belonging to them by their drunkenness, they can be tried by 
 a jury of their neighbours, and compelled to undergo seclusion 
 in homes for inebriates, supported by voluntary contributions, 
 under Government supervision. It is lamentable to see 
 children brought to beggary by their parents giving way to 
 drunkenness and debauchery. The law can reduce the number 
 of the houses of temptation, but that it does not do, nor make 
 any serious attempt to do so. Local option has been tried 
 and failed, as it always will and must, for it only provokes 
 hostility from all quarters, and creates invidious distinctions. 
 There are some localities so degraded that their inhabitants 
 would vote for an increase of facilities for getting drunk, not a 
 diminution. Besides, where could a successful line of demar- 
 cation be successfully drawn between those wards or parishes 
 which decided that drink could not be obtained within their 
 boundaries and those who did not so decide ? The inevitable 
 result would take place, that on one side of the street all the 
 public-houses would be open, and on the other all would be 
 closed ; some publicans, through no fault of their own, would 
 be ruined, and others enriched. 
 
 The only way in which the matter can be successfully 
 grappled with is to allot public-houses according to population. 
 If England would only become moderately temperate in 
 alcohol, what an improvement would be visible on all sides. 
 There would then be no unemployed problem, and far less 
 expenditure required for hospitals, into which latter we are told 
 seventy per cent, of the cases are brought through drink. 
 Population might then considerably increase, with no hurtful 
 results to anything or anybody ; children would be healthier, 
 better reared, better nurtured, better fitted when they grew up 
 to augment the wealth of the nation and their own ; above all, 
 their presence in consequence of poverty would not be rebelled 
 against. Here in the field of temperance the Neo-Malthusian 
 can be fought with, and shown that where the conditions 
 of life are not artificially made adverse, and where waste was 
 removed, population is not a hindrance to prosperity, but, 
 on the contrary, the most potent factor in the acquisition 
 of wealth for all.
 
 CO-OPERATIVE HOMES CONSIDERED AS A 
 HELP AGAINST NEO-MALTHUSIANISM 
 
 'T^HERE is another matter connected with this question 
 -* of over-population which it would be well for the Neo- 
 Malthusian to carefully consider before he advises the nation 
 to adopt his scheme of artificially limiting the number of its 
 children. It is that which is known by the name of the 
 Community System, and which simply means several families 
 combining together, and living together under the same roof. 
 There are many among those whose opinions ought to carry 
 great weight who confidently affirm that this system has within 
 it, under proper and judicious management, a very ample field 
 for improving the social and moral condition of our poor and 
 professional classes. We can readily believe that many 
 families now compelled to live more or less isolated, unsatis- 
 factory lives, with no social advantages, would find great 
 comfort and satisfaction by living together in these com- 
 munities. Large numbers of people are now forced to be 
 content with small houses, restricted pleasures, no society, 
 which they would not be if co-operative homes were open to 
 them. In them the stigma on the lady-help would be avoided. 
 All the women would work, and none would be above the others 
 in social grade. Here they would find boundless opportunities 
 for work, and work of a satisfactory and suitable kind. In 
 these communities domestic duties would be very different to 
 what they are in individual homes. The work would be co- 
 operative each for all, and all for each. It does not by 
 any means follow that because Owen's ideas in these matters 
 bore no satisfactory results in his time, that the same would be 
 the case now. We have learned a great deal since his 
 time. The economy of living in these homes would be 
 very great. Instead of twenty-five families having to maintain 
 twenty-five kitchens, with all their necessary consumption
 
 320 NEO-MALTHUSIANISM 
 
 of fuel, one kitchen would be sufficient for the twenty-five 
 families. The provisions could be bought wholesale, and what 
 a saving in everybody's income this would effect, especially 
 when we know that now the poor have to buy all they need in 
 halfpennies' worth. For those whose incomes were but small 
 these homes would prove of material benefit, not merely 
 in the pecuniary sense, but also in the social and moral one. 
 The early marriages, and the surrender to sexual gratification by 
 the young, which we all so deeply deplore, have causes which we 
 must consider. As education and public libraries gradually 
 give the young more interest in life, and proper pleasures, in 
 addition, are granted them, they will not think that sexual 
 pleasures are to be the only chief objects in life, and in time 
 these, no doubt, will be much more eschewed than they 
 are now. But still, unless the housing of the poor undergoes 
 radical reform there will always be the incentive to sexualism. 
 The chief cause of early marriages and precocious animal 
 passion lies in the utterly indecent modes of life which 
 the poor have to lead. Brothers and sisters of all ages, fathers 
 and mothers with their children, all packed together into a 
 couple of rooms, what can be the result? It would be 
 contrary to nature to expect or hope for any improvement as 
 long as such a state of things existed. The conditions of home 
 life become unbearable, and the boy and girl are forced into 
 marrying, for if they did not, there would be no homes left 
 them. It is contrary to reason to expect that young people 
 will be content to live by themselves in dreary lodgings. 
 They are actually compelled in these times to cohabit or 
 marry, for unless they do one of these things they are driven 
 to the common lodging-house. 
 
 It is all very well for the social reformer to condemn the 
 present system of early marriages, which we well know is so 
 hurtful to us all ; but he is bound to acknowledge and remove 
 the causes which give rise to them, and the chiefest of these is 
 the lack of co-operative homes for young men and young 
 women, who would find in them opportunities for economy 
 and comfort. There is ample scope for a philanthropist to 
 build such a home for young men, and another for young 
 women who are engaged in earning their daily bread. Under 
 the present system, when the boy is turned adrift from his 
 father's two rooms, he naturally gets hold of some girl to cook 
 for him, keep his miserable den together, and hence many
 
 CO-OPERATION AND NEO-MALTHUSIANISM $n 
 
 tears. No one can doubt that, given the building it does not 
 seem possible that the poor could ever raise such a thing for 
 themselves enormous benefits would accrue to the very class 
 which suffers so much at present, and whose influences and 
 actions go so far either to lessen or increase the difficulties of 
 others. Even if a well-disposed millionaire was not able to 
 give the building, there is no doubt that a moderate rent for 
 each room would be forthcoming, and enable him to have 
 some profit on the outlay, that is, if two per cent, would satisfy 
 him. 
 
 With regard to a higher social grade of life, we know how 
 difficult it is to find suitable homes for our sons and daughters 
 who go to cities to work. They have either to lead solitary, 
 dull lives in desolate lodgings or in boarding-houses of 
 questionable morality. Naturally there is great hesitation in 
 sending out sons and daughters to face all the temptations of 
 great cities alone. Amusements they must have; if they 
 cannot have innocent, they will most likely seek vicious 
 ones. Here in these homes the lives they have been 
 accustomed to live in their own homes would be continued. 
 Outside, enervating pleasures, with all their dubious sur- 
 roundings, would not have the attractions they have now. 
 Life in lodgings is not, to say the least, conducive to staying 
 at home in the evenings. Thackeray described it well. It must 
 be a curious specimen of young humanity that would be content 
 to live such a life, evening after evening, without seeking some 
 excitement in the outside world. To the newly-married couple 
 these homes would afford great advantages; there would be no 
 initial expenses of furnishing, etc., which need a great outlay, 
 and compel a large number of suitable people to abstain from 
 marriage altogether. These homes could be managed by a 
 committee or manager elected from amongst the body of 
 members themselves, as is the case in clubs. These latter, 
 merely as places to assemble in the day-time, have succeeded 
 so well, that there is every reason to believe that co-operative 
 homes, which would be really clubs with complete residence 
 added on, would succeed still better. With regard to the 
 initial cost of purchasing or building such homes, and furnish- 
 ing them, there would be no difficulty so far as the well-to-do 
 are concerned; it is when we come to the poor that the 
 difficulty comes in. Municipalities could help ; above all, the 
 philanthropic societies could give of their abundance. Surely
 
 322 NEO-MALTHUSIANISM 
 
 in this case also prevention would be better than cure ; it 
 would be better to found homes where morality and purity 
 could be preserved than to support waifs and strays, the 
 products of the lack of proper homes and care. Well- 
 meaning philanthropists are ready to pour in enormous 
 sums of money into all sorts of wild and crazy schemes, 
 which generally end in benefiting nobody and disgusting 
 the founder. These homes have in them the nucleus of 
 the greatest possible help to all classes of society, poor and 
 rich, and yet the idea has never been put into action yet. 
 Peabody, to his great honour, founded such homes for married 
 people, and did enormous good to hundreds of thousands, 
 but nobody has founded any for young men and women. 
 The experiment has yet to be tried. Needless to say, discipline 
 would be necessary, and characters strictly inquired into ere 
 members were admitted. The honour of one would be the 
 honour of all. This was the idea and principle of the ancient 
 Guilds, and they succeeded admirably. We may readily imagine 
 what these homes might be made to be beautiful architecture, 
 pleasant cloisters, sunny nooks, grassy quadrangles, all the 
 beauties of university life might be revived, all these advan- 
 tages, not merely to be limited to bachelors and maidens, but 
 for large numbers of the married as well. There could be 
 the chapel, the chaplain, the hospital, everything calculated to 
 make life as endurable as it can be made. Many I know are 
 longing for such homes to be founded, knowing that in them 
 life would be more joyful, more full of interest, than it is at 
 present, cruelly and ruthlessly cast aside as it is now in far too 
 many instances into loneliness and despair. Above all, these 
 homes, from the less expenditure which co-operation always 
 effects, would prove an enormous benefit in preventing undue 
 postponement of marriage. The advantages indeed seem to 
 be endless. Instead of a poor working-woman being obliged 
 to cook, wash, and work all in one room, thereby driving the 
 husband to the public-house in the evening, each work would 
 be done in its own department, leaving the refectory for food, 
 the recreation-room for amusement. The unmarried women 
 of the homes would do the household work, the mother with 
 the child would be left in peace. What vistas of heavenly 
 comfort these homes seem to open out for both rich and poor ? 
 The school for the children, the doctor for the sick, would all 
 be under the same roof. How glad many a medical man would
 
 CO-OPERATION AND NEO-MALTHUSIANISM 323 
 
 be to undertake the post at a fixed income, subscribed co- 
 operatively by the members. He and his family would equally 
 profit by this community system. 
 
 Again, if we take into consideration the enormous dis- 
 advantages which the labourer and artizan at present have to 
 undergo in going out of their homes early in the 'morning 
 badly fed, to face the heavy work of the day, how different 
 their condition would be under the community system. 
 Under present arrangements the wife, cumbered as she is with 
 much serving, is unable to send her husband out properly 
 equipped for his work ; he is obliged to be content with cold, 
 insufficient food, such as he can scrape together for himself. 
 In the co-operative home the women would be able to have 
 more leisure, and consequently more time to minister to their 
 husbands' needs. In past days Thornton, Mill, and Fawcett 
 asserted that co-operation would prove a valuable help in 
 improving our social condition, and every day's experience 
 adds force to their testimony. In these homes we could put the 
 idea into active working, and there need be no fear as to the 
 result. The scheme is neither new nor original. Those who 
 wish to study the question further will find many suggestions 
 as to details in the admirable essay upon "Unitary Homes" 
 in Scientific Meliorism, in Associated Homes (Neale), and in 
 The Creed of Science, pp. 287-8. In the first of the above 
 will be found a full description of the Familiste're, which 
 has succeeded so well in Paris. Those who might desire 
 to combine a secular as well as a religious life in such homes 
 would find an excellent example in that which Nicholas Ferrar 
 carried on so successfully at Little Gidding in the seven- 
 teenth century, and which has been so fully described in 
 Canon Carter's work upon the subject. It would be well 
 worthy of the attention of those who are in a position to do so 
 to make an attempt towards the improvement' of many of our 
 deserving people by founding or even endowing such co- 
 operative homes as are here suggested. 
 
 There is much in this idea which savours of success both in 
 increasing the moral and social improvement of a very large 
 number of our population. The people themselves, however 
 willing, cannot take the first step, for the initial expenses would 
 prove too heavy a burthen for them to bear. Those who 
 really wish to relieve the present stress of over-population 
 would find, in giving pecuniary help to such a scheme, not
 
 324 NEO-MALTHUSIANISM 
 
 only sufficient interest upon whatever capital they might see fit 
 to expend upon it, but would also confer a benefit upon many 
 of the poor, who are well deserving of help in their struggles to 
 improve. Wherever the system of workmen's dwellings has 
 been tried it has never been known to fail. It has always 
 given a great impulse to morality and economy. A spirit 
 of emulation has been aroused, which was impossible, owing 
 to mischievous environment, before, and contact with immoral 
 characters has been thereby avoided. Those worthy of help, 
 who are anxious to escape from degradation, have been helped 
 to do so, to their own and the community's great advantage. 
 The system needs a much wider expanse than it has had 
 hitherto, for experience has proved its utility, its promise 
 of vast benefit to many. That some schemes whereby 
 permanent and regenerating good may be conferred upon the 
 toilers of the day have now become necessary is palpable to all 
 who have eyes to see or ears to hear. The difficulties crowd- 
 ing in upon our present system of artificial life, through unjust 
 economic conditions, are day by day being forced into 
 extremities. The married women who are compelled to 
 undertake manual labour to add to the family exchequer, 
 in consequence of their husband's insufficient earnings, are 
 rapidly deteriorating in strength and stamina; consequently 
 their children are born tired, enfeebled, and puny, manifestly 
 unfitted to take their proper positions in life. This is now, 
 alas ! termed a battle ; under just and humane conditions 
 it would be a pleasure, not a struggle, in which the strong have 
 to slay the weak. The girls who are compelled to labour intel- 
 lectually for their bread are consequently rendered infertile, 
 totally unfit to undergo the natural duties of maternity, 
 compelled to live celibate lives, wholly contrary to the inten- 
 tion of God and nature, and which can only terminate in 
 nervousness, disease, and despair. Young men, owing to their 
 naturally stronger physical impulses, are driven into all sorts of 
 immorality and vice. Marriage, the proper remedy for this 
 untoward state of things, is rendered impossible, in con- 
 sequence of the growth of luxurious living and the impossibility 
 for married persons to attain to the pernicious standard which 
 it requires. Insanity and suicide are largely increasing in con- 
 sequence of all this artificial life. What will be the end of it 
 all ? Immoral limitation of children as a ready cure is being 
 widely adopted, and by it men and women are transforming
 
 CO-OPERATION AND NEO-MALTHUSIANISM 325 
 
 themselves into mere sexual machines. Voluntarily, yet 
 immorally, they are both anxious and content to forego the 
 moral lawful duties of parentage. Unless a radical moral 
 change permeates the vitals of modern life, unless urgently- 
 needed reforms are soon introduced into our present economic 
 constitution, the future, not only for England, but for Christian 
 morality and civilization, must be overshadowed by a very dark 
 cloud.
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 PECCAT ne mortaliter homo qui concumbens cum uxore, se 
 retrahit ante seminis emissionem ? Peccat ille homo ; non 
 peccat vero uxor quae non consentit. 
 
 Celina, solvens debitum conjugate, totam viri semen vel aliquam 
 ejus partem post concubitum expellit. Peccat mortaliter; nisi 
 casu vel infirmitate illud expellat. 
 
 " Le manage n'est pas une association pour le plaisir ou meme 
 pour le bonheur ; sa fin immediate et principale est d'assurer la 
 perpe'tuite' de la race humaine. C'est cette fin qui doit dominer 
 tous les projets d'avenir, toutes les combinaisons. C'est aussi grace 
 a elle seule que 1'harmonie inte"rieure, d'ou re"sulte le bonheur, 
 pourra s'etablir. Car les deux e*poux d'accord sur une fin 
 exte*rieure a eux, 1'accroissement et la perpetuite" de la famille, ne 
 peuvent que s'entendre. Sur les choses principales, 1'accord 
 inte*rieur des ames naitra, s'il n'existe deja, de cet accord 
 superieur des intelligences. Et c'est ainsi que s'explique la 
 paix commune a tant de menages Chretiens ou cependant les 
 preliminaires et les engagements meme avaient e'te' bien dtrangers 
 aux prudences de la nature. Cette conception n'est autre, en 
 effet, que la conception Chre"tienne du mariage. Le mariage 
 est fait sous la representation des enfans futurs, a tel point que 
 si cette representation venait a etre bannie du contrat par un 
 accord expres des parties, le mariage n'existerait pas. Par Ik 
 le Christianisme, qui n'a fait que sanctifier et sure"lever les lois 
 naturelles, assure en meme temps la paix des manages, le bonheur 
 des e"poux et la dure"e des families." YVES LE QUERDEC, Le 
 Mofide, October 28th, 1895.
 
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