Chapter XXIII: Section 2: Evidence From Holland

As regards other countries, Holland is usually described as the Mecca of Malthusians, being "the only country where Neo-Malthusianism has been given the opportunity of diminishing the excessive birth-rate on eugenic lines, i.e. in the reduction of the fertility of the poorest classes," [38] and where a "considerable rise in the wages and general prosperity appears to have taken place side by side with an unprecedented increase of population." When we come to investigate this claim we find that, of the eleven provinces of Holland, two are almost entirely Catholic, these being North Brabant, with 649,000 inhabitants, and Limburg, with 358,000 inhabitants. On the other hand, in Friesland, with 366,000 inhabitants, not more than 8 per cent, are Catholics. The vital statistics for 1913 are quoted by Father Thurston, S.J.:

"... We find that in Limburg the crude birth-rate is 33.4, in North
Brabant it is 32.5, but in Friesland it is 24.3. Of course, this is not
the beginning and end of the matter. In North Brabant the death-rate is
16.36, in Limburg it is 15.28, in Friesland it is only 11.21, but the
fact remains that in the two Catholic provinces the natural increase is
16.17 and 18.15, while in the non-Catholic province of Friesland it is
13.15. Further, no one can doubt that in such densely populated
districts as North and South Holland and Gelderland the Catholics, who
number more than 25 per cent, of the inhabitants, exercise a
perceptible influence in raising the birth figures for the whole
kingdom. The results would be very different if the entire country
adopted Neo-Malthusian principles." [39]