Chapter II: Part 2

The writer, who has had occasion to witness the results of over-multiplication among the very poor, feels that it is only in fairness to them that they should be equipped with every possible means of improving their lot. At present one of the most important of such means is the creation of facilities by the Ministry of Health for the giving of information to those mothers who need it about how they may limit their families and space their children. The immediate social results of such a measure would unquestionably be good. The remote results are more open to doubt. And it is this doubt which renders it of the utmost importance to add that every form of pressure and persuasion be brought to bear on the other classes, to make them realize that it is morally incumbent on them, in the interests of the country and of the race, to have as many children as they can possibly afford, even at the expense of the minor luxuries of life.

Up till now no such pressure has been exerted, and most people regard it as a matter of moral indifference, whether, when married, they have children or not. The problem as to whether the general public, once it has been educated to realize the national importance of the question of having children, would act upon it and thereby avert the threat of a dwindling population is again one of great difficulty. Admittedly, the example set us by France is not encouraging. What is the likelihood of our following in her footsteps? It is a delicate and important question. The writer is of the opinion that our national character differs from that of the French in a way that would make us more responsive to such an appeal for children than the French have shown themselves to be. But again we are in the realm of conjecture, and each person is entitled to his opinion.

The fact remains, however, that as long as the advertisement now given to Birth Control is permitted to continue, its practice will become yearly more prevalent. Its spread will certainly not be limited by an attitude of official negativism towards it while the propaganda is allowed to continue unchecked.

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There remains the other process above distinguished as ‘dysgenic,’ the effect of which upon the quality of the race is probably as detrimental as the one just considered, namely, the nurture and perpetuation of the morally and physically unfit. This tendency can only possibly be met by some form of Eugenic legislation. The existing opposition to anything of the sort in this country probably springs from a deep-seated dislike of bureaucratic interference in people’s private lives, and is associated with a failure to realize the harmful consequences of the existing order. It is of interest, however, to observe that in America, where, in practice if not in theory, individual liberty is valued less highly than in this country, various enactments have been passed with a definitely Eugenic object. Thus in the State of Nebraska marriage is forbidden to anyone afflicted with venereal disease, and all applications for marriage licenses have to be accompanied by affidavits of freedom from such disease. Nobody acquainted with the nature of the infant mortality produced by congenital syphilis can fail to approve of this measure.

In 1895 the State of Connecticut forbade the marriage of epileptics and feeble-minded persons, under penalty of three years’ imprisonment. Everyone possessing knowledge of the Neurological Out-patients’ Department of any large hospital must realize the existing prevalence of epilepsy and appreciate how this hereditary disease may incapacitate and stultify its victims. Montana provides for the sterilizing of idiots, epileptics, feeble-minded and insane persons, which measure must again commend itself to those aware of how prolific such types can be if left unwatched. In males, sterilization can be effected by a very minor operation, the use of X-rays for this purpose being a procedure with regard to which there is still medical controversy.

The principle might even be extended to individuals who, by a record of crime or misdemeanour, prove themselves to belong to a type which the nation does not want perpetuated. The sterilization of the male leaves quite undisturbed his sexual function, though it destroys his power of reproduction. The infringement which it therefore involves of the liberty of the individual is far less than that made by the State when it takes it upon itself to hang a man. Yet the social benefit arising from the two measures cannot be compared. Though it is difficult at this stage to define the details of Eugenic legislation it seems likely that the physical and moral standard of the race could broadly be raised by such a qualitative Birth Control.

The number of emigrants which we are in a position to send to the Dominions each year is limited by difficulties of transport, and could never amount to more than a fraction of our present unemployment figure. There is further the important consideration that the Dominions themselves do not relish the idea of our regarding them as dumping grounds for our superfluous undesirables. The type of emigrant they want is a courageous, hardworking, physically healthy type, capable of initiative, of withstanding hardships without grumbling, and of making a good citizen. Such do not tend to become unemployed here, though, under very adverse circumstances, they often may. A decrease of our population need not therefore be opposed to our Imperial interests if, in the process, we raise the standard of the race and improve our national stock.

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What will be the bearings of such enlightened Birth Control upon the future? It will affect the Individual directly in his immediate relation to his family, and it will influence him indirectly through its effect upon the community as well as through the international relationships of the country to which he belongs. The international implications will be considered first, since they are the most far-reaching.

The most obvious of these is the connexion between unrestricted increase of population and wars. To what extent was the late war due to this cause, and to what extent has the world learnt from it the necessity of regulating such increase?

The causes of the late war were complex and are not yet wholly understood. A fact however stands out clearly now that we contemplate it in retrospect and now that changes in international feelings have forced upon us a consideration of the point of view of our late enemies. It is that the causes now recognized are essentially different from what those causes were represented to be in the war propaganda of the various belligerents.

It is to the interests of each belligerent to place the whole blame for a war upon its enemies and completely to exculpate itself. Thus in the late war both sides were convinced that they were fighting for Righteousness, Liberty, Justice, Law and Order, Civilization, etc., against enemies inspired by cruelty, subtlety, insatiable greed, jealousy and lust for world-power. When, however, we contemplate the war after a lapse of several years through an aftermath of much suffering and disillusionment, we realize that it was the product of historical causes and racial antipathies and of certain social and economic phenomena rather than of any unequal partition of moral qualities.

Before the war, Great Britain was the most powerful nation in the world and was naturally jealous of any other nation that coveted, or aspired to usurp, her enviable status.

Russia found herself in a condition of acute social instability, momentarily threatened by the event which in 1917 cast her beyond the pale of western civilization. To Russia the war came as a happening which could dissipate the revolutionary ferments, mobilize her refractory workers into the army, and, through the tremendous appeal of a national crusade, sidetrack the forces of anarchy in precisely the way that those forces were sidetracked in Ireland in 1914. Had the war been won quickly――as there were grounds for hoping when it began――the Czar would probably still be on the throne of an enlarged and yet more powerful Russia.

By the events of the last hundred years Germany had been elevated from a position of relative unimportance to that of the most highly organized and perfectly industrialized power in the world. In achieving this promotion she had earned the venomous hatred, born of her humiliation, of France, and the slowly growing, disquieting suspicion of Great Britain.

Conscious of her growing industrial strength, becoming restive within the frontiers which confined her swelling population, aware of the hostility of her neighbours, and never allowed to forget that her kingdom had been built upon the sword, the youthful soul of Germany found, in her Emperor, a fitting symbol for her aspirations. He was the creation of her mood, and together with the party of which he was the mouthpiece led her to her downfall.

It would not be a fair statement to assert that population pressure in Germany was the cause of the war. It was unquestionably a part-cause and a predisposing cause, as it was of migration in prehistoric times and of most wars since. But it was here complicated by other factors both inside and outside Germany.

The universal desire to avert a similar catastrophe in the future has materialized in the League of Nations. It is hoped that through its agency many precipitating causes of war will be eliminated. By it provocation will be made more difficult and commitment more perilous. But the essential predisposing cause, that of over-multiplication, remains unassailed. Like some dull-witted monster it is left to wax in strength and malignancy within its fetters, till at last, no longer to be denied, it will break all bounds, turn, and rend the world. From the late war no lesson as to the importance of population control has been learnt. Will another war be necessary to teach us this lesson?

Earlier in the book reference was made to the possibility of a war between Japan and either America or ourselves. Though this contingency is being thought out in detail by the naval authorities of all three countries, care is taken in diplomatic circles to assert that such practical measures as the equipment of Singapore imply no unfriendly or suspicious attitude toward Japan. Few people, however, are deceived by these utterances. The mutual fear and distrust is growing and will probably continue to grow. There is little doubt, that, if this war comes about, its essential cause, the increase of Japanese in excess of the power of maintenance of their country, will be obscured by that outburst of vilification of the enemy and glorification of self which is now demanded by popular sentiment in the conduct of wars. Yet this cause will remain here incomparably the most important of the predisposing causes. After such a war will there remain any vestige of civilization to profit from the hard-won lesson?

The principal aim of Soviet Russia to-day is the spread of her communistic principles throughout the world. The chief obstacles to this are the firmly entrenched and powerful capitalism of the United States, and the more diffused and essentially more vulnerable capitalistic organisations of the British Empire. These last the Russians are doing their best to undermine now. A second world war would give them a long-coveted opportunity. Realizing that prolonged wars and the social unrest that follows them are the soil from which revolutions most readily spring, Russia would probably associate herself with Japan. The secret treaty between the two countries whose aspirations and political ideals have otherwise little in common, gives a premonition of this. By the time a war comes it is possible that the exploitation of China by Japan will be more complete, and the effects of anti-foreign propaganda, carried on by Russia, more far-reaching. The increase of anti-British feeling in India, also stimulated by Russia, will co-operate to unify Asia and European Russia in a solid block, determined to shake off the yoke of the Western Powers and of America.

Such a war could never be conclusive, however prolonged. The vast length of the fighting front, the colossal numbers of active belligerents, and the enhanced destructiveness of war would probably lead, after initial successes, to a collapse of the organized fighting forces of the West. The seeds of revolution in Europe, by then more deeply sown, would germinate, and the present social order would come to an end. The continent would then embark upon a new phase of its history, with the first chapter steeped in the bloodshed of revolution, and founded upon the ruins of our industrial civilization. The centre of civilization might then shift to the southern hemisphere where to-day there is less to destroy.

The fact remains that if the price that humanity will have to pay for learning to regulate its over-multiplication is to be a second world war――the much talked of war, this time, between East and West――it is doubtful if there will be left a civilization capable of learning the lesson. It seems worth while, therefore, to try to put the principle into effect before we are taught its necessity in such a way. To this there are at present two obstacles, namely the nature of certain religions and the criterion of national evaluation that is still prevalent.

The first obstacle rests in the fact that two powerful religions have not adapted themselves to the changes of human relationships imposed by the unification through science of the human race. These religions remain with their eyes fixed either on the next world or on the exclusive welfare of the tribe.

By the Catholic Church a mode of behaviour is imposed calculated to achieve salvation in the next world irrespective of its effects on this one. Omitting from consideration, as probably unjust, the motive of wishing to increase the number of its adherents, with which the Roman Catholic Church has been charged by reason of its attitude towards Birth Control, there remains a motive arising from a theory of a relation between salvation in the next world and certain modes of behaviour in this. Contraception is condemned because it is held to incur damnation. It is not condemned because it leads to social injustice, to wars, to human suffering. The point is that it is still condemned in spite of its leading away from these things. It is therefore devoutly to be hoped that in the event of the population of any Catholic country at any time in the future expanding to proportions that threaten the peace of the world, the Pope will see his way to modify the Church’s attitude in the matter before it is too late. Failure to do so would result in the depressing spectacle of the leader of the religion of ‘Peace and Goodwill’ among men deliberately refusing to take a step to avert war.

The second type of religion is represented in Japan and is tribal in the sense that it is avowedly concerned with the glorification of the Japanese, irrespective of the consequences to the world that this may involve. In its object of elevating Japan to the status of a first class power the cult of revived Shinto has succeeded admirably and has proved itself, in several wars, to be a splendid fighting creed. The present increase of the population of Japan by 700,000 a year is wholly in accordance with its precepts. Again we may devoutly hope that it will not overreach itself and plunge Japan, as well as the rest of us, into a world war after which we would probably cease to exist as civilized countries. It is, of course, obvious that a modification of Japanese policy where Birth Control is concerned would be welcomed with inexpressible relief by the rest of the world.

The militancy of Mohammedanism will probably have little effect on the future of the world, because Mohammedan countries are at present poorly organized for extensive modern war. The Church of England is more concerned with the social and international implications of religion than any other, and the above remarks have little relevance to it.

If, therefore, the cataclysm above contemplated is to be averted the first necessity would seem to be a revision of the standards of existing religions, in consideration of the unification of the human race, so as to accord with a formula of something of this sort: That is good and morally right which will promote the general happiness and goodwill of humanity, and the harmony of the world. It is clear that action leading to the limitation of over-multiplication would in this sense be good and in accordance with religion.

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The second obstacle to the realization of a control of population is the standard by which the merit of a nation is now generally appraised, and to which most nations aspire. This merit is largely estimated in terms of power of offence and defence. This is a bad criterion and should be altered for a better one which will now be considered.

Earlier in the book reference was made to a biological argument against contraception, consideration of which was deferred. This argument holds that in so far as reproduction is a primary biological function, a thwarting of that function is not only unnatural but anti-biological. This view has a certain plausibility but does not stand close scrutiny. The criterion of biological value or fitness is essentially racial, not individual. That is biologically good which will improve or benefit the race, that is bad which will harm or weaken it.

Under stable conditions of racial equilibrium there is a reasonable expectation that instincts and structures which have had survival value in the past will continue to have such value in the future. But during moments of crisis, at those turning points in the history of living things when new forms appear, such a presumption is quite unjustified. Thus if we picture to ourselves, allegorically, an event which probably took many thousands of years to accomplish, we might imagine the comments of a conservative piscine critic upon the emergence of the first Dipnoid from some muddy river on to land.

The development of fore and hind limbs from fins, of lung from swim-bladder, and of instincts appropriate to the new medium, would strike all conservative fishes as highly immoral deviations from that biological tradition which had given stability to the glorious race of fishes. Nothing could seem more a-biological. Similarly with the development of fur and feathers and of the parental instinct, all of which were probably, in part at any rate, invested with survival value by the spell of cold which followed the Secondary period, and which perhaps conditioned the substitution of birds and mammals for the hitherto ubiquitous reptile as dominant vertebrates on the earth. From the point of view of the conservative reptile such changes would appear highly anti-biological. In moments of racial crisis, therefore, it is dangerous to generalize as to what is biologically good from past experience alone. In the past a high degree of fertility has been, for most species, a biologically valuable asset. It does not follow that it will continue to be so for the human race. In fact there are good reasons for supposing that it will not.

The human race is now passing through a biological crisis unprecedented in the history of life. It has achieved a mastery over nature such that mankind is now economically unified throughout the world by the astounding feats of intercommunication and transport. But as yet the human race has achieved little ethical unification. It is directly in the interests of the race that such unification should take place, and all things which promote it may therefore be considered biologically good. And of those things a restriction of human fertility is one of the most important.

What then is to be our biological criterion of racial fitness and our standard for judging of a nation’s merit?

It is clear that our biological criterion must be racial rather than individual. Division of labour and differentiation of function are carried to such lengths in civilized societies that it does not seem possible to hold up any individual type as an ideal of biological fitness. Qualities which, to the solitary animal, would irrevocably spell extinction may for the gregarious animal have the highest survival value. Thus no attribute would be more irremediably fatal to a non-social animal than sterility. Yet the sterility of 999 out of 1000 female bees in the community of the hive has endowed the species with a vitality and a biological importance such that it has largely conditioned the appearance on the planet of many kinds of entomophilous flowers. Our biological criterion must therefore, with our standard of merit, be social rather than individual, and the following general outline is suggested.

The population of each country should be proportionate to its resources. The numerical adjustment should be such that there be no unemployment and that individual productivity be highest without idlers at either end of the social scale. The physical average of the race should be good with no congenital diseases of mind or body and with the minimum of other diseases, and of crime. There should be a high average standard of comfort, self-respect and happiness, and a high moral standard of honesty, tolerance, and kindliness. One would hope for a wide prevalence of that ‘joie de vivre’ and contentment which is doubtless largely temperamental in origin and which contributes more to an individual’s happiness than any number of worldly possessions can ever do. And the social cleavage between classes, and the now stupendous discrepancies between the very rich and the very poor should be reduced to a minimum. Such conditions all would wish generally distributed. It is a question whether a uniformly high degree of intelligence should be equally ubiquitous. In every community, primitive or civilized, an immense amount of crude physical labour has to be done. The soil has to be tilled, someone has to dig coal and iron out of the ground, and endless other kinds of manual work have to be performed. It is doubtful whether the possession of a very high degree of intelligence would make such workers happier or more efficient. But whatever we may individually feel about this point, we would all wish such workers to be healthy, happy, well housed, contented with their lot, fond of their children, and both appreciated by, and on good terms with, the rest of the community.

And obviously it is a condition of this sort which an enlightened Birth Control could help to achieve.

The above is intended both to be a criterion of biological fitness for the human race, and a more satisfactory standard of national evaluation than the one that is in vogue to-day. It will be noted that there is nothing in it about capacity for wars. If we could substitute some such standard in place of the armament standard by which to grade countries in an order of merit, we should be in a better position to avert the catastrophe of another world war than we are at present. According to such a standard the country most deserving of admiration, respect and imitation to-day would probably be Switzerland. Knowing that she cannot defend herself against her powerful neighbours, she does not aspire to large armies. When other countries can, by a simultaneous control of population, realize a similar security, it will be open to them to follow in her footsteps. The ideal may not appeal to the romantic, but much that passes for romance is frequently pernicious nonsense, like the sentiment by which war is glorified in the eyes of many women and elderly men who have never participated in it.

From an international equilibrium based upon a modification of religions as above suggested and upon an alteration in our standards of national evaluation, social harmony would follow fairly readily. It is unlikely that the antagonism between capital and labour will be much affected by a control of population beyond removing that source of social unrest which is furnished by a large body of unemployed. It remains doubtful, however, if the essential political issue will be much modified by a solution of the unemployment problem. The psychological forces which give the Labour party its driving power are not such as to produce the fullest economic prosperity in this country; but none the less they demand and must ultimately receive satisfaction. The best that can be hoped is that those forces will gradually be appeased, and will not lead to bloodshed, too great a dislocation of trade, or too drastic a loss of international status.

The gain to the individual following the general application of knowledge of Birth Control will be twofold. In the first place parents will be able to space their children in accordance with their physical and financial resources; in the second they will feel more confident of producing healthy well-balanced children, untainted by disease, than they can feel at present. Their children would further be welcomed by the community, and their future would be assured.

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Such are the bearings of an enlightened Birth Control upon the future. It is obvious that such advantages could only be gained by slow and laborious degrees. The writer is far from the opinion that the application of his views will immediately transform the world into a Utopia. He is convinced however that if the existing form of civilization is to have any permanence, the necessity for controlling population will have to be realized and striven for by all educated people.

In practice, the ‘plea,’ referred to in the sub-title, is that the Ministry of Health should give the subject of contraception its sanction. In May of 1924 a petition supported by twenty-two Labour members of Parliament was presented to the Minister of Health by a deputation of eighteen persons, some of them well known, requesting that official permission be accorded to doctors in charge of Welfare Centres to give information on Birth Control to such working women as desired it and were considered fit for it. Though the existing technique is not wholly satisfactory it is avowedly worth something, having already proved of great help to many women.

This permission was refused in deference, it seems, to ecclesiastical opinion, to certain reactionary political forces which, in the House, were opposed to it, and to popular prejudice. It is possible that by the time this book is published the Ministry of Health may have changed its attitude. At present, however, information on contraception can only be obtained from a few private organizations such as those of the Malthusian League in Walworth and Kensington, of Dr Stopes in Holloway, and from another centre in the Edgware Road. The Malthusian League has worked quietly, unostentatiously, and, so far as its means allow, with the utmost effectiveness in one of the poorest quarters of London. For what it has done there can be nothing but praise.

But however valuable the work of these organizations, they cannot possibly meet the requirements of our large slums, where such information as exists is handed about by irresponsible midwives and gamps, often with the worst results. It also seems desirable to the writer to restrict the often vulgar publicity by which this subject is frequently attended, and to which attention was drawn when the objections to Birth Control were reviewed. After the first blast of criticism which it would evoke from the baser organs of the press, such a sanction from the Ministry of Health would render further newspaper advertisement of Birth Control superfluous. If it does not cease of its own accord steps should be taken to suppress it. How best can this sanction be obtained?

Clearly through an appeal from the medical profession. An expression of unanimity, or relative unanimity, from doctors in this country as to the desirability of this sanction would constitute an argument which the Ministry of Health could not easily ignore. If the sanction were thus obtained it would be open to those medical men who had approved the measure in this country to invite their colleagues in other countries to follow in our footsteps. It would seem best to begin with Germany and America, where there is reason to suppose that such an appeal would meet with response. If support were forthcoming from these countries, others might be approached――such as Japan, Italy and perhaps India, in which last the suffering caused by an excessive birth rate and a high early death rate is immense and almost wholly avoidable.

In this way the medical profession in whose hands the health of each community lies would take the first step in the direction of an international control of population, and would thereby lay the basis for a genuine and permanent world-peace.

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Transcriber’s Notes:

――Text in italics is enclosed by underscores (_italics_).

――Punctuation and spelling inaccuracies were silently corrected.

――Archaic and variable spelling has been preserved.

――Variations in hyphenation and compound words have been preserved.