The Fertility of the Unfit Part 3

There are as yet no facts to prove that such weakening has taken or is taking place, nor are there facts to prove that population has in any way suffered from this cause.

If such a law obtained, and resulted in a diminished birth-rate, the future of the race would be the gloomiest possible. An inexorable law would determine that there could be no mental evolution, for the best of the race would cease to propagate their kind. All who would arrive at this standard of mental growth would become barren. And against this there could be no remedy.

One of the main contentions of this work is that the best have to a large extent ceased to propagate their kind, but it is not maintained that this is the result of a biological law, over which there is no control. It can be safely claimed that to Malthus's three checks to population--vice, misery, and moral restraint, the demographic phenomena of a century have added no other. The third check, however, moral restraint, must be held to include all restraint voluntarily placed by men and women on the free and natural exercise of their powers of procreation.

Malthus used the term "moral" in this connection, not so much in relation to the _motive_ for the restraint, but in relation to the result, viz., the limitation of the family. The "moral restraint" of Malthus meant to him, restraint from marriage only, chiefly because of the inability to support a family. It implied marriage delayed until there was reasonable hope that the normal family, four in number, could be comfortably supported, continence in the mean time being a.s.sumed.

Bonar interpreting Malthus says (p. 53) that impure celibacy falls under the head of "vice," and not of "moral restraint."

To Malthus, vice and misery, as checks to population, were an evil greatly to be deplored in civilized man, and not only did he declare that moral restraint obtained as a check, but he also declared it a virtue to be advocated and encouraged in the interest of society, as well as of the individual.

His moral restraint was delayed marriage with continence. He trusted to the moral force of the s.e.xual pa.s.sion in a continent man to stimulate to work, to thrift, to marriage; to work and save so that he may enter the marriage state with a reasonable prospect of being able to support a wife and family.

Malthus never antic.i.p.ated the changes and developments of recent years.

He advised moral restraint as a preventive measure in the hope that vice and misery, as checks would be superseded, and that no more would be born into the world than there was ample food to supply. He believed that moral restraint was the check of civilized man, and as civilization proceeded, this check would replace the others, and prevent absolutely the population pressing upon the limits of subsistence.

He saw in moral restraint only self-denial, constant continence, and entertained not a doubt, that the generative instinct would be cheated of its natural fruit. The pa.s.sion for marriage is so strong (thought Malthus) that there is no fear for the race; it cannot be over-controlled.

The gratification of the s.e.xual instinct, and procreation were the same thing in the mind of Malthus.

But this is not so.

A physiological law makes it possible, in a large proportion of strictly normal women, for union to take place without fertilisation. If it were possible to maintain an intermittent restraint in strict conformity with this law, it would control considerably the population of the world.

It is easier to practice intermittent than to practice constant restraint.

It is just here that Malthus failed to antic.i.p.ate the future. Malthus believed that "moral restraint" would lessen the marriage rate, but would have no direct effect on the fecundity of marriage.

A man would not put upon himself the self-denial and restraint, which abstinence from marriage implied, for a longer period than he could help.

The greater the national prosperity, therefore, the higher the birth-rate. But prosperity keeps well in advance of the birth-rate; in other words, population, though it still _tends_ to, does not actually _press_ upon the food supply.

If the moral restraint of Malthus be extended so as to include intermittent moral restraint within the marriage bond, then, under one or other, or all of his three checks, vice, misery, and moral restraint, will be found the explanation of the remarkable demographic phenomena of recent years.

_Misery_ will cover deaths from starvation and poverty, the limitation of births from abortion due to hards.h.i.+p, from deaths due to improper food, clothing, and housing; and emigration to avoid hards.h.i.+p.

_Vice_ will cover criminal abortions, limitation of births from venereal disease, deaths from intemperance, etc., and artificial checks to conception. Malthus included artificial checks of this kind under vice (7 ed. of Essay, p. 9.n.), though they have some claim to be considered under moral restraint. But the question will be referred to in a later chapter.

_Moral restraint_ will cover those checks to conception, voluntarily practised in order to escape the burden and responsibility of rearing children--continence, delayed marriage, and intermittent restraint.

No other checks are directly operative.

Misgovernment and the unequal distribution of wealth and land affect population indirectly only, and can only act through one or other or all of the checks already mentioned.

CHAPTER III.

DECLINING BIRTH-RATE.

_Decline of birth-rates rapid and persistent.--Food cost in New Zealand.--Relation of birth-rate to prosperity before and after 1877.--Neo-Malthusian propaganda.--Marriage rates and fecundity of marriage.--Statistics of Hearts of Oak Friendly Society.--Deliberate desire of parents to limit family increase._

It is not the purpose of this work to follow any further the population problem so far as it relates to deaths and emigration. Attention will be concentrated on births, and the influences which control their rates.

A rapid and continuous decline in the birth-rate of Northern and Western Europe, in contravention of all known biological and economic laws, has filled demographists with amazement.

A table attached here shows the decline very clearly. According to Parkes ("Practical Hygiene," p. 516), the usual food of the soldier may be expressed as follows:--

Articles. Daily quant.i.ty in oz. av.

Meat 12.0 Bread 24.0 Potatoes 16.0 Other vegetables 8.0 Milk 3.25 Sugar 1.33 Salt 0.25 Coffee 0.33 Tea 0.16 Total 65.32 b.u.t.ter 2.4--(Moleschott.)

[Ill.u.s.tration]

The New Zealand Official Year Book gives the following as the average prices of food for the years mentioned:--

1877 1887 1897 1901 s d. s d. s d. s d.

Bread per lb. 0 2 0 1 0 1 0 1 Beef per lb. 0 5 0 3 0 3 0 5 Mutton per lb. 0 4 0 2 0 2 0 4 Sugar per lb. 0 5 0 3 0 2 0 2 Tea per lb. 3 0 2 3 2 0 1 10 b.u.t.ter (fresh) per lb. 1 3 1 0 0 8 0 11 Cheese (col'n'l) per lb. 0 10 0 5 0 6 0 6 Milk per qt. 0 4 0 3 0 3 0 3

The official returns give the average daily wage for artisans for the years 1877, 1887, 1897, and 1901 as 11s., 10s. 6d., 9s. 9d., and 10s.

3d., respectively.

The weekly rations (the standard food supply for soldiers--Parkes's) purchaseable by the weekly wages for these years respectively are 11.1, 14.3, 16, and 12.4; _i.e._, the average weekly wage of an artisan in constant employment in 1877 would purchase rations for 11.1 persons, in 1887 for 14.3 persons, in 1897 for 16 persons, and in 1901 for 12.4 persons.

Up to the year 1877, the birth-rate in England and Wales conformed to the law of Malthus, and kept pace with increasing prosperity; but, after that year, and right up to the present time, the nation's prosperity has gone on advancing at a phenomenal rate _pari pa.s.su_ with an equally phenomenal decline in the number of births per 1000 of the population.

Now, it is a remarkable coincidence that in this very year, 1877, the Neo-Malthusians began to make their influence felt, and spread amongst all cla.s.ses of the people a knowledge of preventive checks to conception.

People were encouraged to believe that large families were an evil. A great many, no doubt, had already come to this conclusion; for there is no more common belief amongst the working cla.s.ses, at least, than that large families are a cause of poverty and hards.h.i.+p. And this is even more true than it was in the days of the Neo-Malthusians, for then child and women labour was a source of gain to the family, and a poor man's earnings were often considerably augmented thereby.

The uniform decrease of the birth-rate is a matter of statistics, and admits of no dispute. It has been least rapid in the German Empire, and most rapid in New Zealand.

With the declining birth-rate the marriage-rate must be considered.

Malthus would have expected a declining birth-rate to be the natural result of a declining marriage-rate, and a declining marriage-rate to be due to the practice of moral restraint, rendered imperative because of hard times, and a difficulty in obtaining work, wages, and food.

Given the purchasing power of a people, Malthus would have estimated, according to his laws, the marriage-rate, and, given the marriage-rate, he would have estimated the birth-rate.

But antic.i.p.ations in this direction, based on Malthus's laws, have not been realised. The purchasing power of the people we know has enormously increased; the marriage-rate has not increased, it has, in fact, slightly decreased; but the birth-rate per marriage, or the fecundity of marriage, has decreased in a remarkable degree.

In "Industrial Democracy," by Sydney and Beatrice Webb (p. 637), the following occurs:--"The Hearts of Oak Friendly Society is the largest centralised Benefit Society in this country, having now over two hundred thousand adult male members. No one is admitted who is not of good character, and in receipt of wages of twenty-four s.h.i.+llings a week or upwards. The members.h.i.+p consists, therefore, of the artisan and skilled operative cla.s.s, with some intermixture of the small shopkeeper, to the exclusion of the mere labourer. Among its provisions, is the "Lying-in Benefit," a payment of thirty s.h.i.+llings for each confinement of a member's wife."

From 1866 to 1880 the proportion of lying-in claims to members.h.i.+p slowly rose from 21.76 to 24.78 per 100. From 1880 to the present time it has continuously declined, until now it is only between 14 and 15 per 100.

The following table (from the annual reports of the Committee of Management of the Hearts of Oak Friendly Society, and those of the Registrar-General) shows, for each year from 1866 to 1895 inclusive, the number of members in the Hearts of Oak Friendly Society at the beginning of the year, the number of those who received Lying-in Benefit during the year, the percentage of these to the members.h.i.+p at the beginning of the year, and the birth-rate per thousand of the whole population of England and Wales.

HEARTS OF OAK FRIENDLY SOCIETY.