“STRATFORD EVENING POST” MONDAY, OCTOBER 4 1926. EFFECT OF BIRTH CONTROL.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume LVIV, Issue 1, 4 October 1926, Page 4

“STRATFORD EVENING POST” MONDAY, OCTOBER 4 1926. EFFECT OF BIRTH CONTROL.

At last France is awakening to the fact that her modernity and social system are threatening her existence, as a leading nation, aiul in full realisation of what a restricted population means to her she is now passing laws'that should prove remedial. M. Isaac, president of the Council for the Study of Birthrate, speaking in Paris, expressed gratification that since the war the birth-rate in Franco has increased. In 1880, France contained 11.20 per cent, of the total population of Europe; in 1910 she held only 8.76 per cent, of the population. In 1800, France had a greater population than any other European country, save Russia. By 1910, she was out-stripped in population by Germany, Austria-Hungary, and the United Kingdom, and also by the United States. Since 18!X), the population of Franco has been almost stationary. That of many, on the other hand, has increased rapidly. To this cause is to a great extent attributable the French fear of German aggression. A big neighbour tends to become a suz-/> erain, if not a bully, of his smaller fellows. Owing to the war, Germany lost, a large slice of territory alid about six millions of population. France, however, still has only about two-thirds of Germany’s milieus. To bring about an increase of population the French remitted taxation and granted benefits to fathers of large families, somewhat analogous to those of the “jus triura liberorum,” the law of three children, in Roman times, and the sale of contraceptives was forbidden. If we may judge by the cable news from Paris these measures, supplemented by other steps, such as the formation of a League of the Fathers of Largo Families in France, have met with some success.

It is a dangerous tiling, however, to dogmatise on the causes of a rise or decline of population. How far a decline in tho birthrate in civilised countries is deliberately achieved, and how far it springs from other causes, it is impossible to say at present. There are some gloomy prophets who say that white civilisation is doomed because the fecundity of its best stocks— those with initiative, resolution, with a capacity to govern, and' a patriotism that looks into the future—is diminishing, and among these can be included, the United States’ where the proportion of births from -Anglo-Saxon. pa rentage • is- altogether out of • proportion with rate of increase of the brown and yellow races comprising tho American nation. 'The higher class or grade of people do not, on tho whole, have as numerous families as stocks of lower grades. At the same time, the survival rate of their offspring is higher, partly on account of tho better care that the best classes can afford for tboir children, partly because of the hereditary quality of a dominant class which has always tended to assert the will to live, even unconsciously, in the young children. In an address in Auckland. Father M'Carthv raised various ethical questions. Everyone must respect those who from sincere religious conviction Iveliove, as Father M‘Oar thy says, that voluntary birth-control is “a crime against humanity and q crime against the sovereign rights of God ” While respecting this conviction, millions of peonle in Christendom do not admit +lmt in this there is a recognisable sovereign right of God. Then argue tiiat JNaturc starves the children of men when they are too numerous as she starves sheep and oxen, and rabbits when they become too numerous. They argue that the greatest criminality of all is to bring a child into an already over-crowded land, where possible starvation or penury will bo his doom. The reply of tho sincere religious believer to this is that those who feel thus should live a life of celibacy., It is not likely that any unanimity will bo reached on this subject. “The attempt in civilised countries like France and Italy to maintain a rigid law without excommunicating a vast mass of the population produces a widespread system of moral evasion,” Such was the opinion of Bishop Gore, given before the Special Committee under tho Bishop of Winchester, avlioso report, “Tho Ethics of Birth-Control” was published last year. In that report tho canonical statement, scientifically speaking, is that of Lord Dawson of Penn, whoso conclusion was thus expressed: “I submit that in these days of smaller death rates there is no alternative between unfettered increase of the birthrate and birth, control.” To the argument that the only justifiable course for such as do not desire children <s celibacy, ho replied that this was “an impossible demand.” Dean Inge, in the preface to his “Outspoken Essays,” says: “Nothing can now prevent tho ultimate victory of birth control. It will lie one of the most momentous changes in the history of morals and civilisation.”

Advocates and partisans of birthcontrol, however, do harm, They mislead the ignorant and the impulsive. Religious conviction is the strongest force with multitudes, both Protestant and Catholic. Every individual must decide his own ethics in tins matter. The parallel between the present ago and InmArial Rome has often been drawn. Yet the evidence that voluntary birth-control was the real cause of the destruction of Imperial Home is not by any means conclusive. Home had a frontier big-

ger than that for which she could supply the true Roman stock. Mercenaries and the lower classes care naught IV'r the empire of to-morrow. Other causes were at work. It has been suggested by a Swedish biologist at Stockholm that the barbarian inroads on Rome were caused by a shortage in fish supply in the Baltic, due to a partial failure of the warm waters of the Gulf Stream to penetrate those areas. Fantastic as this may appear, it still indicates a truth, that the barbarians moved to quarters where the food supply was more reliable. But nature knows no mercy. The rain falls on all, and starvation or a lowered life standard overtakes the too densely populated country. There is a stern religion, the religion of Nature’s way. Sho does not argue, or listen to prayers; sho acts. No a priori assumptions can stay the oncoming of Nature’s facts. Man can arrive at truth, if ever, only by facing the facts in the scientific spirit.