The Task of Social Hygiene Part 8

[99] Davidson, "The Growth of the French-Canadian Race," _Annals of the American Academy_, September, 1896.

[100] T.A. Coghlan, _The Decline of the Birth-rate of New South Wales_, 1903. The New South Wales statistics are specially valuable as the records contain many particulars (such as age of parents, period since marriage, and number of children) not given in English or most other records.

[101] C. Hamburger, "Kinderzahl und Kindersterblichkeit," _Die Neue Generation_, August, 1909.

[102] Looked at in another way, it may be said that if a natural increase, as ascertained by subtracting the death-rate from the birth-rate, of 10 to 15 per cent be regarded as normal, then, taking so far as possible the figures for 1909, the natural increase of England and Scotland, of Germany, of Italy, of Austria and Hungary, of Belgium, is normal; the natural increase of New South Wales, of Victoria, of South Australia, of New Zealand, is abnormally high (though in new countries such increase may not be undesirable) while the natural increase of France, of Spain, and of Ireland is abnormally low. Such a method of estimation, of course, entirely leaves out of account the question of the social desirability of the process by which the normal increase is secured.

[103] Johannsen, _Ja.n.u.s_, 1905.

[104] Rubin, "A Measure of Civilization," _Journal of the Royal Statistical Society_, March, 1897. "The lowest stage of civilization,"

he points out, "is to go forward blindly, which in this connection means to bring into the world a great number of children which must, in great proportion, sink into the grave. The next stage of civilization is to see the danger and to keep clear of it. The highest stage of civilization is to see the danger and overcome it." Europe in the past and various countries in the present ill.u.s.trate the first stage; France ill.u.s.trates the second stage; the third stage is that towards which we are striving to move to-day.

[105] Baines, "The Recent Growth of Population in Western Europe,"

_Journal of the Royal Statistical Society_, December, 1909.

[106] Various facts and references are given by Havelock Ellis, _The Nationalization of Health_, chap. XIV.

[107] These are the figures given by the chief j.a.panese authority, Professor Takano, _Journal of the Royal Statistical Society_, July, 1910, p. 738.

[108] E.A. Ross, "The Race Fibre of the Chinese," _Popular Science Monthly_, October, 1911. According to another competent and fairly concordant estimate, the infantile death-rate of China is 90 per cent.

Of the female infants, probably about 1 in 10 is intentionally destroyed.

[109] J.J. Matignon, "La Mere et l'Enfant en Chine," _Archives d'Anthropologie Criminelle_, October to November, 1909.

[110] a.r.s.ene Dumont, for instance, points out (_Depopulation et Civilization_, p. 116) that the very early marriages and the reckless fertility of the Chinese cannot fail to cease as soon as the people adopt European ways.

[111] The confident estimates of the future population of the world which are from time to time put forward on the basis of the present birth-rate are quite worthless. A brilliantly insubstantial fabric of this kind, by B.L. Putnam Weale (_The Conflict of Colour_, 1911), has been justly criticized by Professor Weatherley (_Popular Science Monthly_, November, 1911).

[112] It is sometimes convenient to use the term "Neo-Malthusianism" to indicate the voluntary limitation of the family, but it must always be remembered that Malthus would not have approved of Neo-Malthusianism, and that Neo-Malthusian practices have nothing to do with the theory of Malthus. They would not be affected could that theory be conclusively proved or conclusively disproved.

[113] We even find the demand that bachelors and spinsters shall be taxed.

This proposal has been actually accepted (1911) by the Landtag of the little Princ.i.p.ality of Reuss, which proposes to tax bachelors and spinsters over thirty years of age. Putting aside the arguable questions as to whether a State is ent.i.tled to place such pressure on its citizens, it must be pointed out that it is not marriage but the child which concerns the State. It is possible to have children without marriage, and marriage does not ensure the procreation of children.

Therefore it would be more to the point to tax the childless. In that case, it would be necessary to remit the tax in the case of unmarried people with children, and to levy it in the case of married people without children. But it has further to be remembered that not all persons are fitted to have sound children, and as unsound children are a burden and not a benefit to the State, the State ought to reward rather than to fine those conscientious persons who refrain from procreation when they are too poor, or with too defective a heredity, to be likely to produce, or to bring up, sound children. Moreover, some persons are sterile, and thorough medical investigation would be required before they could fairly be taxed. As soon as we begin to a.n.a.lyse such a proposal we cannot fail to see that, even granting that the aim of such legislation is legitimate and desirable, the method of attaining it is thoroughly mischievous and unjustifiable.

[114] J.G. Engelmann, "Decreasing Fecundity," _Philadelphia Medical Journal_, January 18, 1902.

[115] It has, further, been frequently denied that Neo-Malthusian practices can affect Roman Catholic countries, since the Church is precluded from approving of them. That is true. But it is also true that, as Lagneau long since pointed out, the Protestants of Europe have increased at more than double the annual rate of the Catholics, though this relations.h.i.+p has now ceased to be exact. Dumont states (_Depopulation et Civilisation_, chap. XVIII) that there is not the slightest reason to suppose that (apart from the question of poverty) the faithful have more children than the irreligious; moreover, in dealing with its more educated members, it is not the policy of the Church to make indiscreet inquiries (see Havelock Ellis, _Studies in the Psychology of s.e.x_, Vol. VI, "s.e.x in Relation to Society," p. 590). A Catholic bishop is reported to have warned his clergy against referring in their Lent sermons to the voluntary restriction of conception, remarking that an excess of rigour in this matter would cause the Church to lose half her flock. The fall in the birth-rate is as marked in Catholic as in Protestant countries; the Catholic communities in which this is not the case are few, and placed in exceptional circ.u.mstances.

It must be remembered, moreover, that the Church enjoins celibacy on its clergy, and that celibacy is practically a Malthusian method. It is not easy while preaching practical Malthusianism to the clergy to spend much fervour in preaching against practical Neo-Malthusianism to the laity.

[116] McLean, "The Declining Birth-rate in Australia," _International Medical Journal of Australasia_, 1904.

[117] Thus in France the low birth-rate is a.s.sociated with a high infantile death-rate, which has not yet been appreciably influenced by the movement of puericulture in France. In England also, at the end of the last century, the declining birth-rate was accompanied by a rising infantile death-rate, which is now, however, declining under the influence of greater care of child-life.

[118] Sidney Webb, _Times_, October 11 and 16, 1906; also _Popular Science Monthly_, 1906, p. 526.

[119] It is important to remember the distinction between "fecundity" and "fertility." A woman who has one child has proved that she is fecund, but has not proved that she is fertile. A woman with six children has proved that she is not only fecund but fertile.

[120] They have been worked out by C.J. Lewis and J. Norman Lewis, _Natality and Fecundity_, 1905.

[121] Newsholme and Stevenson, _op. cit._; Rubin and Westergaard, _Statistik der Ehen_, 1890, p. 95.

[122] D. Heron, "On the Relation of Fertility in Man to Social Status,"

_Drapers' Company Research Memoirs_, No. 1, 1906.

[123] The recognition of this relations.h.i.+p must not be regarded as an attempt unduly to narrow down the causation of changes in the birth-rate. The great complexity of the causes influencing the birth-rate is now fairly well recognized, and has, for instance, been pointed out by Goldscheid, _Hoherentwicklung und Menschenokonomie_, Vol.

I, 1911.

[124] In a paper read at the Brunswick Meeting of the German Anthropological Society (_Correspondenzblatt_ of the Society, November, 1898); a great many facts concerning the fecundity of women among savages in various parts of the world are brought together by Ploss and Bartels, _Das Weib_, Vol I, chap. XXIV.

[125] The proportion of doctors to the population is very small, and the people still have great confidence in their quacks and witch-doctors.

The elementary rules of sanitation are generally neglected, water supplies are polluted, filth is piled up in the streets and the courtyards, as it was in England and Western Europe generally until a century ago, and the framing of regulations or the incursions of the police have little effect on the habits of the people. Neglect of the ordinary precautions of cleanliness is responsible for the wide extension of syphilis by the use of drinking vessels, towels, etc., in common. Not only is typhoid prevalent in nearly every province of Russia, but typhus, which is peculiarly the disease of filth, overcrowding, and starvation, and has long been practically extinct in England, still flourishes and causes an immense mortality. The workers often have no homes and sleep in the factories amidst the machinery, men and women together; their food is insufficient, and the hours of labour may vary from twelve to fourteen. When famine occurs these conditions are exaggerated, and various epidemics ravage the population.

[126] It must, however, be remembered that in small and unstable communities a considerable margin for error must be allowed, as the crude birth-rate is unduly raised by an afflux of immigrants at the reproductive age.

[127] a.r.s.ene Dumont, _Depopulation et Civilisation_, 1890, chap. VI. The nature of the restraint on fertility has been well set forth by Dr.

Bushee ("The Declining Birth-rate and its Causes," _Popular Science Monthly_, August, 1903), mainly in the terms of Dumont's "social capillarity" theory.

[128] Even Dr. Newsholme, usually so cautious and reliable an investigator in this field, has been betrayed into a reference in this connection (_The Declining Birth-rate_, 1911, p. 41) to the "increasing rarity of altruism," though in almost the next paragraph he points out that the large families of the past were connected with the fact that the child was a profitable a.s.set, and could be sent to work when little more than an infant. The "altruism" which results in crus.h.i.+ng the minds and bodies of others in order to increase one's own earnings is not an "altruism"

which we need desire to perpetuate. The beneficial effect of legislation against child-labour in reducing an unduly high birth-rate has often been pointed out.

[129] It may suffice to take a single point. Large families involve the birth of children at very short intervals. It has been clearly shown by Dr. R.J. Ewart ("The Influence of Parental Age on Offspring," _Eugenics Review_, October, 1911) that children born at an interval of less than two years after the birth of the previous child, remain, even when they have reached their sixth year, three inches shorter and three pounds lighter than first-born children.

[130] For instance, Goldscheid, in _Hoherentwicklung und Menschenokonomie_; it is also, on the whole, the conclusion of Newsholme, though expressed in an exceedingly temperate manner, in his _Declining Birth-rate_.

[131] If, however, our birth-rate fanatics should hear of the results obtained at the experimental farm at Roseville, California, by Professor Silas Wentworth, who has found that by placing ewes in a field under the power wires of an electric wire company, the average production of lambs is more than doubled, we may antic.i.p.ate trouble in many hitherto small families. Their predecessors insisted, in the cause of religion and morals, on burning witches; we must not be surprised if our modern fanatics, in the same holy cause, clamour for a law compelling all childless women to live under electric wires.

[132] J. Holt Schooling, "The English Marriage Rate," _Fortnightly Review_, June, 1901.

[133] G. Udny Yule, "Changes in the Marriage-and Birth-rate in England,"

_Journal of the Royal Statistical Society_, March, 1906.

[134] At an earlier period Hooker had investigated the same subject without coming to any very decisive conclusions ("Correlation of the Marriage-rate with Trade," _Journ. Statistical Soc._, September, 1901).

Minor fluctuations in marriage and in trade per head, he found, tend to be in close correspondence, but on the whole trade has risen and the marriage-rate has fallen, probably, Hooker believed, as the result of the gradual deferment of marriage.

[135] The higher standard need not be, among the ma.s.s of the population, of a very exalted character, although it marks a real progress.

Newsholme and Stevenson (_op. cit._) term it a higher "standard of comfort." The decline of the birth-rate, they say, "is a.s.sociated with a general raising of the standard of comfort, and is an expression of the determination of the people to secure this greater comfort."

[136] Ploss, _Das Weib_, Vol. I, chap. XX.

[137] It must not, however, be a.s.sumed that the rural immigrants are in the ma.s.s better suited to urban life than the urban natives. It is probable that, notwithstanding their energy and robustness, the immigrants are less suited to urban conditions than the natives.

Consequently a process of selection takes place among the immigrants, and the survivors become, as it were, immunized to the poisons of urban life. But this immunization is by no means necessarily a.s.sociated with any high degree of nervous vigour or general physical development.

[138] Havelock Ellis, _A Study of British Genius_, pp. 22, 43.

[139] "National Health: a Soldier's Study," _Contemporary Review_, January, 1903. The Reports of the Inspector-General of Recruiting are said to show that the recruits are every year smaller, lighter, and narrower-chested.

[140] This has been well ill.u.s.trated during the past forty years in the flouris.h.i.+ng county of Glamorgan in Wales, as is shown by Dr. R.S.

Stewart ("The Relations.h.i.+p of Wages, Lunacy, and Crime in South Wales,"