THE POPULATION QUESTION.
BY DEAN INGE.
FIGHTY years ago Malthus on Population was one of the text-books of political economy. Mill accepted his conclusions ; Darwin started from them in the researches which have revolutionized natural science. Carlyle, it is true, fulminated against the book ; the Churches denounced it ; Cobbett and the revolutionary party reviled it ; but, on the whole, the intellect of the country was convinced. The silent public, however, was not convinced ; those were the days of high birth-rates and rapid increase in numbers.
Then came a reaction among the pundits. The arithmetical and geometrical ratios, on which Malthus had laid stress, seemed to contain a fallacy. In practice, it was proved that increase of wealth was keeping pace with increase of population. This was enough to revive the taboo which Mill had almost broken. A variety of interests combined to cover the disciples of Malthus with obloquy. Employers wanted a margin of labour, which could be used in good times and which in ordinary or bad times caused a- competition for employment which they considered good for trade. Landlords counted on increased rent-rolls as the result of progressive urbaniza- tion. Militarists clamoured for more food for powder. Doctors welcomed large families among their patients. The Churches, half instinctively, deprecated theories which might impair the "sanctification and honour" in which they found the chief safeguard against sexual depravity. And, behind all these the sinister poison of Karl Marx was at work. For him every unwanted mouth meant a potential vote for the social revolution. Pour fresh lives into the country, recklessly and without control ; so, he taught, a state of things will be produced for which there can be no peaceful solution.
And so the little band who saw the true state of the case were allowed to work alone, not merely without encouragement, but almost as social pariahs. Books on political economy and on social problems have been and still continue to be published, in which the population question is simply ignored.
Nevertheless, in spite of the rigid maintenance of the taboo, the common sense of the nation has moved, silently and secretly, in the opposite direction. The birth-rate reached its maximum, at 36 per thousand, about 1877. Since then it has been falling, till last year it was only 20 per thousand. Except for the violent fluctuations caused by the Great War, the fall has been so steady that a straight line drawn in a statistical diagram between 36 and 20 will be found very nearly to touch the figures for each of the intervening years. -A decline of nearly-one-half in the birth-rate in forty-five years is one of the most remarkable social changes which history records. There can be no doubt that it saved us from being starved into surrender in the Great War, nor is there any doubt that the destruction of the British Conunonwealth would have been followed by a famine which would have caused many millions of our people to perish miserably. It must not, however, be supposed that the fall in the birth-rate, great as it has been, has effected any considerable reduction in the rate of increase as compared with the generation before 1877. For the death-rate has also declined in an unex- ampled manner. A line indicating the death-rate for the last forty-five years will be found to run almost parallel with the line of the birth-rate. Speaking roughly, the increase -has remained nearly constant at about 1 per cent. per annum. Since the War; there has been a movement in favour of free discussion of all matters which touch the national welfare. The newspapers no• longer refuse to print articled treating of venereal disease ; and the embargo on the discussion of birth-control has been partially lifted. It is far better that the question should be frankly con- sidered. It is too late to forbid debate, too late to withhold knowledge. The ill-advised attempts to punish, through the law-courts, those who try to give information only result in advertising the propaganda which it is desired to suppress.
It is idle to deny that the vast amount of unemployment from which the country has suffered for three or four years is a proof of over-population. A great trade-boom, of which there are no signs, might for a short time find work for all ; but under normal conditions it is not likely that Great Britain will be able to employ the whole of its present population, not to speak of the 400,000 who are being added to it every year. The Dominions might doubtless absorb a great many ; but we must fEe3 the unfortunate facts that not very many wish to emigrate while they can draw doles at home ; that the number who would make good emigrants is limited ; and that the Dominions have no wish to open their doors to a promiscuous crowd of newcomers. A judicious scheme of colonization may do much to aid the development of the Dominions, and to make their future as English- speaking countries more secure ; but it is no remedy for over-population at home.
Sooner or later, the obvious truth must be recognized that a community which makes itself responsible for the education and maintenance of all who are born within it must claim and exercise some control over both the quality and the quantity of the new human material for which it will have to provide. There is no self-adjust- ing machinery whereby the optimum increase or decrease of population can be secured without anyone taking thought about it. Still less can the quality of the popu- lation look after itself. We have, in fact, almost suspended the action of natural selection, without instituting any rational selection to take its place.
The two problems, of quality and of quantity, are distinct, but they overlap. The problem of quality is, perhaps, the more difficult and dangerous of the two. For though the pressure of numbers may push down the standard of living to a very low level, and saddle the community with a large unproductive expenditure on doles, it is physically impossible for the population to increase beyond the limits of bare subsistence. Nature will dispose of the surplus somehow, probably very unpleasantly for those who have to go, and for those who stay. But a progressive deterioration of the national stock is only too possible, and it may have already begun.
It is not generally realized that the counter-selection effected by the differential birth-rate is a new phenome- non in this country. Until the middle of the last century or thereabouts the gentry and professional classes had quite as large families as the working men, and the submerged class of diseased and feeble-minded unemploy- ables was not nearly so numerous. Now, the professional class hardly keeps up its numbers, and the intelligent working class, except the miners, has small families. It is precisely the most undesirable class, the reckless and thriftless, the vicious and criminal, and, above all, the feeble-minded, who are propagating their like without restraint. Even if the parents of the next generation were, on an average, only 10 per cent. below the normal standard, the cumulative effect on the physical, moral, and intellectual qualities of the British race would, in three generations, be very serious indeed. And we have already shown that it is impossible for the socially valuable classes to alter their habits- and outdo the wastrels in fertility. The increase of population in England will probably have to be stopped altogether.
The regulation of numbers is not really a very difficult thing,- and we cannot afford to wait till the eugenists have fully mastered their most complicated science. If the Government were to decide that not more than three or four children in each family can be educated at the expense of the State, and that fairly stiff fees must be paid for any beyond that number, there is no doubt that large families would become a rare exception. And if it is thought desirable to give some encouragement to paternity in the classes which are most crippled by taxation, and in which the one-child system is carried to excess, there would be no injustice in exempting from Income Tax all that part of a man's income which is spent on educating his children. Another useful reform would be to assess Death Duties, not on the whole amount left by a testator, but on the amounts inherited by his legatees. In this way, an estate divided among four children would be much less heavily taxed than one of the same value left to an only child.
These suggestions may not be approved of by all, but of two things there can be no doubt : one, that the country has to face very urgent problems, both as to the quality and the quantity of the population ; 'and the other, that for better or for worse, the long period of haphazard procreation has come to an end. Civilized mankind has resolved to bring this important function of nature under the control of reason.
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