THE PROBLEM OF POPULATION.
' [To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] A. T. Fryer's letter is a type of which 'yon will doubtless receive many as protests against your insertion of the review Of Mr. Harold Cox's -Problem of Population. Mr. Fryer is not logical in claiming " the teaching of Christ and His Church " in support of his protest, because the texts (Mark .x. 6-12) which he his in mind have no bearing on the limitation of the family—a subject which appears to have had no place in Jewish social life. And in speaking of a " Dfvine raw preSume he refers to the command
in Gen. i. 28 : " Be fruitful and multiply "—does he contend that an ancient injunction from the tribal god of the Hebrews is applicable through all the ages to all peoples, the larger number of whom never heard of it ?
Perhaps those who, like Mr. Fryer, have read the review "with pain and sorrow,"..might be consoled if they would study that branch of anthropology which deals with the various world-wide practices to prevent conception, or, as notably in China, to keep down the surplus population by wholesale infanticide. They would learn that " the Divine law " is very limited in its operation. It is to their discredit that no one of the leaders of our political parties has had the courage to tell the nation what perils lie ahead if families are not limited. It has been left to a brave ecclesiastic—Dean Inge —to utter the warning that " unless the devastating torrent of children can be stemmed, our condition will certainly go from bad to worse " (Edinburgh Review, July, 1921, " The Dilemma of Civilization," p. 88).—I am, Sir, &c.,
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