18 FEBRUARY 1938, Page 21

RELIGION AND THE BIRTH-RATE [To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR.]

SIR,—In his article on religion and the birth-rate, Mr. Edward Lloyd is misleading on an important scientific point. He says that children were formerly a blessing sent by God, but that the Rev. T. R. Malthus taught that "when the population overtook the means of subsistence," plague and famine -and early death were also part of .the !divine dispensation. What Malthus taught was that man, like all living things, had always pressed upon the food supply ; and would continue to have an excessive mortality until he had greatly reduced his birth.- rate. It was thus that he gave to Darwin and Wallace the clue for their discovery of evolution.—I am, Sir, &c.,