22 FEBRUARY 1935, Page 3

The Control of Birth-Control Professor Carr-Saunders, lecturing to the Eugenics

Society. last Saturday, commented on the approaching decline in the population, which is likely to reduce it in the next thirty years by 25 or 30 per cent. The cause of this decline is very largely birth-control. That may be justi- fiable if the result is quality instead of quantity. But at present birth limitation is practised more among those who are mentally well endowed and physically fit than among the less intelligent and less physically fit. That process, if continued, would in the long run spell race deterioration. To .redress the balance both negative and positive action is needed—more birth-control at one end and more consciousness of the duty of bearing children at the other. Higher incoMe-tax relief in respect of children might help as an incentive in one direction.