[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] 1411,—I was simply delighted
when I saw this morning, on opening the Spectator, that you had taken up this question of the slums. There is no doubt whatever that it is at the root of all political c,utions. While the slums remain no great good can be done : there can be no peace. The slums make misery inevitable, and the misery naturally brings class hatred. The Rev. Mr. Malthus pointed out a hundred years ago that
the reckless multiplication of the human race must cause misery. James and John Stuart Mill insisted on the same fact. Mr. Bradlaugh and Mrs. Annie Besant were martyrs in the cause of Birth Control, and thirty-nine years ago the late Professor Huxley put the whale case so plainly in his essay on The Struggle for Existence in Human Society that a child might understand it. But it was a case of " Wisdom cries out in the street, and no man regards it."
I am glad to see that Professor Julian Huxley is walking in his grandfather's footsteps and has an excellent essay on the subject in his lately published Volume of Essays on Popular Science. You, Sir, say, "To publish such things makes us burn with shame." True, indeed ; Lut why did not the Spectator take up the subject years ago, seeing that the evil has been known for a hundred years at least ?
However, better late than never, and the Spectator to its great honour has begun the attack. We will hope that it will give blow on blow until it has gained a complete victory. Then, indeed, there will be " hope for a world new made." Houses that are in the disgraceful state you describe should certainly be pulled down if they cannot be put into a thorough state of repair. But you yourself put the case in a nutshell when you say, " Laziness, an unrestricted birth-rate, lack of education, would quickly convert a very Garden of Eden into a slum ! " There's the rub. Medical officers of health should be required to give the information necessary to poor women who do not know how to limit their families.—I am,
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