The Registrar-General has issued his statistics for the second quarter
of the present year. The infant mortality rate (66 per thousand) is the lowest recorded for the time of year, while the birth-rate and death-rate are both falling. Though these three factors combined still show a net increase in the popu- lation of the country there has already been an outcry in some newspapers. Grave protests against the lower birth-rate have appeared simultaneously with dis- cussions of our traffic problem, pleas for the saving of some place of natural beauty from the encroach- ments of the builder, and letters complaining of the overcrowding of holiday resorts. These evils arc inevit- able consequences of our present over-population. The confusion between a maximum and an optimum is a common one. We can only hope that the arguments of the maximumists will be unavailing. We should not, by the way, be satisfied with an infant mortality rate of 66 per thousand. In well-to-do districts such as Hampstead the rate is probably never over 30 per thousand.
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