THE WESTMINSTER SLUMS AND BIRTH CONTROL
[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.]
SIR,—Your admirable articles on this subject have been unfortunately used by one of your correspondents for advo- cating birth control. Fortunately there is no evidence of " an unrestricted birth-rate " in these slums : if there were, the inhabitants would have to practise self-control more strictly. The artificial prevention of conception could certainly never abolish the slums, for it is an essentially destructive practice. It might reduce the slum population by one-half, and would simultaneously reduce the entire population by a similar amount : the housing problem would thus be left, proportionately, as it was before : moreover, the slum- dwellers would not have the incentive to work which is provided by a large family, and our country would be deprived of the honest life-work and earning capacity of many of her children.
Birth control professes to cure all our social evils, yet it merely distracts our attention from real measures of reform : it cannot build houses, produce wealth, exterminate vermin : only living people can do these things and we cannot hope to deal adequately with poverty if we have a declining population. --I am, Sir, &c.,
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