BIRTH CONTROL IN THE COAL MINING AREAS
[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.]
Sni,—The attention of the public has lately been called, not merely to the existence of bitter distress in the coal mining areas, but to the fact that this distress is connected with a permanent surplus of labour in this particular industry. We venture, therefore, to call the attention of your readers to an enterprise which has a' definite bearing on the situation ; the establishment in the Rotherham area of a birth contra clinic under qualified medical direction and wholly-disinterested local management. This clinic has already been visited by many miners' wives under pressure of very acute economic necessity.
The Society for the Provision of Birth Control Clinics is Prepared to support its efforts, which cannot be continued without assistance from outside because those who give their time to running the-clinic are not rich, and those who visit it tor advice are too desperately poor to make it a self-supporting venture. The Society for the Provision of Birth Control/ Clinics is also prepared; given the necessary funds, to-promote similar activities, always of course under medical supervision, in other distressed mining areas. We therefore ask the public on its behalf for financial support. Donations may be sent to the Mothers' Clinic. 58 Albion Road, Rotherham, or to the S.P.B.C.C., 153s. East Street, Walworth Road, S.E. 17.'
It must not be supposed that we regard birth control as a kind of patent medicine for such peculiar economic distress, or that we see it as an easy alternative to the difficult construc- tive reforms which such a situation needs for its redress. It is merely one among many important lines of advance. But we believe that as such it is a scientific and humane way of help- ing to solve the problems of a depressed and over-populated industry, and one which bears upon the future as well as• upon the present.
May we add that we do not contemplate any rampant public campaign of birth control propaganda, such as might force advice down the throats of persons whose religious beliefs made it unacceptable ? We urge merely that expert and dis- interested advice may be made easily available for persons who are already conscious of a desperate need for it and who are in many cases at the present time driven back upon illicit or ignorant sources of information.
It should be added that the Birth Control movement is not merely negative in its intention : the encouragement of adequate parenthood is recognized as of equal importance with the discouragement of births so frequent and fortuitous as thereby to damage the interests alike of the family and the State.—We are, Sir, &c.,
D. BALFOUR OF BURLEICH (Lady), BUCKMASTER, DAWSON OF PENN, G. DENMAN (Lady), RATHCREEDAN, HU31PHRY ROLLESTON.
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