I wish to speak of one more remedy,which Malthus himself repudiated,namely,that of artificial checks on the number of children.It has been said that such questions should only be discussed 'under the decent veil of a dead language.'Reticence on them is necessary to wholesomeness of mind;but we ought nevertheless to face the problem,for it is a vital one.These preventive checks on births excite our strong moral repugnance.
Men may call such repugnance prejudice,but it is perfectly logical,because it is a protest against the gratification of a strong instinct while the duties attaching to it are avoided.
Still our moral repugnance should not prevent our considering the question.Let us examine results.What evidence is there as to the effects of a system of artificial checks?We know that at least one European nation,the French,has to some extent adopted them.Now we find that in the purely rural Department of the Eure,where the population,owing presumably to the widespread adoption of artificial checks,is on the decline,although the district is the best cultivated in France and enjoys considerable material prosperity,the general happiness promised is not found.
This Department comes first in statistics of crime;one-third of these crimes are indecent outrages;another third are paltry thefts;and infanticide also is rife.Though this is very incomplete evidence,it shows at least that you may adopt these measures without obtaining the promised results.The idea that a stationary and materially prosperous population will necessarily be free from vice is unreasonable enough in itself,and there is the evidence of experience against it.Indeed,one strong objection to any such system is to be found in the fact that a stationary population is not a healthy condition of things in regard to national life;it means the removal of a great stimulus to progress.One incentive to invention,in particular,is removed in France by attempts to adapt population to the existing means of subsistence;for in this respect it is certainly true that the struggle for existence is essential to progress.Such practices,moreover,prove injurious to the children themselves.
The French peasant toils ceaselessly to leave each of his children a comfortable maintenance.It would be better for them to be brought up decently,and then left to struggle for their own maintenance.Much of the genius and inventive power in English towns has come from the rural districts with men belonging to large families,who started in life impressed with the idea that they must win their own way.It is wrong to consider this question from the point of view of wealth alone;we cannot overrate the importance of family life as the source of all that is best in national life.Often the necessity of supporting and educating a large family is a training and refining influence in the lives of the parents,and the one thing that makes the ordinary man conscious of his duties,and turns him into a good citizen.In the last resort we may say that such practices are unnecessary in England at the present day.A man in the superior artisan or middle classes has only to consider when he will have sufficient means to rear an average number of children;that is,he need only regulate the time of his marriage.Postponement of marriage,and the willing emigration of some of his children when grown up,does,in his case,meet the difficulty.He need not consider whether there is room in the world for more,for there is room;and,in the interests of civilisation,it is not desirable that a nation with a great history and great qualities should not advance in numbers.For the labouring masses,on the other hand,with whom prudential motives have no weight,the only true remedy is to carry out such great measures of social reform as the improvement of their dwellings,better education and better amusements,and thus lift them into the position now held by the artisan,where moral restraints are operative.Above all,it must be remembered that this is not a purely economic problem,nor is it to be solved by mechanical contrivances.To reach the true solution we must tenaciously hold to a high ideal of spiritual life.What the mechanical contrivances might perchance give us is not what we desire for our country.The true remedies,on the other hand,imply a growth towards that purer and higher condition of society for which alone we care to strive.
