HO 7 66 fyxmll Utiivmitg pitatg BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME PROM THE SAGE ENDOWMENT FUND THE GIFT OF Henrg W. Sage 1891 ^.E.5^.S.1..5 H.\X^. \\ 1357 Cornell University Library HQ 766.B36 Racial decay a compilation of evidence f 3 1924 021 853 977 g^^ Cornell University Library The original of this book is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924021853977 REMARKS BY AUTHORITIES ON VOLUME I. "The Journal of The American Medical Association," 28th September, 1907. THE ROYAL COMMISSION ON NOSTRUMS. Some three years ago we commented on the report of the Royal Commission, established in 1903. to investigate the causes of the steady decline in the birth-rate in New South Wales. As will bo remembered, the Commission in its conclusions gave as one of the causes of lowered birth-rate the use of noxious " patent medicines," of late years increasingly prevalent through unscrupulous advertising, and it was recommended that a separate Commission be appointed to pursue the line of investigation thus indicated. This recommendation was adopted and a. Commission appointed, its functions, however, being broadened to an inquiry into the manufacture, sale, advertising and prevalent use of the alleged remedial agents of secret composition ; the effects of their use ; and the legislation in regard thereto in various parts of the world. We have just received from Australia the report of the latter Commission, appointed December 11th, 1906, under the authority of the Australian Commonwealth. This remarkable official document consists of a folio volume of 455 pages, containing the most exhaustive arraignment of the nefarious traffic in measures for the prevention of conception and for abortion, and in secret nostrums both for the laity and the profession, either dangerous or fraudulent, or both, that has hitherto appeared. The Report is, of course, largely a compilation, but it is compilation that collects and lays bare officially all that has been done in this direction, and adds much important material gathered by the Commissioner in the course of his widely extended investigations. These investigations included a. personal ex- amination of the conditions and tiie efEorts made to cope with them in the United States, and particularly in Washington, D.C., San Fiandsco, Chicago, New York, and Boston ; in Canada, England, Berlin Saxony (as representative of the component German States), and France. The report is divided into six parts : (1) Prevention of conception and fceticide, (2) infanticide, (3) injury and death to the adolescent, (4) injury and death to adults, (5) advertisements, and (6) legislation. " It is hoped," says the report, " that by contemplating one after another the various provinces of the inquiry under what may be called natural classification, legislators and other readers will be able to form a more permanent impression of the multifarious evils of the traffic in secret drugs. The principle of deception has come to be recognised as an unwritten law, a prescriptive right, a sanction, by long continued though not immemoriid custom." The fundamental principles in the domain of public health established as essential to a remedjring of the conditions are laid down by the Commissioner as : (1) prohibition of secrecy, (2) punishment of deception, and (3) responsibility both of the publisher and of the vendor. The Council of the A. M. A. on Pharmacy and Chemistry has been criticised for the stringency of its requirements in the endeavour to establish a standard of moderate honesty to which all privately owned remedies that aspire to any official recognition at the hands of the medical profession shall conform ; yet these requirements are lenient indeed when compared with those laid down as absolutely essential to check the waste of health and life, and the physical and moral deterioration of the race, by an independent commissioner — not a member of the medical profession, and, therefore, not to be charged, as we of that profession are sometimes charged, with being possessed by impossible pro- fessional prejudice — appointed by an enlightened Government to make an "authentic and authoritative investigation into the subject from a point of view that may be called international." These recommendations include among others the publication, with every sale, of a complete qualitative and quantitative formula in official nomenclature ; no advertisement, testimonial or award of merit to be permitted on the article or its container ; the absolute prohibition of advertisements of secret remedies by newspapers, etc. ; refusal of mail privileges to newspapers, books, etc., containing such advertisements ; compulsory registration of every proprietary name, but no right in any invented name, whether descriptive, fanciful, or other, to be allowed in respect of any chemical, pharmaceutical, organic, or bacterial preparation, or single or compound substance for external, internal, subcutaneous or intravenous use, in the prevention, alleviation or cure of human disorders or injuries of tmy kind. The perusal of the vast accumulation of evidence contained in this Report impresses on us two things : First, the significance of the undertaking of such an investigation by a Government, of its own proper motion and without pressure, and regardless of the antagonisms such a course must necessarily arouse among those whose " vested interests " are thus threatened ; and second, a sense of humiliation that such an independent, first-hand and exhaustive investigation should lead to the statement that " many or most of these swindles, together with the traffic in private letters of patients, are American." This statement is amply borne out in page after page of the facts adduced. In the German Confederation, in Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Italy and other countries, the principle is fully recognized that the interests of society demand the pubUoation of any real prophylactic or remedy, or palliative for any of the ills towhich fleshis, heir, and this principle is conscientiously enforced in these countries by federal, state, municipal and parochial authorities, supported by the judiciary. In the Anglo-Saxon nations, on the other hand, the principle is acknowledged only by the medical profession, and can be enforced by them only on the volimtary associations of their own members ; while the legislature in Great Britain, Canada and Australasia, and until recently and even yet in some part, the United States, sanctions, and the judiciary consequently enforces, an entirely opposite principle, viz., the right, without control or supervision, to sell under any represeiitation, true or false, as cures for all or any ills any drugs, however noxious or however inert. It win thus be clear that the Anglo-Saxon countries are the principal victims of this nefarious traffic, while the United States is the chief offender, as well as the greatest victim of them all. We hope, though from past experience we hardly dare to do so, that this evil, now that it is officially pilloried for pubUo execration, will receive that attention at the hands of the public. press that the exposures and denunciations of the medical profession have hitherto failed to secure for it. f' The Times," London, 12tli October, 1907. SECRET DBUGS AND CUBES. AN AUSTRALIAN COMMISSIONER'S REPORT. In December, 1906, in consequence of the inquiry made in New South Wales in 1903 into the decUne of the birth-rate and the mortaUty among cMdren, Mr. Octavius Charles Beale was appointed, by Letters Patent at the instance of the Australian Government, as a Boyal Commissioner with the following reference, namely, to inquire into — (a) The manufacture, importation, announcements, offering for sale, sale, and use of preparations commonly known aa proprietary medicines, and of drugSj alleged curative agente, medicinal preparations, toilet articles, foods and drinks the composition of which is> not disclosed, and which are alleged to have medicinal or remedial properties; (b) The effects or consequence of the use of any such articles, and (c) The legislation and administration in Australia or elsewhere relating to any of the aforesaid matters. In introducing the first volume of his Report, dated August 3rd last, which has now been printed (No. 28), Mr. Beale states that the preservation of secrecy and of the privilege to deceive is absolutely indispensable to the traders whose traffic is reported upon, but the perpetuation of the advantages they now enjoy mean moral corruption, physical deterioration, and national decadence. During his argument on the provisions of the Fertilizers and Feeding Stuffs Act (England), 1906, which require the disclosure of the composition of the fertiUzers and foods to which the Act appUes, the Boyal Commissioner urges that the first and chief legislative remedy is to place babies in the same protection by statute as that now afforded to cbattd-animals, such as pigs, lambs, and calves. The mass of evidence included in the 455 pages of the report is of a sensational character, and the statements made concerning proprietary articles specifically named are of such a definite character that the Commonwealth Government deemed it advisable to stop the circulation of the report. Here the reviewer has fallen into error. A Royal Commission is privileged under Commonwealth law in like manner to the Justices of the High Court of Australia, as so set forth by statute. But a special Act of ParUament had to be passed by both Houses, and to receive Royal assent, before the document itself could be pubUshed and privileged. The most strenuous efforts were made by American and British drug- packers to obtain suppression. Powerful influence was also brought to bear upon the American Chief Executive (then President Roosevelt) to use diplomatic influence and at least to prohibit the introduction of the report into America. Documentary evidence in my possession shows that the demands were referred to oiScers ot State concerned with the national health of the United States, and received from them no sympathy. On the contrary, the Department of State referred to applied to me for more copies, the Australian Government duly transmitted them to Washington, and they are in constant use by the American authorities. Equally heavy pressure was exerted upon the Australian Administration locally and from London, but the Act was passed and the w^ole issue duly circulated, copies beingjSent to several British and some foreign Governments. The cause of the consternation wsis that the eviden^^ all at first hand and as much as possible in photographic form. . A The "Times" article is throughout favourable and fills a column.^ It was written by a London pharmaceutical expert well qualified to summarise the recommendations. Many journals followed suit, but as they were not in possession of the Report itself their notices are not hero quoted. Ill The " Lancet," " British MedioaJ Journal," " Medical Press," and other medical serials reviewed the.Bepoit mthiaoceptaace as a contribution towards reform. The articles were many and lengthy, so that only a. few paragra{)hs are here transcribed. There has also been much correspondence, and I have received in various languages a mass of inform^ve material. " The Medical Press," London, October Qth, 1908. With regard to quack medicines, last Christmas the Government of Australia appointed a Royal Commissioner, not a medical man, to inqxiire into the question of quack medicines in the Commonwealth, and to recommend what steps should be taken with regard to them. This gentleman, Mr. Octavius C. Beale, has recently issued his Report, which is a very voluminous one, and the conclusions he comes to are most far-reaching and important. He recommends that letters-patent should be issued for approved and novel formulae for the prevention and cure of human ailments, and though this suggestion would sweep away all present patent medicines, not one of which is novel or original in any degree, we fear it would tend to act as a commercial incentive to real discoverers who now give their work freely to the world. Still, such a rule would do no harm if it were more honoured in the breach than in the observance, except in so far as concerns the denying of patents to remedies that are not novel, and such refusal in itself would constitute a valuable reform. But Mr. Beale's further recommendations are those which lie at the toot of all proper patent medicine regulation. He suggests that every patent medicine, when retailed, shall bear its formula of preparation on a label ; that no advertisement shall be aJlowed on the article itself or its covering ; that no advertisement of any proprietary or secret cure shall be allowed to be published ; and that transmission of advertising matter concerning such medicines through the post shall be forbidden. If we make the slight reservation that genuine, new preparations prepared by respectable firms should, of course, be made known to medical men through the post and by advertisement, we can most cordially endorse Mr. Beale's conclusions, which would finally dispose of the most glaring puhUo fraud of the day. It is a humiliating but none the less a well-deserved reproach that this Colonial Commissioner should point to the Mother Country as demanding " an eighth share in the full retail price of every, even the most pernicious, proprietary specific under quasi-medical pretence." We recently drew attention to the interesting fact that the Cape Legislature recognized the undesirable character of certain cancer " remedies," and forbade their sale ; New Zealand is making a big struggle against the newspaper interest to rid itself of the plague ; and AustraUa has its own way mapped out for it, if it will move. The " Old Country " has not even turned in its bed. " The Medical Press," March 11th, 1908. The storehouse of data on the subject of secret drugs, cures, and foods contained in the first Beport of the Australian Boyali Commission is bewildering in its vastness. Here we find for the first time in history the protean aspect of a corroding social evil displayed to the public gaze. It is impossible to glance through these pages without being convinced that the essence of the enormous traffic under investigation lies in secrecy, deception, fraud and crime. A general notion of the im- pression made upon the Commonwealth Commissioner may be formed from the following passage a,t the head of his " conclusions " ? " Quackery, it has been shown, aSects the domain of therapeutics, hygiene, and nutrition. It demands secrecy and deception as indispensable conditions, where the racial interests demand truth and candour. And, again by inversion, it invades, publishes and profanes that which the consensus of sane mankind from time immemorial has made secret and sacred — the «exual privacies of women and the functions upon which depend the perpetuation of the race. It has also been shown herein, with such reserve as decency requires — where none at all is exhibited by the quacks themselves or exacted of them by our laws — that the natural phenomena of healthy puberty .are utilised with satanic ingenuity by these quacks and their collaborators in the Press to frighten young men and young women into seeking their help. That it is not casual or imusual for many young persons to correspond with the gilded miscreants has been shown by the fact that one concern offers for sale 300,000 letters from their unhappy ' patients ' ; and another — a broker — offers 2,000,000 assorted letters from various quack syndicates. One of these concerns has over 7,000,000 letters for sale. How large is the traffic can be gauged from the cost of their advertisements in daily papers, which halve the spoil with the brigands — only that with highwaymen we do not read of quite such Tuthless and ruinous betrayal. These letters thus offered in the market — again by the help of the Press — were written, as Dr. Stanley Hall (' Adolescence ') informs us, from actual purchase and inspection, ■with the ' youths' heart-blood.' " This extremely outspoken and emphatic opinion, be it noted, covers only a small portion of the ground. If similar practices are being carried on in the United Kingdom — and we know that such is the case — then the appointment of a Boyal Commission is urgently xequired -within our own gates. As a matter of fact, cases of wholesale blackmailing of luckless women have within recent years been divulged in the police courts. But the range of quackery is well-nigh illimitable, and wherever we turn to analyse its pretensions or its methods we are constantly {aced with the same underlying trickery, cruelty and fraud. The probability of a scandalous reve- lation is no argument against the need of authoritative British inquiry. Nay, rather, it is a strong reason why that course should be adopted forthwith without a moment's delay, viewed in the light «f the damning evidence set forth in the Australian Blue Book. IV " The Medical Press," November 4th, 1£08. Some months ago it was our privilege to comment npon the first volume of the " Report upon Secret Drugs, Cures, and Foods," presented by the Koyal Commission appointed by the Commonwealth of Australia. The document in question contains an immense amount of pertinent and valuable matter ; it is complete and exhaustive, and it will form a classical work of reference to present and future reformers in the field with which it deals. As often happens in questions of social reform, we in the Mother Country are hopelessly behindhand, for no serious attempt has hitherto been made by the British Government to deal with the abuses arising from the traffic in secret remedies and propriefaury medicines. Yet the majority of the injurious, and not in a few instances fraudulent, remedies of the kind sold in Australia for the " cure " of every conceivable ailment, curable or incurable, are widely advertised and sold within the confines of the United Kingdom, so that the facts disclosed by the Australian Commission are of direct importance and interest to the British Public. Unfortunately, it is not in the interest of lay newspaper proprietors to acquaint their readers with the official findings of that or any other responsible authority as regards the farrago of nonsense, fraud, duplicity, stupidity, and reckless indifference to health and life which form prominent features of this most deleterious trade. So far as we can see, the only hope for the future lies with the medical profession, which in the past has shown itself capable of fearless and absolutely unselfish action in defence of the national health. For ourselves we have always maintained a consistent policy as regards the necessity of controlling a trade wliioh we believe to be nothing less than a standing menace to the safety of the community. We therefore hailed with considerable satisfaction the advent of the Report to which allusion has been made. Owing to its great bulk, and to the many points brought forward therein, it wiU be difficult to do justice to this monumental work. We propose, however, from time to time to deal with a few of the facts and conclusions as to secret cures and proprietary remedies that are disclosed therein, more especially in cases where the " cures " or "remedies " are extensively ad- vertised in the newspapers of the United Kingdom. " The Medical Press," September 29th, 1909. The best evidence yet eo'Jected, however, is Volume I. of the Report of the Royal Commission on Secret Drugs, Cures, and Foods, presented to the Parliament of the Commonwealth of Australia. The able and energetic Commissioner, Mr. Octavius Charles Beale, has collected an invaluable mass of facts regarding the trade in secret remedies, its effects, and its relation to legislation, with recom- mendations as to its control.- This Report is likely to remain for some time the classical work of reference on the subject with which it deals. No candid person could even glance casually through its pages and fail to be convmced of the reality and the gravity of the evils attached to the secret medicine traffic in Australia. Quackery, however, is cosmopolitan and universal, and the Report shows that Australia is flooded with quack remedies sent from the United Kingdom, from America, and from other countries. The composition of these world-wide nostrums, their extravagant and fraudulent claims, their grossly extortionate cost, then: catchpenny advertisements, are one and the same whatever the country in which they are sold. The steel and pennyroyal pills sent out from a Midland town of England are sold to credulous women at a high price in Melboiime and all over the world, for suggested purposes that it is impossible they could fulfil. Worse still, other pills, containmg most deadly drugs (as shown by analysis) are sold in a similar fashion without anything on the wrapper to intimate that a dangerous drug is contained therein. Not all the British colonies, however are foolish enough to permit their citizens to be deprived of their health and robbed of their money for the behoof of the patent medicine trader. , " The Medical Press," October 27th, 1909. One of the best methods of gaining a thorough knowledge of the facts of the case and of educatine the pubhc thereon is undoubtedly by way of Royal Commission, with full power of summonini witnesses and of otherwise obtaining information. That plan has been adopted with extraordinary success by the Commonwealth of AustraUa, which is flooded with quacks and quackery of the same pernicious kind that devastates the British Isles. Recognising the advantages of this step the General Medical CouncU have lately petitioned the Privy Council in favour of a Roval Commisainn. upon irregular medical practice. ■' uiiaoiui* A letter from President Roosevelt to the Secretary of the Department of Agriculture which includes the Bureau of Chemistry. The White House, Washington, D. C. 25th November, 1905. My dear Secretary Wilson, May I ask that you see that all possible courtesy is shown to Mr. Beale ? Any help that can be given him I want to give. I have the heartiest sympathy with his purpose. T, ROOSBVELT. From a letter (5th December, 1903) of Dr. George H. Simmons, editor of the Journal of the American Medical Association. You are to be congratulated on what you haro already done, and I am looking anxiously foe a copy of your new book. I hdpe you will send me one as soon as it is oS the press. No one can look into the patent medicine and quack-doctor business as you have done without appreciating the extent to which the public is being humbugged, and it is only by such work as youri, kept up for a considerable time, that the law-making bodies of the various countries will understand the crime of it all, and the inhumanity of it all, and stop it by legal enactment From a letter of Earl Bbauchamp, London, 30th March, 1908. I am very much obliged to you for your kindness in causing a copy of your Royal Commission Report to be sent to me. I do take a real interest in the matter, the importance of which I think it is difBoult to exaggerate. A Select Committee of both Houses of Parliament has just been appointed here in England upon which I shall be serving. The Report, therefore, which hM just been sent to me will be of most material assistance to the Committee. I shall venture to let you know something of the course of our proceedings, as the evil seems to me one of such a great magnitude that it needs more drastic treatment than that which any single nation can apply. With renewed and sincere thanks. Yours sincerely, Bbatjohamp. From a letter of Father Bernard Vatjghan, London. Your Royal Commission Report has been absorbingly interesting reading. What an object lesson to the Mother Country ! You have your hands fuU and you have done your work nobly and thoroughly. The state of things in England is very distressing to some of us. Of course we " muddle along somehow," but the evil is like a cancer. Our shop windows are not what they were. Nobody minds ! I fear we shall have a rude awakening some day. God bless you for your pioneer work in the good cause ! Yours sincerely, Bbrnabd Vatjohan. From a letter of a distinguished American medical officer of State. I often think of you and your work, as exemplified by the copy of your Royal Commission Report. The volume contains much valuable information. It is unique in character and undoubtedly has done a vast amount of good. The various agencies in this country felt aggrieved because of certain statements and exposures made therein, and carried them up even to President Roosevelt I have had many requests for the loan of the book, which I have granted with reluctance because of its scarcity, and am herewith asking you whether any additional copies are available. As you probably know, we are in the midst of many difiSculties brought about by the enforcement of the Foods and Drugs Act. I should be pleMed to have you advise me as to the progress your country is making by way of legislation against proprietary frauds. I learn indirectly through publications issued from London that certain activities are in progress in Australia, and of the various efforts to suppress the same, but I am not advised as to the actual outcome. There is much agitation on here relative to further restriction and control of the indiscriminate distribution of habit-forming drugs. Several bills have been introduced into Congress during the past few years, which of course died at the termination of the last Congress, but another Bill has been introduced this Session which, in my opinion, is framed along excellent lines. I am enclosing same for your information. I sh^ be pleased to hear from you at all times as to the progress made in your country along the lines in which we are both interested. Dr. Henry Sbwill, in " Vanity Fair," 26th May, 1910. A complete account of quack remedies — ^including cosmetic preparations — is given in the Report of the Australian Royal Commission on Secret Drugs and Cures, Mr. 0. C. Beale being the Commissioner. This large volume contains a truly amazing disclosure of the personalities and the practices of the men. engaged in the quack medicine traflSo. The book unfortunately is not privileged in England, and must not be published there. VI " Truth," London, 26th January, 1909. It has always been the policy of the law to curb the activities of those who proy on the ignorance and credulity of their fellow-creatures, and there is a special reason for doing so when the victims are not only robbed of their money but exposed to the risk of grievous bodily harm. This, and this ftlon»'3s the ground for strengthening the criminal law against tho advertising quack. There can be no reasonable doubt as to the extent of the evils that result from the free hand which these harpies at present enjoy. In the Australasian Colonies things seem to be TTorso than here. A Royal Com- mission was recently appointed by the Commonwealth of Australia to inquire into this subject, and its Eeport is, I believe, now imder consideration in some of the States of the Commonwealth. New Zealand has also been much exercised on the subject, and wo have the result of the Act referred to above. But though it is possible that tho advertising quack is more rampant at the Antipodes than in the British Isles, we see him before our eyes every day in the ugliest shape. Many of the advertisers who are most familiar in the pages of EngUsh newspapers and magazines are cosmopolitan operators who carry on their trade in the United States and the Colonies as well as here, and frequently in many European countries at the same time. Most of their names are enshrined in the Report of the Com- monwealth Commission on Secret Remedies. That these people, and all others of the same class, do infinite harm, extending far beyond the mere picking of the pockets of fools, is not open to question. They help materially to fill our hospitals and cemeteries, and they would do still more in this direction if it were not that a large proportion of the people who waste their money over quack remedies have either nothing at all the matter with them, or nothing which will not be speedily cured by a dose of aloes or calomel. This matter ought really to be regarded primarily from the point of view of public health. " Whitehall Review," 13th June, 1908. My recent indictment of quack medicines has brought me quite a batch of letters. One cor- respondent points out that Australia takes the lead in dealing with the matter. About a year ago the Commonwealth Government gave a Royal Commission to a Mr. O. C. Beale, a well-known Aus- tralian merchant who has previously done much public service, to conduct an international investigation into the matter. The result caused no little sensation in Australia. Mr. Beale's report was a sweeping condem- nation and indictment of patent foods, medicines, drugs, secret cures of all descriptions. Practically all the quack nostrums of Great Britain and the United States come under Mr. Beale's scathing attention, those of the latter country, however, receiving the fullest share, probably because there are more of them. In this amazing report are gathered, inter alia, the opinions of the world's most prominent medical and surgical authorities, a summary of the legislation of all countries on the matter, and even facsimiles of lying advertisements and testimonials emanating from the principal quack-medicine manufacturers involved. The Commissioner took the utmost pains to compile the most damning exposure of patent medicines of all kinds that has up to the present appeared. The Report shows that in nine cases out of ten patent medicines are either frauds or poisons, pointing out at the same time that there is practically no State restriction on them, and urging that the result of such a lax system is inevitably grave social injury and racial deterioration. The Com- missioner places particular stress on the devilish ingenuity shown by the vendors of these nostrums in wording advertisements, wherein natural and healthy physical phenomena are used to frighten ignorant people into the beUef that they have some serious disease. He went on to say : " Opiates for infants and children, mercurial teething powders, and doses of acetanilide, crude or mixed, are regularly announced, held for sale, and sold without practical restriction." Further, referring to secret cures : " These embrace everything conceivable in health and disease, under like trickery, treachery, humbug and fraud. They are not subject to preliminary examination, license and inspection. Though these humbugs are notorious and often ridiculous, prosecutions are either rare or entirely absent." The triumph of the quack in this country is simply a scandal. It is quite time that a society was formed to protect the public in this direction. EACIAL DECAY Me. Theodore Roosevelt, writing on an advance copy of Racial Decay in the New York Outlook for April 8, 1911 (six page review), says : — "An Australian writer, Mr. Beale, has written a work on Eadal Decay, not good in form, but in substance I believe better worth the study of every sincere patriot, not merely in Australia, Great Britain, and Canada, but in the United States of America, than any other book that has been written for years. It sets forth in detail, and illustrates by chart, certain facts which have long been familiar to students and thinkers who care to face the truth, and whose studies and thought are not superficial. But, unfortunately, the facts set forth, though of fundamental importance to the whole people, are so unpleasant that ease-loving persons who do not care for any- thing that causes them disquiet refuse to look them in the face ; and the great bulk of good people are in ignorance of them, or at least wholly fail to appreciate their far-reaching significance. " Mr. Beale deals with the startling decline of the birth-rate in Great Britain, the Australian States, and France, this decline being due to the capital sin, the cardinal sin, against the race and against civilization — wilful sterility in marriage. . . . Among the English-speaking peoples there has long been much complacent pointing at France as a nation that no longer held its own among the peoples of the earth. As a matter of fact the English- speaking peoples have now all entered on the same course. . . . Moreover, the decline in the birth-rate among the English-speaking peoples has proceeded at an even more rapid rate than in France itself. One of the strangest and saddest things in the whole sad business is that the decline has been most marked in the very places where one would expect to see the abounding vigour of the race most strikingly displayed. In Australia and New Zealand there is no warrant whatever in economic conditions for a limitation of the birth-rate. . . . New Zealand is as large as Great Britain and as fertile ... the New Zealand people have realized, to an extraordinary depee, the institutional and industrial ambitions of democracy everywhere; yet the rate of natural increase in New Zealand is actually lower than in Great Britain, and has tended steadily to decrease. The Australians are sparsely scattered over the fringe of the great island continent. It is a continent which could support, without the slightest difficulty, tenfold the present population, and at the same time raise the general standard of well-being. Yet its sparse population tends to concentrate in great cities of disproportionate size compared to the country population, just exactly as is the case in England and the United States ; and it increases so slowly that, even if the present rate were maintained, the population would not double itself in the next century ; while j if the rate of decrease of the last decade continues, the population will have become stationary by the middle of the century. ... "The same causes that' are at work in Australia and New Zealand are at work in just as acute a form among the English-speaking people pf Canada, and in a less acute form, but in a form constantly growing more acute, in Great Britain. Moreover, they are at work here in the United States no less actively, and their effects are only partially obscured by the enormous immigration hither. . . . But throughout the north and west there has been the same shrinkage as in Australia, Canada, and Great Britain, and in the New England States the shrinkage has been not only greater than in the British Empire, but greater than in France itself. ... It is almost unnecessary to say that the sterility is not physiological, and is in no sense due to the change from Europe to another land. . . . "Men have striven to take comfort to themselves by saying that all civilized races are having the same ex- perience. It is not so. There are some of the smaller states of Europe which have already begun to show similar decadence; but the people of Germany have as yet hardly begun to show it. The great cities, Berlin and Hamburg, for instance, do show it substantially as it is shown in New York, Chicago, and London ; and if this tendency is not checked, Germany, in its turn, will begin to travel the same road which France has, long travelled, and which the English-speaking peoples are now travelling. It was the warfare of the cradle more than anything else which during the nineteenth centuiy gave Germany its preponderating and dominating position in Europe. In this war- fare Germany now shows signs of yielding to the Slavonic peoples, for the Slavonic races have been hitherto totally unaffected by the movement, " What I saw a year ago in East Africa was illuminating. In British East Africa the men who discovered the country, who annexed it, who started to settle it, who are governing it, who have made it what it is, are the English. But the men who are breeding its future citizens and masters are the Dutch ! The Englishmen there are fine fellows ; they are doing excellent general work ; I like and admire them. But as settlers they are hopelessly behind the Boer farmers whom I met, because they have very small families, and most of them do not look on the country as their permanent home. "Again, to quiet their uneasy consciences, cheap and shallow men and women, when confronted with these facts, answer that ' quality is better than quantity,' and that decrease of numbers will mean increase of individual prosperity. It is false. When quantity falls off, thanks to wilful sterility, the quality will go down too. During the last half-century, in which France has remained nearly stationary, while Germany has nearly doubled in population, the average of individual prosperity has grown much faster in Germany than in France ; and social and industrial unrest and discontent have grown faster in France than in Germany. " It is never safe to prophesy. Neither I nor any one else can say what will happen in the future. But we can apeak conditionally. We can say that, if the processes now at work for a generation continue to work in the same manner and at the same rate of increase during the present century, by its end France will not carry the weight in the civilized world that Belgium now does, and the English-speaking peoples will not carry anything like the weight that the Spanish-speaking peoples now do, and the future of^ the white race will rest in the hands of the German and the Slav. . . ." The Outlook (New York), April 8, 1911. EACIAL DECAY A COMPILATION OF EVIDENCE FROM WORLD SOURCES Bt OCTAVIUS CHARLES |_EALE A. ROYAL COMMISSIONER OP THE COMMONWEALTH OP AUSTRALIA, 1907, AND OP THE STATE OP NEW SOUTH WALES, 1903 Homini nihil utilius homine LONDON: A. C. FIFIELD, 13 CLIFFORD'S INN, E.G. SYDNEY (AUSTRALIA): ANGUS & ROBERTSON LTD. 1911 ■ACHINltD, PROM ADSTRALtAN TLATHS, BV V. BRBHCOH AHD SON, LTD., PRINTERS, PLYMOUTH TABLj: OF CONTENTS. FAGE^ 1. BIBLIOGEAPHY xiii 2. INTEODUCTION 1 3. Division I.— GENESIS OP THE CABOINOMA ... 13 4. Division II. — THE EXAMPLE OF FKANCE .. 95 5. Division III.— HISTOEY OF THE FEENCH EXTEA-BAELIAMENTAET COMMISSION UPON DEPOPULATION 171 6. Division IV. — PATHOLOGIC CONSEQUENCES 203 7. Division V.— THE PEOGEESS OF DECAY— DEPOPULATION IN GEAPHIC FOEM ... .. 301 8. Division VI.— THE PAEALLEL OF ANCIENT EOME 379 9. Division VII.— paeliament and the chueches 403 10. conclusion 429 11. indices- Index of Subjects, Tables, Declaeations 'pro et contra of Authorities .-■ ... ... •.■ i Index of Names ... ... ... ... ••• xiii 12. appendix- Copy OF Commonwealth Eoxal Commission ... ... xix Copt of New South Wales Eotal Commission ... ix HENRY CLEMENT : La Depopulation en France, ses Causes et ses Remedes. 64 pp. Paris : Bloud et Cie., 1907. PAUL LEROY-BEAULIEU : De la Colonisation chez les Peuples Modemes. Paris : Gmllaumin et Ge., 1902. Le Collectivisme : Ibid. 1893. La Question de la Population et la Gvilisation Democratique (Revue des Deux Mondes, 15th October, 1897). G. MICHEL : La Depopulation des Campagnes, Causes et Remedes. An article in L'Economiste Francais, 30th May, 1896. Dr. FERNAND DUCOURNEAU (de I'Universite de Paris) : Des Moyens de Combattre la Depopulation, principalement en favorisant TaUaitement matemel. 108 pp. Paris : Jules Rousset, 36 rue Serpente, 1900. HECTOR SONOLET, Docteur en Droit: Principe de Population et SociaUsme. (Histoire des Doctrines de la Population depuis Malthus jusqu'a nos jours). 292 pp. Paris : Arthur Rousseau, 14 rue Soufflot, 1907. AUGUST FOREL : L'Ame et le Systeme Nerveux, hygiene et pathologie. (Ancien professeur de psycbiatrie a runiversite de Zurich). 334 pp. Paris : C. SteinheU, 2 rue Casimir-Delavigne, 1906. Leben und Tod. 32 pp. Muenchen : Ernst Reinhardt, 1908. Dr. SICARD DE PLAUZOLES : La Fonction Sexuelle au point de vue de I'ethique et de I'hygiene sociales. (Professeur au College libre des Sciences Sociales). 393 pp. Paris : V. Giard et E. Briere, 16 rue Soufflot, 1908. Dr. PAUL HARTENBERG : Psychologie des Neurastheniques. 248 pp. Paris : Felix Alcan, 108 Bd. St. Germain, 1908. THOMAS ROBERT MALTHUS : Essay on the Principle of Population. 2 vols., London : John Murray, 1826. Sixth edition. JAMES BONAR, M.A., Oxford : Malthus and his Work. London : Macmillan, 1885. ANNIE BESANT : The Law of Population, its Consequences and its Bearing upon Human Conduct and Morals. AustraUan Edition, hundredth thousand. Theosophy and the Law of Population. London : Theosophical Publishing Society, 7 Duke Street, Adelphi. JAMES MILL : Article " Colony," Encyclopaedia Britannica, 8th Edition. JOHN STUART MILL: Principles of Pohtical Economy, 9th Edition. London: Longmans, 1886. JOSEPH McCABE : Life and Letters of George Jacob Holyoake. London : Watts and Co., 1908. HANSARD'S Parhamentary Debates, 3rd Series, Vol. 89, Jan.-Feb., 1847. Vol 91 Mar.-ApL, 1847. JOHN MORLEY : Life of Richabd CoBDiar. Dr. W. CUNNINGHAM : Growth of English Industry and Commerce in Modem Times. Cambridge : The University Press, 1903. FRANCESCO S. NITTI, Professor at the University at Naples : Population and the Social System. English Translation. London : Swan, Sonnenschein, 1894. LESLIE STEPHEN: The English Utilitarians. London: Duckworth, 1900. BENJAMIN KEDD : Principles of Western Gvilisation. London : Macmillana, 1902 Social Evolution, ibid. XV Di ARTHUR SHAD WELL : Industrial Efaciency. 2 vols. London: Longmans, 1906. YVjlS GUYOT : Principles of Political Economy. London : Swan, Sonnenschein, 1892. • Dr. L. BERGERET : Des Praudes dans rAccomplissement des Fonctions Genera- trices. 17th Edition, Paris : Bailliere et Fils, 1904. W. E, ASHTON, M.D., PkD., Professor of Gynaecology: Practice of GynEecology. rhiladelphia. ROBERT R. RENTOUL, M.D., F.R.C.S. : Race Culture or Race Suicide. London : Valter Scott Publishing Co., 1906. HOWARD A. KELLY, M.D., Ph.D., F.R.C.S., Professor of Gynaecology, John Hopkins University : Medical Gynaecology. Philadelphia : Appleton, 1908. W. ROGERS WILLIAMS, F.R.C.S. : The Natural History of Cancer, with special reference to its causation and prevention. London : Heinemann, 1908. W. R. GREG : Enigmas of Life. London : Truebner, 1879. JAMES McKEEN CATTELL, in Popular Science Monthly, January, 1909. G. STANLEY HALL, Ph.D., LL.D., President of Qark University: Adolescence. New York : Appleton, 1905. COMMANDANT A. POILECOT : Des Unions Modernes et de leurs effets sur le depeuple- ment de la France. Paris : Henri Jouve, 15 rue Racine, 1904. GEORGE FGNSEGRIVE : Morale et Societe. 345 pp. Paris : Bloud et Cie, 4 rue Madame. 1907. ' MAX NORDAU : Degenerescence, traduit de I'Allemand par Auguste Dietrich. Deux tomes, 604 pp. BibUotheque de Philosophic Contemporaine. Paris : FeUx Alcan, 1903. Dr. F. W. FOERSTER : Sexualethik und Sexualpaedagogik, Ausaneindersetzung mi t den Modemen. (Privatdozent fuer Philosophie an der Universitaet Zuerich). 97 pp. Muenchen : Joseph Koesel. JULIAN MARCUSE : Die Sexuelle Frage und das Christenthum. Ein WafEengang mit F. W. Foerster, dem Verfasser von " Sexualethik und Sexualpaedagogik." 87 pp. Leipzig : Verlag Dr. Werner Khnkhardt, 1908. HENRY GRAACK : Sammlung von Deutschen und Auslaendisehen Gesetzen und Verordnungen, die Bekaempfung der Kurpfusehereixind die Ausuebungder Heilkunde betreffend. 152pp. Jena: Gustav Fischer, 1904. Kurpfuscherei und Kurpfuschereiverbot. Ibid., 1906. HAHN-HOLFERT-ARENDS : SpeziaUtaeten und Geheimmittel, ihre Herkunft und Zusammensetzung, eine Sammlung von Analysen und Gutachten, zusammen- gestellt von Eduard Hahn und Dr. J, Holfert, bearbeitet vonj^G. Arends. Berlin : Verlag von Juhus Springer, 1906. This is the most extensive published collection, I beUeve, of secret cures" and specialities. In all 488 pp. and 4645 formulae. HANS WEGENER : Wir Jungen Maenner ! Das Sexuelle Problem des gebildeten jungen Mannes mit unbedingter Offenheit und ineinfacher NatuerUchkeit besprochen. Die Dinge gesehen und gesagt wie sie sind ! 216 pp. (75th thousand). K. R. Langewies, Leipzig, 1907. STADTRAT DER STADT KARLSRUHE : Gegen die Kurpfuscherei und den Heil- mittelschwindel. Amthche Sammlung der oefEenthchen Warnungen des Ortsgesundheitsrates der Hauptstadt Karlsruhe. Karlsruhe: G. Braun, 1905. LYDIA KINGSMILL COMJIAlvnDER : The American Idea. 332 pp. New Yoik : A. S. Barnes & Co., 1907. ENGLAND IN DEUTSCHER BELEUCHTUNG. Grosser Britannien, von Dr. Thranas Lenschau. HaUe : Gebauer-Schwetschke, 1907. DR. H. THIEL, Wirklicher-Geheimrat, Ministerial-Direktor : Zur Erauenfrage. Stutt- gart and Leipzig : Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1908. DR. G. F McCLEARY : Infantile MortaUty and Infants' Milk Depots. 135 pp. London : P. S. King and Son, 1905. DR. H. LLEWELLYN HEATH : The Infant, the Parent and the State. 191 pp. Ibid, 1907. DR. G. RUHLAND, Prof, fuer Politische Oekonomie an der Universitaet Treiburg : System der Politischen Oekonomie. Band III. Elrankheitslehre des Sozialen VoUiskoerpers. 411 pp. Berlin : Puttkammer und Muehlbrecht, 1908. DR. H. STIRLING POMEROY, M.A., M.D. : Is Man Too Prolific ? The So-called Malthusian Idea. New York : Funk and Wagnalls, 1891. ADAM SMITH : The Wealth of Nations. J. W. WELSFORD, M.A. : The Strength of Nations, an argument from history. 327 pp. London : Longmans, 1907. RENE VALERY RADOT : Life of Louis Pasteur. London : (Nonstable, 1906. REV. R. USSHER : Neo-Malthusianism, an Inquiry into that system with regard to its economy and morahty. 325 pp. London : Methuen and Co., 1897. J. JOHNSTON, M.D. : Wastage of ChUd Life. 95 pp. London : A. C. Fifield, 44 Fleet Street, 1909. SEVENTIETH ANNUAL REPORT OF THE REGISTRAR-GENERAL of Births, Deaths and Marriages in England and Wales, 1907. The same for 1906. STATISTISCHES JAHRBUCH FUER DAS DEUTSCHE REICH, herausgegebeu vom Kaiserlichen Statistischen Amt. Berlin : Puttkammer & Muehlbrecht, 1908. DAS DEUTSCHE REICH IN GESUNDHEITLICHER UND DEM06RAPHISCHER BEZIEHUNG. Ibid. 1907. STATISTIQUE ANNUELLE DU MOUVEMENT DE LA POPULATION. Ann^s 1905 et 1906. Paris : Imprimerie Nationale, 1907. STATISTIQUE INTERNATIONALE DU MOUVEMENT DE LA POPULATION, d'aprfes les registres de I'etat civil jusqu'en 1905. Ibid. CENSUS OF CANADA, 1901. Vol. IV., Vital Statistics, etc. PubUshed by the Govern- ment of the Dominion. COMMONWEALTH OF AUSTRALIA. BUREAU OF STATISTICS. Population and Vital Statistics. Summary of Commonwealth Demography, 1901-06. The Same : Official Year-Book of the Conunonwealth of Australia, No, 2 1901-08. THEODOR MOMMSEN: Romische Geschichte. Band V. Berlin: Weidmann'sche Buchhandlung, 1882. (same author) Res Gestae Divi Augusti, ex Monumentia Ancyrano et Appoloniensi. Ibid. CORNELIUS TACITUS : The Histories of Tacitus, edited by Rev. W. A. Spooner. London : MacmiUans. GAIUS SUETONIUS: The Twelve Caesars. Translation by Alex. Thomson, M.D. London : George Bell and Sons, 1884. W. WARDE FOWLER : Social Life at Rome in the Age of Cicero. 362 pp. London : Macmillans, 1908. J. B. BURY : The Student's Roq^an Empire. London : Murray, 1900. CHARLES LOUIS DE MONTESQUIEU : De I'Esprit des Lois. (Des bis des Remains sur la propagation de I'esp^ce). Tome trois&me. Published at Amsterdam and Leipzig, 1769. H. F. PELHAM : Outlines of Roman History. (Professor of Ancient History, Oxford). London : Rivingtons, 1895. J. B. FIRTH : Augustus Caesar and the Organisation of the Empire of Rome. London : Putnams, 1903. E. S. SHUCKBURGH : Augustus, the Life and Times of the Founder of the Roman Empire. London : Fisher Unwin, 1903. NIEBUHR : History of Rome, Vol. III. DURUY : History of Rome, Vol. III. MAURICE VANLAER : La Fin d'un Peuple. La depopulation de I'ltalie au temps d'Auguste. Paris : Ernest Thorin, 1895. JOURNALS AND OFFICIAL REPORTS. LA REVUE SOCIALISTE : September, 1896. JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL STATISTICAL SOCIETY, March, 1908. REPORT OF THE PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL CONFERENCE ON INFAN- TILE MORTALITY, June, 1906. Chairman, Evan Spicer, J.P., Chairman of the London County Council. Westminster : P. S. King and Son. REVUE D'ECONOMIE POLITIQUE, December, 1895. Fevrier, 1896. BRITISH MEDICAL JOURNAL, London. Series. THE LANCET, London. Series. MEDICAL PRESS AND CIRCULAR, London. Series. . JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN MEDICAL ASSOCIATION, Chicago. Series. REVUE POLITIQUE ET PARLEMENTAIRE. Paris : Octobre, 1906, et Juin, 1897. REVUE DES DEUX MONDES, Octobre. 1897. REPORT FROM THE SELECT COMMITTEE (House of Commons) ON INFANT LIFE PROTECTION. March, 1908. REPORT FROM THE JOINT SELECT COMMHTEE (Lords and Commons) ON THE POISONS AND PHARMACY BILL, May, 1908. REPORT FROM THE JOINT SELECT COMMITTEE ON LOTTERIES AND IN- DECENT ADVERTISEMENTS. July, 1908. JOURNAL DES ECONOMISTES, 15 Mai, 1895. LA REFORME SOCIALE, Bulletin de la Soci^6 d'Economie Sociak, 16 Dec, 1889 et 1 Juin, 1891. WESTMINISTER GAZETTE, 26th August, 1908. LE JOURNAL DE PARIS, 7 Juin, 1908, 15 Novembre, 190a L'OPINION, 22nd August, 1908. DIE NEUE FREIE PRESSE, Wien, Oct., 1908. LE JOURNAL DES DEBATS, POLITIQUES ET LITTERAIRES, Paris, 29 August, 1908. THE WORLD, London, 26 August, 1908. LA REVUE HEBDOMADAIRE, Paris. Series. THE DELINEATOR, Butterick Publishing Co., New York. The student may consult also the following supplementary list, but some of the works he will find difficult, or actually impossible, to acquire. DES CILLEULS, A. : La Population. Paris, Lecoffre, 1902. COSTE, A. : La Loi de la Population. Rectification de la Theorie de Malthus. Paris : Guillaumin, 1901. GIDE, CHARLES : Principes d'Economie Politique. Ibid, 1902. GOTTSCHALK, Dr. : Valeur Scientifique de Malthusianisme. Paris : Stock, 1900-1902, JAVAL ET PAUL ROBIN, Des. : Centre et pour le Neo-Malthasianisme. Ibid, 1897. LEUTNER, FERD. : Der Kampf urn Raum. Wien, 1882. LORIA, ACHILLE : La Morphologic Sociale. Paris : Giard et Briere, 1905. MABILLE, P. : La Loi de Malthus sur la Population. Dijon : Groffier, 1907. DE MOLINARI, G. : La Viriculture. Paris : Guillaumin, 1897. PIOT, EDME. : La Depopulation. Paris : Mouillot, 1902. RAMUS, PETER : WilUam Godwin, der Theoritiker des Kommunistischen Anarchismus: Leipzig : F. Dietrich, 1906. SOETBEER : Die Stellung der Sozialisten zur Malthus' schen Bevolkerungslehre. (Joet- tingen, 1886. TRENEY, XAVIER : Extraits des Economistes des XVIIIe et XIXe Siecles. Paris Quantin. TURGEON, CHARLES : Le Feminisme Frangais. Paris : Larose, 1907. GOUNARD, RENE : La Depopulation. Lyon, 1898. BROUARDEL, De. : L' Infanticide. BAUDRILLART, De. : Les Populations Agricoles de la France. CLEMENCEAU: La M616e Sociale. DAGAN, H. : Superstitions Politiques et Ph6nomenes Sociaux. GUYAU, M. : L'lrreUgion de I'Avenir. PORAK : Rapport a I'Acad^mie de Medecine, 1902. JOLLES : Die Aussichten der deutschen nationaloekonomischen Scbriftsteller des sechszehnten & siebzehnten Jahrhunderts ueber Bevoelkerungswesen (Jahrbuch fuer Nationaloekonomie und Statistik, Jena, 1886). Of the Uterature in English upon Political Economy there is a whole Sahara, dismal and dry as dust. The impetus given by its exponents to Malthusianism induced the issue of a flood of pamphlets and books instructing in sexual irregularities. Some of these must of necessity be mentioned, but no Ust will here be given. Most if not all of them cite the leading Political Economists in recommending sexual frauds. RACIAL DECAY INTRODUCTION EACUL DECAY. mTBODUCTION. 1. Three years ago, a public officer called upon me and said : I wish to communicate facts which 1 conceive it my duty to impart to you as a Royal Commissioner charged with inquiry into secret preparations. They come before me in the course of my work. I have visited a factory where a row of boys are occupied making [certain articles which are sold by chemists for the prevention of conception]. They stand opposite blocks of ice in order that the preparations may be more quickly chilled, 60 as to be packed and sent out as required for orders. Q. Who packs these things in the cardboard boxes ? Girls or boys ? A. Boys. But near to the line of lads is a row of girls occupied at different work. Q. Who packs the abortifacient pills of savin and ergot that the same firm supplies 1 Also the boys ? A. No, the girls pack these. But what I want to draw your attention to is this : Don't you consider that those girls are peculiarly hable to seduction, when they see in their daily occupation the supposed preventives of conception on the one hand, and the supposed " cure," in the case of " misfortune," on the other ? 2. That officer is in the employ of the Government of the particular State where this everyday trade of our civiHsation is carried on. There is nothing at all novel in it, and the narrative may seem to many quite pointless, because the traffic has been abundantly exposed in the Report of the New South Wales Royal Commission upon the Dechne oiE the Birth-rate, and in the first volume of my own Report upon Secret Drugs. It does not appear that in England any report upon, or exposure of, these products has been deemed necessary, or that any intention hae been manifested by ParUament in either country to inhibit their manufacture. 3. The chief of a federal department was then requested to cause inquiry to be made through his officers as to the accuracy of the information. It was confirmed, as above related, and again corroborated by a lady in official position. The necessity to tiius inquire at all would be to " the trade " anything but obvious, for " goods " cannot be on sale without firstly having been manufactured. Yet we thus arrive at the bed-rock of facts. 4. Narrating this every-day phase of our commercial life to the editor of a London medical serial of the first rank, the physician replied with warmth, " It's seduction made easy." 5. But by invitation of the physician of a London hospital for children, I met for an evening's discussion two of the medical officers of the great administrative departments in London, each being in a position of high responsibiUty. At the end of a very long and interesting conversation as to the control in Great Britain ot drugs, and more particularly of " preserved " and adulterated food-products, I preferred to the senior of the medical officers the question addressed to me by the Australian State official first mentioned. His reply was instantly, " But that's a perfectly legitimate business, the prepar- ation of ' preventive ' contrivances. It's as legitimate as the manufacture of ." (Another contrivance for the same purpose, invented in England). 6. " What country is that factory in, which you have described 1" queried the physician. " In Australia, but it is only a department of an extensive concern. Now I know of a much larger factory in one of the iMidiand counties" (that of the original inventor). " All the same," said the authority, " it is a perfectly legitimate business. Don't you think so 1" turning to the other two. Both doctors signified complete assent ! 7. These two articles are the things most commonly employed as preventives and are those referred to repeatedly in the evidence before the Joint Committee (Lord Beauchamp's). It is difficult to perceive why the sale of such " perfectly legitimate " articles of commerce, by descriptive circular to their wives, should have aroused the anger of " noblemen and labourers," as well as people of all other classes, unless they regarded the trade as an outrage. But that is exactly the word they apphed to it. (Vide Division VII. Pars. 206 to 245 of that report.) 8. The commerce is upon an "enormous scale," as other public officials declared to the Joint Committee, but it might be more accurate to describe it as general and usual. It would be an unfortunate mistake to conclude that because there are many notorious shops in London (par. 1030) whose chief business is the sale of preparations for the prevention of pregnancy and the destruction of the foetus, that " respectable " dealers do not also supply them. The latter is precisely the case, for such merchandise is sold all over England by ordinary druggists just asi in AustraUa and New Zealand. Ample evidence is supphed in the Report of the New South Wales Commission, and in Volume I. of this Export. (Vide pars. 1095, 1800 etseq.). 9. In the First Division of my previous volume will be found a lengthy and detailed account of the drugs commonly used to induce abortion, together with the fatal results that follow upon that degrading crime. It is unnecessary to reproduce the evidence in extenso, but the statements in pars. 1405 e.s. upon authority, are the least that should be quoted. As the practice of child-prevention is upon an ever-widening scale in Anglo- Saxondom, and as we have it upon the declaration of the leading medical journals that the married woman who does not know of this practice, and of its methods, is now a rara avis, we must set forth the risks. It must be reiterated that these journals contain the authoritative communications of healers — ^to one another. That fact should emphasise for us laymen the declarations. When they say that the consequences ought to be known to aU — that schools, colleges, and all other channels of instruction should educate the young in light conduct sexually, and warn against aberrations and incontinence, it does not, alas ! amount to publication. It is only mutual confirmation, informing the instructed. Because our daily and serial literature publishes nothing of it, so that the people remain in darkness and deception as before. 10. It can surely be claimed, at least by a layman, that amongst the most clear- sighted, cautious, earnest and analytical minds in the quest for truth are those in the heaUng professions who apply themselves, to research. It is asserted that they are, in general, MateriaUsts. A brilliant statesman said to me recently, " I am sure if you could take a census of the physicians you would prove 70 or 80 per cent, of them to be Material- ists." It is a hasty generahsation and their modem writings contradict it. The same accusation could be made with equal confidence of electricians, or of ship-builders, and their writings would not contradict it. From dealings with the corporeal and the mental, healers appear to be forced or led to include the psychical and the moral. Such may be deduced from the extracts supplied within relating to the population question, although these have not been addiiced with any such object. 11. Theirs is a world to itseK with its several departments, and it is fortunate for us and for all nations that, in various languages as shown herein, they declare to us our wrong-doing and our duty. It is not nearly enough, yet in essence and in most of the detail the work of rescue from national decay that has been done was done by them. If it were eliminated there would be little left to say. Therefore their declarations are given, as far as possible, in full or in sum. 12. Notwithstanding, it would be useless to deny or to ignore the fact that a number of persons with medical degrees in all parts of the civihsed world, especially in Anglo- Saxondom, have advocated and still advocate artificial interferences to prevent or to destroy human lives in the early stages. We have some of their statements as quoted within, and we have Mrs. Besant's declaration that she kept in communication with such doctors — " teachers " — and that they recounted to her their " successes." 13. Wherever I have travelled I have also found it a belief with " the laity " that medical men largely practice the crime of abortion and generally recommend small famihes. I have questioned these conclusions and have pointed to their official and representative journals, to the ethical control exercised by their associations, and have quoted the text- books and authorities that they recognise. But the behef remained unshaken, whilst names were mentioned to me as instances. This phenomenon is particularly set forth in the American book of which extracts are suppUed in pars. 1695 et seq. The reader has his own experiences in this respect, whether by knowledge or by hearsay. None the less, but all the more is it an absolute duty to display the consequences of perverse teaching and practice. And largely, but by no means whoUy, will the demonstration of the course of Nature and Nemesis depend upon the aforesaid medical authorities. 14. The parallels of history so often adduced are not academic allusions with doubtful appUoation to ourselves and to our day. It is the same human race aSected in the same way by the same follies, vices, crimes and abmninations as of old. And these are followed by the same vengeance. I- therefore cite the actual words of historians and poets because of their incisive force and illuminating quahty, while supplying simple translations without pretence to poetic effect. 15. The design of the present book has been to present sufficient of any quoted writings to make clear the general intent, hence mere referenees obtained in pubhc hbraries would not suffice. The books must be procured and studied. 1 6. It is an easier method of writing, and more usual, to present a continuous narrative or connected argument identifiable with the author, whilst stating the references in parentheses and foot-notes. For a text-book the method has this disadvantage, that if the author's individuality be rejected — the first claim of destructive criticism — ^the whole goes by the board. In the present as in the former volume, the reader is invited to ignore or set aside anything that rests solely upon the author, and to regard only that which is authentic and authoritative. One may even take bricks out of a building and leave it as strong as before. 17. Certainly there is trouble in compihng, but there is much also in closing down, in passing by corroborative evidence. That must be noticeable when it is seen how Uttle is herein Extracted from the literary mines of Levasseub, of Aesbnb Dumont, and of the French Commission. But enough is given to express at least the weight of authority, to which the present writer could add nothing. When we cross a bridge we rarely know of the architect, nor would his name add aught to the utiUty. 18. Wherever the word [Translation] appears in brackets the rendering is my own, and every care and patience has been exercised to give the correct meaning and strength. In all cases where works in foreign languages are quoted the translation is mine, unless specifically indicated as being from an authorised Enghsh rendering and the translator's name be suppUed. 19. The whole work in all departments I have preferred to do alone, as in the case of "the first volume, without secretarial assistance of any kind. The graphs I have also prepared and have made the calculations for them, these being finally checked, at my request, by Mr. J. B. Tbivett, Government Statistician of New South Wales. 20. In acquiring the bibliography I found, at first, nothing to guide. It is easy to read such a list and then procure most of the books. The only method was firstly to obtain some by search, which I made in England, France, Germany and America upon two separate journeys, and from volumes thus acquired to endeavour to exhaust the authors' respective bibhographies. But no single bookseller, or even several, will undertake to procure them unless actual sources be indicated. 21. Messes. Bbentaito, in the Avenue de I'Opera, Paris, kindly informed me where I could probably obtain some of these works upon depopulation. In booksellers' shops on the Quai Voltaire, in the Quartier Latin and elsewhere, I wae able finally to procure some yards in thickness. 22. ^But in London, Paris, Berlin and Leipzig I found it would not do to take no for an answer. To get such things without going for them, and then insisting, would be impossible. Of this the most curious instance was the difficulty in obtaining the Rapports of the great Commission Extra-Parlementaire of France. First learning of its existence by an allusion in an article in " L'Opinion," I tried the Imprimerie Nationale. They knew nothing of the Comptes Rendus. My London booksellers and their Paris agents fafled completely to get a trace. A copy of three of these Rapports had strayed into the possession of a second-hand bookseller on the Quai Voltaire where I found them, and they bore the imprint " Imprimerie Melun." 23. I was assisted, through old personal friendship with an official, by a foreign Embassy, but their willing efEorts were unsuccessful. At the same time I requested another friend, who is a prominent industrial in the City of Paris, to desire his acquaintances in the Chambre des Deputes to procure the series. I felt sure of getting them and returned to London, where to my amazement and discomfiture the letter came of which a fac-simile is below, names omitted. It declares cmly too eloquently, how wholly ineffectual the efforts of these 75 eminent and patriotic men have been for tie salvation of France. My friend informed me also that he had searched Paris for the " Imprimerie Melun," had even searched Melun itself, and had failed to find such an office. Afterwards we discovered that the papers had been printed in the great prison of Melun. 24_ ©MS BSFIS^SSS • ^^ iM. £<. ^uuu-o^t^^^-^ — £c ^ S^ua^i^Xu^ '•i-v*. [Tbanslation.] Your client hats been wrongly informed. No Report whatever upon Depopulation has been deposited in the Chamber, and I have in vain sought for the Commission which is said to have been charged with the study of this question. Neither my colleagues, nor the officers of the House whom I have questioned, have had knowledge of a Report such as that you desire. Is it not a matter of a proposition ? In that case it would be necessary to give me the name of the mover, and I should make it a pleasure to transmit it to you. 25. In the end, through the courtesy of the London Home Office, a complete set of these Rapports was supplied to me upon loan. They were apparently only proof copies. I was then enabled to study at leisure and at length the invaluable record. AJEter examin- ation and some citation I returned the books. 26. From the firm Puttkammek and Mubhlbeecht, Franzosischerstrasse, Berlin, the official pubUshers to the Imperial Geiman Government, I received much courtesy and some of the Uterature that was required. In other German cities the remainder was pro- cured, but it is not so extensive as the French, whilst the English is small indeed. By that is meant books, pamphlets and articles upon the fact of, and the remedy for, depopu- lation. But one could get a cart-load of printed matter in English relating to, and coun- selhng, sexual frauds and Umitation of famihes. In answer to a note of inquiry. Dr. S. Squiee Sprigge, editor of " The Lancet," wrote to me on 21st July, 1908 : 27. The English literature upon the subject of depopulation is very scanty. Our people are not yet aware of the extent to which their fertility has ceased. 28. From first to last my aim has been to prepare an exhaustive compilation of authorities so as to present a complete statement of the decay that has attacked our Anglo-Saxon race, to which my own ancestors belonged, as our family records show, for at least many centuries. It would be possible to present, in the manner of M. Jacqtjes Bebtillon or of the late M. Aesene Dumont, a series of observations and anecdotes, collected from a thousand sources, of the current phenomena of the decline. But I have preferred to suppress any natural desire for originahty, to relinquish any claim to formulate a " law," to propound either a new remedy or a prophylactic. The whole retrogression is of a character old as history, and older, whilst there is no cure nor prophylaxis that is not embraced by the oldest formulae. The one cause is that which made Cain slay Abel, in the ancient poem or narrative — selfishness. The one cure is social affection and self-denial. 29. There is no corner for such a conclusion in that pseudo-science, Pohtical Economy, which has been defined as " enlightened selfishness." The nation will not be saved by any scheme to turn children into Economic Assets. Hence we are driven to examine this modem science — ^falsely so called — ^from the inside, and to trace out its effects upon our own race in particular. It is inseparable from the investigation. Oikos meant a house, nomos a law. Hence economy meant household laws (Wirthschaft), and it becomes our duty to show how httle could the core and essence of the " dismal science " agree with family life. Nevertheless the National-Oekonomie or Volkswirth- schaft of our German cousins may and does faU into natural accord with family law and life, with the " mores Germanicorum " of Tacitus' time. The great lesson to be learned is that the strength of a nation resides in the family and the home, whilst corruption of the family means national decay. We may aloUe reconcile pohtics and home law upon the basis of Spinoza's dictum, which I have chosen as a motto : Homini nihil utilius homine — there is nothing more advantageous to mankind than man. 30. The present volume consists of seven parts. The First Division deals with the Malthusian Apostasy, a history of the open advocacy of child-restriction as a racial practice, together with its adoption as the central idea of the " science " of Political Economy. 31. The Second Division treats of the Example of Prance, and enables us to set forth at length the truly philosophic presentation of the subject by a galaxy of eminent French authors and demographers. 32. The Third Division gives^ synoptical view of the work of the Commission Extra- Parlementaire sur la Depopulation de la Prance, appointed by the administration of M. Waldeck-Rousseau. My own is the first and only precis or account of it that has been pubhshed. Upon it were engaged seventy-fi.ve of the most learned men of France, forming the strongest pubhc commission that has yet been, or is ever Ukely to be, charged with such an inquiry. 33. The Fourth Division displays the opinions and observations of accepted authorities in both hemispheres upon the Pathologic Consequences of Sexual Frauds. Here it should be said at once that those who expect details to excite or to sate prurience had better instead spend a few shillings in obtaining the books which teach such frauds in detail. They are regularly advertised and sold, as well as carried by His Majesty's mails all the time. Photographic copies of these advertisements are supplied in my former volume, whilst that traffic in flagrant and flaunting iniquity is tolerated by our Governments. It is even encouraged by them, for State announcements appear side by side with those of the filthiest literature, old and new, which pomographers can print upon paper. Nothing will be found in this division but some account of the varied vengeance taken by Nature upon persons, families, and nations who outrage her iron law. 34. The Fifth Division sets forth in graphic and tabular form The Progress of Decay. 35. In the Sixth Division I have attempted to portray the Parallel of Ancient Rome, 80 often casually cited by writers upon depopulation. It is an inadequate presentation, especially so in relation to the towering genius, unshaken resolve, and admirable example of OcTAVius C^SAB AUGUSTUS. In so narrow a space it is impossible to convey a just idea of the laws, hfe, and peaceful reign, lasting 58 years, of him who was designated by unanimous vote of an adoring parUament and people, " Father of His Country." Nor of the " material progress " — the incredible accretion of riches — and the apparent increase of population, during a time of decadence and decay. 36. The Seventh Division alludes to the Position of Parliament and the Churches, in relation to racial dechne. 37. It is not claimed that the position of the Churches is exhaustively shown by the authorities adduced, but it is fairly iadioated. Neither can it be admitted straight off, that foreign missions are to be decried because we do not cleanse the inside of our own cup and platter, as so often the sneer is offered by persons who take no part in either work. It is probable that those who wish to share their enUghtenment and happiness with less fortunate nations, braving disease and death in doing it, are just the very people who uphold Christian principles in their vital meaning now, as did their foreruimers between the reigns of Tiberius and Constantino. 38. It is a false deduction and a grievous error to conclude that by the sweeping process of artificial selection now proceeding, the inferior elements only of the population wiU be left. Although — as shown with much elaboration herein — there is a pronounced tendency, by retaining the early-born and cutting off the cadets, to increase the proportion of enfeebled as against strong children, of diseased and predisposed as against the healthy and immune — ^it must not be overlooked that in a high proportion undesirables are being eliminated definitely. Those who are devoid of, or defective in, natural affection ; those who do not desire babies and will not suckle them, place their offspring under disadvantages which we show later arithmetically to be anythmg from 400 to 1000 per cent, greater than those of breast-fed children. Let us regard such people as a class, not socially, but demographically and apart from all other considerations. They are loaded with a hopeless handicap, and all the time some of them are dropping into extinction. Of course nothing need be said of those couples who refuse to have any children. Theirs is family suicide. 8 39. It is a wholly unsupported conclusion that the children of poorer persons are necessarily inferior in quaUty — on the average — to those of the rich. It is indeed often the case where the mothers are robbed of the opportunity to nurse, and where young children are denied suitable nourishment. These are purely artificial, not natural, disadvantages which laws can cure if we choose to vote them. It has been done and can be done again, Pohtical Economy to the contrary. '*40. That which follows from a strengthening of personal and rehgious obUgation is now, has always been, and therefore will remain — a stronger and more immune posterity. The normal-Hving remnant that is being saved, that can and will be saved from the flood, tends to a higher and not to a lower type. 41. The inculcation therefore of the Churches — with all imperfections, and whether Christian or Jewish — ^is from life unto hfe, and will bear instant fruit if it be only bold and honest in the doctrine of Moses or of Jesus. The other teaching is inevitably from death unto death. And that inculcation has the earnest and ceaseless urging of the medical profession, as proved from its own undisputed authorities. 42. It is claimed herein that parliament is the conscience of the people, whence its laws must represent the principles of the nation. It cannot be denied that the Supreme Court of New South Wales expressly sanctioned the pubhcation of Mrs. Besant's pamphlet upon the restriction of famiUes by artificial interferences with the sexual functions. That book explains with unreserve the chemical agents and the mechanical contiivances for the destruction of the human germ, how they are to be prepared and used, together with urgent advocacy of the lessening of Anglo-Saxon reproduction. 43. Neither can it be denied that in the trade newspapers issued to chemists and druggists throughout the British Empire, and carried by our mails, are contained full- page advertisements with a picture of the spermatocidal contrivance which is in all places stocked and sold. The advertisement declares, as a warning to imitators, that the High Courts of Judicature in Great Britain have issued several injunctions against imitators, and that the trade mark is registered in Great Britain, Australia, India and The Cape. The things professedly contain a drug poisonous and deadly to the human germ. They have no other use or object than destruction of the transmitted hfe-principle. Nor is any other use or object professed for them by the manufacturers. The evidence before the Select Committee of the British Parliament is that such things have " an enormous sale" (Rep., par. 232). That is the state of law and practice which history must here- after record as existing in Anglo-Saxondom at the beginning of the twentieth century, whilst British parUaments remained supine. 44. Although Tacitus said that a thoroughly corrupt state has the most laws (cbrruptissima repubhca plurimae leges) a people desiring to preserve the vigour of its vitahty will make laws to that end. They need to be few, simple, and forcibly adminis- tered. But where a nation grants free trade in secret drugs, and allows poisoning of family hfe at its source ; where it seeks to reconcile that with national development, it will have laws as numerous as they are futile. 45. With the single exception of Mr. Theodoee Roosevelt it must have been observed by the reader that no statesman in Anglo-Saxondom, through his speeches or writings, appears to attribute importance to decline in reproduction of the race. In Germany, where the actual margin of gain is ever augmenting until it has reached the fine figure of nearly a million a year, keen interest is taken by monarch and people in' the fact that the percentage ratio diminishes. If the border-Une of extinction be taken at a birth-rate of 21 per 1000 of population, and as England has a rate of 26 whilst Germany has a rate of 33, the latter has 140 per cent, (as 12 to 5) more racial vitaUty than England. This is apart from national movements towards preservation of vitaUty, which are quite without match in England or her colonies. 46. Discussing the question in London with, a statesman who has more than once been a cabinet minister, he said : " Yes, there's no doubt it's a very serious matter, but I have faith that somehow we*ll JJunder through this difficulty, same as we've blundered through others." That abiding Taith would be pathetic if it were not ridiculous. In war we may indeed have blundered through, because the other side being human also blundered, but when it comes to sheer arithmetic, blunders never helped, nor ever wiU. In that — at the very least — Nature makes no mistakes. 47. The first volume of the present work was presented as a report under the Royal Commission, of which a copy appears at the end hereof. The execution of the duty required much travelling and difficult collation. The whole of the expenses, large and small — journeys, services, purchases, fees, postages, stationery — ^were at my own cost, and it was claimed by some members of Parhament that I ought to pay for the printing also. Even the distribution of the books afterwards was at my private expense, costing over half-a-crown each. 48. It is merely what a practising physician submits to every day of his life, because in the sphere of pubhc health and decency it is what is expected. Therefore a layman must also reckon upon it from the start. Mention is made in order to show the difficulty in causing the truth regarding their most vital interests to penetrate to the Anglo-Saxon people. In Germany, Italy, Switzerland and Scandinavia the case is quite different. It is a part of the duty of certain civil functionaries to keep the pubhc informed of their danger. A number of such notifications I have translated and suppUed in Vol. I. What some of these dangers are, will be understood if the reader will peruse that portion of the Report of the Joint Select Committee of the British Parliament contained herein. Of such Reports the general pubhc sees and knows nothing. 49. In my precis of the proceedings of the great French Commission will be seen how bitterly the President of the Academy of Moral Sciences — and other distinguished men of the Commission — ^feel their helplessness to bring the truths home, after their loyal and gratuitous labours. It is a great victory for the principle of evil. A patriotic French physician (par. 972), stricken as he is with physical bhndness, offered eagerly to dip into his savings so as to provide the few hundred pounds necessary for the printing of the noble writings of his colleagues, under the Commission, upon improvement in the care of children, the extension and preservation of child-hfe, together with protection to child-bearing women and to the unborn. But, as we see, the offer was declined by the Government, so that even the members of the Commission — ^not discharged to this hour, though not convened for years — cannot have a copy of their own costless yet priceless work. 50. The members of the New South Wales Royal Commission, of whom I was one, did not receive a copy of their own Report. Only twelve copies of the voluminous and unique evidence were printed, but promptly suppressed by the Government of the day. Merely a very general report was issued, at a prohibitive price. The evidence was all upon oath, at first hand, and in detail. A copy in private hands is always available to myself. The traffic carried on by the criminals exposed by it was checked a httle for the time, as might be expected. But the same persons and shops sell the same iniquities as before, only on an extended scale. The articles are homicidal to both women and off- spring, as abundantly set forth by. photographic and typographic representation in Vol. I. of my own report. Nothing of that kind wiU appear herein. 51: Some attention has been drawn in a slight and ineffective way by magazine articles to the " cessation of fertility," or more correctly, of fecundity. They are usually sets of opinions accompanied by guesses and prophecies, rarely or never by an array of demographic data in unbreakable phalanx. For that reason, or perhaps through sheer indifference, legislators and citizens treat the whole subject of Malthusian practices and racial dechne with levity and jocularity. We hear it in speech and we read it in the daily journals. 10 52. True as it is, however, that "nations like individuals are mortal," there is assuredly an important proportion of the British people to whom the facts of decadence, once demonstrated, will make strong appeal. For them — ^not specially for AustraUa — this work has been in chief undertaken, without other hope of acceptance, and that measure of acceptance is the sole possible reward. Beyond that, there is humanity and posterity, to whom this laborious compilation is offered. Finally, there is nothing claimed by the writer more than a very long training for the work, several years' practice within the work, industry bounded only by the Umits of a sound physical eye-sight, with an earnest desire throughout to present complete authoritative evidence, from world-sources, upon the deepest and gravest of subjects. 53. I conclude this Introduction by quoting the words of Cobnelixjs Tacitus ; — " Exsequi sententias haud institui nisi insignes per honestum aut notabiU dedecore, quod praecipuum munus annalium reor, ne virtutes sileantur, utque pravis dictis factisque ex posteritate et infamia metus sit." (Annal : iii., 65.) Which may be rendered thus : — I have by no means undertaken to set forth men's purposes unless they be distinguished by moraUty or notorious shame ; for what I hold to be the pre-eminent function of history is that moral excellences sink not into obUvion, and that base words and deeds shall dread the execration of posterity. NOTES UPON THE TEXT. DEMOGEAPHT : Meyer's Lexikon (Vol. IV., page 630) supplies the following definition :— Demographie (demos, Volk, und zwar das Volk in Beziehung zum Staat, im Gegensatze zu ethnos, d.h. dem Volk betrachtet in Bezug auf die Abstammung und ohne Kiioksicht auf Staats- angehorigkeit). Wissenscliaften vom Volk. Unter Demographie wird die einfache Besohreibuug des Volkes verstanden. Eimblin fasst sie als Volks-und Staatenkunde auf, also als gleichbedeutend mit der beschreibenden Bichtung der Statistik im Gegensatze zu der mathematischen. Those clarifying contrasts are liable to confuse the reader. We may define it more simply thus : Demography is statistical writing upon the people in relation to the civil state. By " civU state " is to be imderstood 6tat civil, i.e., births, deaths and marriages, their enumeration and comparison. Throughout my own text the word fertility must be read as meaning the capacity of women to bear children, by the proof of actual production. The word fecundity must be read as meaning the capacity to produce more children than one, proved by production. A plant, an animal, a woman, may be fertile without being fecund. The N.S.W. Royal Commission used the words in senses opposite to the above. Some demographers have done the same. In an article of " The Journal of the Koyal Statistical Society," by Dr. Reginald Dudfield, Slst March, 1908, " Some unconsidered factors affecting the birth-rate," still a different meaning is given, thus : — " The distinction between fecundity and fertility is one of quality versus quantity. Fecundity is measured by the frequency of pregnancy, fertility by the absolute number of the progeny." In the French language the word f 6oondite serves both purposes, which is not convenient. In {Jerman there is the word fruchtbar— fertile or fecund ; hence Fruohtbarkeit — fertiUty, fecundity, prolificacy. If it be said in English that a plant is infertile, the meaning is that it produces no seed. If it be said of a seed-corn that it is infertile, the meaning is that it will not grow at all. But if a plant produce much seed or an animal much progeny, we speak of its fecundity. Hence the current meanings are herem adhered to. Accents. — The reader is asked to oyerlook the absence of accents in French words where capital letters oi thick type are employed. DIVISION I. GENESIS OF THE CARCINOMA 13 GENESIS OF THE CARCINOMA. MALTHUS AND MANCHESTER. 54. To comprehension of the subject it is essential to trace the origin of the disease iu our national Ufe, to find out its first point of departure, and to estimate the causes of its provocation. It is no new mialady, for other nations have died of it whose history remains to us, and like cancer in the individual, it is probably old as the race itself. Not all nations have so perished, as history also tells, and others persist in health from a remote end obscure past. We have to search no musty and doubtful records ; less than a century suffices for the whole story of the trouble. Less than a generation since, the disorder became recognisable as carcinoma. 55. " Our nation," the idea of " our country," has been called an abstraction, but to civilised man it becomes a very real entity when he fights to preserve it, or else submits to foreign levy and subjugation. We speak of the nation as a body, whilst it has also a mind and a conscience. It can be physically enervated, mentally disordered, or psycho- logically corrupted just like an individual. Part can be sound and part sick. As with a single person, there may be forces of destruction and reparation, of attack and resistance. All that is expressed in the sacred writings of the ancients, for it is ever Ormuzd against Ahriman or Michael fighting Satan. 66. We begin by permitting a high French authority to state the case for child prevention without the necessity of following the devious arguments of the founders of " Malthusian- ism." We may leave to them the whole field of logic, but we are bound to deny their axioms, to expose the failure of their forecasts and to place the facts of nature opposite to their conclusions. We shall place precept and practice side by side, and aU upon au- thority. There shall be no novelty, no originality. We shall invent no " progressions," discover no new " laws." The most ancient maxims and the oldest discoverable experiences of mankind shall suffice. We shall take as guiding principles primordial truths and only seek to reassert antique perceptions of the relation of man to his Creator. 57. Through the writings of foreign authors, whether Malthusian or not, we may some- times obtain a better view of our own position and see ourselves as others see us. Therefore the chief work of an acknowledged leader in PoUtical Economy in France is first selected. THE PRINCIPLE OF POPULATION, By Joseph Gaenibe, Member of the Institute, preceded by an Introduction by G. DE MoLiNAEi, Correspondent of the Institute. 58. The motto upon the cover is : " It depends upon man whether the growth of popula- tion brings progress or misery." This book of 615 pages is the chief exposition in French of the doctrines of Malthus, which have had so lamentable an influence upon the Galhc nation in the first place and upon the English people — who can claim the doubtful honour of originating and of pro- mulgating this remarkable "gospel" — in the second. u 59. The French were the first to accept it, for the seed-bed was earliest prepared. But in England the cult had prophets, Jambs Mill (1), his son and disciple John Stttabt Mill, John Ramsay MacCulloch (2), David Ricabdo (3), Dk. Thomas Chalmebs (4), all these names with others being adduced by Gaenier (page 248), and many quotations are suppUed from their writings. He says 'VTher Ideas of Malthus have»been professed and defended by most modern Eoonomists." 60. They are identified with, and have been pronounced essential principles by the leaders of the Manchester School, to whom must be allowed all the credit of the propaganda, from Adam Smith through Thomas Malthus himself and the Economist hierarchy generally, down to the present hour. 61 . The whole teaching of Malthus is often summed up in two words, " conjugal prudence," or " moral restraint," for nowhere does that clergyman indicate sexual ■ interferences, either by mechanical, chemical or other means. But Gamier, the Malthusian leagues, and a host of writers, preachers and teachers have appHed the principles of Malthus to those manoeuvres which are to ehminate conception or to destroy the foetus, for the two practices are complementary. To the former < of these proceedings De. L. Bebgesbtj in his celebrated work, gave the name " genesic frauds " or " conjugal frauds." Even the third alternative, infanticide, is not without its advocates amongst them, as will be seen herein from their own authorities. The admitted object of all these teachings may again be summed in two words " child restriction." 62. Gamier's masterpiece was written in the year 1857, when the number of births in France was 26 per 1000 of population. The deathrate in 1854 and 1855 had shown a deficit in the natural growth. That is to say, in every million of the population there were, (1) Leslie Stbphbn. " The Engliah Utilitarians," Vol. 11., p. 39. London. Duekworth, 1900. James Hill had no feeling for the poetical or literary side of things ; and regarded life, it would seem, as a series of- argnments, in which people were to be constrained by logic, not persuaded by sympathy. He seems to have despised poor Mrs. Mill [by whom the great leader of Economists had nine children] and to have been misuccessfol in concealing his contempt, though in his letters he refers to her lespectfolly. Mill therefore was a man little likely to win the hearts of his followers, though his remarkable vigour of mind dominated their understandings He sneceeded beyond all dispute in forcibly presenting one set of vievra which profoundly influenced his countrymen ; and tbe narrowness of his intellect enabled him to plant his blows more effectively. (2) Of MAcCrrLLOCH it is said : It must be admitted that his treatment of the subjects with which he dealt is not marked by any special breadth or elevation. He adopted too hastily the theoretical exaggerations of some of Adam Smith's successors, and exhibited in full measure their habitual deadness in the study of social questions to aU but material considerations. (J. K. Inoeam, LL.D., Librarian to Trinity College, Dublin). (3) David Ricabdo, Member of the House of Commons and of the London Stock Exchange, Economist : For any large treatment of moral and political questions Bicabdo seems to have been alike by preparation and nature unfitted ; and there is no evidence of his having had any but the most ' orduiary and narrow views of the great social problems. His whole conception of human society is material and mechanical, the selfish principle being regarded — after the manner of the Benthamites, aa omnipotent — not merely in practical economy, but, as appears from his speech on the ballot and his tract on reform, the whole extent of the social field. Roschbb calls him " ein tiefer Menschenkeimer " [one possessing deep knowledge of mankind] ; it would be difficult to characterise him more inaptly. Roscher remarks on his " capitalistic " tone, which, he says, becomes " mammonistic " in some of his followers ; but the latter spirit is felt as the pervading atmosphere of Bicardo's works. . . . We ought perhaps, with Held, to regard it as a merit in Ricardo that he does not cover with fine phrases his deficiency in warmth of social sentiment. The idea of the active capitalist having any duty towards his employees never seems to occur to him ; the labourer is in fact merely an instrument in the hands of the capitalist, a pawn in the game. Bicardo's principal work is the ultimate expression of what AtrousTB Comtb calls "I'ignoble m6taphysique qui pretend ^tudier les lois g^n&ales de I'ordre materiel en I'isolant de toute- autre " [that base metaphysics which claims to study general laws of the material order whilst separating it tcom every other order]. Against such a picture of industrial life as a mere sordid struggle of conflicting interests, contemporary Socialism is a necessary, though formidable, protest ; and the leaders of that move- ment have eagerly seiz d his onesided doctrines and used them for their own ends. (J. K. Inobam, LL.D.,' Encyc. Britt., Vol. 20, 535). (4) Of DocTOB Thomas Chalmers it was remarked that " He was more Malthusian than Malthus." Leslib Stephen, " The English Utihtarians " (page 246), London. Duckworth-and Co., 1800. 15 in- the former twelve months, 1900 more deaths than births, and in the latter, 1000 mora d^iaths than births. The number of children bom there and then was at the same rate^ as in- Australia and Great Britain now, but the margin of increase for several years had been extremely small. It was ratHter curious that Gamier should have chosen such a mission, or such a time, to spread the Manchester doctrines in general and the Malthusian part in particular, but he did both with most gratifying success. The seed-bed was ready, ia (France, aa was that of England twenty years later, when the first meeting of the Malthu- sian League, founded by Chables Beadlattgh and Annie Bbsant, wa« held in London in the Hall of Science, Old Street, 17th July, 1877. They were both epoch-making events, for then the poispnous plant took root, whose effect has brought the former nation actually to the period of dissolution, and has deeply, perhaps also fatally, spread disease through the fibres of our own people. 63. Joseph Gamier was a proUfic writer of the School of PoUtical Economy, for there is only one school, one exclusive orthodoxy, in that which is called the " dismal science." He was the first and the chief editor of the " Journal des Economistes,," and founder of the influential institution known as the Soci6t6 d' Economic Pohtique. To quote the words of M. G. de Molinabi, who was also an eminent exponent and followed Gamier as editor, " The success of his ' Dictionary of Commerce and Merchandise,' which contained numerous articles of the Economist teaching, encouraged him to undertake a publication which interested economic science more directly stiU. This was the ' Collection of the Principal Economists,' QtrBSiTAY and the Physiocrats, Tuegot (*), Adam Smith, Malthtts, RiOAEDO, Jeau Baptiste Say, and others. He also undertook, in collaboration with Rossi, the publication of Malthus' works." 64: Quesnay was the hasty savant who publicly announced his discovery of the quadrature of the circle. He did not discover it, of course, any more than his followers down to our day have discovered the cure for poverty, however confidently they have announced child-prevention as such, and still persist in announcing it as the complement of their theories — this doctrine of Malthus. " Joseph Gamier, partisan as he was of social reforms in aU that they contained of that which was legitimate and beneficent, was the adversary, the most resolute enemy, of Socialism" (de Molinari). The three phrases of socialist doctrine that received this lifelong enmity, and the lash of his literary whip, were (i) the right of the child to sustenance, (ii) the Droit au Travail, or right to claim work from the State, (iii) necessity of provision for the aged poor by public and private beneficence, or both. Germany has never been under Socialistic rule, yet aU three claims are not only allowed, but there is daily enforcement of them by the State itself, 65. The whole principle of laissez faire, laissez passer — the very phrase is claimed by " the school of Political Economists " — is the vehicle, the solvent, by which the poison above mentioned is spread. Let people grasp what they like, seU what they Uke, do what they like. Let them keep open shops to sell anti-conceptional preparations and instruments to pander to sexual abnormalities, as such articles are seen every day in the most central and prominent thoroughfares of London and of Paris. Books of instructions how to apply these things are advertised in newspapers, in railway and other journals under the control of members of Parliament, as shown in Volume I., and as denounced by the medical journals quoted therein. 66. Abortifacient nostrums are sold universally ; fraudulent nostrums, condemned as such by the Courts of the British realm, including a High Court of Appeal, are sold and adver- tised exactly as before their exposure. And the State of Great Britain still receives its shaje, every day, in ever-increasing volume, upon those individual and identical swindles (*) TuBOOT said : " En tout genre de travail, il doit arriver et il arrive que le salaire de I'ouvrier 86 borne & oe qui est n&essaire pour se procurer sa subsiatance." [In every department of labour, it is bound to happen, and it does happen, that the wages of the worker are limited to that which is necessary to procure bis subsistence]. If it be really so it ia clear that celibate workers, male and female, must freeze out the married, and thesefoie stop procreation of the race. To that conclusion the much trusted argumentative faculty inevitably leads. 16 which its judiciary have officially declared to be swindles. That is laissez faire, laissez. passer, and the wrong must be requited, for " alle Schuld racht sich auf Erden," all guilt avenges itself here below. These, which are not the worst phases nor even the ugHest symptoms and proofs of decay, justify the remark of Lord Beauchamp, member of the present Administration : " The evil seems to me one of such great magnitude that it needs more drastic treatment than that which any single nation can apply." 67. We have it upon authority (La Depopulation en France, Henry Clement) that " The first to signahse the peril was M. Leonce db Laveegnb, apropos of the census of 1856. From the time of the Restoration until 1846 the average general increase of the population was about 200,000 inhabitants. From 1846 to 1856, it had fallen to 60,000." Checking^ that statement by the French tables we find that whilst the average of those years was not so high as 200,000, the annual increase sometimes exceeded the figure, so that the essential truth of the potentiaUty, at least, is vindicated. But again recalling the fact of actual and serious deficit in births below deaths for two consecutive years, just before the introduction to France by Joseph Garnier of the English doctrines of Pohtical Economy with that of Malthus as its centre, our conception of the infinite gullibihty of man, once he departs from moral principles, is enlarged. To their everlasting credit, whatever were their mistakes or defects, the then Sociahst school scouted and scorned the whole proposition. Right or wrong, they demanded regimentation — to use Huxley's word — the exact opposite of laissez faire, laissez passer. The contuniely was returned by the Economists with interest, when the Sociahsts insisted upon equality of opportunity and the right to worir — more properly, perhaps, the right to earn. In these claims the Roman Church was absolutely with them, whilst declaring against the communistic principle, and both Socialists and Cathohcs, assisted by neutrals such as the heahng professions, condemned the inculcation upon the part of the Economists of conjugal vice. In so far as the Malthusian teaching is concerned, as developed by the Malthusian leagues, complete victory is on its side, and death now triumphs in France definitively over birth. Once more in history shall Ufe be swallowed up of mortality — reversal of the Apostohc promise. 68. France and England accepted and put in practice the " Manchester doctrine," but Germany and others rejected it. When Peince von Btjlow used the words as quoted in Volume I. (par. 1108) "We have coniiuered the Manchester doctrine," that was as a national and not as a party claim. Neither the Social-Democratic nor any other party would contradict him there, unless indeed they could not agree that it was sufficiently conquered. The opposite view to that of the Manchester school is contained in the words of Hegel, " The State is the reaUsation of the moral idea of the nation." Otherwise put, it is the national conscience, it should constitute the restraining principle against immorality and be the principle which encourages morahty. Throughout this Report, in both volumes, ^ the word immorahty is nowhere used to define, nor to apply specially to, mere sexual promiscuity. That is bad enough and racially injurious, but is in the latter regard not so destructive, depraving, annihilating as conjugal fraudulence — the very vice which has- been upheld as a virtue by prominent apostles of the Manchester school. 69. The Introduction was written by G. de Mohnari, and deals at length with the influence of Malthus, " whose prime impulse was to oppose those (Sociahsts) who advocated (page ix.) the replacement of aristocratic institutions by a regime of popular government in order to cure in an instantaneous manner the iUs of society. They attributed moral evil and the evils of mankind to the vices of government," and so forth. It can hardly be disputed that there is a great deal to be said in support of such an obvious claim, though overstated perhaps by the Sociahsts ; and a good deal was said, in persuasive manner, by many social and Sociahstic writers, Godwin and others. (Translation). 70. " This thesis a young disciple of Adam Smith," says Molinari, " undertook to refute. He was a minister of the gospel, curate in an Enghsh village, Thomas Robert Malthxts, and on this occasion he was led to study the laws of population. 17 arding himself by the researches of his predecessors. Malthus himself says 'It was a writing of Godwin — an " Essay upon Avarice and Prodigality " — ^which put the pen in my hand, as I hajje announced in my preface. I followed the impression of a moment and I employed the materials that I had within my reach ; Hwne, Wallace and Adam Smith were my guides. Their works are the only ones which have aided me in developing the principle to which I have attached myself.' " 71. At first published without the author's name, and when the French revolution occupied general attention (1798) his work remained ignored and the first edition took five years to run ofi. But from the date of the second, the success was rapidly accentuated. Editions, continually enlarged and improved, succeeded one another quickly. Violently attacked and insulted by Sociahsts of all the schools, not for- getting a number of devout people, and not less actively defended by the Malthusian Economists, the author of the "Essay upon the Principle of Population " acauired a universal celebrity. What was it that caused this resounding success ? What did his book contain to excite to such a degree the fury of some and to merit its adoption as a sort of gospel by the others ? It contained above all an energetic vindication of individual responsibility. The ills which Godwin attributed to the vices of governments, Malthus imputed principally to the wrong employment of the Uberty of individuals, to ignorance, to improvidence, to lack of perception, and to the intellectual and moral defects which vitiate the government of the individual by himself. He further attributed the iUs to the deceptive encouragement that laws and philanthropic practices, irrefiective and imprudent, gave to improvi- dence by weakening the sentiment of individual responsibility. 72. Then at great length and with tedious repetition is formulated the central idea of the restriction by married people of the number of their children. As is well known, Malthus proposed " moral restraint," to which two meanings have been given, his own being abstinence, the other and more popular being the practice of sexual interferences and abnormalities of several kinds. It should always be borne in mind that there were not then 12,000,000 people in all England and Scotland,* that the nation had been im- poverished, or at least severely strained, by long and sanguinary fighting for its very existence ; that men were sorely needed for present and future defence and for work ; that the rate of increase in France was very slow ; that all Prussia only contained 2,000,000 people, possibly not more than in the time of Nero. Malthus himself (page 425) states the population of England at 9,168,000 in year 1800. Further, that the poor-laws to keep aUve the " inferior classes " (as the Economists constantly called the poor) once they are past work, introduced by a great monarch, law-giver and administrator — Queen Ehzabeth — were the only conceivable complement of a system which allowed unlimited right of individual acquisition of land and other property, whilst permitting the appropria- tion by the rich of foundation-schools, universities and other means of learning. 73. The Socialists pointed out that Malthus and his school demanded as axioms things that were impossibilities.' How could the farm labourer, untaught himself, fill out his lack of perception and aU his pthet defects or those of his children, even if the children were hmited by law (as subsequently proposed by John Stuart Mill) or by preventive checks ? How could poor Httle child-slaves educate themselves who in Lancashire fac- tories, then — as also fifty years later — ^with weak eyes and crooked spine, worked six days a week, twelve terrible hours a day, to pile up colossal fortunes for the very leaders of the Economist school 1 The leaders voted in the British Parliament for the continuance of that slavery under the plea that it were interference with Uberty to prevent the using up of this available child labour (pars. 289 e. s.). Though it cannot be said that Malthusianism was ever accepted by the British nation, it became intimately associated with the Econom- ist, eventually the dominant, party. In the monumental works of Levassbue and of *The Statistical Tables of Europe, by J. G. Boettioher, dated 1800, and said to be correct to 1799, give the figures of the United Kingdom as follows (quoted by Benj. Kidd, "Soo. Evolution"): England, 8,400,000; Scotland, 1,600,000; Ireland, 4,000,000. 18 Lb. Play upon the demography of Fiance, which are neutral, and in- the writings of the French Economists, it is a^nitted and declared that from England came the doctrine of Jindtation of families as a pohtical cult. 74. The theory of Malthns, continues de Molinari, occupies a great place in the history of the Ectnumiic policy. [Observe the defibaite article]. It has exercised a considerable influence in Englsmd, where it has contributed to the reform of the poor-laws, and it has awakened everywhere attention to the encouragement that pnbUc charity gives to the multipEcation of the poor and the aggravation of the evils of pauperism. It is par excellence a theory of self-government. Man is free and master of his destiny, but he is, by the same thing, responsible for his acts. If he does not fulfil all the obligations wMch the government of himself impUes, if he does not oppose any rein to his passions and his vices, it is for him, and for the beings for whom be is responsible, to snpport the conseqaences of his imprudent or Tidoos condnct 75. The argument proceeds that if the poor and the children are assisted, the burden win fall upon the wealthy and finally expose the latter to bankruptcy and ruin. 76. Society wiU be in the necessity of restraining the liberty of those whom it will be obliged to assist, in other words to reduce them again to slavery or to impose tutelage upon them. Malthus refused to accept this necessity. He supposed that every man is capable of governing himself. In that, it may be claimed that his theory supposed a moral progress which alas ! does not yet exist, and will not be produced before long centuries. But does it not show a proof of singular ignorance or of blind party spirit, to accuse hiTn of being an enemy of progress ? It ought to be remarked that not all of Malfbns' disciples have faJIen into what might be called the Utopias of the author of the " Essay upon the Principle of Popu- lation," that is to say an excess of confidence in liberty and an exc^s of asceticism [alluding to abstinence by married people, instead of the use of genesic frauds as inculcated by the other branch of the School]. Stoart MiU. for example, admitted that the limilation of the nmnber of children in the family might be imposed by the law. " If the labouring class once accepted generally this opinion that its well-being requires the limitation of families, workmen that are respectable and well conducted would conform to this opinion, and no one would infringe it excepting those who habitually make light of social duties. Then there wonld take place the transformation of moral obligation not to have too many children into a l^al obligation ; just as it very often happens after the progress of an opinion, the law finishes by imposing upon the recalcitrant minority those obUgataons which, in order to produce their effect, ought to be general and to which the majority, judging them useful, have voluntarily submitted themselves " (Principles of Pohtical Economy, vol. I., book ii., chapter 13). 77. No one can deny that this gospel of annihilation has had every success, and promises to carry the future with it. In the first volume of this Report (par. 881) is quoted the denunciation, perfectly impotent, by the great medical journals, of a Kiilway news- paper which advertises regularly pubUcations instructing women how to use certain articles to prevent conception. It is the representative newspaper of a powerful trade union, and the latter has its own member of Parliament. The medical journal quotes the curse of God upon the Canaanites, and threatened to the people of Israel if they should practice like abominations. The same practices that £tre taught by this filthy hterature, which is sold in England and Australia without the smallest restraint or hindrance from the law, were used by the women of Home in the time of Augustus. And it is incredible that the drop in the reproduction of human life could have been quicker amongst that ItaUan people who so perished, than amongst ourselves. We have seen how in a benefit society of twelve hundred thousand persons in England the number of children bom has fallen in 20 years by one-half. In several of the larger EngUsh manufacturing towns 19 the margin of natality over mortality has faJlen so rapidly and so low as to ensure the point of extinction. It is agreijitand conspicuous success. The Malthusian economists may soon be in a position to claim ibhe fulfilment of John Stuart Mill's prophecy and require a law to be passed compelling " the recalcitrant minority " either to use the same prepar- ations or to become ceUbate. Possibly, however, devout Christians and devout Jews will be left to their honest beliefs, and moreover, in the words of a very representative Manchester Eccmomist and Member of the House of Commons, " Babies are getting scarcer and, in acoordtoce with' the inevitable law of supply and demand, are rising.in. value." 78. Monsieur de Molinari concludes his introduction thus : Having often had occasion to convince himseK that those who attacked Malthus had taken good care not to read him, Joseph Gamier wished to take away all excuse, by making a resum6 of the Essay upon the Principle of Population. Published in 1857, this resume obtained a weU-merited success. The first edition had been exhausted for a long time and the author meditated preparing a. second, when death prematurely removed him from science and his friends. In replacing him at this labour I have scrupidously respected the text of the work. . . Arid finally I reproduce the latest offidal report of the Malthusian League which has been formed in England to popularise the practice of the theory o! Malthus. This book has lost nothing of its interest. We find in it the clearness, the precision, and the sobriety which characterised the talent of Joseph Garnier, and which have entitled him to be counted amongst the number of the most useful popularisers of Political^conomy. (Signed) G. de Molinaei. 79. It wiU be seen later with what justice the Socialist and the religionist — if we may use such a word — writers denounced the hard and cold cruelty of the Economists. But it is a matter of profound astonishment that whereas M. Leoncb de Laveegne drew attention to the threatened position of France as shown by the vitaUty figures of 1856, Gamier and his set at that very time imported and translated the negations of the English Malthusian school, whose chief mission was the abolition of charity, repudiation of national responsi- bihty for poor and suffering infantile Ufe, and the inculcation of checks against conception by married women ! When later historians shall apply themselves to record the active causes of the contemporaneous decUne of France and England, the date of the commence- ment of the inculcation of preventive checks in each country cannot fail to puzzle and surprise them. Yet we have it in print, in Gamier's own words (page 3). 80. The question of population is one of the most stupendous which can be ap- proached. In the economic and social point of view it is in that question that are included all others which illuminate it, or which it illuminates in its turn. 81. We are at an epoch when 4he masses receive in this respect the mostdeplorable instruction, the most opposite to their true interest, to the spirit of the family, to morality and social tranquility^^when the most absurd prejudices, the most dangerous errors, circulate even amongst the superior classes of society. 82. This moral situation is largely due to the mistakes, faults and misfortunes of the past. The object of this book is to expose succinctly the natural laws of population and to prove : the energy of its expansive force ; the advantages and the evils which may result from its increase, which is esndowed with greater power than that of the means of ejdstence ; the -physical and moral obstacles which it naturally meets ; those that we propose to oppose to it ; the remedies that can counterbalance its fatal effects ; the diverse theories and the economic, poUtioal and moral illusions which it has produced. 83. We show that the increase of population, far from being always a good thing, as they beUeved it in preceding centuries, and as they generally beUeve it still, may be the principal cause of poverty, soon followed by physical arid moral maladies, by hard suffering and great mortality, by the aid of which Nature proceeds pitilessly 20 to the establishment of equilibrium. We show the slight eflScacy of the other rational means which might tend to the same result, if the populations do not from the first, and chiefly, practise the former [preventive methods]. 84. We point out, on the other hand, how dangerous for society in general, how vain and demorahsing for the masses in particular are the different means — all at bottom alike — ^wbich aim at the development of official charity. We point out the responsibiUty of governments, and of chimerical reorganisations of society which finally lead to a Communist despotism more or less dissimulated. 85. It is one of the aspects of human Liberty and Responsibility to which we wish to contribute our share of Ught ; it is one of the verities of the natural social order, the most fundamental and most misunderstood, that we desire to make most prominent ; a verity perceived by the first Economists, proved to the hilt by the Ulnstrious Malthus, and professed in its generality by the whole Liberal Economic School. 86. Gamier complains firstly : On the (Continent it is regarded as representing the personification of the Economists of the self-styled English school, a denomination which serves as an argument to the inventors of social Utopias, and serves divers pubUeists, and even economists, who are under the illusion that they have worked to found a more Christian pohtical economy, a pretended French School. 87. He cites Colbbbt, Pitt and Napoleon as having accorded premia to the production of large families, three of the greatest men known to history, and also Vauban and MoBTESQUXETT. He quotes on the other side the " physiocrats," with James Stewaet, Adam Smith, Wallace and Hume. But the aureola of the illustrious " Malthus " out- shines them all. The recounting by Gamier of so many English names as expounders of the gospel of sexual abnormality may be a compliment, but many other Englishmen, we may be sure, will regret the truth of it. 88. On page 100 Gamier quotes John Stttaet Mill in the relation to the necessity of speaking plainly if they are to teach " foresight " to married people, and how to prevent the procreation of children without absenting themselves from one another. 89. Some years after the first edition of my " Elements of PoUtical Economy," Mr. Mill expressed himself upon this fundamental subject (of plain talking) with superiority, and much more candour than ourselves. Here is the excellent reason he gave : " The people have scarcely an idea of all that this prudery of lai^uage costs. We can no more prevent and cure social maladies than we can tiie maladies of the body, without speaking of them plainly." 90. They have spoken plainly enough, this school of Economists — ^no possibUity of gainsaying that. Their work has been thoroughly and efficiently done. They have sown the wind in both nations, and both nations are reaping, and will continue to reap, the whirlwind. The salvation of the people is contained, according to these bUnd leaders of the blind, in the practice of the crime narrated in the 38th chapter of Genesis. It is not merely alluded to under all kinds of polished euphemisms, as " a moral act, an empty act, a vain act," but the whole nauseous discussion turns upon an utterly sophistical explaiiation of the phrase " et idcirco percussit eum Dominus, eo quod rem detestabilem faceret." And these Economists, curers of poverty and other social ills, claim that it was the disobedience of Judah's second son wluch was res detestabilis, not the abominable act itself, and this act is to be the panacea whereby France and England are to save themselves from social ills and to set examples to mankind. It is, once again, surprising to find a thick book, 615 pages, with such a practice, under various forms but always the same thing, as the central idea. And it is jumbled up with " PoUtical Economy," uni- versal peace, and free exchange, the names of the British collaborators being quoted frequently and with admiration. A long pohtical disquisition upon that remarkable 21 central idea, with specious and elaborate defence of it, together with the above-mentioned account of the Malthusian League established for its propaganda, will require further allusion herein. 91. On page 103, in a letter received from Charles Dunoyee, one of the approved lights of the " PoUtical Economy," are explained with a virginal naivet6, " des managements k garder soit envers eux-memes, soit I'un envers I'autre, soit I'un et 1' autre surtout envers les tiers qui peuvent etre le fruit de leur union." When as against themselves, as against one another, and the two together against the third persons who are the possible results of the union, these contrivances are practised by married couples in the conscientious manner taught by the Economists, it is easily understood how an economy amounting to 50 milhon pounds a year is effected by French married people as compared with their German neighbours. 92. From the miserable national increase of 1857 the Economists can claim the success of bringing the births, once for all, to a less number annually than the deaths. Now these births include, and largely consist of, the children of the remnant who — Jews or Christians — ^have refused to bow the knee to Baal and Moloch. But the Economic success is not nearly at its zenith yet. Not only are there fewer children born yearly in France, there are fewer women who can produce children at all. The total number of women is not less, but every year there are fewer of that number within the child-bearing ages. As their highest statistical authorities say, it is indeed " Finis GaUiae " more surely than in the time of Augustus, Tiberius and Nero, only a few years in all, it was " Finis Italiae." AU the factors are present in France, as they are present in England and Austraha, with only one influence against them — that which will not bow the knee to Baal. 93. There is no other influence. Patriotism amounts in this matter to nothing, for it may be little else than national arrogance, and when self-denial and selt-saorifice come into the question, it subsides. People prefer " to take their chance " or to rely upon the teachings of PoUtical Economy. It has not been shown so far, that the Eternal Ruler gives or takes any chances ; whilst Political Economy in the persons of John Stuart MiU, Charles Bradlaugh and the French lights of that cult, found it expedient to specifically abrogate Him. There was such a Christian remnant in Rome also, though during three centuries, through ten terrific persecutions, they Uved Hves of purity, brought forth children and nurtured them even in the darkness of the Catacombs, and kept burning the sacred lamp of truth and innocence. So did the Jews, then and for long centuries afterwards, refusing to comply with the filthy practices of the " superior classes " around them. And to this very hour. 9i. Page 105. It would be a grand utility if there could be sunk into the minds of the young ecclesiastics the question of population and the fundamental notions of Political Economy. The first bishop who will introduce this instruction into the seminaries will render a signal service to morals and society. Before leaving this part of our subject we have to pause at the statement of a writer who is strongly opposed to those (ecclesiastics) whom we also have just been opposing. 95. These principles of morality, already formulated by us in another publication, have been the object of very lively criticism on the part of M. Proudhon in one of his more voluminous and more serious works. M. Proudhon has said in this regard many things, but we put to one side the arguments of the pamphleteer, and we pause at the following, the only serious ones in his refutation : " If it be true," he says in his " Economic Contradictions," on page 447, Vol. II., " that moral restraint, suddenly become physical restraint, and resolving in its own fashion the problem of population, should be a useful practice for married people, this utUity will be none the less so for people who are not married. Now this is the immoral side of the thing, not foreseen by the Economists : the pleasure being desired and sought for itself without consequent progeny, marriage becomes a 22 superfluous institution, the life of the young people a sterile fornication ; the family is extir^shed and with the family its property. The economic movement remains without solution and society returns to ite state of barbarism. Malthus and the moTdl economists render marriage inaccessible ; the physical Economists render it useless ; both of them add to the lack of bread, the lack of affection, provoking the dissolution of the social bond. And this is what they call the prevention of pauperism ! Behold what is understood by the repression of poverty ! Profound moralists, profound politicians, profound philosophers ! " 96; M. Thiebs, first President of the Republic, is also quoted as siding with Proudhon in his denunciations and as haviirg written a pamphlet, " The Malthusians," attacking their principles. The contention is made by Gamier throughout, and is claimed to be the chief merit of the Economists' patent medicine for poverty, that as the working- classes shall use preventives of conception, there will be fewer workers, therefore leaa competition and greater prosperity. To support this view, the usual impossible axioms are appropriated, and a huge- superstructure of argument buUt up by the Economists de Mofinari and Gamier. We have nothing to do with the arguments, we need only, regard the facts produced by the inculcation of the arguments, and also the facts which the arguments could not affect. As before said, all the arguments are on the sid©-of the Economists — there are only Nature and Nemesis on the other. 97. Undoubtedly there are now fewer workers in France, and it is self-contained that- there wUl be fewer stiU. It is not so sure, but it is possible, that there is less competition. Not sure, because foreigners go there in shoals and compete. But what the Economists- do not perceive, or simply omitted to mention — there is a constant increase in certain- other classes of the community. There are more lunatics, imbeciles and idiots year by year, to be maintained in asylums, in France and Great Britain. The sufferings and. difficulties of child-bed are greatly increased in spite of aU the strides in medical and surgical knowledge, to those who follow the Economists' teachings — that Economic " moraHty" so clearly taught by Stuart MiU, Gamier, Malthus, Bradlaugh and Mrs. Besant, together with all the other Malthusian Ughts. The mortality in child-bed haa increased by over one-haH (par. 1409). It has not been shown that these observed facts have appKcation in general to those who Uve normal hves in accordance with ancient laws. But that is not all. The number of old persons constantly augments, and not. only in number but in proportion to the workers. Besides the incapacitated, the defective in body and mind — irrespective of non-producers, many of whom are indispensable — there is the necessity to maintain the vicious, the criminal, the lazy and incompetent, the worthy and unworthy aged. 98. To prevent or to destroy the young hfe is an easy proposition; In no country is this principle of action more successful and more thoroughly recognised than in Great Britain, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and part of the United States. The Uterature and the commercial provision made to ensure its recognition (as shown in Volume I. upon authorities and by photographic representation) may be considered — it is to be hoped — ample. There is aU reason to erpeet that even more commercial attention will be devoted to it in the future than at present, for there is money in it. 99. But in accord with the poet's line : vitio parentum rara inventus — by the vice of parents youth is scarce — ^the difficulty mentioned above can only be avoided in one way. The Economists have left that to our intelUgence. As the aged, and otherwise defective, increase out of proportion to the. workers, who are already heavily taxed, and whilst the number of workers diminishes as it must, there comes in the suggestion of euthanasia, by no means new. That is also Antijudaic and Antichristian, which fact may not count with the Economists later, any more than it did in the past. What is economically indicated is quite unmistakable, and the point has been discussed by them, only there is a huge difference between that and the taking or preventing of young hfe. None 23 of us can become young, and we all desire when we become old to be well cared for. No, the burden that the diminishing proportion of workers must bear in any Malthusian community, however deferred, is inescapable. 100. Gamier, p. 111. From the economic point of view, foresight by the most numerous classes lessens the competition of the workers, which ought not to become excessive in order to produce the good effects that we have recognised in the prin- ciple of free competition in the Elements of Political Economy. 101. On page 117 is given a celebrated phrase of Malthus which must here be translated from the French, for the reason that in the later EngHsh editions it was discreetly sup- pressed : " A man bom into a world akeady occupied, if his family can no loiter keep him, or if society cannot utilise his work, has not the least right whatever to claim any share of food, and he is already one too many upon the earth. At the great banquet of Nature there is no cover laid for him. Nature commands him to go and she is not loi^ in putting this order herself into execution." The first phrase (continues Gamier) simply denies the right to work and to existence. It is not that which has been the most criticised. The second is a figure of rhetoric as pretentious as it is useless since the idea which it includes is found in the third, and the latter, it must be said, was neither exact nor conformable to the thought of the excellent Malthus. 102. A few pages before, Gamier had occasion to mention the famine in Ireland, as illus- trating the consequence of prolificacy. That event, regarded as so natural, and the destruction of Ufe so thoroughly in accord with the very axioms of Malthus, was hardly a good illustration of the necessity to use preventive and abortifacient means to keep population balanced with the production of subsistences. There was an enormous pro- duction of food that very year in Ireland ; com was heavily exported and cattle also. An immense quantity of grain was destroyed for malt, far more than enough by itself to have fed the people who were temporarily short of food to eat. There was no lack of food — but no cover was laid for the starving human creatures, under British laws, at the Economic banquet ! They were commanded to go — men, women and children. Death did indeed put the order into execution, removing in quick time a million of them from the midst of plenty. Nature was not niggardly, nor the people idle. Merely the land " belonged " to persons elsewhere who did not toil, whilst those who toiled and produced the abundant food were thieves if they ate it. It was hurried away for fear they might. It went to other banquets. The illustration, like many others quoted by these Malthusian Economists and which have helped towards the imdeniable success of their " gospel," shows rather that the laws of God were all right, but that there was something defective in the " economic " arrangements of our country. 103. " It is Nature," says Gamier, " and not Malthus, which has placed a precipice beneath the feet of humanity." 104. Fbbdeeick Bastiat is cited by Gamier as saying : " I cannot truly conceive why Malthus has been the object of so much clamour. What has this celebrated Economist revealed to us ? After all, his system is only the methodical commentary upon that truth which is very old and very clear : when men cannot any longer procure in sufficient quantity the things which support life, they must necessarily diminish in number, and if they do not provide for it bj pradence, sufEeriii^ will take charge of the job." 105. However, Bastiat himself somewhat changed his view later and received the sharp criticism of Gamier, de Molinari and the other strictly orthodox PoUtical Economists of the Liberal school, in England and France, for attempting to relax the central idea of its economy. Some of these criticisms will be found in Gamier's " Principles of PoUtical Economy." 24 106. An illustrative controversy is supplied in this book, in the shape of a series of letters between Gamier and the Abbe Coebiere. The latter, with much gentleness of diction and exceeding grace of expression, adduces facts, figures, and the records of world-history, to disprove the thesis of Malthus that population increases in geometrical progression whilst subsistences — food, clothing, dwellings — increase only in arithmetical progression. The Abbe denies that human multiphcation exceeds its powers to supply itself. It is impossible to quote the correspondence in full or even to summarise it, needful though it be, for the essence of the Malthusian dogma has to-day more acceptance in France, England and Anglo-Saxondom generally, than at any time since its introduction. In the other countries of the Continent the teachings of the School of PoHtical Economy are rejected as a school, with whatever of good they may have contained, but in Great Britain they are plainly dominant, and Ukely to remain so until further dechne towards the hne of dissolution is recorded by the movement of population. A few sentences of the Abbe Corbi^re demand translation here. 107. Happily, true science can destroy this desolating system (Malthusianism), which leads to consequences as disastrous as they are immoral. Providence is vindicated ; it will be seen that He was able to proportion means of subsistence to the development of population, and that, if men suffer, it is not God who is mistaken as to the sufficiency of aliments, but it is they who did not utilise them, or who by no means made a division of them according to the rules of justice and charity. 108. In the last words, the unpretentious cleric puts his finger on the chief cause of the whole trouble of poverty and ignorance. Although the world has been inhabited many thousands of years, it is far from being so in all its parts. " The population of the Old World," says M. DucPBTiAUX, " could be multiphed tenfold and that of America a hundredfold, and still they would not attain proportionately the rate of population in Belgium. To approach it, the United States would have fifty times more inhabitants than they have to-day. . ." 109. It is a grave thing for a system of pohtical economy which is thus contradicted by facts, for the object of this science being the formation and distribution of wealth, it should above all abstain from Utopias, and theories whose results could not enter into the domain of practical utiUties. 110. The Abbe then cites the power of multiphcation of animals and plants, which is vastly greater than that of man, and is at his disposal. Then he deals with : 111. Fecundity of the soil. We have seen how, according to Malthus, the fecundity of the soil is not equal to that of man, the former developing only as one, two, three, four, five, six, etc., but the latter as one, two, four, eight, sixteen, thirty-two, sixty-four, etc. Now this second proposition is as false as the first, and wiU no. stand examination by facts or by discussion. 112. The sole example of Prance would suffice to ruin it entirely. It is a constant truth that our agricultural products have doubled themselves within fifty years, whilst the total population has only increased by one-half. We have here a tho- roughly formal disproof. Malthusian restraint, if it had been accepted by rural workers, would have had no other result than to oppose the progress of agriculture and to reduce the bread supply of urban workers. 113. Now, two principal elements constitute work : inteUigence and strength. InteUigence is the principal cause which ceaselessly increases the fertility of the soil. It seems that if mind did not enter into the business there would be no fecundity of the soil whatever. It is that which handles the spade, utihses the strength of animals, profits by the seasons, chooses plants, turns aside injurious waters, and directs irrigation. Suppose the land had ever so many oxen and horses, you would not have, for that reason, one single ploughed furrow : you 25 would have animals to feed on your pasturages, but you would not have implements of work. But appear as master in your fields ; use, to render them fecund, your intelligence, and immediatelv they will be covered with harvests. 114. It is inteUigence, then, which renders the lands productive, which often multipUes products a hundredfold. Lessen the number of people apphed to the work, and you will reduce the product, you will annihilate the necessary elements of wealth, A small number of great inventors in agriculture and in industry have done more for the well-being of man than aU the marriages you call imprudent could do of harm to industry. 115. After a hundred similar illustrations, drawn from many parts of the world, simple, ^lain and of everyday knowledge ; avoiding arguments — ^geometrical, arithmetical, economical, poUtical — which the other side draws from the inexhaustible atmosphere, the Abbe concludes thus : 116. Let us count upon the Divine foresight. He prepared in the bosom of the earth immense deposits of coal for the century when railroads would be constructed and steam would be appHed to navigation. He revealed to this industrial century the art of transmitting news from one pole to the other in a second. He hid in the drop of water that steam which multiphes the hght that illuminates, and the fire that warms our houses. Who knows what discoveries He has in reserve for us ? But the past guarantees to us the future, and the laborious, saving, moral and rehgious man will not invoke that foresight in vain for his children, for He who cares for the hly of the vaUey and the bird which beats the air, wiU not forget to furnish clothing and food to beings created in His Divine image. 117. However, we cannot defend ourselves from a profound feeUng of sorrow at seeing upon what fragile bases the Malthusians have founded a theory whose con- sequences are so grave to morals and to pohtics, which can compromise the wealth ^ of nations and the accord of workers with those who find them work and those who ofier them assistance. Geometrical and arithmetical progressions upon population and subsistences are practically false ; the tendency of population t»' surpass subsistences does not exist at all. Not only is the world not menaced by ; a plethora of men, but it is not inhabited in its fiftieth part. Everywhere agriculture progresses, commerce estabhshes equihbrium between the nations of the globe ; the average hfe of man is increased, and you, witnesses of these marvels, you say to the working man : Live separate, no matter what may be the needs o! your heart ! At the banguet of life there will be no place for your children ! 118. You insult the Providence of God in supposing that He had by no means proportioned aliment to the wants of man of whom He is the Father. You irritate the working classes, by charging them alone to maintain — through their deprivations — the abundance of the earth ; and to prevent the scourges of famine, pestilence and war, which, according to your system, will be the punishments of a too numerous population. You insult the clergy, who condemn in the name of the Gospel, not chaste ceUbacy, but the vices of youth and the outrages done to women. You bring economic science into disrepute in the eyes of serious philosophers, heads of famiHes who understand the importance of pubhc decency, moraUsts and statesmen to whom meditation and experience have revealed that morals are the strength of empires. At least let reasoning and facts come to your aid ! But sane philosophy you condemn ; six thousand years of experience deny your propositions. Let each foUow the impulsion of his conscience. "Whatever you may have said about it, the priests have never agitated these questions. They prescribe neither celibacy nor marriage, but they do not tolerate vice. Imitate their sage reserve, and remember that sin renders nations wretched, whilst justice, the sum of the virtues, elevates the people. Justitia elevat gentem, miseros autem iacit populos peccatum. (Proverbs XIV., 5, 34). (Signed) L'Abbe Coebieee. 26 In anotiier letter the Abbe Corbiere writes : 120. Malthns founded a school whose doctrines will be disastrons. But it most be declared that the "moral restraint " of which he recommends the practice is far from presenting the character of immorality that M. Gamier justifies. He wished it, said MalUuis, to be accompanied by chastity. Whatever may be the meaning of this explanatk)n, which his disciples do not at all interpret in the same manner, it is always thns that the evil tree has ended by bringing forth poisonous fruit In our day a book is printed to jnsti^ an act — that of Onan — ^that the Holy ficriptnres, medical men and moralists have denounced with a common accord, whilst calling it by the name borne by the first recorded criminal, and of which Genesis has Izans- mitted to us the iniquity and its punishment. After having shaken faith, they prepare the ruin of morals. 121. Do you see the young man bent before his time and showing in his ondedded look the dulness of his mind ? He is on the road to death, and by his tottering steps you would say that he jolts against the tombs. It is not Qiat death is seeking him, it is he that has provoked the blow. Sin, if I may use a metaphor of Saint Paul, precipitates its arrival, as the goad in the hands of the ploughman accelerates the pace of his animals whose step is too slow — stimulus mortis peccatum est [the goad of death is sin]. Before the fatal stroke which will terminate this shameful existence, the finest faculties of his soul will be extinct ; no more force or intelhgence ; no more freshness of imagination ; his memory will be as uncertain as that of an old man. The heart of the victim will be dulled and a devourii^ ennui will pursue him everywhere. You sorrowing parents, you do not know the cause of this stupefaction and ihis langour which excites your heartfelt pity. Run through the books your son was reading ; inform yourselves of the company he frequented ; they are the murderers who have snatched away his life. Religion alone could have prevented your immense sorrow. 122. What are you driving at ? you Malthusians say to me ; who justifies these excesses? Economists, writers, or professors, we ccmdenon them as much as you do. You condrann them as much as I do ! Ah ! do yon not see that the practices excused by you in marri^e are only some of the means by which are accomplished, those excesses of which Dr. Tissot has explained the lamentable consequences? (Par. 1234). They are even a^ravated by the circumstance that they outr^e &e woman, that delicate flower whose purity you ought to protect, and whose conscience you are destroying. (Par. 998). No, the exhausted young man, the young girl who lets fall &om her head her fragrant crown are not so criminal as you. A sohtary sin, culpable as it is, has not at least the fatal effect of perverting an accomplice. 123. In his answers M. Gamier, who was a professor in the State School of Beads and Bridges, by occupation, controverts at length that the second son of Jndah was condemned for anything else than disobedience to his father*. It is a long disputation, very sophistical it may be thought by some, and a curious study in PoUtical Economy, but its tremendous importance from the national and racial point of view is beyond all denial. However, the priest and his teaching went down, and the hedonist gospel of the English * Here is a piece of the argoment (Gashibb, " Pimcipes de Population," page 424). . Loquacious logic contra Nature's silent law : Le deuTifeme fils de Jnda Caisait one oeuvre detestable, soit. Mais a quel point de yue cet act» 6tut-a detestable ? Est-ce paree qn'i) etait de mauyaise foi, desobeissant a son pere ; ou paroe qn'il trompait la femme de son fr^re ? Est-ce parce qn'il songeait plus a 1' Interet de sa famiUe propre qu' a reloi de la famQle de Juda ? Est ce par toute autre laison ? On serait fort embarrasse de resoudre la question : touJDiirs est-fl que la Gen^ ne dit pas que I'acte f£tt detestable pour inimoralite ou pour atteinte portee a i'acoroissement de la population. Des lors. ce fait est sans portee et Tessemble 27 Economists can claim unqualified victory. True, the merely commercial part of their Political Economy has been rejected in France, as also all over the Continent, but the essence prevails in France and is more operative than ever. As to this, no opinion to the contrary can be foimd on any side. * 124. Further, Gamier disputes the observations and conclusions of Dr. Tissot, who is, notwithstaning, quoted and accepted by his medical brethren as an authority. (Par. 122). Gamier defends the filthy practices condemned by the Abbe, who also cited abundantly the authoritative dicta of his Church. The intent plainly avowed by Gamier to be their justifying merit, being that these practices permit sexual pleasure whilst nullifying the intent of Nature. Thus these remarkable Economists teach re- sponsibility with one breath, and explain how to dodge it with the next. 125. It is an important branch of this Inquiry as to what effects upon the individuals follow the use of these secret preparations for the prevention of children. Nothing is of more serious import to the individuals and to the nation, than to know what happens. That will be given herein, from authorities, but there is one serious ^disadvantage to the side of decency and truth, which is that we cannot mention without much reserve that which the Malthusians deal with in detail, whose books are sold without restriction and carried by the mails throughout Anglo-Saxondom. What is desired by disciples and pupils of this pervert gospel which is poisoning nations, is details. And they get them, in print, and also pictures of the human generative organs, with much perversion of the truth regarding sexual matters, but with no restraint or decency whatever. 126. Concluding, his argument upon the necessity of these sexual frauds for the national good, Gamier winds up his final letter thus (page 428) : It is the same as marriage of cousins, which foimerly mortdity forbade and now forbids no loiter ; or of lending money at interest, which morality fonnerly forbade but now forbids no longer — and so forth. 127. And the Abbe Corbiere finishes his last reply : I can explain to myself that M. Garnier has little sympathy for theologians because they have denounced the practices which he has set up as a theory of life. But that does not authorise him to distort their instructicHi. Finally, it will be difficult for him to disengage the act of Onan, of which he has attempted the justification, from the stigmas that several thousand years have accumulated upon it. My opponent, in accepting this task, has given proof of a most astonishing courage, for he fully knows that the rehabiUtation that he has undertaken will give Mm a gigantic task, and will rouse everywhere the indignant voice of religion, of moralil^r and of medicine. (Vide par. 999). 128. The following noble words of Pitt, spoken in the House of Commons in 1796, two years before the first edition of Malthus' work, came in for Economic condemnation by <3amier : Let us see, said Pitt, that assistance given to large families shall be a bond of honour and charity, not a sign of opprobrium and contempt. Thus we shall make the children of the poor a benediction and not a calamity ; and there wiQ be found a line of honourable and rational demarcation between those who are capable of sustaining themselves by their own labour, and. those who, after havii^ endowed their countoy with, a goodly number of children, have acquired the right to claim the means of bringing them up. h tine foule d'autres dont la moralite nous tehappe, k la distance du. temps ou nous sommes et an point de vue ou nous pouvons nous mettre. H est sage de ne pas , trop vouloir commenter sur la conduite de Juda et d'Onan a cette epoque, et il est impossible que lea hommes s&ieux y voient un argument. There is no argument. None is needed and none -will avail. The ancient and necessary narrative, de^idiilg 'with the defepest of life-matters, pillories the conduct of the two men for everlasting execration. It is- impossible to imagine for what other reason it is narrated at all; 28 129. The words of Proudhon as quoted by Gamier (page 501) are : The theory of Malthus is the theory of political assassination, of assassination for philanthrophy, for Oie love of God .... The Economists are the first amongst us who have by an inconceivable blasphemy erected into a dogma of Providence this theory of Malthus. I neither accuse them nor calumniate them. In that, the Economists have the good faith and the good intention of Malthus ; they would not ask better than to make the happiness of the human species ; but they cannot conceive how, without some organisatioa of homicide, equiUbrium between population and subsistences could exist. CHAPTER XXIV. (unabridged) OF GARNIER'S "PRINCIPLE OF POPULATION." (Translation.) 130. Shortly after the publication of Malthus' work, some thinkers in France remarked that ia modern France prudence after marriage was substituting itself up to a certain point for late marriages, habitual in most of the States of Europe. Mr. Fbancis Placb was one of the first who, in a book upon population, recommended the adoption in England of the physical preventives so frequently employed by French parents. It appears that he had a discussion with Malthus [the latter died in 1834] upon the subject of the expression " vices," applied by Malthus in the first edition of hi» Essay, to the employment of such preventives. Tradition says that in subsequent editions, Malthus renounced the use of this word. Finally, Malthus having had only two children [he had three], Mr. PoKTEB, of Nottingham, supposes that at the instigation of Mr. James Mill, father of Mr. John Stuart Mill, IHalthus was himself one of the faithful in conjugal prudence as piactised by the well- to-do peasants and citizens. [This procedure of the " faithful " in the Economic gospel is precisely that of 38th Genesis, without added modern refinements.] It is said also that Mr. Place converted to his opinion the socialist Robert Owen, and that Robert Owen owed the success of his colony of New Lanark to his knowledge of this matter, which he also communicated to his workmen. Mr. Robert Dale Owen, son of Robert Owen, emigrated to America in his youth, became one of the most dis- tinguished citizens of the Western RepubUc, and died in 1877. He had, beyond all doubt, heard this question discussed by his father and other persons. In 1830 he thought it his duty to publish a treatise, well known to-day, upon the question of population, entitled " Moral Physiology." This, work contains the most modem philanthropic ideas, written in Clear and very careful language, fulfilling perfectly the object of the author^ He describes in it the physical preventives above mentioned. This work had, however, been preceded by the treatise of Richard Cablile, entitled " Every Woman's Book," a treatiise which calls things by their names. The author was one of those bold spirits which have done much to complete the reform of Ei^land, and to assure to that country liberty of press and speech. Without him and his collaborators, England would perhaps to-day be as. backward as modem Spain. Then Dr. Charles Knowlton, a very distinguished physician of Boston, Massachusetts, in the United States, wrote upon this subject his little pamphlet, now famous, " The Fruits of Philosophy.'" which contains in a popular form very fine phy.'?iologio notions and a very complete exposition of the preventives pomted out by Messieurs Robert Dale Owen and Richard Carlile. This work was followed, after a considerable interval, by a Uttle pamphlet of Mr. Austia Holyoilke, entitled "Large and Sniall Families." This was sold for very many years at the same time as the treatises of Carlile, of Owen, and two other works by the booksellers of the Ultra-Liberal Party of England. This party has taken, latterly, the name of the Secularist Party. 131. In 1876, the pamphlet " Fruits of Philosophy," after having circulated freely during forty years, was prosecuted all of a sudden as an obscene publication, by virtue of an Act of Parliament called Lord Campbell's Act. & bookseller in Bristol, named Cook, was condemned to two years' imprisonment for having sold this book. The publisher in London, Mr. C. Watts, was also prosecuted, but made submission and was cleared by paying the costs, equal to a fine of about 5,000 francs f£300). Knowlton 's book was about to be suppressed, when Mr. Charles Bradlaugh, bead of the Secularist party and editor-in-chief of the most advanced of the English journals, "The National Reformer," and a very distinguished young woman, Mrs. Annie Besant, set themselves courageously in the front to sell this publication. To bring the affair before the courts Mr. Bradlaugh and Mrs. Besant associated themselves, rented in Stonecutter Street, in London, a bookseller's shop, sold publicly the "Fruits of Philosophy," and sent copies of it to the City authorities. Mr. Bradlaugh had been for many years an avowed Malthusian ; Mrs. Besant was also fully convmced of the importance of the question.. Both were resolved not to allow that a bigoted society should, without experiencing resistance, put 29 this woik nnder the ban of the law. The suit came on in the first instance at the Court of Guildhall, thence to the Court of Queen's Bench before Lord Chief Justice Cockbuen, where the case, begun on the 18th June, 1877, lasted for three days. Amongst the jurors, besides other persons enjoying exceptional position and fortune, t^^ Mr. Arthvr Walter, son of the proprietor of the " Times." 132. After a brilliant defence, when the speeches of Mrs. Annie Besant and of Mr. Bradlaugh made a powerful impression upon the presiding judge and all persons present, the jury returned the following very enigmatical verdict : " We believe with unanimity that the book in question — ' The Fruits of Philosophy ' — has for its object the depravation of public morals, but at the same time we entirely exonerate the defendants from all corrupt motive in its publication." The judge, whose summing up was quite in favour of the accused, only inflicted upon them a nominal fine, but upon learning that they had the intention of continuing the sale, he condemned tbem to a severe tenn of imprison- ment, together with a fine. Happily, the Court of Appeal decided that there was an error in the in- dictment. The defendants were set at liberty. The prosecution has not been renewed. 133. The stir caused by this suit resulted in the foimdation of a society called " The Malthusian League," created with the object of opposing an active and passive resistance to all attempts made to stifle the discussion of the question of population. Mr. Bradlaugh had already tried, some years before, to form a league of this kind, but opinion was not then sufficiently ripe. The first meeting of the League took place in the Minor Hall of the Hall of Science, Old Street, on the 17th July, 1877. The order of the day was the election of officers. In this reunion. Doctor C. R. Deysdale was elected president ; Mrs. Anotb Besant, Messrs. Hembeb and Shearer were appointed honorary secretaries. The Council of the League was composed of Messrs. Beix, Beown, Dbay, Page, Mr. and Mrs. Paeris, Mr. and Mrs. Eennick, Messieurs Rivee.s, Seylee, G. Standeing, Tetjelovb and Young. Mr. SwAAGMAN was nominated Treasurer of the League. [M. Gamier was not precise in his spelling of names]. 134. Very shortly after the constitution of the League, Mr. Edwabd Teuelove, bookseller, of High Holbom, was prosecuted at the Court of Queen's Bench, on 2nd February, 1878. The incriminated works, of the same character as the " Fruits of Philosophy," were entitled, " Moral Physiology," a very brilliant pamphlet by Mr. Robert Dale Owen, Senator of the United States, and " Poverty of the Individual, of the Family and of the Nation." Mr. Truelove was admirably defended by Mr. Hunter. The proceedings were without result, one of the jurors having declared that he regarded the book in question as inspired by very moral and very philanthropic tendencies. Mr. Collbtte, secretary of the " Society for the Suppression of Vice," took up the prosecution. On the 9th May, 1878, Mr. Truelove went before the Central Criminal Court and was condemned to four months' imprisonment and £100 fine. An immense meeting, held on the 6th June, 1878, at St. James' Hall, to protest against this fashion of treating an honest man like Mr. Truelove, presided over by the President of the League, drowned with applause the eloquent speeches of Mrs. Besant and Mr. Bradlaugh. At the same time, the husband of Mrs. Annie Besant commenced an action against that noble woman in order to take away from her the care of her children, in violation of a formal engagement entered into by the two parents. The cause was judged and carried to the Court of Appeal. On the 9th April the Court of Appeal confirmed the judgment of the court below. Mrs. Besant's little daughter was thus removed from her. The claim of the husband, who is a clergyman of the Established Church of England, was based upon the fact that Mrs. Besant did not believe in the Anglican theology and had published a book considered immoral by a jury. 135. We shall add but little to this very brief exposition of the history of the Malthusian League. The present vice-presidents are Messrs. C. Gbebitsbn (Holland) ; Yves Guyot (Paris) ; Talandibb (Deputy, Paris) ; J. Biech, M.A., and Dr. Allbcttt (London) ; G. Andeeson and M. Beyson (Newcastle). The first number of " The Malthusian," monthly organ of the League, appeared on the 1st February, 1879 (Office, 28 Stonecutter Street, London, E.G.). The League holds numerous conferences and causes the distribution of small tracts and leaflets. (Translated from " The Malthusian " of 1880). 138. We owe to the courtesy of Dr. C. R. Drysdale a certain number of little tracts and leaflets to which allusion is made above. [A list is supplied by Garnier of the various publications, all of them Malthusian, and including one by John Stuart Mill, two pages 8vo., upon " Small Families." Then follows a reprint of the " Rules of the Malthusian League."] 30 "THE LATEST MNITAL REUNION OF THE MALTHUSIAN LEAGUE." 137. De Molinari (for Gamier) reprints this report upon the proceedings of the year 1883-4 upon pages 516 et seq. Only selections can be made, so as to show how the poisonous seed was sown and well drilled in. It commences thus : 138. The last year has witnessed a remarkable progress made by those ideas to which the Leagae has devoted itseli, as its mission, to promulgate and to sustain. The preceding annnal reunion was a, great success, and without spelling of the action which the Association has thus exercised upon the minds of its hearers, as numerous as they were intelligent, who attended, it has equally to feUcitate itself upon the result of these frequent conferences held publicly upon the question of population. Such conferences have taken place chiefly at London, but they have been held in like manner in the principal cities of the Kingdom, and we beUeve that they have largely contributed to construct opinion upon the true conditions of the problem of population. There has been, for example, a sensible diminution in the birthrate in all the quarters of the West l^fl of London, a fact which we do not for a moment hesitate to connect with the conviction which is beginning to enlighten the minds of persons interested, that large families are inimical to the well-being of all classes of society where they are produced. For that reason the rate of natality in England has fallen to 34 per 1000 of population [since fallen to 26 and stiU falling] and in certain rich quarters of London, such as Hampstead and Kensington, to 24 and even 22, whereas in Germany the number of births exceed 40 per 1000. At Paris, in the same way, M. de HArrssoifvTLLE has proved in an article in the " Bevue des Deux Mondes " that the number has fallen so low among the well-to-do classes of Fads that there remains henceforward very litUe to desire for well being and longevity. M. de Haussonville adds that the poor classes procreate in Paris three times as many children as the wealthy classes. The League feUcitates itself still more at having been able to maintain once more for the year its organ " The Malthusian," because almost all the journals of the Kingdom impose upon them- selves a great reserve as to the foundation even of the problem of population. The last year is remarkable for an excess of popvilation in the great cities, an excess which has, as a consequence, an emigration of 320,000 native bom [this excludes immigration again of many of these " emigrants," who are merely travellers]. This has occasioned in the Press numerous discussions upon emigration, housing of the working classes. Socialism, Mid nationalisation of the soil. Several members of the League have spoken their mind npon these important social questions in " The Echo," " The Daily News," and in " The Malthusian " itself. Dr. Zachabias in Germany, and Mr. Kaht. Gebeitsbn in Holland, have devoted themselves to a most active propaganda in favor of small families. Dr. Detsdale, the President, read an article upon infantile mortality at the Congress of Social Science at Huddersfield, whilst Mr. Cunningham stated the question of Malthusianism before the British Association for the Advancement of Science. The little book by Mrs. Annie Besant, ' The Law of Population," has been lai^ely sold in Holland, and there has been founded in that country a Malthusian Les^ue, whose instruction will not remain mifraitfoL 139. The article of the Duke of Aegtix. which the " Nineteentii Caitury " published in its number of 18S4, is a refutation of the views of Mr. Hbney Geoboe upon the causes of poverty [but nothing is said of the smashing refutation of the Duke of Argyle by iSi. Henry George]. Also an excellent republication of the theory of Malthus upon the circumstances which lead to the reduction of wages and the increased cost of food. In a letter which the " Pall MaE Gazette " has recently reproduced, Mr. CoirwAT has shown that the terrible misery which reigns in a great part of industry, comes from no other cause than the enormous procreation of childrCTi which follows upon a servile obedience to ill-advised theological precepts. 140. Me. SAMtrEL Smtth, of Livopool, has combatted in an excellent little book the theories of Me. Henbt Geobge and those of the Democratic Federation by showing the value and adnaitasea of individual property combined with Malthusian foresight. Lord Beauweix, finally, in one of the pamphlets published by the Property Defence Assodataon, reverted to Malthus' point of departure and has put the truth in full relief. Little by Uttle, statesmen will be forced to follow this impulsion, if they desire to spare to society that indigence which is so heart-rending and to which govemmentB have hitherto only closed their ears under the condition of perishing. , . 141. Dr. Malthus rendered an immence service to humanity, for before his time people had only the grossest ideas upon the problem of population. Even in the most elevated ranks rf society, and nearly everywhere, the priests were faToorable to the procreation of large families. We find also in the Hebrew scriptures the precept to increase and multiply, and, to tell the truth, ontil very recently, it was tbe CDstom even in Knglanfl lor statesmen to regard the rapid increase in population as an unmixed benefit. 142. Most assuredly that was not the opinion of Sdbn Stoart Mill. Fax from that, he regarded the procreation of a large family as one of the greatest wrongs that any one of as could inflict npon those who earned their living by manual work. 143. After the President, Mistbess Heatheeley was the next to speak, and after having congratn^ lated the Leagne upon the increasing success which had been obtained recently by the Neo-Malthusians. she expressed herself as follows : ,., 31 " Our.Leaguo must count upon adversaries of three sorts : (1), theological prejudices which use their influence in proportion as the population is instructed ; (2), the fear people have ol injuiing their health in not obeying the law oDTatare, because of using preventive measures intended to prevent over^fecnndity, although this fearjp imaginary ; finally (3), the prophecies of some ardent antagonists of Malthusianism who call themselves Socialists." (Then follows an attack upon the latter school of poUtics). 144. Mrs. Doctoe Auob Vickbet spoke next and (during her speech) said : " It is time to finish with such rose-water and kid-glove sanitarians and with their traditions, and to accept with all its consequences the grand truth discovered by Mai thus, namely, that the high rates of birth and the high rates of death are synonymous in this country. In my opinion it wptdd be no attack upon individual liberty to proclaim by legislation that the production of a large fainily is the act of a bad citizen, and to attach a penal sanction to this proclamation. -We are certainly free to act entirely according -to our tastes and our personal opinions in things which only concern ourselves ; but it is not at all sure, at least in a civilised State, that we may perform such acts as are a cause of misery, of death and of destruction. 145. " Ur. John Stuart Uill wrote an eloquent passage upon this point in his splendid * E^say upon Liberty.' People ought to meditate upon it and take the advice. They see in our Australasian Colonies Qie ateolute necessity to drive away the hordes of Chinese which infest them. In the Mother Country we are in' face of a no less impmous necessity ; that of arresting the population of children in all classes, especially of the poor. It is the only efficacious means that we have of assuring good wages to workers and cheap food, those two elements of a prosperous and durable existence." 146. Me. Rothwbli. was " quite of De. Auob VickBEt's opinion, but he did not at all consider that the limitation of children, however desirable in itself, was an adequate means of lessening, the social evil and the sufferings of the poorer classes. He would willingly agree to the nationalisation of the soU and some other measures of the same sort, but that he did not consider it apropos to indicate them." 147. Mes. Fenwice MiUiBB, on the contrary, " had no confidence at all in Socialism and its recipes. 'What are the remedies that are ofiered to modem society P There are only two : Neo'Malthusianism and Socialism ; and who would hesitate between the two P Political Economy teaches us (hat civilised man is bound to economise in order to procure for himself all the luxuries and comfcnis that civilisation brings with it. This truth is fully recognised by the Malthusian League, and that is why it counsels prudence in matrimonial unions and their consequences. Socialism has nothing positive, nothing precise, to oppose to that." She concluded by declaring that the League had only to await the progress of its ideas amongst the public for the fulfilment of its ^iderata. 148. According to Me. Blanchakd it was " a shame for civilised governments not to have occupied themselves sooner in this matter, and he hoped that the English people would know how to do for themselves that which their legislators had not done for them. The greatest social evil resides in too large families, and it is vain to attribute to drunkenness the sufferings of the poorer classes. It is to excessive increase of families that must be attributed the deamess of living and the low rate of wages." 149. Miss Jauet Wilkinson was " not of the opinion that the law ought to interfere in such matters. It was to persuade the English nation of the many kinds of troubles which attached to large famiUes that the League should apply itself. She did not think, moreover, that rich people had any more right than- poor people to procreate themselves beyond measure. In her view, Chinese immigration into Austrsdia resembled very much that of Germans, Belgians and Italians who were going to and settiing in France and multijplying there very rapidly. Something ought to be done against that kiad of immigration. As to emigration subsidised by the State, it was imjust, for this reason, that it had for effect the transportation beyond the seas of people in good health and vigour at the expense of the feeble and sickly, upon whom would thus fall a larger proportion of the burden of public expenditure." 150. Me. Chattebton declared himseU " not only Malthusian, but also Communist, and. a resolute partisan of intervention by the State. He advocated that in future the legislature should occupy iteelf vrath the quantity and even with the ciuality of children. He himseU had had ten children, of whom eight had succumbed to sickness and poverty. Therefore he could not give to the poor too energetically the advice not to procreate as many children as they were in the habit of having." 151. E^inttlly, Mr. Chatterton " confessed without the slightest disguise that he would have no repug- nance whatever to the destruction of children bom weakly or defective." 32 " AN ESSAY ON THE PRINCIPLE OF POPULATION ; or, A View of its Past and Present Effects on Human Happiness ; with an Inquiry into Our Prospects Respecting the Future Removal or Miti- gation of the Evil which it Occasions." By the Reverend T. R. Malthus, A.M., F.R.S., etc., etc. 2 Vols., London, John Murray, 1826, 6th edition. 152. The title is as remarkable as the contents. For we can no more question the principle of population than we can the principle of gravitation. Population is noun substantive ; therefore if we discover, in any way, its principle, or that of any objective fact, we have found that which is unalterable, or it is not the principle. The word popu- lation is used by him in the sense of the present participle " populating." The principle of life we cannot alter, but we can choose or alter our principle of Uving up to its end- annihilation. Our language unfortunately does not provide us with clear perceptions of the ideas sein, dasein, and werden (to be, to exist, to become). " Being " we cannot alter, but the " becoming " of " existences " we can only too certainly modify, alter or annihilate. Therein is our hberty and there is our limit. 153. No attempt will be made to controvert the prodigious arguments of these bookt, nor of the anti-human literature of the Political Economists anywhere, for the simple reason that such procedure would be entirely unfruitful. The whole field of logic, argu- ment, casuistry, wiU be abandoned to them undisputed. But we must watch the realm of fact, and not abandon one inch of it because of the clamour of soi-disant, or of alleged, philosophers. We must examine that which they claim as axioms and postulates, ar.d beware of admitting as universally true that which is sometimes, or often, true. Especially where " laws " are declared we ought to be alert against poUtical jugghng with words, nor accept a superstructure built upon faulty basic phrases. 154. Take for example the two sentences which enunciate the groundwork of Malthus' philosophy. They set forth alike starting-point and method, and are the opening para- graphs of the book. Book I., Chapter I. : — In an inquiry concerning the improvement of society, the mode of conducting the subject which naturally presents itself, is, 1. To investigate the causes that have hitherto impeded the progress of mankind towards happiness ; and 2. To examine the probability of the total or partial removal of those causes in future. 155. To enter fuUy into this question, and to enumerate all the causes that have influenced human improvement, would be much beyond the power of an individual. The principal object of the present essay is to examine the effects of one great cause intimately united with the very nature of man ; which, though it has been constantly and powerfully operating since the commencement of society, has been little noticed by the writers who have treated this subject. The facts which es- tablish the existence of this cause have, indeed, been repeatedly stated and ac- knowledged ; but its natural and necessary effects have been found totally over- looked ; though probably amongst these effects may be reckoned a very consider- able portion of that vice and misery, and of that unequal distribution of the bounties of nature, which it has been the unceasing object of the enlightened philanthropists in all ages to correct. 156. The cause to which I allude, is the constant tendency in aU animated life to increase beyond the nourishment prepared for it. 157. It is observed by Db. Feanklin, that there is no bound to the prohfic nature of plants or animals, but what is made by their crowding and interfering with 33 each other's means of subsistence. Were the face of the earth, he says, vacant of other plants, it might be gradually sowed and overspread with one kind only, as for mstance with fennel ; and were it empty of other inhabitants, it might in a few ages be replenished from onff nation only, as for instance, with EngUshmen. 158. This is incontrovertibly true. 159. Here we have the foundation. Let us examine the joints, for a short space, of that upon which has been erected the most colossal error of modem times. 160. 1. Causes cannot impede progress. Only impediments impede. We see his meaning, but these laxities of expression which are characteristic of Malthus, are not excusable in a postulate of such vast import. Is it so sure that there is a " progress of mankind towards happiness 1" In about a century every person now Uving will be dead. Just as some nations became diseased and died out whilst others arose and flourished, so the process stiU goes on before our eyes. " Mankind " is a term of convenience signifying the sum-total of living human creatures. Is a declining nation a happy one or not ? Anyway the concept quoted is abstract and intangible for a person, a family, or a nation, and is therefore too ethereal for use in foundations. 161. 2. The " cause," whose probabiUty of total or partial removal he promises to examine, is the " constant tendency in all animated life to increase beyond the nourishment prepared for it." By " prepared " we may assume that he means " available," inasmuch as the preparation would be in default. 162. Overlooking that, the illustration of the potential spread of the fennel, quoted as " incontrovertible truth " by Malthus, is a most strange and venturesome untruth. No botanist could admit the statement as being at all near to the facts, either for the fennel or for any other plant. There is certainly not a hundredth, perhaps not a thousandth part of the earth where the plant named could Uve. Whole ranges of plants are dependent upon the provision of subsistences pro- vided by other plants, their supposed competitors. Others are dependent upon com- panionship of their own kind. 163. What knowledge have we that the offspring of Englishmen could survive over all India, during ages, or all over Africa ? How then shall we accept as " incontrovertible truth '■ — ^as an axiom — a purely hypothetical suggestion ? How much less can we build upon it a national and international philosophy ! In his enunciation of the problem he modestly suggests that the " tendency " in aU animated Ufe to increase beyond the means of subsistence has " probably '" for its effects much of the vice and misery, and of the unequal distribution of the bounties of Nature, which good men have striven to correct. Later on, he drops the " probable " and becomes positive about it. But unequal distribution has surely been itself a cause rather than an effect. Is that not plainly shown all along history, in the ancien regime, and in the Irish famine, to take only two instances out of ten thousand ? Have greed, oppression and wrong not caused in all ages vice and misery ? Have they not been the chief, if not the exclusive cause ? No occasion to drag in a " natural tendency." 164. Malthus was asked by someone what he meant by a " tendency " which nowhere had the effect ascribed to it. That remained unanswered. Flying birds have a tendency to fall, but then they do faU. Wet seasons have a tendency to cause rust in wheat. But it does become rusted. And so throughout. But it has not been shown that any animal or plant has tendency to overspread the earth, nor that mankind has ever pressed upon the planet's Umits of production. 165. Sexual abnormaUties, prevention of child-birth, and infanticide, have a tendency to destroy nations and races. Nations and races have been thus destroyed. 34 166. His foundations have been shown above, and otherwise a hundred times, to be loose and chimerical. But his superstructure of logic has none the less commanded the eager support of the rich and wise and prudent. Even his conclusions are called " axiomatic." 167. His famous progressions have been disproved in like manner. Facts refuse to fit them. Nevertheless his doctrine became the centre of Pohtical Economy, the core of Manchesterism. 168. It would be presumptuous to ask the reader to foUow even the shortest resume of his teaching and his argum^entation. But it will interest many to know his plan for removing the burden of the poor-laws. Its intense practicaUty appealed to the minds of the UtiUtarians — it was bound to command Economic sympathy — ^it was laissez-faire in translucent purity. The question was what to do with children bom into extreme poverty. That condition of the parents might have been caused by disease, death, un- employment, robbery, military or naval service, accidents, illegitimacy, insanity, indo- lence, ignorance. Pul3Hc charity had been the rule, but, surpassing the Apostlb Paul, Malthus will show you a more excellent way. It is worth reading. MALTHUS' SXTRE CUBE FOB POVERTY. Natube Executes Stjpeeeluous Babies and Takes the Odium. Why the Infant is of Little Value to Society. Page 337 et seq. 170. I have reflected much on the subject of the poor-laws, and hope therefore that I shall be excused in venturing to suggest a mode of their gradual abolition, to which I confess that at present I can see no material objection. Of this indeed I feel nearly convinced, that, should we ever become so fully sensible of the wide- spreading tyranny, dependence, indolence and unhappiness which they create, as seriously to make an efEort to aboUsh them, we shall be compelled by a sense of justice to adopt the principle, if not the plan, which I shall mention. It seems impossible to get rid of so extensive a system of support, consistently with humanity, without applyiag ourselves directly to its vital principle, and endeavouring to coimteract that deeply-seated cause which occasions the rapid growth of all such estabUshments, and invariably renders them inadequate to their object. , 171. As a previous step even to any considerable alteration in the present system, which would counteract or stop the increase of the relief to be given, it appears to me that we are bound in justice and honour formally to disclaim the right of the poor to support. 172. To this end, I should propose a regulation to be made, declaring that no child bom from any marriage, taking place after the expiration of a year from the date of the law, and no illegitimate child born two years from ttie same date, should ever be entitled to parish assistance. And to give a more general knowledge of this law, and to enforce it more strongly on the minds of the lower classes of the people, the clergyman of each parish should, after the publication of banns, read a short address, stating the strong obligation on every man to support his own children ; the impropriety, and even immorahty, of marrying without prospect of being able to do this ; the evils which had resulted to the poor themselves from the attempt which had been made to assist by pubhc institutions in a duty which ought to be exclusively appropriated to parents ; and the absolute necessity which liad at length appeared of abandoning all such institutions, on account of their producing effects totally opposite to those which were intended. 35 173. This would operate as a fair, distinct and precise notice, which no man could weU mistake ; and, without pressii^ hard on any particular individuals, would at once throw o£E the rising generation from that miserable and helpless dependence upon the government and u^n the rich, the moral as well as the physical conse- quences of which are almost incalculable. 174. After the public notice which I have proposed had been given, and the system of poor-laws had ceased with regard to the rising generation, if any man chose to marry, without prospect of being able to support a family, he should have the most perfect hberty so to do. Though to marry, in this case, is, in my opinion, clearly an immoral act, yet it is not one which society can justly take upon itself to prevent or punish ; because the punishment provided for it by the laws of nature falls directly and most severely upon the individual who commits the act, and through him, only more remotely and feebly, on the society. When nature will govern and punish for us, it is a very miserable ambition to wish to snatch the rod from her hands, and draw upon ourselves the odium of the executioner. To the punishment there- fore of nature he should be left, the punishment of want. He has erred in the face of a most clear and precise warning, and can have no just reason to complain of any person but himself when he feels the consequences of his error. All parish assistance should be denied him ; and he should be left to the uncertain support of private charity. He should be taught to know, that the laws of nature, which are the laws of God. had doomed him and his family to suffer for disobeying their repeated admonitions ; that he had no claim of right on society for the smallest portion of food, beyond which his labour would fairly purchase ; and that if he and his family were saved from feehng the natural consequences of his imprudence, he would owe it to the pity of some kind benefactor, to whom, therefore, he ought to be bound by the strongest ties of gratitude. 175. If tins system were pursued, we need be under no apprehensions that the number of persons in extreme want would be beyond the power and will of the benevolent to supply. The sphere for the exercise of private charity would, probably, not be greater than it is at present ; and the principal difficulty would be, to restrain the hand of benevolence from assistii^ those in distress iu so in- discriminate a manner as to encourage indolence and want of foresight in others.^ 176. With regard to illegitimate children, after the proper notice has been given, they should not be allowed to have any claim to parish assistance, but be left entirely to the support of private charily. If the parents desert their child, they ought to be made answerable for the crime. The infant is, comparatively, of little value to the society, as others will undoubtedly supply its place. Its prindp^; value is on account of its being the object of one of the most delightful passions in human nature — parental affection. But if this value be disregarded by those who are alone ia a capacity to feel it, the society cannot be caUed upon to put itself in their place ; and has no further business in its protection than to punish the crime of desertion or intentional iU treatment in the persons whose duty, it is to provide for it. 177. At present the child is taken under the protection of the parish, and generally dies, at least ia London, within the first year. 178. , That teaching is a long way from the " Sinite parvulos " of the Lord Chkist, "Let the darUngs come to Me ! Of such is My kingdom." But Manchester, as we shall presently see, had still another way with these sad Uttle Enghsh children. Do you hear the children weeping, my brothers, Ere the sorrow comes with years ? 179. No ? Then let us Usten a httle while. Those underfed, weakly " pauper " children were set to work at the tender age of five years in workhouses, factories and mines. 36 And the evidence before Parliament is that they were cruelly whipped and otherwise tortured when their little frames fainted and failed. Children of five and six were placed in mines, in absolute darkness and wet, to open and shut doors during twelve to fifteen hours a day. They died, of course, by scores of thousands, but these are only " natural consequences," in perfect accord with the laws of Pohtical Economy and of God— if by chance there be one. Most successful and admired Economists doubtett or denied Him. The puzzle is how the " excellent Malthus " could and did hold both kinds of faith. Pay might explain the puzzle— pohcy and economy. 180. The fear of God which is the beginning of wisdom— initium sapientiae timor— largely died out in Anglo-Saxondom. It is seldom preached now, being unpopular and not " in Une with modern thought." We have seen above how terrific sufEermg, on a national scale, fell upon the absolutely innocent. Can we be quite sure that there is no such thing as Divine retribution ? The Scriptures assert it, but then, again, the Scriptures are " largely out of line with modern thought." It is so often said " What the people want is to hear the love of God preached to them." Quite so, but He seems specially to have loved Uttle children, and to have made very strong provision for that sweet attraction in His human creatures. And where that love fades and wanes in any nation, turns to indifference or even aversion, is it not probable that the Administrator of the infinite universe made, long ago, ample counteracting provision ? PLASTIC TRUTH. Appendix to sixth edition, page 497. 181. It is probable, that having found the bow bent too much one way, I was induced to bend it too much the other, in order to make it straight. But I shall always be quite ready to blot out any part pf the work which is considered by a competent tribunal as having a tendency to prevent the bow from becoming finally straight, and to impede the progress of truth. 182. Thus we see how flexible a thing is " truth " in the minds and the writings of these dialecticians and Political Economists. " Theology " in our times is required of the clergy to get " into line with modern thought." But modernity itself vacillates from generation to generation, so that instead of a straight and trusty weapon fit to speed shafts of truth through shields of error, we see in Malthus' work the corrugations of a useless rope of sand. 183. In his title Malthus undertakes to deal with the " principle of population and its effects on human happiness " and " with an inquiry into our prospects respecting the future removal or mitigation of the evils which it occasions." Yet on page 496 he says, reviewing his own work : 184. I have always considered the principle of population as a law peculiarly suited to a state of discipline and trial. Indeed, I beheve that, in the whole range of the laws of nature with which we are acquainted, not one can be pointed out, which in so remarkable a manner tends to strengthen and confirm this scriptural view of the state of man on earth. 185. On the same page and upon many pages he speaks of the " evils arising from the principle of population." And on page 438 he says : That the principal and most permanent cause of poverty has little or no direct relation to forms of government, or the unequal division of property ; and that, as the rich do not in reality possess the power of finding employment and maintenance for the poor, the poor cannot, in the nature of things, possess the right to demand them ; are important truths flowing from the principle of population. 37 186. Thus his astonishing " principle of population " was a source both of truth and evil. Mai thus easily refutes James, the brother of our Lord, who asserted that a fountain cannot bring forth sweet water and bitter. A very old, very populous, and typical country is India. When "the rajahs extracted from the workers through a hun-- dred generations almost all the fruits of their toil, " the principal and permanent cause of their poverty had Uttle or no direct relation to the form of government ! " The owners of vast estates, Ludwig of Bavaria, Johann deb Starke of Saxony, the Duke ^f Sutherland, who, not working themselves, swept in the products of the labour of thousands, leaving the actual workers in utter poverty — ^was there no " direct relation to unequal division of property," and did the lords of the soil " not in reahty possess the power of finding employment and maintenance of the poor ? " 187. Such are the axioms and postulates upon which was built up the philosophy of the Manchester School, or that of Political Economy. Thus the " laws of God " are made sources of evil. Let us follow the " excellent Malthus " a Uttle further, lest we lose sight of the genesis of our national disease. p. 453. 188. The great Author of nature, indeed, with that wisdom which is apparent in all His works, has not left this conclusion to the cold and speculative consideration of general consequences. By making the passion of self-love beyond comparison stronger than the passion of benevolence. He has at once impelled us to that line of conduct, which is essential to the preservation of the human race 189. By this wise provision the most ignorant are led to promote the general happiness, an end which Hiey would have totally faOed to attain, if the moving principle of ttieir conduct had been benevolence. Benevolence indeed, as the great and constant source of action, would require the most perfect knowledge of causes and effects, and therefore can only be the attribute of the Deity. In a beii^ so short-sighted as man, it would lead into the grossest errors, and soon transform the fair and cultivated soil of civilised society into a dreary scene of want and confusion. 190 Grant these axioms, and he proceeds to extol the quality of benevolence, within weU-marked bounds. What those bounds are we have already found very clearly stated. Can we not already see how and why men hardened their hearts to their own flesh and blood, to the children of the nation, and amassed great fortunes by a continuous *' massacre " of the innocents ? " The infant is, comparatively speaking, of httle value to society, as others will immediately supply its place." 191. That book has had a mightier influence upon the dominant school of poUtics and upon the Anglo-Saxon race, directly and by heredity through the Neo-Malthusians, than aiiy other piece of Uterature in the English language. "MALTHUS AND HIS WORK." By James Bonab, M.A., BaUiol College, Oxford, Macmillan, London. 1885. 192. This book " which owes much to him " is dedicated to Professor Caibd. 193. The first lines of the Introduction explain the central position of Malthus' work and theory in Political Economy. Of three English writers whose work has become a portion of all Political Economy, Malthus is the second in time and in honour. His services to general theory are at least equal to Ricardo's and his full illustration of one particular detail will rank with the best work of Adam Smith 38 194. In 1798 Pitt's Bill for extending relief to large families, and thereby en- conraging population, was no doubt before the country ; but we owe Malflius' essay, not to WiUiam Pitt, but to Wm. (Jodwin. The changed aspect of the book in its later editions need not bUnd us to the eflBcient cause of its first appearances. 195. Godwin's humanitarian and optimistic teaching, perfectly in accord with the dictum of Spinoza that " nothing is more useful to mankind than man," provoked the reply of Malthus, and in this way only do we owe to poor Godwin the whole " dismal "—and savage — " science " of PoUtical Economy. 196. It is not generally known that Daniel Malthtts, father of the celebrated founder of the gospel of restriction of famiUes by healthy married couples, was opposed to the views of, and had much hot controversy with, his son Thomas Robert, the budding philosopher who became Headmaster amongst Economists. 197. Daniel Malthus had been a friend and executor of Roussbav, and was an ardent beUever in human progress. 198. Bonar asserts, page 9 : Men are always inclined to marry and multiply their numbers till the food is barely enough to support them all. This objection had since Wallace's time become a stock objection to be answered by every maker of Utopias. It was left to Malthus to show the near approach which this difl&culty makes to hope- lessness, and to throw the burden of proof on the other side. As the " Wealth of Nations " altered the standing presumption in favour of interference to one in favour of liberty in matters of trade, so the " Essay upon Population " altered the presumption which was in favour of the advocates of progress, to a presumption against them. This may not define the final result of the Essay, but it is a true account of its immediate effect. People had knowledge of the objection before ; it was only now that they began to look upon it as conclusive. 199. Bonar's is an exceedingly dreary book upon a dismal subject, without a touch of genuine humour or wit from cover to cover. Sometimes, however, involuntary humour affords reUef and joy to the student who follows the weary controversy that has sufficed to bring great nations to the slope of ruin. Habey Malthus, only son of the prophet, was asked when a boy what he would have done if he had found, as did the Good Samaritan, a man half dead by the road-side. " I would have killed him outright," promptly answered the youth. (Page 415). 200. That modernised form of the parable of our gentle Lord might well be their illustrative anecdote, to incarnate the true principle of Pohtical Economy. It contains an element of mercy pretty well in hne with that of James and John Mill in their inculcation of the exclusion from Ufe of the children who would come in the course of Nature to Great Britain. The boy's was a more merciful position than that actually assumed by the PoUtical Economists of the House of Commons during the Irish famine. Humanitarians proposed to " interfere with hberty of trade " and to forbid the export of foodstufis so that the people who produced the abundance might temporarily be fed. That, because of the failure of the root crop by which — like the sheep they tended — they were permitted to sustain life. But the proposal was rejected on PoUtico-Economic grounds. 201. They lay, in Uteral fact, upon the road-sides ia tens of thousands, dying under the cruel torture of hunger — men, women and babies. Although " the tender mercies of the wicked are cruel " it would have been a real mercy to " loll them outright." My relatives of a former generation, the Quakers of Ireland, in general never adopted the doctrines of Pohtical Economy or followed the leaders of the cult. They advocated ir; 1848 the intervention of the State to prohibit — at the least — the destruction of grain for malt, so that the human creatures, their beloved, industrious and faithful fellow-country- men, might be fed and kept aHve. FaiKng in all such efforts to convince the ruUng powers, they imported com from America and also received cargoes of food from their friends 39 there, which food was supplied gratis a,nd without cost of distribution. But it waa too late to save the food-producers of Ireland, who perished by the hundred thousand for lack of food in the midst of plenty.* 202. Here we have a clear aatithesis. But even that is not the limit of Economic perversity, for it constantly occurs to these neo-Malthusian writers to adopt as one of their " proofs," the fecundity of the " ignorant and poverty-stricken Irish." By the accepted tests of morality that of these Roman Cathohc Irish stood highest in Europe. Illegitimacy has always been at the lowest, and unnatural vice was practically unknown. Marital life, together with purity amongst the unmarried, was and is held sacred and extolled. Love and nurture of young children was regarded as the first and hohest duty, so that mortaUty of infants in the first year of life was the lowest in Europe, in face of aU govern- ment^ neglect and of all poverty. That did not come by chance, it persisted against all difficulties because of specific inculcation thereto with steadfast adherence, as a nation and race, to the apprehensions of duty. 203. Their principles and the racial practices which thus proceeded from them were in inflexible rejection of, and declared antagonism to, the teachings of Malthus, Miss Martineau, the Mills, and later of Bradlaugh, Besant, Drysdale, Gamier and the rest of the apostles of sexual abnormaUty. « THE LAW OP POPULATION, Its Consequences and its Bearing upon Human Conduct and Morals," by Anotb Besakt. Australian Edition, Hundredth thousand. 204. This is not the work which first brought its author into notoriety and favour. Having separated from her husband, who is a Church of England clergyman, still practising, his sacred calling in a country parish in England, Mrs. Besant joined the late Chaeles B'EADLATJGH in publishing, as explained by Joseph Gamier (Par. 131) a pamphlet written by the late Dr. Knowlton of Massachusetts. It is advertised in the copy of Mrs. Besant's book which is b3fore me, but both of them have lost circulation for the sufficient reason that the various articles recommended in th3se books are now so widely known — obtainable at almost all chemists, as also from other dealers — that little or nothing could be learnt from them. There are long-winded chapters upon the doctrine of Malthus and many extracts from the writings of John Stuart Mill and his father James Mill in sup- port of " scientific checks " against population. There are quasi-scientific demonstrations adapted from Darwin, Galton and other observers as to the tendency of animals and plants to multiply, out of which facts is made a sophistical analogy to human reproduction. 205. Whenever, then, we look through Nature we find proofs of the truth of the law that " there is a tendency in aU animated existence to increase faster than the means of subsistence." This is the law of which Miss Martineau said that it could * Note. Lord George Bbntinok, speaking upon the Com Laws (Hansard, Jan. 21st, 1847, page 249) said: That for which I blame the Government, is their neglect ui not having stringently prohibited the export of grain from Ireland. How does that matter stand ? They talk of the benefits which haTe been, and necessarily will be, derived from their Free Trade, and yet, by a paper before me, I find that whilst there had only been imported into Ireland between 400;000 and 500,000 quarters of foreign and British corn, full 1,700,000' quarters had been exported from Ireland, and that within the last eleven mouths. It cannot be denied that, if this export had been prohibited, they would at once have saved a sufficient quantity to maintain S,50!),000 of the Irish people from this time until the next harvest. 40 no more be upset than a law of arithmetic ; this is the law which John Stuart Mill regarded as " axiomatic " ; this is the law which Lord Chief Justice Cockburn, in the trial of the Queen v. Bradlaugh and Besant designated an "irrefragable truth." Controversialists may quarrel as to its consequences, and may differ as to man's duty in regard to them, but no controversy can arise among thinkers of the law itself, any more than in the sphericity of the earth. 206. But there are many who have refused to take their religion from Miss Harriet Martineau, their politics from John Stuart Mill, their morals from Sir Alexander Edward Cockburn, or to regard any one of the three as an authority in natural science. Every simple observer knows and sees that there is not a tendency in " all animated existence " to increase faster than the means of subsistence. An axiom is a truth of universal ap- pUcation, it must always hold good. Now the statement is a half-truth, or in other words a frequently observed condition of things, but to which there are many exceptions and contradictions. One could fill a book with instances where animated existences show no tendency at all to increase up to or beyond the means of subsistence. Sea-birds have few or no enemies in our vast Southern Ocean, with its Hmitless means of subsistence. But they lay few eggs and some birds are strangely careless about them. How many remain celibate nobody knows, and any way the opposite tendency to that claimed is plainly shown. The great size of some animals and their lengthy period of gestation are also facts of tendency against their multiplication. So is the sexual periodicity of those breeding but once a year, as compared with animals hke rabbits, which multiply all the year round in AustraHa, a country that was not, moreover, their natural habitat. The immense time required for the fructification of the splendid tahpot palm (corypha umbracuhfera) never to flower again, is a tendency towards extinction, or at least to its remaining comparatively scarce. Some plants, apart altogether from means of sub- sistence, prefer the company of other plants of difierent nature, and although they can live without them are seldom successful apart. There are Hmits of sexual selection amongst animals, including man, which tend to withhold them from any pressure upon " means of subsistence." So again with plants, whose " means of subsistence " are de- fined to be " moisture, air, fight and suitable soil." But cfimate is left out, yet even in the same climate and same soil, there are often observed hmits of habitat, so that the animated existences alluded to do not press upon or even touch the bounds of the means of subsistence. 207. It is true there is a tendency in some animated existences, but not all, to increase faster than the means of subsistence, whence the truth not being of universal appUcation breaks down as an axiom and most of all in relation to, and analogically to, human beings. These being gifted with reason possess means of adjustment, within the laws of their nature, to their environment. 208. Bradlaugh and Besant, Malthus and Mill, supply many illustrations of cruel privations suffered by innocent and helpless childreii in the United Kingdom, whilst surrounded by plenty. Protest is raised by the " philosophers " against the admission of human creatures to the banquet of Ufe, but not a word in these books do we find against our folly and wickedness in securing, to those who never worked in their lives, the underpaid services of the starveUngs that receive mere crumbs and refuse as reward for providing the banquet itself. 209. There is no suggestion from these Pohtical Economists that the children have social rights, to be claimed in every form, on the ground that they are the first treasures and the last strength of a nation. No, their " philosophy " has other " fruits " than that, and so upon page after page are described in minute detail, by these men and women philosophers in collaboration, the human generative organs and functions, as also the procreative act itself, together with instructions how most effectively to circumvent Nature. And that whilst encouraging people to indulge their distorted passions to satiety. To 41 satiety, because abstinences that have been for ages regarded as lawful and honourable are advised against, whilst methods of prevention, sometimes two methods at a time, are recommended to general use. 210. The preventive check proposed by Malthus [moral restraint only] must, therefore, be rejected and a wiser solution of the problem must be sought. 211. Later thinkers, recognising at once the evils of over-population and the evils of late marriage, have striven to find a path which shall avoid both ScyUa and Charybdis, and have advocated early marriage and smaU families. John Stttabt Mill has been one of the most earnest of these true friends of the people. In his " Political Economy " he writes " The pauciiy of births tends directly to proloi^ life by keeping the people in comfortable circimistances." Clearly and pointedly Mr. Mill teaches "conjugal prudence." Mbs. Fawcett writes: "Those who deal with this question of pauperism should remember that it is not to be remedied by cheap food, by reduction of taxation, or by economical administration in the departments, or by new forms of government. Nothing will permanently afiect pauperism while the present reckless increase of population continues." Me. Montagu Cookson says that some may think " prudential restraint after marriage wilder than anything Malthus ever dreamt," but urged that " the number of children born after marriage should be hmited," and that "such limitation is as much the duty of married persons as the observance of chastity is the du^ of those that are unmarried." 212. It remains then, to ask how is this duty to be performed ? It is clearly useless to preach the limitation of the family and to conceal the means whereby such limi- tation may be effected. 213. Then follows a hst of the English inventions, with the names of the inventors, where to obtain the several articles, how they may be prepared, and above all how to use them. The names of various medical practitioners are suppHed, with their comments, as also recommendations of vegetable and metallic substances to be employed by women for the destruction of the human germ. 214. Very many citations are made from supposed authorities against celibacy, amongst whom Sir Benjamin Beodie is made responsible for the statement that, " the evils of celibacy were so great that he would not mention them ; but that they quite equalled that of prostitution." When the consequences of venereal diseases to parents and to the offspring of modem nations are borne in mind, we are constrained to doubt the honesty of that quotation, which is, Hke the rest of the atrocious teaching of these Economist leaders of our society, flat in the face of " religion, moraUty and medicine." 215. After describing in detail how to dissolve and prepare a metalUc solution, for which there is now a very wide-spread demand amongst pharmacists in Anglo-Saxondom, Mrs. Besant says : As a matter of caution the solution must be kept from the reach of children or curious persons, and it is wise to label the bottle in which the solution is kept "POISON." Dr. . . . informed me that in his own practice he continually recommended the use of this check to married women, and that it had been very largely and very successfully adopted. 216. Now this solution consists of two metaUio salts, each an irritant poison, com- bined in water, both of them having caustic properties. Both are occasionally used by suicides. When used for conjugal frauds they are brought into direct contact with the OS uteri externum when the latter is in a more or less congested and irritable state. It is ian extremely unnatural procedure for a healthy woman, and the Journal of the American Medical Association asks the pertinent question as to what consequences are to be 42 expected from years of this kind of treatment ? (Par. 1056). The organ is. very sensitive, and just that spot, the neck of the womb, is the seat of cancerous growths whose frequency has of late years greatly increased, and is rapidly increasing. It is no answer to say that nuUiparous women are seldom affected, for these preventives are not rehable and pregnancy often ensues upon their use. Then comes the resort to abortion, so that it by no means follows that the childless woman is nuUiparous. Again, the use of preventives is largely resorted to by the woman after having had one or more children. Taught by so many mistakes in the past, gynaecologists and physicians are exceedingly cautious in asserting consequences, especially ia relation to the causation of cancer, ^erefore " the laity " take blindly upon themselves risks of extreme anguish and untimely death, because positive warnings cannot be given from actual knowledge. 217. It is not enough for the physician to say, or even the consensus of his profession to declare, "you must not. use these things without medical prescription," or to the anxious but ignorant mother, " don't give your baby teething-powders " (chloride of mercury), " or soothing-syrup " (opium). The people must be made fuUy aware of what they are doing and what the probable consequences are. In like manner his entire profession is unable to say, or to guess, how much cancer is caused by these frequent interruptions to the course of Nature, and by the local irritations. He caimot cite a single proven case, for it is aU but impossible to get the antecedent facts and to prove the sequence. But physicians can declare their beUefs, or even their apprehensions, as some have boldly done, in the face of controversy. Our abundant cause for gratitude to the heahng professions has been herein frequently set forth, and as there is no other source for guidance to a misled and declining race, our people must perforce ask them for absolute candour. (Par. 1263). 218. It is a pity that the users of these metallic salts do not firstly try them upon their hands pretty frequently, and mark the effects, before applying the poison to a more deUcate, vascular and absorptive surface. 219. How rapidly conjugal prudence may lift a nation out of pauperism is seen in France ; the proportion of adults to the whole population is the largest in Europe, the proportionate number of persons under thirty beii^ the smallest ; hence there are more producers and fewer non-producers than in any other country. The consequence of this is that the producers are less pressed upon, and live in greater comfort and with more enjoyment of life France shows a pattern of widely spread comfort which we look for in vain in our own land, and this comfort is directly traceable to the systematic regard for conjugal prudence. Small agricnltoral holdings tend greatly to this virtue, the fact of the limitation of the food supply available beiag obvious to the most ignorant peasant. 220. It is well worthy of notice that those who have pleaded for scientific checks to population have also been those who have been identified with the struggle for political and religious freedom. Richard Cabule defended the use of such — as advocated in his " Every Woman's Book." 221. One of these courageous souls as mentioned, not boimd by the conventions of moraUty, took all the oaths in Freemasonry and published ia the smallest detail what is declared to be a complete exposure of aU the harmless secrets of aU the degrees of the Craft. 222. Mr. Feancis Place argues : " The mass of the people in an old country must remain in a state of wretchedness, imtU they are convinced that their safety depends upon themselves and that it can be maintained in no other way than by ceasing to propagate faster than the means of comfortable subsistence are produced If above aU, it were once clearly understood that it was not disreputable for married persons to avail themselves of such precautionary means as would, without being injurious to health, or destructive of female 13 delicacy, prevent conception, a sufficient check might at once be given to the in- crease of population beyond the means of subsistence, and vice and misery to a prodigious extent-be removed from society." 223. Mr. James Watson slewed his views of the matter by publishing Dr. Ohables Knowlton^s "Fruits of Philosophy." Mr. Robekt Dale Owen (son of Robert Owen, and American minister in Morence), in his " Moral Physiology/' advocates and describes scientific checks. 224. Mr. Jambs Mill says that " if the superstitions of the nursery were disregard^c? and the principle of utility kept steadily in view a solution might not be very difficult to be found." 225. Mr. John Stuart Mill strongly urges restraint of the number of the family, and he took an active part in disseminating the knowledge of scientific checks. 226. He certainly did, for it is narrated by Mr. McCabe in his " Life of G. J. Hblyoakfe " that Mr. John Stuart Mill was arrested by the police, at the early ■ age of eighteen, for distributing 'in " servants' areas " handbills explaining the use of preventives of conception. And the same sense of- duty remained with him. Mrs. Besant continues : 227. The members of the old Freethought institution in John-street, made it part of their work to circulate popular tracts advocating scientific checks, such as a four page tract entitled : " Population : . is not its increase at present an evil, and would not some harmless check be desirable ? " 228. Mr. Austin Holyoake, in his " Large and Small Families," follows in ihe same strain, and recommends as guides Enowlton's Pamphlet and Owen's '^JAoral Physiology." 229. Mr. George Jacob Holyoake, writing as one of the Vice-Presidents of the - National Secular Society in 1876, points to the difference between Christian and secular morality on this head ; he says : " Let anyone regard for a moment the Christian's theory of this Me. It tells us that all human beings are bom immortal, and that God has to provide for them above or below ! Yet in every portion of the land scoundrel or vicious parents may bring into existence a squaiid brood of dirty, sickly, depraved, ignorant, ragged children. Christianity fails utterly to prevent their existence, and hurls quick words of opprobrium upon any who advocate the prevention of this progeny of crime. Yet the Christian teaches that, by mere act of orthodox belief, these ignorant and unclean creatures can be sent from the gutter to God. A Secularist cannot help shuddering at this doctrine and this practice, so fatal to society, so contemptuous to heaven." 230. Thus has the effort to obtain social reform gone hand in hand with that for pohtical and religious freedom; the victors in the latter have been the soldiers of the former. Discussion on the population question is not yet safe ; legal penalty threatens those who advocate the restriction of birth instead of the destruction of life; the same penalty was braved by our leaders in the last generation, and we have only to follow in their steps in order to conquer as they conquered and become sharers of their crown. We work for the redemption of the poor, for the salvation of the wretched. The cause of the people is the sacredest of all causes, and it -is the one which is the most certain to triumph, however sharp may be the struggle for the victory. 231. Their victory has been won and it is undeniably complete. The poor " gutter children " of England, " dirty, sickly, ignorant, depraved and ragged," are infinitely worse off than were those of Nazareth, whose dusty httle feet were lifted upon the seandessrobe, who were pressed to the Sacred Heart and received the blessing of the ages. These harmless 'English' creatures, denied entrance to the banquet of life 44 by the English philosophers and Members of Parliament, are also to bo denied a return from the gutter to God ! If there were no visible vengeance for the acceptance of that teaching we might well doubt the Divine Intelligence. 232. Here and there throughout the copy which is before me of this " philosophic " work are printed on the left-hand pages urgent recommendations to buy other works by the same authors upon similar subjects ; many books upon matrimony on the rtiodern pattern ; Ucentious and infamous tales by French authors ; works " illustrated with coloured plates and engravings of the generative organs ; " specimens of the salacious writings of Paul de Kock ; " Marriage, As it was. As it is, and as it should be, by A'nnie Bbsant, with a sketch of the life of Mrs. Besant ; " several pages upon supposed excitants to sexual desire ; pages devoted to advertisements of " Neo-Malthusian Apphances ;" others offering " Ladies' Own Irregularity PiUs guaranteed to remove all irregularities silently but surely." To these pills the names of the most distinguished physicians are unlawfully attached with wholly shameless effrontery. On the cover are advertised more illustrated books upon sexual matters, and all is expressed with total unreserve. These are the books advertised in the Enghsh and in the Australian daily and weekly press, which penetrates our homes and schools. 233. In Vol. I. of this Report are suppUed photographic copies of the advertisements of this Uterature pubUshed daily and weekly in AustraUa — same as in the Mother Country. Curiously the announcements claim that there is " an enormous sale " for the merchandise, just as proved before the Joint Committee (Rep. par. 232). And the commercial articles purveyed by " respectable firms " are still openly advertised and carried through our own post-offices, exactly as before. Every week and every day these abominations are thrust before our citizens, and up to date — excepting in New Zealand — our Legislatures are supine. 234. Dr. Amelin wrote (see Nitti p. 76). " La castration vaut mieux, a tout prendre, qu'une prudence voisine de la pratique de I'avortement." [All things considered, castration would be better than a prudence which is next-door neighbour to the practice of abortion.] 235. The assertion has been made that Mrs. Besant recanted and repudiated her former convictions, which she stated with so much fierceness of emphasis in her long campaign against the superfluous baby. It is impossible to quote, and unnecessary, her angry declamations against what has been historically regarded as morahty and decency, for the details of sexuaUty and sensuaUty are throughout involved. 233. The president of a " Theosophical Association " sent me a copy of Mrs. Besant's later pamphlet, remarking, inter alia : All this occurred about 30 years ago, and Mrs. Besant has long since been ' convinced that the practices she formerly advocated are unjustifiable, and she has pubUshed a further pamphlet entitled " Theosophy and the Law of Population " in which she makes this change of opinion pubhc, and states that she has decided to withdraw the earher pubhcation from sale and to refuse to sell the copyright. 237. It is necessary to examine this later booklet, but in the meantime it must be repeated that " The Law of Population " as fully named at the head of this chapter, is advertised every day and week in England and AustraHa, whilst the name of Annie Besant, plainly as an aid to sale, is printed in large letters on the front cover and title page. At the foot of each of them are the words " The Trade Supphed." Very likely the lady did not sanction these sales, but the phenomenon is there all the same and we are only concerned with the consequences of it. I caused a copy to be purchased two years ago, and a pharmacist friend, not knowing that, voluntarily obtained for me this year another, first carefully pasting upon it a red label, " POISON." 238. Most of the persons who engaged themselves in the propaganda of this .Satanic " gospel " have gone to their account, and we are in no way interested in their person- 49 alities whether dead or Kving. We have to do with the teaching and its effects. " The waters of Shiloah that run softly," the stream of innocent love that had been the joy and strength of our nation and race, was permanently poisoned. The same was ^one for France, only too ready to^eoeive the narcotic drug. No one of those persons is of more value than, or should be so much considered as, anyone of the host of women now suffering and dying in Anglo-Saxon hospitals, or than the next poor babe that will be cast as rubbish to the void. 240. The latter pamphlet is a string of self-conscious, seK-flattering casuistry, strongly emphasising the teaching of the former books and, be it said, quite as likely to meet with acceptance. « THEOSOTHY AND THE LAW OF POPULATION," By Annie Besant. London Theosophical Publishing Society, 7 Duke Street, W.C. (Pages 5 et seq.). 241.- The teEiching of the duty of limiting the family within the means of subsistence is the logical outcome of materialism. Seeking to improve the physical type, it would forbid parentage to any but healthy married couples ; it would restrict child-bearing within the limits consistent with the thorough health and physical well-being of the mother ; it would impose it as a duty never to bring children into the world unless the conditions for their fair nurture and development are present ; and regarding it as hopeless, as well as mischievous, to prea«h asceticism, and the conjunction of nominal celibacy wi4^ widespread prostitution as inevitable, from the constitution of human nature, it — quite rationally and logically — advises deliberate restriction of the production of offspring, while sanctioning the exercise of the sexual instinct within the limits imposed by temperance, the highest physical and mental efficiency, the good order and dignity of society, and the self-respect of the individual 242. The famous trial of Mr. Charles Bradlaugh and myself for republishing a pamphlet on the subject written early in the century by Dr. Knowlton, an American physician, was the commencement of a great popular movemeat on the subject. We published the pamphlet because it was attacked by the police, and that did not seem to us the fashion in which such a question should be settled. We accordingly reprinted th* tract, and sent notice to the police that we would personally sell them the pamphlet, so as to put no technical difficulties in the way of prosecution ; we did so, amd the trial was removed to the Court of Queen's Bench, on the writ of the Lord Chief Justice, who, after reading the pamphlet, decided that it was a scientific work, not an " obscene " one, in the ordinary sense of the word. To use his own phrase, it was a " dry physiological treatise." The prosecution was led by Sir Hardinge GiflEard, the Solicitor General of the then Tory Government, who used every art of political and theological animosity against us ; tha judge, Sir Alexander Cockbum, Lord Chief Justice of England, was in strong sympathy with us, and summed up for us in a charge to the jury that was really a speech for the defence ; the jury returned a special verdict completely ex- onerating us but condemning the book, and the judge reluctantly translated this into a verdict of Guilty. Obviously annoyed at the verdict he refused to give judgment, and let us go on our own recognisances. Wh«i we came up later for judgment, he urged us to surrender the pamphlet as the jury had condemned it ; said that our whole course with regard to it had been right, but that we ought to yield to the judgment of the jury. We were obstinate, and I shall never forget the pathetic way in which the great judge urged us to submit, and how at last when we persisted that we would continue to sell it till the right to seU it was gained, he said that he would have let us go free if we would have yielded to the court, but our persistence compelled him to sentence us. We gave notice of appeal, promising not to seU till the appeal was decided, and he let us go on our own recognisances. On appeal we quashed the verdict and went free ; we recovered all the pamphlets seized and publicly sold them ; we continued the sale till we received an intimation that no further prosecution would be attempted against us, and then we dropped the sale of the pamphlet, and never took it up again. I wrote the " Law of Population " to replace it, and my pamphlet was never attacked, except in AustrtJia, where the attaick ignominously failed. Justice Windeyer of the Supreme Court deciding in its favour in a remarkable judgment in which he justified the pamphlet and the neo-Malthusian,__ position in one of the most luminous and cogent arguments I have ever read. The judgment was spoken of at the time in the English press as a " brilliant triumph for Mrs. Besant," and so I suppose it was ; but no legal judgment could undo the harm wrought on the public mind by malignant and C ~ 46 peraistent misrepreeentation jn England. No one save myself will ever know what that trial cost me in pain : loss of children (though the judge said that my atheism alone jostified their removal), loss of friends, social ostracism, with all the agony felt by a woman of pure life at being ilie butt .of the vilest accusations. On the other hand there was the passionate gratitude evidenced by letters from thousimdB of poor mairied women — ^many from the wives of country clergymen and poor corates —thanking and Uessing me for showing them how to escape from the veritable hell in winch (iiey had Uved. The " upper classes " of society know notiiing about the way in which the poor live ; how their overcrowding destroys all sense of personal dignity, of modesty, of outer decency, till human life, as Bishop Fraser justly said, is " degraded below the level of the swine." To such and among such I went, and I could not grudge the price which seemed to be the ransom for their re- demption. It meant indeed the losing of all that life made dear, but it seemed also the gaining for them of :dl that gave hope of better future. So who could hesitate, whose heart had bemi fired by the devotion to an ideal Humanity, inspired by the Materialism that is of love and not of hate T . . . . 242. I have refused either to print any more or to sell the copyright of the " Law of Population," so that when those that have passed beyond my control have b^n disposed of by those who bought them, no more copies will be circulated. I only in April last came to this definite decision, for I confess my heart somewhat failed me at the idea of withdrawing from the knowledge of the poor, so far as I could, a palliative of the heart-breaking misery under which they groan, and from the married mothers of my own «ex, the impulse to^d whom had been my stemigest motive action of 1877, a protection against the evils which too oifen wreck their lives and bring many to an early grave, worn old before even middle age has touched tliem. Not until I felt obliged to admit that the neo-Malthusian teaching was anti-Theosophical, would I take this step ; but, having taken it, it is right to take it publicly, and to frankly say that my former teaching was based on a mistaken view of man's nature, treating him as the mere product of evolution instead of as the spirit, intelligence and will without which evolution could not be. 243. The details will here be omitted of these sexual perversities as taught by Mrs. Besant to mixed audiences, from the public platform, whilst pubhcly describing the pervert acts, yet enough has been shown above to justify the following scornful words of the Abbe Coebieee. (Gamier's " Principles of Pop.") : 244. How are you to manage to persuade a young man that he ought to foimd a family? "Marriage," he wiU teU you, " costs a great deal. A vnfe might not please one after a while. The education of children is very expensive. I prefer to keep my Uberty. When Christian principles used to act upon my mind I understood that the institution of marriage was to appease the voice of conscience. But I have changed my instructors since then, and my present ones have put the religionist to shame. They have taught me to suspect the Church, and I have learned from them the true rule of philosophy. Onan has got bis panegyrists ; he has started a School, and I am amongst his disciples ! " NATIONAL MALTHUSIANISM, "PREVENTION " OF COLONIES. James Mill. Article " Colony." Enc. Brit., 8th edition, p. 140. 245. Things are a httle more stubborn than the credulity of Englishmen. That, in general, is ob^ent enough to the affirmation of those who lead the parUatment, and who have sometimes an interest in leading it wrong. Facts take their own course, without regard to the affirmations of parliament, or the plastic faith <^ those who follow them. 246. This is the celebrated article denouncing the folly and expense of the retention by Great Britain of her oversea Colonies. It was merely a consistent extension of Mal- thnsianism from the family to the nation. Fortunately, both Colonies and Parliament remained stubborn. *7 247i That, the Utilitarians — ^Mill, Bright,, Cobden and many others — opposed. th« " crasoite- et multiplioamini " as applied to the Mother Country with her lusty children, is known to all. The Little Englanders, just now, are rather discreetly silent, but it is well torread what, a great saTant a^ friendiof. our' nation, Paul Leboy Beaumeu, says on th«. above subject. In, his fine work, " De la Colonisation chez les Peuiples Modemes " (Paris, Guillaumin et Cie, 1902), on page 711 the following appears : — (Teanslation.) 248. Can a great State nowadays afford to hold aloof, especially when its history, and even vast surfaces of the globe, invite it to take part in colonisation ? Never- theless the Economists, with the exception of a few, have dissuaded States from owning colonies ; why not (say they) simply push trade without taking charge of remote territories ? Verily a bagman policy attributable to " the inevitable law of supply and demand." MODERN MORALS AND ECONOMIC CmVALRY. John Stuaet Miii, "Principles of PoUtical Economy," I,, page 197, 9th Edition. Longmans, 1886. 249. There is no doubt that a positive excess of nutriment is unfavourable to re- production ; and it is quite possible, though by no means proved, that the physio- logical conditions of fecundity may exist in the greatest degree when the supply of food is somewhat stinted. But anyone who might be inclined to draw &om this, even if admitted, conclusions at variance with the principle of Mr. Malthus, needs only be invited to look through a volume of the Peerage, and observe the enormous families, almost universal in that class ; or caU to mind the lai ge families of the Ei^Ush clergy, and generally of the middle classes of England. Page 458 : 250. Little improvement can be expected in morahty until the producing large families is regarded with the same feehngs as drunkenness or any other physical excess. But while the aristocracy and clergy are foremost to set the example of this kind of incontinence, what can be expected from the poor ? 251. The reader will see that the word incontinence is here furnished with- a new meaning. The pamphlet " What is Love V thrown into servants' areas by Mr. Mill himself, explained how actual incontinence need have no procreative results. 252. JoHif Stitart Mill was carefully trained by his father to a disbelief in God, and any immanence in man of the divine spirit, as the source of " fas," faimess^ that sense of justice so constantly and elaborately insisted upon by the preachers of the Old Testa- ment, and by the Apostles in the New. To him there was no categorical imperative, to him the philosophy of Kant and Fichte was an ascetic dream. 253'. The father " seems to have despised poor Mrs. Mill " (par. 59 note), the mother of his nine children. What a pity we have no biography of the faithful, long-suffering woman ! For all we know, by, her gentle motherhood alone she may have been a much more eligible national model and instructress, than — sex apart — was either the husband or son. 254. Read again the infamous pronouncement quoted above from John Mill's own book, a complete footnote without context, and the reader will ask himself how we have 48 so far forgotten our traditional chivalry to English matrons as to have made these men and their writings our chief poUtical guides for a couple of generations. They rejected the ancient law, which commanded : " Honour thy father and mother that thy days — the days of thy nation— may be long in the land." A new " Gospel " give I unto you— Despise thy prohfic wife and class thy fruitful and loving mother with the drunken and incontinent ! HOW THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO WILL IS RECEIVED IN FRANCE. 255. French Malthusians are still very fond of quoting those words of our great national prophet, preacher and teacher. They read thus in French : On ne pent guere esperer, que la morahte fasse des progres, tant qu-on ne considerera pas les families trop nombreuses avec le m^me mepris que I'ivrognerie ou tout autre excha corporel. 256. They wiU thus be found on page 303 of " La Fonction SexueUe," by De. Sicabi> DE Plauzoles, Paris. Giard et Briere, 1908. This very advanced Malthusian philosopher, who is also a pronounced doctrinaire Socialist of the later French type, says (page 320) in closing a chapter : (Translation.) 257. The progress of science and industry permits us to foresee in the future a society in which production, no 'longer delivered up to capitalistic anarchy, but socially organised, will be able to satisfy the wants of aU. 258. If, however, births become too numerous, then euthanasia of the children which are degenerate, iU-shaped, sickly or superfluous, would bring the population to a proportion adequate to the means of production and of subsistfence. 259. He explains in a note that euthanasia means " an easy death without suffering." But this genial Sociahst does not, like Dean Swift, suggest a use for the flesh of these superfluous babies, after passing them through the Government lethal chamber, like so many puppies. 260. The children permitted to live are to be handed over to the Collectivity, the true Sociahst State, when that shaU have been estabUshed, as Dr. de Plauzoles, with some reason, anticipates it shortly will be. The book is dated 1908. 261. With stfll more reason this writer lays down the future position of sexual unions. It would take a bold man to deny that his forecast is not indicated by the tendencies of French society, of legislation, of increasing divorce, of displacement of religion, of increasing laxity in sexual unions now. On page 380 we read : (Teanslation.) 262. We must admit that the sexual and economic emancipation of women will constantly multiply successive monogamic unions, of longer or shorter duration. 263. The form of sexual union wiU be progressively simphfied, in proportion as the law shall sanction more strictly all the responsibihties which arise from the sexual act itself, considered as a tacit contract. 264. The union wiU be free — freely formed, freely loosed, without any constraint, whether economic or legal. Its duration will be that of love. 49 265. The State must take charge of the health of the child, its physical, intellectual and moral development ; the authority of the parents must disappear before the superior right of the child. And so on, for about 400 pages of purest Itogic, argument, and prophecy. 266. As often herein said, we shaU not enter into any arguments, but rather leave the whole field undisputed in that regard to the Economists and Malthusians. The reader will be able to see for himself that, whilst these philosophies are merely hashes of ancient sophistries, they are also stigmata of decay. EeUgion, which French Socialists reject and repress, really means self-restraint — religare=to bind fast — Whence as restraint and duty are cast ofE by the individuals, inculcation of it also ceases. 267. Apart from the arithmetical certainty of further decline in reproduction, which is before both French and Anglo-Saxons, there is in the case of the former an ever-increasing laxity in sexual unions, which renders progeny increasingly undesired. To preserve freedom for fresh unions, the woman avoids " encumbrances," whilst euthanasia is already by no means an unfsishionable practice. Moral decUne ensures further racial decline, with equal certainty to the arithmetical. Therefore there are two sets of influences from whose crushing ox>eration a decadent nation cannot possibly escape. To repeat : the first is the loss of procreators through the non-bom, and the older age-constitution of the living females. The second is the progressive disinclination to have progeny. There are other factors, consequent upon previous practices, as will be abundantly shown herein upon authority and without argument, but the two just named are the chief and, alone, are quite sufficient for the utter ruin of any nation. Dr. de Plauzoles proceeds : ' 268. It follows, of course, that at the same time as the sexual union is modified, so will be the constitution of the family. Instead of the father the mother will be head of the family. Since she is the fixed centre, the matrix and the heart, she will be the head of it. The children will be under her tutelage controlled by pubhc authority. All wiU bear their mother's name. Thus the children bom of the same woman, but of different fathers, will have the same name. No difEerence wiU any longer exist between legitimate and natural children ; there will no longer be natural children. Such is the developed Neo-Malthusian gospel, and there is Uttle doubt of its progress — ^for a while. JOHN STUABT SULL. " Principles of Political Economy." * 269. On page 462, Vol. I., he compares the man who has many children with the soldier who runs away from battle, and adds : 270. It is the disgrace which naturally and inevitably attends on conduct by any one individual, which, if pursued by a majority, everybody can see would be fatal. . . 271. It must be borne in mind also, that the opinion here in question, as soon as it attained any prevalence, would have powerful auxiliaries in the great majority of women. It is seldom by the choice of the wife that families are too numerous ; on her devolves the whole of the intolerable domestic drudgery resulting from the excess. To be relieved from it would be hailed as a blessing by multitudes of women who now never venture to urge such a claim, but who would urge it, * NoTB. — The tern " Political Economy " was used for the first time by Mountchrestien de Watteville, in 1615. Quesnay and his friends adopted this word and spread it. Adam Smith took it from them and used it without examination. Yves Guyot : Prin. of Social Economy, p. 41. 50 if supported by the moral feelings of the community. Amongst the barbarisms which law and morals have not yet ceased to sanction, the most disgusting surely is, that any human being should be permitted to consider himself as having a right to the person of another. 272. He then labours the subject at great length in his usual cock-sure and didactic style. It is the same old, weary, remedy of the superior person, namely, " We must educate the masses in common-sense." Of course it means his own sense, however extra- ordinaiy. I have myself known a rich member of Parliament to say in a Chamber of Commerce to his fellow traders, with pounding emphasis : " It's our dooty, gentlemen, to hedjicate the massis !" The sentiment evoked applause, for his was a big soap-boiling firm, rich and influential, and he was a specimen of the much-admired " self-made man." Mr. MiU proceeds : 273. Without entering into disputable points, it may be asserted, without scruple, that the aim of all inteUeotual training for the mass of the people, should be to cultivate common sense ; to qualify them for forming a sound practical judgment of the circumstances by which they are surrounded. Whatever in the intellectual department can be superadded to this is chiefly ornamental ; while this is the indispensable groundwork on which education must rest. Let this object be acknowledged and kept in view as the thing to be first aimed at, and there will be little difficulty in deciding either what to teach, or in what manner to teach it. 274. An education directed to diffuse good sense among the people, with such knowledge as would qualify them to judge of the tendencies of their actions, would be certain, even without any direct inculcation, to raise up a public opinion by which intemperance and improvidence of every kind would be held discreditable, and the improvidence which overstocks the labour market would he severely con- demned, as an offence against the common weal. But though the suificiency of such a state of public opinion, supposii^ it formed, to keep the increase of population within proper limits, cannot, I think, be doubted ; yet, for the formation of the opinion, it would not do to trust to education alone. 275. How the education was imparted ; what to teach, and how Stuart Mill and the other Neo-Malthusians taught it, will be clearly shown herein. It is curious that such a very didactic person should in one sentence use the words " common sense " in the vulgar and incorrect meaning.and speak of "circumstances by which they are surrounded." 276. Mr. John Moelby (now Lord Morley) in his "Miscellanies," fourth series,page 315, Macmillan, 1908, wrote : " It would be possible for the State," MiU said, " to guarantee ample wages for all who are born. But if it does this, it is bound in self-protection, and for the sake of every purpose for which government exists, to provide that no persons shall be born without its consent." Only one prominent man, I think, in our time, has ventured to touch this dangerous question, and he was sentenced to prison for his pains. Yes, he was sentenced, but as the reader will see, a British judiciary quashed the verdict. Many others have since popularised and amplified the " question " — and were not sentenced. 5J THE APOSTASY SEEN FROM INSIDE: "Life and JLet^s of George Jacob Holyoake," by Joseph McCabe. Watts & Co., London, 1908. 277. On page '80, Vol. II., is narrated the close connection|[,between Mr. Bradlaugh, Mrs. Besant and the Holyoakes — as also their association for the pubhcation and defence of the brutal Knowlton pamphlet. Here are the words of the biographer named, above, an admirer of these people : "Holyoake agreed with its principle, but thougbfr it coarse and offensive in parts ; as Mr. Bradlaugh and Mrs. Besant always admitted it to be." Anyhow they all united in its sale and advertisement. 278. On page 81 a letter is printed from G. J. Holyoake to Mrs. Besant, which pre- sumably was suppHed by the recipient for publication. " Dear Mrs. Besant, If you intepd' to pubhsh the work it means ruin to you as a lady. At that I am concerned 279. He objects to being identified with the defence of the publication of ttie Knowlton pamphlet, and concludes : " I cannot think of resting the defence of the Hberty of publication upon a quack like Knowlton — ^imposed upon us by an artifice in days of struggle. Let me add that the use of Mr. Mill's name is utterly indefensible. G. J. HOLYOAKE." ^ Mrs. Besant thanked him for his " most kindly meant " letter and said they must be con^nt to differ. He wrote again to say that, as she did not speak of an intention to publish the pamphlet there was no ground for differing and " In any case " he would be neutral. She repUed ; " Dear Mr. Holyoake, 280. Thank you much for your nice little note. I think it probable that we shall follow the fine of Mr. Bradlaugh (in the 'National Reformer') — objection to style of pamphlet as unduly coarse, but maintenance of right of discussion of sexual problems ; i.e., revise carefully, publish matter, but refine style " 281. Unfortunately this revision did not go beyond grammar ; and the names of Austin and Geo. Jacob Holyoake were deliberately brought before the Court by Mrs. Besant as publishers of the book. At the end of March Mrs. Besant sent Holyoake a copy of their issue of Knowlton's pamphlet, admitting that they had made only "grammatical amend- ments " in it, and saying, "You may Mke to see it from curiosity, though you disapprove of our action." In a letter to the "Daily News" and "The Times" Holyoake explained that he had never selected the book for pubhcation, nor pubhshed it in the ordinary sense of the word ; that he had always dishked it and, after the British case had shown the use that was being made of it, he had advised its withdrawal. Nevertheless it is stated on page 84 : It was suggested at the time that Holyoake bad made a considerable profit in the^sale of the Knowlton pamphlet during the year that he had sold it m Fleet Street 52 282. Having distributed the obscenity on a large 8cale> it proved, however, to be un- profitable. The revised version of these unholy scriptures — ^which carried a copyright under our amiable laws — ^was later, however, a very remunerative enterprise for the revisers Bradlaugh and Besant. 283. Re John Stuabt Mill's escapade and arrest by the police for distributing obscene handbills, more details can be found by the curious on page 63 of above book. It is declared to have completely alienated Mr. W. E. Gladstone's sympathy from Mill. The pamphlet is stated to have explained in detail how sexual intercourse may be carried out, whilst thwarting Nature of the natural consequences. THE UTHJTARIAN SCHOOL. "The English Utilitarians," Leslie Stephen. Vol. III., Duckworths, 1900. 284. About this period (1828) John Stuabt Mill, then aged 17 or 18, took part with some friends in distributing a pamphlet called " What is Love 1 " advocating what are now called Neo-Malthusian principles. The police interfered and some scandal ensued. 285. Let no one say that the story of the " dismal science " is devoid of the humorous side. Imagine the callow and dreary prig of eighteen deciding upon " What is Love " by the Ught of the lantern of Malthus, and starting at that interesting age to instruct married people in the practices cursed in Genesis ! It was from his sense of duty — exactly where the humour comes in. Pity the police had to interfere ! He ought to have lived a generation later, but he preached the same views during life and was accorded posthumous honours. 286. "Fraser's Magazine" in April, 1833, attacked the Political Economists (Stephen HI., 173), in a series of articles upon the horrors revealed by the official report to the House of Commons. They might be summed up as child murder by slow torture. The Tory organs, the "Quarterly " and "Blackwood's," took the same side (as Fraser's). The same side ! According to that statement a party led by Mr. John Beight and Mr. Richaed Cobden is said to have strenuously upheld the " principles " of child murder by slow torture. But the debate itself shows it plainly. Mr. Stephen writes : 287. Lord Shaftesbtjey says that the argument most frequently used was the statement by Nassau Senioe — "that high authority " — a pronounced Malthusian, who had declared that all the profits of the manufacturers were made in the last two hours of the twelve. "Cut down the twelve to ten " he said "and profits will disappear, and with them the manufacturing industry." These, like the other prophecies of the Political Economists, were of course falsified by facts, as known to all. 288. The employment of children had at first appeared desirable from a philanthropic point of view, but it had developed so as to involve intolerable cruel^. The hideous stories of children worked to death, or to premature decrepitude, revealed by the Commissions, had made a profound impression. 289. The reader will bear in mind that these reports preceded the debate in which Mr. John Beight so "strenuously" upheld the practice of this intolerable cruelty of working the children for twelve hours a day, say thirteen and a half to fourteen hours of 53 actual attendance. They were wretchedly underfed, they were undersized and degenerate, they had been " soaked with opium " as babies, so that teeth and digestion were of the worst. Of these things, one cangpd the other — a circulus vitiosus. Just as now, calomel — sub-chloride of mercury — was also freely and frequently administered by parents. When mortal sickness came the children had to die alone and untended, only one dis- pensary in the cruel city of Manchester. They perished like flies, only half surviving the fifth year and only one in six or seven reaching the age of thirty. And the Pohtical Economists used every force of their intellects, aU their powers of oratory, the influence of threats, and the compulsion of their trade organisations to perpetuate this national crime so long as the supply of " fixed capital " in the shape of " little children " should last. Each and all of that is contained in Mr. John Bright's speech as quoted herein. Why did the Registrar-General put the simple words in quotation marks, " httle children ? " Apparently because Our Lord pressed the httle children of Nazareth to His compassionate heart — ^Luther's version says " Er beherzigte sie " — and blessed them, and all such, for ever. Man needs the Uving force of His words more now than then, since people have come to use and to print the shameful phrase " the curse of fecundity " when, speaking of the advent of children. Place the philosophy of His teaching beside our pitiful Pohtical Economy of yesterday, a mushroom already putrescent. But the principles inculcated by those Pohtical Economists, the national practices that they introduced and taught — the obhteration of chivalry to our unborn and of chivalry to our children — ought not and must not be ignored or glossed over. 290. In the words of Coenelius Tacitus (Ann III., 65) — I hold it to be the pre- eminent function of history that moral excellences sink not into obUvion, and that base words and deeds shall dread the execration of posterity. POLITICAL ECONOMY AND "THE HORRIBLE SACRIHCE OF HUMAN LIFE." (Vide par. 298). 291. Jesus taught, saying : " Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves. You shall know them by their fruits. " Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles ? Even so every good tree brings forth good fruit ; but a corrupt tree brings forth evU fruit. " A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. "Wherefore by their fruits you shall know them." When Jesus had ended these sayings, the people were astonished at His doctrine, for He taught them as having authority. 292. I submit the inexpugnable records of Parhament so that men may test the false prophets, judge the seed that was sown, and witness the harvesting of the fruit. 293. Hansard, January 26, 1847, page 489 et seq. Mr. John Fielden (member for Oldham), moving for leave to bring in the Factories Bill, For my part. Sir, I think that a leading principle of Pohtical Economy is the care of the hves, the health and the morals of the people ; and it is upon the ground that the hfe, health and morality of the young persons, and of women, are sacrificed by too long hours in our factories that I ask leave to bring in this Bill. The Report of the Registrar-General of England was quoted by Mr. Fielden as follows : 294 " The population of the extra-metropohtan district of Surrey was in 1841, 187,000, and the population of the town and suburban districts of Manchester was 163,000. In Manchester with this less population the deaths registered in 54 seven years, 1838-44, were 40,000, and' those in Surrey only 23,800, making a diflEerence of over 16,000. There were 23,500 children under 5 years of age in Surrey, and the deaths of children under that age were 7,400. The children ii Manchester were 21,000, the deaths 20,700! 295. "The returns of the past quarter prove that nothing effectual has been done to put a stop to the disease, suJffering, and death in which so many thousands perish. The improvements, chiefly of a showy, superficial, outside character, have not reached the homes and habits of the people. The house and children of a labouring man can only be keep clean and healthy by the assiduous labour of a well-trained industrious wife, as anyone who has paid the least attention to the subject is aware. This is overlooked in Lancashire, where the woman is often engaged in labour from home. The consequence is that thousands, not only of the children, but of the women and nien themselves, perished of the diseases, formerly as fatal, for the same reasons, in barracks, camps and ships. 296. " In all Manchester there is but one children's dispensary, and this has two medical officers. Such institutions should be numerous in large towns, and much good might be effected ; but the unfortunate outdoor occupation of the women by causing the withholding of Nature's nutriment from the children is terribly destructive of the latter." The Eegistrar sums up as follows : — 297. "In Manchester 13,362 children perished in seven years over and above the mortality natural to mankind. These ' little children ' brought up in unclean dwellings and impure streets, were left alone long days by their mothers to breathe the subtle, sickly vapours, soaked by opium — a more ' cursed ' distillation than ' hebenon ' — and when assailed by mortal diseases, their stomachs torn, their bodies convulsed, their brains bewildered, are left to die without medical aid, which, Uke hope, should ' come to all,' the skilled medical man never being called in at all, or only summoned to witness the death and sanction the funeral." Mr. Fielden (from the centre of the cotton industry) continued his speech : — 298. I hear men talk ghbly of the " horrors of war " and I beHeve there is in this country a Peace Preservation Society, whose object is to show mankind that nations, to avoid such horrors, should always remain at peace. I applaud their efforts ; but let me ask what are the " horrors of war " but a wholesale sacrifice of human Ufe, now and then occurring ? They are horrors, and I respect those who bestow the energy of their minds in endeavours to convince the world of their futihty and wickedness ; but when the Registrar-General, in the document I have quoted, notifies to us the horrible sacrifice of human Ufe that is annually perpetrated in our own manufacturing towns, far exceeding the average sacrifice of life by war, I think we should give an earnest of our sincere desire to avoid such horrors by immer diately setting to work, in every practical form, to effect the object at home. . . . I expect to hear that to reduce the hours of work of the child to such as is compatible with his strength and his necessary moral training. ... is a legislative inter- ference between master and man ; and that it is contrary to the principles of Political Economy. I understand the words " poUtical economy " to mean the mode of rightly governing a State ; and my opponents have already asserted, that any interference, by legislative enactment, between master and man is a violation of the proper mode of governing. Let them recollect that they have all, whether as Ministers or manufacturers, defined the labourer and master to be two dealers — ^the first a man who sells the commodity called " labour " and the other a man who buys that same commodity. They have defined them to be two dealers in one commodity. I ask my opponents to take their own definition and tell me why 55 it is contrary to the principles of Political Economy to interfere between these two dealers, any more than between any other dealers ? For my part, Sir, I think that a leading principle of IJg^tical Economy is the care of the hves, the health, and the morals of the people ; and it is upon the gromid that the hfe, health and morahty of the young persons and women are sacrificed by too long hours of work in our factories, that I ask leave to bring in this Bill. I. must remind the House that, in 1833, it passed an Act for emancipating the black slaves of the West Indian colonies, in which a clause was inserted restricting the labour of the emancipated adult negro to 45 hours in a week— a shorter period by 13 hours than the English factory child claims at our hands, many of whom have to work in rooms at as high a temperature as that of the colonies. 299. Me. W. B. Eereand (member for Knaresborough) in an earnest and per- suasive speech " implored the House on bended knees, to carry this Bill." 300. Sib Geoege Steickland (member for Preston, Lancashire, close to the centre of the cotton industry), in his speech made this significant and trenchant statement, illuminating the whole position by a flash of Ught. The only arguments he had heard against the interference of the Legislature upon this most important subject (interference with working-conditions) were those which were usually urged by the persons who emphatically called themselves Political Economists. PoHtical Economists in the House prophesied thus, if the working hours of children and young maidens were reduced to eleven per day : Me. W. Beown (member for Lancashire South) said : 301. My conviction is that the effect of the measure, if passed into law, will be similar to the injury inflicted upon the commercial interests of France by the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, a blow from which France never recovered. If the Bin passes I predict that the population wiU be driven back upon the rural districts, thus causing a great increase in the poor rates. It is my opinion that it is a direct infringement of ,the liberty of the subject and it is robbing the poor man (^ a portion of the only capital he possesses — ^his labour. Me. John Beight, page 126, amongst other things said : 302. The principle of the present measure went so much in the teeth of the mill- owners tiiat the House might depend upon it that it could not be carried out without their sanction. The number of the inspectors must be greatly increased, and the result would be that if the Bill did not destroy the manufacturers it would harass the owners of capital so much that they would form such a formidable combination that the House could not successfully legislate against it. . . . Most of the manufacturers were most stroi^ly opposed to it, and nearly all the distii^mshed writers on Politico-Economical subjects took the same view of the subject. As for Her Majesty's Government he was astonished at the course taken by them since 1844 on the occasion of the first Bill ; and when they first did so he ventured to prophesy what the result would be, and that it would show that there- was nothii^ so blundering as faction, nothing so bUnd as party. He hoped that the noble lord -and. other, members of the Government would return to those principles which they had formerly held on this subject ; but if they did not he believed that^such would be the effect of this measure that a retribution would overtake them from which thek character and reputation would suSer in the estimation of the country. 303. Me. G. DtrafCAK (member for Dundee), page 146, beMeved that the measure would inflict ilie neatest injury upon the country, and he, therefore, felt bound to oppose it in every shape and form. 56 Me. J. S. Teelawny (Tavistock) : 304. In my opinion the principles of non-interference are those which should be adopted by the State, and tiie adoption of any other principle will lead to great harm and inesthnable confusion. And it Ues on the supporters of this measure to make out an exception from the great principle of PoUtical Economy. LoED John Russell, page 1149, 10th Feb., 1847, said, inter alia : 305. The period of labour at present is 12 hours, being 13 to 14 hours of employment altogether, and is too much. I conceive that it is too much for their bodily form, which is then not matured. Concluding a lengthy and fierce declamation Mb. John Beight replied : 306. BeUeving as I do in my heart that the proposition is most injurious and der- tructive to the best interests of the country — ^beheving it is contrary to all principles of sound legislation — that it is a delusion practised upon the working classes— that it is advocated by those who have no knowledge of the economy of manufac- tures — ^beUeving that it is one of the worst measures ever passed in the shape of an Act of the Legislature, and that if it be now made law, the necessities of trade, and the demands aUke of the workmen and the masters will compel them to retrace the steps they have taken ; believing this, I feel compelled to give the Motion for the second reading of this Bill my most strenuous opposition. THE MANCHESTER SCHOOL. 307. Who originated the term " Manchester School " is not, perhaps, known, but I find the following in a powerful and persuasive oration by Lobd John Meanness upon the Ten Hours Bill (Hansard, Feb. 10th, 1847, page 1111) : Well, then, if this " School of Manchester " as it has been called by the hon. member for Shrewsbury, is worthy of attention — if the reasons on which the Com Laws were repealed were valid and sound reasons, viz. : that the prices of provisions were to fall one-third, and our foreign trade was to be extended, then the factory operatives have a clear and undeniable right to demand the fulfilment of the promises made to them in this respect. The caustic member for Shrewsbury was no other than Me. Benjamin Diseaeli. 308. LoED John Mannees tells of the long struggle against the oppression of the white-slave holders in England, and the dreary outlook before the gallant army who must fight on and on, "going down to their graves, their hopes deferred, deputing to their children the advocacy of the cause they had themselves advocated. When I think of these children who have been left to die of excessive toil, and how, over and over again, we have petitioned and protested, it must be conceded that our conduct of this great cause has been worthy of this country and worthy of the great interests involved in its satis- factory settlement." He aUudes to " the head of the veteran Me. Oastlee becoming grey with years of disappointment." The latter died a generation ago, but let us honour that hoary head, and bow down before the old face ! 309. Yet as long as women have eyes to weep and sovJs to pray — as long as men have hearts to feel, voices to utter and hands to raise, so long wiU this struggle be continued ; so long wUl those iU-gained victories [of the Manchester School] be fruitless. 57 310. He quotes writers upon " over-population," for Great Britain was " over- populated "when she had ten millions, or twenty miUions, or forty millions of inhabitants. Germany with a much less productive soil, was " over-populated " when she had fifteen millions, but is joyfully counting h* increase now that she has fifty millions more. The queer Politico-Economic theories of " over-population " and " over-production " of goods •form a two-headed, contradictory, bogey. To take a liberty with Horace, " Belua duorum es capitum !" 311 Lord John Manners opens out the core of the evil itself by quoting medical observations of mortahty in the factory districts. Let us say that the infantile mortahty — that of the first year of life — in Ireland, Scandinavia, Austraha and New Zealand, is about on a level, 80 to 90 per 1000 births. At this very day the death-rate of infants in the manufacturing towns of Lancashire and Yorkshire, in spite of the vast strides of medicine, hygiene, and surgery, is a hundred to a hundred and fifty per cent, higher than that of the countries named. But in 1847, at the culmination of the fight between Michael and Manchester, it showed up as follows : 312. Hansard, page 1113 (De. Fletchee's Report). In calculating the average age at death in the better and worse conditioned localities, I carefully distinguished the factory operatives from the other working classes. The result proves feat the average age attained by the factory workers and their infants, was somewhat less than one-half that of the other operatives in the same districts. In order to prevent any doubt as to the accuracy of these calculations, I may mention that in finding the mean age at death of the factory population, in one district, so low as eight years, which appeared really incredible, I went over the registers a second time. I was assisted by a friend accustomed to such researches, when, finding the extracts and calculations perfectly correct, an explanation of this remarkable result ap- peared in the fact that of every 100 deaths a fraction over 61 are infants under the age of two years, while of the other operative classes, in the same locality, the deaths under two years are a fraction less than 33 in 100, and the average age at death 14 years. He then quotes various districts, amongst others these : 313. Bury North, average age at death, factory operatives, 9| years ; other opera- tives, 19 years. Woodhill district, age at death, factory operatives, 10 years ; other operatives, 21J years. 314. I have only further to state that these calculations are made on an average of seven years' records and include every death that has occurred in these locahties. They appear sufl&cient to rebut the assumption that it is the condition of large towns, and not the employment in factories, which produces the awful mortahty, particularly of the infant population, in the manufacturing districts. This, you are aware, has been strongly maintained by several medical practitioners and others. Lord John Manners continued : 315. These results too plainly show how the homes of the poor factory workers are desolated by the long hours of labour. They show to us the Saxon matron, hke the Hebrew mother of old, weeping for her children, and refusing to be comforted, " because they are not." They show to us the cradle rifled of its fairest treasures ; they show us the funeral decked in white, to prove that the departed one has gone to join the army of the innocents. And, on this ground, I appeal to the House whether a case has not been made out for a passing of this BiU ? 316. In a question of this kind, affecting the pohcy of the country, affecting th« hves and the moral and social welfare of our feUow-subjects, the result is not to 58 be left to the remote possibility of some unconceived, and as yet unexplained, regulations to be made between masters and men. We do not so deal -with interests of far less importance. We did not wait until the the rival companies which navigate the Thames agreed to regulate among themselves the speed of steam-boats ; we did not wait until the master builders joined in a mutual bond that they would pay aU due regard to the sanitary regulations necessary in 'the construction of dwellings ; we did not ask whether master chimney-sweepers would of themselves consent not to send oMmbing boys up thfeir flues ; we did. not wait till the coal masters agreed that they woDld put a stop to the practiee of harnessing women to coal trucks ; we did not wait tiU the proprietors of the slaves in the West Indies made arrangements with the slaves to emancipate them — these, and thousands of other instances, can be adduced where we didr not wait for private arrangements, but vindicated the imperial majesty of the law ; the law of which Hooker said — " AU things on earth do homage, the very least, as feeling her care — the very greatest, as not exempt from her power." 317. No ! We brought the majesty of the law to settle all those questions, and to vindicate the rights of the powers that are ordained of God, to watch over and protect the lives and happiness of the people. When hon. gentlemen object on principle to legislative interference in this matter, they ought in consistency to object to interference in aU other matters. 318. Can the hon. gentleman opposite (Mr. John Bright), or the school of philosophy to which he belongs, say they disapprove of interference, after the fact that they have interfered and are interfering in a thousand instances 1 Can he persuade weakness to put itself at the mercy of power — ^poverty at the command of -wealth ? Can he persuade mankind that Mngs and governments and legislatures have been established in order to do nothing in these matters ? 319. And if this were not the case, if aU governments of all parts of the world, and in every period of the world's history, have interfered to protect and watch over the weakest and poorest of their subjects, then let them point out to me, if they can, a more feasible, a more safe, and less objectionable mode of inter- position, and give a more noble and glorious reason for interference than that which is now presented. It is not by the mere assertion of some abstract principle that has not yet been carried out, and which, if carried out at this moment in the sister kingdom, will consign millions of our fellow-beings to certain and inevitable deaths — it is not upon such grounds that they can refuse to pass this Ten Hour* Bin. 320. The speaker here alluded to the carrying out of the " inevitable Jaw of supply and demand " whereby the grain grown in Ireland was to be shifted away, instead of &:st feeding the growers of it and their famihes. It was, however, shifted away, and their fellow-beings — ^more than a million of them — did die that " certain and inevitable death." 321. John Manners was right and John Bright was wrong. That fearful calamity was one of those many Uls that kings or laws can cause or cure. But the moral con- sequences of false doctrines are even more terrible than the physical. The dragon's teeth were sown and we must accept the harvest. Lord John concluded thus : 322. Will the House of Commons reject such a measure, because some hon. gentle- men (and their number is not very great in this House) are pleased to assert that it does not altogether square with their notions of Economic science ? IShould it do so, and should the House most unfortunately come to a conclusion adverse to the second reading of this BUI, we at least on this (the Opposition), aide of the House wiU retire from the contest undismayed and undeterred by eo great a defeat, and without despairing of future success. We shall retire encouraged and cheered by the reflection that, as all former defeats and disappointments 69 have but stimulated the exertions of our toiKng clients, so this will but lead to fresh endeavours. Animated by the gratifying conviction that we, the Tory gentlemen of England, have maintained our just and historical position ; con- sistently with the character ^e have ever aspired to, we have fought the fight of the poor against the rich, and have been fellow-soldiers with the weak and defenceless against the mighty and the strong, and to the best of our ability have wielded the power which the constitution reposes in us, to protect and defend the working-people of this country. I trust, however, that the Bill will pass into law, and that this protracted struggle will be determined — ^protracted, indeed, but not necessarily ceaseless ; to be terminated, if the House so please, this very day, terminated amidst the acclamations of miUions, and the blessings and prayers of a toUing and a patient people. 323. Has the reader reahsed from Dr. Fletcher's Report as quoted, that the average life upon earth of these poor human creatures under the fuD dominion of Political Economy was only 8 to 10 years ? That the registrars' reports included persons of all ages, old and young ? Does he suppose that in the time of Polybios in Greece, or Gcero in Rome, when those nations made their fatal entry into decadence, there was anything worse than that to record ? Debate, March 17, 1847. Mr. J. Dennistoun, representing the Political Economist side, moved the postponement of the BiU and, among other arguments, stated : 324. i^ain, they had prevented women working in collieries at aU, the most monstrous interference with the rights of labour that even the House of Commons had ever perpetrated. All legislative interference with labour on the part of the Govermuent was, in his opinion, most objectionable. Lord JoirN Russell, during his speech said : 325. . I cannot look with in^fference to the statement that the greater proportion of the people of this country have only to work, to sleep, to eat and to die. In my opinion it is the duty of the State that you should endeavour to have a population in the first place aware of the doctrines of religion, that in the next place they should be able to cultivate domestic habits and domestic affections ; and that in the third place they should be likely to look up to the laws and Government of the country as their protectors from undue inflictions upon the young of this country. I do not see that these objects can be obtained, so long as the hours of young persons are so prolonged as they have hitherto been. I cannot see how a child of 14 years of age, actually employed for 12 hours in a mill, and engaged there for two hours more, coming home tired and exhausted and unable to do anything but rest, in order to be prepared for the labours of the next day — I say I do not un- derstand how that girl can be brought up to be a good wife and a good mother. I am ready to incur the risk which is said to attend the passing of an Eleven Hours Bill in the hope of improving the character and elevating the condition of the manufacturing population. I shall therefore be ready to vote for the clause limiting the labour of women and young persons employed in factories to eleven hours. 326. The. Eternal Father who watches politicians, alone knows how His poor, fainwng, anaemic children, delivered over to the tender mercies of the Political Economists, got any rest at all, inasmuch as they had to be in the factory at five o'clock in the morning, winter or summer — snow or rain or hail — to leave again at seven in the evening. The temperature, according to the admissions in the debate, was anything from 75 to 90 degrees in the rooms where the white slaves worked out their short and dreary lives. No wonder that thirteen thousand of them perished, in one district alone, in eeven yeaisi 60 But ]\Ir. John Bright replied (same day, page 142) : 327. The noble lord at the head of the Government has spoken on this subject and has expressed an opinion favourable to the first clause of the Bill, which hmits the hours of labour in mills and factories to eleven instead of twelve hours a day. There are no doubt very divided counsels on this point ; but the House are fully in possession of my sentiments. I do not agree with the honourable member for Montrose that because we disapprove in toto of the principle of the BiU, we should suffer it to pass without seeking to amend the clauses. I feel bound at every stage to vote against the clauses, and of course the greater the limitation proposed and sought to be attained, the more zealously do I feel myself called upon to oppose it. 828. Which he did, to the end, with extreme fidehty ; but his opponents carried Clause 1, enacting that from the 1st May, 1847, no persons under 18 should be employed in any mill or factory more than eleven hours in any one day, nor more than sixty-three hours in any one week. 329. Thus, however, the PoUtical Economists defeated the ten-hours proposal. What did John Bright or Richard Cobden, recognised leaders of the school of Pohtical Economy, care for the health, happiness, or Uves of the future mothers of Manchester ? The masters kept them to their severe tasks twelve hours a day, fourteen aU told, and when they feU ill there was rarely or never medical attendance, as stated by the indignant Registrar-General. They were cheap, these white slaves, much cheaper than the negroes of Jamaica. Besides, when 20,700 of them had died as infants under five years, there were 21,000 left — a good half — to come on in another four years at the mature age of nine, to work in those hideous prisons. They cost the taskmasters nothing to breed, unhke the negroes, and their wages were a whole shiUing a week, as shown in the debate. Cheaper, again, than negroes, for the masters did not have to feed them. So admirable was their system of Pohtical, and personal, and factory Economy, that Bright and Cobden declared themselves " bound to vote against any hmitation, and, of course, the greater the hmitation proposed and sought to be attained, the more zealously did they feel them- selves called upon to oppose it." 330. Blows thus struck at the vitals of a nation, a never-ceasing irritation of the sources of hfe, could not but have cancerous consequences. MORLEY'S "LIFE OF COBDEN." Vol. I., page 298 et seq. 331. For children the hours of work were to be reduced to half-time, i.e. from 13 to 6J hours per day. " Child " was defined as from age 9 to 13. The hours of " young persons " were not to exceed by the proposed legislation 13^ of attendance each day, of which IJ were to be allowed for meals, or 12 hours net. 832. Lord Ashley moved for 10 hours (year 1844) instead of 12, and on this issue the battle was fought. What Cobden maintained was that all restrictions, however desirable, ought to be secured by the resolute demands and independent action of the workmen themselves and not by intervention of the law. Singularly enough 61 he objected to the workmen's combinations. "Depend upon it," he wrote to his brother, " nothing can be got by fraternizing with Trades Unions. They are founded upon principles of J)rutal tyranny and monopoly. I would rather live under a Dey of Algiers than under a Trades Committee." 333. Now, in spite of rancorous opposition from the Political Economists, and dis- honourable accusations against the personal motives of the reformers, Lobd Asbxey, afterwards Lord Shaftesbury, and his supporters " had already secured the passing of the Mines and Collieries Act excluding women from labour under-ground [where even during advanced pregnancy they were ordinarily harnessed to, and dragged in utter darkness, trucks of coal] and rescuing children [of five to nine years of age] from conditions hardly less horrible than those of negro slavery." Cobden alluded to the Ten Hours Bill as follows in a letter to his brother (1844) : " This year's Ten Hours Bill will sicken the factions of such a two-edged weapon. One other good effect may be that men Uke Graham and Peel will see the necessity of taking anchor upon some sound principles as a refuge from the Socialist doctrines of the fools behind them. But at all events good must come out of such startling discussions." 334. Cobden was abroad when the Eleven Hours Bill, as the result of these startling SociaUstic discussions — on the part of the Tories — ^became law in 1847. 335. Looking back calmly upon the rise and the history of their sorry philosophy, it. becomes a great strain upon our credulity to believe in the actual sincerity of these legislators. They were tough and hard as horse-nails in their insistence upon actual control over the weaklings who provided a gorgeous " banquet of hfe " for the taskmasters. Imagine children of 9 to 13, young persons of 13 to 18, or women, or even men, making " resolute demands " independently of one another, and apart from associations ! 336. These Economists, so hard to the fellow-citizens of their own flesh and blood, have accepted the praise that was due to them for limiting — by law — ^the working-hours of the emancipated negroes in the British colonies to forty-five per week. But the latter worked in the open air in a cUmate suited to them, with sufficient food, whilst the rachitic and underfed httle white-slaves, without real option in the matter, were drafted into steamy rooms at 75 to 90 degrees for 81 hours a week. Those factories were a revival of the ergastula of Imperial Rome, under British Economic philosophy. And the racial effects are identical in degeneracy and decay. 337. Plainly the children were useful enough, none too many then nor now, neither Nature nor the Divine Intelligence to blame, only their share of the banquet was unjust. So those amongst the PoUtical Economists who had some bowels of compassion, coun- selled in default of a better prescription, the shutting out of children from life itself and its banquet. 338. There are minds which cannot rest till they account by some guess, for such phenomena of evil. But it suffices merely to recognise that the principles and practices of these men were wrong, to whom molten and graven images have been erected all over the Kingdom, before which we are to bow in admiration. The prophets were, at best, afflicted with mental hemiplegia, and in their half-paralysis knowing no better, they cursed the sound men around them who followed the dictates of a human heart. " These be thy gods, Israel !" 339. Is it for shame's sake that speeches involving the fives and health of children of the nation, gravest of all subjects, are carefully omitted from the collected speeches of these statesmen ? The very speeches which called forth their utmost fervour and their blackest prophecies ? I have such collections of speeches before me, but the mighty interest is entirely ignored. Is that honest ? 62 "THE TREMENDOUS CHILD MASSACRE." 340. SiGsroB Francesco Nitti, quoting and upholding the theory of his admired friend M. Achuxe Loria, both earnest though somewhat diffuse observers, writes (" Population and the Social System," page 136) as follows : 341. Under the pressure of competition the working day in England reached its maximum and wages reached the minimum. And when the wages of the adult no longer sufficed for the needs of the family, the factory began to fatally attract women and children. 342. In England, where this economic process developed more intensely than else- where, the factories were invaded by children, even from the beginning of the cen- tury ; 10, 20, 25, children for every adult worker became normal proportion ; in Lancashire the proportion of children to adults was 55 to 1 ; in Dumbarton 60 to 1. It was not the scarcity of adult workers which led the employers to this tre- mendous child-massacre ; nay, while the slender bodies of the children were being exhausted, adults remained unemployed and sought labour in vain. The mere employment of child labour secures employers a saving of a third in wages. FiBLDBN exclaims in alarm : " The profit of capital is compared with the death of a child, our industrial prosperity is based upon infanticide." (Fielden : " The Curse of the Factory System," page 15.). Of 4000 children employed in the Enghsh factories at the beginning of the century, only 600 reached the age of SO : the use of the children's frames went so far that there occurred something which an- tiquity never saw and which is still rare in our day — the suicide of children. 343. Apart from their theories as to the effect of " economic causes " — these two words invariably mean business considerations — ^upon the procreation of children, the facts they cite are what should chiefly interest us. Nitti skips about a Httle in the passage quoted, for he deals in the one sentence with the beginning of the nineteenth century and with the forties. But it is to the latter that his remarks are intended to refer, and it was of that time that Mr. John Fielden wrote and spoke, as we have already seen. 344. C!hildren have by instinct a very strong chnging to life, and the normal death- rate at the ages 10 to 18, is extremely low, about the lowest of all the periods. Hence their massacre, decade after decade, by these gentlemen employers and £conom,ists of the House of Commons who " zealously opposed " the eleven hour day, and still more zealously any less working time, was of the extreme in cruelty. The children were systematically done to death, whilst the system involved of necessity that which was held by tortiire-experts of by-gone times to be the longest and cruellest death of aU, namely^ the prevention of sleep. It is not possible, and our comfort-loving people wiU not have the shghtest intention of trying, to get their minds down to a reahsation of the intensity of suffering undergone by myriads of their own race in Merrie England under the sway of the PoUtical Economists. But we may reverently hope that the eye of the Eternal Father saw, and that His heart felt, the voiceless anguish of those helpless Mttle Enghsh children before they took to Him their own harmless hves. Human sympathy was denied them then, nor will they get too much now, unless indeed, as the hving British legislator recently said, " Babies are getting scarcer, and according to the inevitable law of supply and demand they are rising in value." M. Yves Guyot, the hving French encomiast of Bright and Cobden, declares that " man is a form of fixed capital " ( par. 477). So these distinguished statesmen merely utihsed the child-capital, and — being true utihtarians — ^used it for all it was worth. 63 CHELDBEN IN COLUEBIES. 345. The innocent creatures thus cruelly imprisoned and half -fed, slaked their thirst ■with the trickhng waters of the minffe. Therefore they were exposed to ankylostomiasis, which brings on extreme anaemia, exhaustion and early death. The disease is due to the presence in the digestive canal of a worm furnished with hooks. The parasite was introduced from abroad, and wreaks wholesale destruction amongst children in the Southern States of America. (Jour. A.M.A., November 6th, 1909, p. 1568.) Hanging to the walls in masses it continually sucks the blood of the victim, and through its eggs spreads to others in like manner. 346. The children were merely Economic Assets, not superabundant, because the coxmtry was not thickly populated, but extremely cheap, and Uttle else than human rubbish to be utilised to some Economic advantage or other. For had not the Master (Malthus) said : The infant is comparatively of little value to society, as others will undoubtedly supply its place ! (Vide par. 1426 e. s.) 347. But the " Tory gentlemen of England " — ^give them their due — ^never rested until they passed laws to cure the wrong, for which legislation they were bitterly and persistently slandered by the Pohtical Economists as we have read above, and without intermission afterwards. MeanwhUe the heaUng professions sought concerning the maladies of children, causes, remedies and prophylaxis. Have we to thank poUticians, stUl less can we take a flattering unction to our own souls, for that ? Some of us declare that our power is founded upon the Bible. Others that we do not need miUtary defence, for if we be only humble, trusting and innocent, God will protect us. Were not the scores of thousands of martyred Enghsh children — devoid of a ray of hope — ^humble, trusting and innocent enough ? We are said by some to be a Chosen People, to have a divine mission and so forth. We can flatter and fool ourselves, but is it quite so sure that we oan fool the Omnipotent ? Does history tell us that races escaped retribution ? 348. Is it said that we have repented and reformed ? But we permit the free sale to tleeeived British mothers of lying nostrums which carry laTge profits to the vendors whilst bringing degeneration and ruin to the children. Wshy is tins free trade persisted in, and why are the children not protected 1 Because of the profits to the vendors and for no other reason. Enormous quantities of sub-chloride of mercury are sold as soothing and teething powders by aU chemists and by grocers throughout the British Empire, without restraint of any kind. MiUions of bottles of laudanum and morphine, called. " soothing syrup," are sold every year wherever the Enghsh language is spoken. Worst of all, because the efiects are so subtle upon the circulation, the brain and the heart, teething powders consisting of acetanihd, phenacetin and other synthetic heart-depressants, are being multiphed in aU directions without control or interference by the State. No parliamentary party shoulders that mission of reform. 349. Whether by interaction or by accidental impurity we eannot teU, but the teething- powders of calomel contain sometimes corrosive sublimate — chloride of mercury. And the advertisements and packets always show the words " contain no poison." It is grossly criminal, but our laws are expressly devised to let the criminals, go scot-free, and more than that to "protect" their commercial interests. AU the evidence is given in my first volume, resting entirely upon unassailable facts given in detail. It .has not been refuted at any point, and although measures are now being, happily taken in Aus- tralasia to partially check the evil, there is no change whatever in Great Britain. No assertions' c^ my own are made, t^ evidence is exclusively from medical and chemical experts, from coroners, juries, high courts and other authorities, aU duly named.* * Note. — "The homicide record of .advertised secret nostrums will probably .never beluUy made up, bnt it would be appalling to the- pnbUc could it be known." .(Journal of the American Medical AssociatioD, Vol. 49i p. -1033 2iBt September, a907.) (54 350. So long as cMd-preventives are openly manufactured and sold as a " perfectly legitimate trade," so long as destruction of unborn and newly-born children are widely- spread practices seldom and slightly punished, so long as babes are fair game for commercial exploitation, there is no national repentance. HOW RICHARD OASTLER SPREAD THE ANTI-SLAVERY MOVEMENT TO ENGLAND ITSELF. 351. It will be observed that Messrs. Bright, Cobdeii and the other Political Economists were much concerned about adequate protection to their manufacturing industries, not against the foreign competitor — ^he was, as yet, nowhere in the race — but against trade unions assisted by humanitarians. Interference with the black-slave trade was far off and interesting, highly philanthropic, and commercially safe. At least it appeared so. But the good leaven works similarly to the bad leaven, inasmuch as you cannot tell how it wiU spread. 352. Anyone who studies Dk. W. Cunningham's " Growth of English Industry and Commerce in Modern Times " (Cambridge, The University Press, 1903), will find in the second volume some exposition of the working of " Laissez Faire." These two words appear on the cover and at the head of every left-hand page throughout the second volume of the book. It is a running commentary, but authorities are referred to and occasional quotations suppUed. On page 777 is a note : 353. Alfred (Samuel Kydd) " History of the Factory Movement." Me. Richabd Oastleb's interest in the position of the slaves abroad led him to consider the con- dition of operatives at home. The movement £oi factory reform was thus directly associated with the Anti-Slavery agitation. No considerable share of public attention was directed to the subject until 1830 when Mr. Oastler began a crusade on the subject in Yorkshire. 354. How much occasion we have for rejoicing in the fact of the Anti-Slavery agitation spreading to England itself, wiU be seen if we take a paragraph or two from the Parliamen- tary Reports. These were primarily the cause of the majority in the House of Commons that defeated the Political Economists. The humble victory — so to speak — for the child- slaves, whereby the hours of work were reduced from 12 to 11 was, as Bright and Cobden declared, only the thin end of the wedge. These children were not by a long way so lucky as the black-slaves. Parliamentary Reports, Vol. XX., page 604. 355. I have found undoubted instances of children five years old sent to work thirteen hours a day and frequently of children of nine, ten and eleven years consigned to labour for fourteen and fifteen hours. The parents, at the same time, have appeared to me, in some of these instances, sincerely fond of their children, and grieved at a state of things they considered necessary to the subsistence of themselves and families. . . The income from a child employed at the age of nine or ten, is Is. or at most Is. 6d. in the week. 356. They were exposed to dust, aU day or all night, some to continual wet, as in flax-spinning, whereby their fingers were constantly bleeding through the softened and tender skin, and (page 780) " there is abundant evidence that many children were crippled for Ufe and that young women were seriously injured by their occupations. . . . The medical testimony proved that mischief of this kind was common in all the great industri^-l 65 centres. The CJommissioners are careful to note that physical evils due to the over-fatigue of children were prevalent in the well-managed, as much as in the badly-managed milk." Again " the children were sometimes severely punished by the workmen whom they assisted," 357. Statues have been erected to the men who fiercely opposed " interference between employer and employee," and to those who strenuously fought, Uke true Economists, for Uberty to employ these Uttle white-slaves. We see no statues to Richard Oastlbb, liberator of Enghsh serfs, but let us keep his memory green ! The doctrine of laissez-faire has been handed down to us as a guiding light, and we have followed it only too much. PoUtical principles founded upon laissez-faire are still dominant, and we are very far indeed from estabHshmg for ourselves the claim that Prince Buelow made for Germany at the last election : " We have conquered the Manchester doctrine !" 358. Their influence remains — their white slaves sank into unhonoured and forgotten graves. The rhetoric of those great statesmen is handed down for the emulation of our youth. Their lives are upheld as exemplars. But, only for a minute, just for once, let us listen to the haK-articulate voices of a few of the weeping children. Unattractive and ungrammatical, they afford us lessons that we ought not to forget, still less dehberately to ignore. 359. The following instances of excessive work on the part of the young were specially referred to by the Commissioners (Reports XX., page 16.) : "THEM AS WORKS MUST WORK." A. " Am twelve years old. Have been in the mill twelve months. Begin at six o'clock and stop at half-past seven. Generally have about twelve and a half hours of it. Have worked over-hours for two or three weeks together. Worked breakfast-time and tea-time, and did not go away till eight." Q. " Do you work over-hours or not, just as you Uke 1 " A. " No ; them as works must work ! I would rather stay and do it than that anybody else should come in my place." Another said : " I have worked here at Milne's two years ; am now fourteen. I work sixteen and a half hours a day. I was badly, and asked to stop at eight one night lately, and I was told if I went I need not come back." Another : " I have worked till twelve at night last summer. We began at six in the morning. I told bookkeeper I did not Uke to work so late ; he said I must. We only get a penny an hour for overtime." (Eighteen hours !) Another : " We used to come at half past eight at night, and work all night, tiU the rest of the girls came in the morning. They would come at seven. Sometimes we worked on till half-past eight the next night, after we had been working all the night before. We worked in meal hours, except at dinner. I have done that too, sometimes three nights a week, and sometimes four nights. It was not regular ; it was just as the overlooker chose. Sometimes the ' slubbers ' would work on all night too, not always. The pieceners would have to stay all night then too. They used to go to sleep, poor thmgs ! when they had over- hours in the night." [These were the small children and the work required alertness]. " The mills worked night and day. The day set used to work from six till eight and nine, and sometimes till eleven or twelve— [fourteen, fifteen, seventeen or eighteen hours]. The children who worked as pieceners for the slubbers used to fall asleep, and we had much trouble with them." 66 360. Here is where the severe corporal punishments were inflicted on the slaves. 361. Think of the rich members of the House of Commons, whose speeches you have read herein, in their homes of wealth and luxury. Think of the mill-owners and overseers who went home, slept, breakfasted, and then returned to their hateful ergastula where they drove on the sickly, fainting child-slaves who had to snatch their food while standing at work. They had worked all the night through, and must work tiU eight the next night. One penny an hour overtime — cheapest of all slaves ! 362. In the divine economy nothing is lost. Everything has its sequence. In Political Economy these evils were good, and must be left alone. Laissez faire — ^laissez passer. " Verily I say unto you, by their fruits ye shall know them." 363. A favourite quotation of the Economists was the jingling couplet written by Dr. Johnson and added to Goldsmith's " Traveller," How small of all that human hearts endure That part which kings or laws can cause or cure ! 364. Laws permitted both the black and the white slavery. Laws firstly cured the former completely, and ameUorated the latter by knocking off, as a beginning, one hour a day. Afterwards, much later on, laws were passed and enforced, to lessen materially the burden of the tiny shoulders. Eadem est ratio eadem est lex, but laissez faire is Manchesterism — the curse that has yet to be conquered. Our laws are our national principles, obeyed by most people voluntarily, with penalties only for the recalcitrant. Where law is, there is liberty. Where there is no law there is grinding tyranny Where laws are not made and enforced in the cause of decency, we have manufacture and sale of secret drugs of all kinds, " on an enormous scale," and of preparations to prevent and to destroy human progeny, with aU their devastating consequences to the health of the individual and to the strength of the nation. 365. Professor Nitti of Naples speaks of the " continuous massacre of these EngHsh children " in the mills of the Economists. It was not so much a massacre as a martjrr- dom, worse by far than the slaughter by Hbkod, or by Chables IX. on the eve of St. Bartholomew. Beautiful memorials in white marble have been erected to the victims of Lucknow and Cawnpore. Why not, in stiU more salutary commemoration, to the tender EngUsh children whose innocent blood has not yet been avenged ? 366. To say that the godless commerciaUsm of these Economists was the product of savage greed, is an insult to the savage. To say it was brutal is an insult to the brutes. Adjectives fail altogether. To say that these iniquities should be buried and hidden with the past, lest the reputation of the accepted leaders of our nation should suffer together with their vaunted system, means injustice to obscure patriots who obtained the laws that cured. The past made the present. 367. Monsieur E. Cheysson, writing upon the "Depopulation of France," in the "Revue Politique et Parlementaire " of 10th October, 1896, says: (Tkanslation.) As a ray of Ught which traverses eternally the regions of space, telling to the worlds that it meets upon its road the spectacles which it has illuminated at its point of departure, so a deed once done persists for ever with its consequences, even when they are in part corrected or masked by a subsequent act. To-day prepares to-morrow ; each of our acts interests our descendants ; posteri vestra res agitnr ; all generations are conjoined ; across the centuries they are bound together by a mysterious chain, and each of them is the victim, or the debtor, of those which have preceded. 67 WHAT MILL AND THE ECONOMISTS WISHED TO SEE. WHAT RUNS THROUGH THE WHOLE OP POLITICAL ECONOMY. KiDD, " Western Civilisation," page 74. 368. No system of opinion in recent times in England has so profoundly influenced the intellectual centoes of Liberalism as that of the school of thought which cul- minates in the writii^s of John Stuart Mill. No theory of society has been, in its time, so generally accepted in English thought as a presentation of the modem democratic position. Mill's system of ideals, as a consistent whole, has been a leading cause which has determined, down even to the present day in England, the attitude in social questions of nearly all the representatives of the older Liberalism. Page 124. 369. Mill and the leaders of the Manchester School actually wished to see accom- plished in England the general restriction of births. Page 405. 370. The inherent tendency of all economic evils to cure themselves if simply left alone — the characteristic doctrine of the Manchester School of thought in England — ^becomes the central and fundamental article of belief throughout all that rigid system of social theory, in the influence of which almost the entire intellectual life of England and the United States begins to be held by the last half of the 19th century. Page 410. - 371. According to the received opinion, the labouring classes were considered as condemned by natural law to live and breed under the control of capital on that minimum reward which — ^to quote Ricabdo's definition of the natural price of labour — was " necessary to enable the labourers to subsist and to perpetuate their race without decrease." The remarkable conception which accompanied this theory, and which runs through the whole of John Stuart Mill's "Political Economy," deUvered the labourer helplessly and permanently bound, as it were, into the hands of the capitalist class, making all efforts to free himself appear hopeless 372. Finally, this conception had its corollary in that notorious theory of population propounded by Malthns — socially suicidal and biologically foolish as we now perceive it to be — ^which led John Stuart Mill to actually propose to the labourers as the main remedy for low wages that they should restrain their numbers and en- deavour to look upon every one of their class " who had more than the number of children which the circumstances of society allowed to each, as doing him a wrong, as filling up the place which he was entitled to share." "Principles of PoHtical Economy," by Johk Stuabt Mill. Vol. II., xui. CHILD RESTRICTION THE " ESTABLISHED AND FUNDAMENTAL AXIOM OF POLITICAL ECONOMY." " Enigmas of Life," W. R. Grbq. 14th edition, 1879. Triibner, London. 373. Mr. W. R. Geeg in his work, " Enigmas of Life," page 57, writes of Malthas' doctrine : No wonder that a proposition which seemed to condemn the human species to such hopeless, universal, eternal— nay ever-increasing pressure and privation should have staggered and shocked those to whom it was first propounded. 68 It sounded like the sentence to a doom of utter darkness and despair. It seemed to untrained minds utterly irreconcilable with anjr intelligent view of the divine beneficence and wisdom. Yet Malthtts appeared to have framed his conclusions with such caution, and to have clinched it, so to speak, with such close bands of logic and with such a large and indisputable induction of facts, that recalcitration against it was idle, and refutation of it impossible. He maintained it after fxill discussion and, with some modifications, to the end of his career : and nearly all Political Economists of position and repute have accepted his doctrine as a fundamental and established axiom of the science [par. 481]. 374. Malthus never endeavoured to shirk the full scope and severity of his proposition. In an article on " Population," which he contributed to the 8th Edition of the " Encyclopaedia Britannica," and which I believe was the latest of his writings upon the subject, he reproduces it in the most uncompromising terms. 375. Mr. Greg's book has passed through many editions since 1879, but the whole Neo-Malthusian movement with its annihilating successes arose since that date, and Mr. Greg's refutation of Malthus' doctrines, such as it was, offered no more resistajice than a leaf to the wind. Quos Deus vult perdere prius dementat ! 376. With such surroundings it cannot be wondered at that Mr. Greg's own faith in Divine purpose was feeble and doubting. But he declares that which has been in this Report repeatedly pointed out : the central idea in Enghsh PoUtical Economy, in contrast to the National Economy of Friedrich List and Gustav SchmoUer, is the restriction of child-bearing in married life — by some method or other. Let us repeat Mr. Greg's words : " Nearly all Political Economists of position and repute have accepted Malthus' doctrine as a fundamental and established axiom of the science." If you take away the axiom you take away the science, and the sooner the better, for it must carry what nothing can long survive — the eternal curse. The precise antithesis is the axiom of Spinoza, " Homini nihil utiUus homine," there is nothing more advantageous to mankind than man. The latter should be a broad and safe base for national economy. MANCHESTERISM AND "MONOGAMIC PROSTITUTION." The Italian demographer, Fbancesco Nitti (op. cit.) thus sums up the conse- quences of distortion of the natural functions as recommended by the English PoUtical Economists. 377. Objective study clearly shows that if civihsation spontaneously tends to restrict the birth-rate within given Umits without hindering the development of the race, voluntary prevention simply leads to the degeneration of the senses and the decadence of the race. When pleasure is wished for, and sought for its own sake, without the responsibihty and consequence of having children, matrimony loses its entire purpose and becomes nothing else than a form of monogamic prostitution. In the countries which suffer from sterihty, the quota of marriages decreases, the proportion of illegitimate births increases, and the family idea decays. The degenerations of the carnal instinct only serve to kill the family ideal, the sentiment of social duty ; to shake the very foundations of civilisation and progress. The nations which artificially limit their fecundity arrive at such bestial cor- ruptions as would not only alarm Malthus, but any tolerant spirit. 378. But the argument which ruins the whole Malthusian structure — which made poverty simply dependent upon excess of population and not upon the economic order — ^is the fact that the severest poverty has almost always occurred in countries and at times when the means of subsistence sufficed for the population and far exceeded it. Stuart Mill recognises that between 1818 and 1848 the increase in wealth of England far surpassed the increase of population. 379. Still, every day of our lives, public men and politicians boast of the " gigantic figures of English wealth " and of its ceaseless growth. Every year pauperism also relentlessly grows, and ever the sta|tement is repeated by prominent orators — ^be it exact or exaggerated — ^that one-fourth of "he inhabitants are on the verge of starvation. Yet England is the birth-place of the prophet and his disciples — ^the Mecca of Malthusianism. TWO KOTOS OP LIGHT. Professor NiTTi, in summing up his work, concludes a chapter thus r 380. Economic research is always dangerous and difficult ', so much the more difficult is an objective study of the laws of population. Nevertheless the Ught gained from what we have so far said will help to make clearer, less arduous and less perilous the path of which we may say : Quale per incertam lunam sub luce maligna Est iter in silvis. (Like a woodland path in the treacherous Ught of the inconstant moon.) 381. That is both accurate and poetical. So long as married couples guide their conduct in the sacred matters of motherhood, preservation of decency and of child-life, by " economic," that is to say, cash considerations, they will not know shadows from pitfalls, nor see the way ahead. France is far advanced in the " agnostic " sooiaUsm to which Nitti himself would trust so much, but her decline and decay show not for that the least retardation. Quite the opposite. 382. The ancient Hebrew perception was clear, and though transcendent is within the comprehension of a child : How excellent is Thy loving kindness, God ! Therefore the children of men put their trust under the shadow of Thy wings. For with Thee is the fountain of life : In Thy light shall we see light ! UTILITIES, VIEWED BY THE ASCENDANT AND DECADENT SCHOOLS. 383. The Utihtarian philosophy of the Manchester School is actually in conflict with the dicta of Jeremy Bentham himself. Let us, however, contrast it with that of Spinoza when dealing with what the latter calls utiUties, taking only a few paragraphs and bearing in mind that profit, advantage, utihty, are all represented by the word utilitas. ETHIC, Fourth Pact, Appendix upon the True Method of Life. (Spinoza's Ethic, translated from the Latin by W. H. White, London, Truebner.) Par. IV.— It is most profitable to us in life to make perfect the intellect or reason as tax as possible, and in this one thing consists the higher happiness oi blessedness ; for blessedness is nothing but the peace of mind which springs from the intuitive knowledge of God, and to perfect the intellect is nothing but to understand God, together with the attributes and actions of God which flow from the necessity of His nature. The final aim, therefore, of a man who is guided by reason, that is to say, the chief desire by which he strives to govern all his other desires, is that by which he is led adequately to conceive himself, and all things which can be conceived by his intelUgence. Par. XI.— Minds are not conquered by arms, but by love and generosity. Par. XII.— Above all things it is profitable to men to form communities and to unite themselves to one another by bonds which may make all of them as one man ; and absolutely, it is profitable for them to do whatever may tead to strraigthen their friendships. Par. XV.— The things which beget concord are those which are related to justice, integrity and honour ; for besides that which is unjust and injurious, men take ill also anything which is esteemed base. But in order to win love, those things are chiefly necessary which have relation to religion and piety. 70 Par. XVI. Concord, moreover, is often produced by, fear, but it is without good faith. It is to be observed, too, thait fear arises from impotence of mind, and therefore is of no service to reason ; nor is pity, sithoiigh it seem to present tm appearance of piety. Par. XVU.— , ^ u v.1. . Men also are conquered by hberality, especially those who have not the means wherewith to procure what is necessary for the support of life. But to assist everyone who is needy far surpasses the strength or profit of a private person, for the wealth of a private person is altogether insufficient to supply such wants. Besides, the power of any one man is too limited for him to be able to unite everyone with himself in friendship. The Care, therefore, of the poor is incumbent on the whole of society and concerns only the general profit. Par. XIX.— The love of a harlot, that is to say, the love of sexual intercourse which arises from mere external form ; and absolutely all love which recognises any other cause than freedom of the mind, easily passes into haiared, unless, which is worse, it becomes a species of delirium and thereby discord is cherished rather &an concord. Par. XX.— With regard to marriage, it is plain that it is in accordance with reason, if the desire of the con- nection is engendered not merely by external form, but by a love of begetting children and wisely educating them ; and if, in addition; the love both of the husband and wife has for its cause not external form merely, but chiefly liberty of mind. •From the Fifth Part, Prop. XXII. Of the Power of the Intellect. In Grod, nevertheless, there necessarily exists an idea which expresses the essence of this or that human body under the form of eternity. Demonstration. — God is not only the cause of this or that human body, but also of its essence (Prop. 25, part I.) which therefore must necessarily be conceived through the essence of God itself (Axiom i, part I) and by a certain eternal necessity (Prop. 16, part I). This conception, moreover, must necessarily exist in God (Prop. 3, part 2). Q.E.D. Proposition XXIII. — The human mind cannot be absolutely destroyed with the body, but soniething of it remains which is eternal. Demonstration. — In God there necessarily exists a conception or idea which expresses the essence of the human body (Prop. 22). This conceptional idea is therefore necessarily something which pertains to the essence of the human mind (Prop. 13, part 2) which can be hmited by time, ujiless in so far as it expresses the actual existence of the body which is explained through duration and which can be limited by time, that is to say (Corel. Prop. 8, part 2), we cannot ascribe duration to the mind while the body exists. But, nevertheless, since this something is that which is conceived by a certain eternal necessity through the existence itseU of God (Prop. 22, part 5) this something which pertains to the essence of the mind will necessarily be eternal. Q.E.D. 384. We can hardly find stronger contrast than between the inspired grandeur of Baruch de Spinoza, insignis per honestum, and the unspiritual debasement of MiU, Bradlaugh and their unsexed associates, notabiles dedecore. On the one hand, the clear, exacting Hebrew inteUeot directing man to the contemplation of his glorious and eternal essence. On the other hand, the apostles of a godless and mammonistio hedonism turning man's thoughts and his natural functions to distorted sensuaUty, whilst ob- hterating his chivalry to the unborn. 385. On the one side a brave savant seeks by mathematical demonstration to set forth man's true origin, aim and end : from God, through God, to God. On the other, pseudo- philosophers introduce a subtle instillation which robs him of his hberty of mind, of hope in the hereafter, of faith in the perpetuity of his race and nation. AN ENGLISH EXPOSE OF THE CARCINOMA. " Neo-Malthusianism, an inquiry into that system with regard to its economy and moraUty," by the Rev. Richabd Ussheb. Methuen & Co., London, 1897. 386. Although the remark of the editor of " The Lancet " is strictly correct that the Enghsh hterature upon the subject of racial decline is scanty, and that our people have little idea as to the extent to which their fertility has ceased, there is a large range 71 of writings with the avowed object erf causing the cessation. The word chosen by the distinguished physician is accurate. He does not say "decUned," but "ceased," because when women individualy refuse maternity their fertility ceases. 387. Further, there are occasional woriis which show a fairly broad study of the question of population from the stand-point of the Christian or Judaic doctrine. Either name suffices, because the teaching is founded upon " natural philosophy " in the simplest etymological sense of these two words. One of such books — the most comprehensive in Enghsh — is the work whose name is at the head of this chapter. Apparently the same gentleman gave evidence before. the Joint Committee (Rep. 1005 et seq.). The author sets forth the origin of the apostate gospel with much clearness and precision, and also the methods, the time and circumstances, of its promulgation in Anglo-Saxondom. Unfortunately the book enjoys httle of the celebrity which ought to attach to it. It was only as my present work was approaching completion that I became aware of its existence, in spite of anxious inquiries of curators of great Hbraries and of many people in the book-selling trade. But the fact is that there is no money in the preservation of decency and racial hygiene, although there are heaps of profits in the purveying of infamies, as also in the teaching and subservience of sexual immoralities. More especially when the latter can be worked in under the appearance of respectabiHty. Precisely, therefore, for the reason that all the argumentation is directed to justify, and even by Mrs. Annie Besant to sanctify, the act of Onan as the one indivisible, inseparable and central idea of the neo-Malthusian gospel, no matter what its variations, the hope of reform becomes distant indeed. Cure there is none, modification is impossible ; here only remains return to Nature and Reason, fealty to the Creator and the Logos, obedience to the law of God and of the ages, submission to the rule of the Universal or whatever you Uke to call the categorical imperative. Of that reversion there is no sign whatever, for our legislators in Anglo-Saxondom, who should make the Law a terror to evU-doers, show inchnation, not to say determination, to leave the field open to the play of com- mercial criminaMty wherever racial hygiene is involved. 388. The medical journalists, quoted herein over and over again, point out in accord with their absolute duty, as having full knowledge and eyes wide open, the national cancer. But they not only receive no echo, no support from the " lay " journals in this respect, their warnings are unheeded by all. There is also a cancerous breaking down of tissue in the very bodies of the people which demands every year, with inexorable advance, a larger proportion of the deaths. It is far more revolting and terrible than death by the advance of the car of Juggernaut, but our legislatures are supine, and the cry is always for " more pleasure in hfe." Panem et circenses, now as in decadent Rome. 389. They tell us, these priests of humanity — as you will find in their "heart to heart talks " to one another, printed in the medical journals and handed herein to those in the outer world who choose to read — that there is also a carcinoma in society advancing with sure and penetrating growth towards our utter destruction. But as you also read herein, from themselves, their voice is not heard. Yet the demand of Nature is insistent, and though stifled for a while is in the end inervitable. Truth claims and wiU get his own. He shall not cry, nor lift up, Nor cause his voice to be heard in the street. A bruised reed shall he not break. The dimly-burning wick shall he not quench : He shall bring forth judgment unto truth. He shall not fail nor be discouraged, Till he have set judgment in the earth, And the Isles shall wait for his Law. 390. That which is true was always true, and wUl so remain until in course of the age of ages the Himalayas shall be level with the plains of Hindustan. Not Uke the 72 theory of Maltlius, centre and core of our British Pohtical Economy. Malthus himself admitted that he had " bent the bow too much one way, because it had been bent too much the other." Hence his bow is not the weapon of truth, but that of policy and pseudo-economy. On the other hand the poet and seer, whose voice comes to us from afar and wiU talk to the souls of men when our Empire shall be barely remembered by name, continues thus his lofty theme : The Lord shall go forth as a mighty man, He shall stir up zeal like a man of war : He shall cry, yea He shall shout aloud. He shall prevail against his enemies Who among you wiU give ear to this 1 Who will hearken and hear for the time to come 1 Who gave Jacob for a spoil 1 And Israel to the robbers ? Did not the Lord, He against Whom we have sinned ? For they would not walk in His Ways Neither were they obedient unto His Law. 39L Lest there may linger in the minds of any persons doubts as to the origin and nature of the carcinoma of Anglo-Saxondom, I reprint here several pages of the book, with a strong recommendation to all to procure it, if possible, and to study it. Out of the mouths of many witnesses shall the truth be established. NEO-MALTHUSIANISM ; An Inquiry into that system with regard to its economy and morality. By the Rev. R. Ussher. Methuen & Co., London, 1897. Page 1— 392. The subject which we are to consider in the following pages ia that which is generally known by the name of Malthusianism. This term, inaccurate as it is, in simple words means the prevention, by artificial checks, of the procreation of children ; in scientific, the control of fertilization by men and women. Its advocates declare that it is to be the greatest power of the future, one which will remove all poverty and misery, and that modern society is adopting the practice so largely, that this most desirable object is being attained much more rapidly than they could have imAgined. It is not quite a new idea in England. It was alluded to in certain newspapers so long ago as the year 1827. About the same time anonymous handbills advising the adoption of the practice were widely dis- tributed throughout the North of England. A little later on we find that lectures on the matter were given in Leeds and elsewhere, which were attended by very many of both sexes. Soon afterwards there appeared Carllle's " Every Woman's Book," warmly advocating the system, and minutely describing the various means by which it could be carried into effect. The literature of the subject did not largely increase during the middle of the century. 393. The elder MiU advocated the system in his article "Colony," in the "Encyclopaedia Britannica," 8th edition ; also in his " Elements of FoUtical Economy," " Care taken that children, beyond a certain number, shall not })e the fruit," see pages 34 and 44. John Stuart Klill, as many are no doubt aware, following his father's example, was an enthusiastic advocate of the system, and wrote of it in his " Political Economy, ' ' which now meets with but doubtful approval, to say the least. Cannan describes it as a "collection of old essays produced from a drawer, and published without iilteration." 394. It was not until the " Fruits of Philosophy" was published between 1870 and 1880 that the more modem treatment of the subject was reached. This publication was soon followed by Mrs. Besant's well-known book, " The Law of Population, its Consequences, and its Bearing upon Human Conduct and Morals." 395. Then followed in rapid succession a large number of books, pamphlets and treatises, dealing vrith the subject, such as " Notes on the Population Question ; The Physiology of 73 Marriage ; Poverty : ita Cause and Cure; Moral Physiology; Individual, Family, and National Poverty ; Elements of Social Science ; The Population Question ; The Wife's Handbook ; Artificial checks to Population, is the teaching of them Infamous t ; English and French Morality : The Duties of Parents ; The Strike of a Sex; The prosperity of the French Peasmt : The Malthusian Magazine," founded as the organ of the Malthusian^ League. The first number appeared on February 1st, 1872. In addition to these works on the subject, there is an immense mass of anonymous literature now flooding the country in all directions, feeating of the same. Magazine articles and letters, for or against the system, have appeared in " The Economic Beview," " The Christian World," " The National and Church Eeformers," " The North American Review," " The Humanitarian," " The Free Review," etc., etc. Some of these will be referred to in the course of the following pages. There have also appeared certain other articles in various magazines bearing on sexual relationship, which will be referred to also, but which do not deal directly with the matter in hand. I think the above Ust comprehends most of the chief literature of the subject. The most distinguished writers on the subject are Mill, Ward, Owen, Gaskell, Besaut, Greg, Matthew Arnold, Drysdale, and Clapperton. The matter is alluded to in The Evolution of Sex," in " The Church and the World," and in Lba's " Christian Marriage." Numerous foreign writings on the subject will also be touched upon in the course of the argument. Of all the works enumerated above the one which undoubtedly caused the greatest interest and sensation was " The Fruits of Philosophy," by Dr. Charles Knowlton, of Boston, U.S.A., which found its way into the possession of the publishers of the " National Reformer," which publication was then, 1878, under the joint control of Mr. Bradlaugh and Mrs. Besant. 396. Dr. Knowlton's book had been known in Englemd for some years previous to this, having been published in America in the year 1835, and had been sold in Bristol by a msin named Cook, who, however, had used it for obscene purposes, which was not the object for which the writer had published it. The publisher of " The National Reformer " was prosecuted for exposing it for sale. He pleaded guilty, but Mr. Bradlaugh and Mrs. Besant then took the case out of his hands, and defended themselves in the Courts. All the legal proceedings which followed only caused the book to have much more publicity than it would otherwise have had. Opposition and persecution, as they always do, only drew more general attention to the matter, which might otherwise have been left in obscurity. The Neo-Malthusian practices advocated in the pages of the book were new to the generiil public, and because of this it was eagerly read, and obtained a very large circulation in a comparatively short space of time. The ill effects of that abortive persecution bear tiieir fruits BtiU ; if it had not taken place very many would never have been initiated into this nefarious system, which I hope to show, in the following pages is a disastrous one both for the individual and the nation to adopt. Ever since the year 1878, in which these two events occurred, the birth-rate of the United Kingdom has fallen. It commenced to do so in that year, and has steadily continued doing so ever since that time. It has never reached what it was previous to the Bradlaugh trial. We are now becoming quite accustomed to the ever-recurring remark in the Registrar-General's returns, " This is Qie lowest birth-rate ever recorded." Page 4 — 397 It penetrates into hundreds of thousands of households, which now for the first time became acanainted with a system and teaching which had previous to this been only whispered about by a comparatively few unimportant persons. " This campaign did not create the situation, but it gave it a great incentive, because it openly advocated a custom which had previously been only carried out in secret." (Mille in the "Revue des Deux Mondes," December 18th, 1891.) Page 5 — 398 It is somewhat difficult, after having studied Stephen's "Criminal Digest," to under- stand why some of these pamphlete, now poured out in multitudes, are not inhibited. They merely suggest and advocate the practice of Neo-Malthusianism to young men and women as a means by which they can gratify sexual desire vrithout having to fear the birth of children. It seems to me that the whole matter, repugnant as it may be, will sooner or later have to be inquired into, and legally decided one way or the other. It seems monstrous that young women, in no matter what degrees of life, should be the free recipients, by post, of these pamphlets, as so many thousands are now. How far the advocacy and publication of some of these systems can go vrithout coming under the law of procuring abortion is a nice legal point, and it certainly will have to be considered sooner or later. Some of these pamphlets merely fa:eat of the most efficacious means of procuring early miscarriage. When the point of law was decided in Mr. Bradlaugh's and Mrs. Besant's favour the Fruits of Philosophy " was withdrawn, and Mrs. Besant substituted her own book on the subject for it, that well-known one, '■ The Law of Population : its Consequences and Bearing on Human Conduct and Morals " It had an immense circulation and sale, until she withdrew it on becoming a Theosophist in April, 1891. "It was translated into every language and read by millions of persons." (Mule). Page 6— 399 MiUe comments on the lightness of heart with which Mrs. Besant withdrew her book, and the frightful responsibility which she had incurred by writing it. " Declarer qn'avoir pr6ch6 de gaietS de coeur la st&ilit6 du mariage est une oeuvre tout simple- 74 ment monstrueuse." [To announce that one has preached, witk a light heart; sterility, in marriage, is simply a monstrous act.] Page 7— 400 Writing in " The Humanitarian " for November, 1896, Dr. S. A. E. Strahan says, " The aaestion has, however, developed so remarkably of late that I think the time has come when all false shame and make-belief should be thrown aside, and the question and its effects be straightty put before the people. Women guilty of such offences against morality and nature as those we hint at can hardly accuse us of debasing their minds ; others need not peruse our lines. ' ' The latter portion of this quotation can equally well apply to what follows in this book. 401. Everything can be improved by light and knowledge, and this subject is certainly one of those which especially need the fullest consideration. " The prejudices against the discussion do nothing but obscure appreciation of the merits or demerits of the doctrine." (" Evolution of Sex.") 402 Large meetings were held in Manchester, Bradford, and elsewhere in similar large cities. Resolutions were carried by overwhehning majorities in assemblages of both sexes, declaring in favour of Neo-Malthusianism. These meetings were principally spoken to on the subject by Mrs; Besant. The interest taken in the matter caused the rise of the Maltbusian League, with Dr. C. R. Drysdale as its President. )9— 403 Many are aware of the numbers of tracts and pamphlets advocating this system, which are sent to householders in every class of life. What numbers of advertisements appear in the newspapers ! I have one before me now which contains no less than six such. If one of these advertisements be answered, there comes a pamphlet in reply telling of Neo-Malthusianism, and giving the price of the articles requked ; hence the profit. Not merely in these pamphlets, but in catalogues of articles sold in certain shops, these recommendations occur. Every one of them teaches the so-called ad- vantages of a limited number of children, and plainly shows how sexual intercourse need: not be followed by fertilization. 404. " One of those silly-season controversies, which have of late become so dear to the hearts of the big editors, has in the early autumn being going on in one of the leading London dailies. The subject is Early Marriages. As might be expected, many of the correspondents have been, women, aU with a, certain modicum of education ; and it. is positively disgusting to note how these women speak of the voluntary limitation of the family. One, referring to her own case, says, " We have one child which we can bring up well ; we dare not run the risk of any more ! ' ' Another advising her married sisters, remarks : ' Keep your family well within your means.' And so they run on. The question is — What state of things does this indicate ? " (Strahan). 405. In maternity hospitals, " Scientific MeUorism " tells us, visiting ladies leave large quantities of these tracts, and we are told with marked success. " The women are so glad to receive them," " the instructions are so eagerly acted upon." I know of a good old squire in East AngUa who regularly distributes these tracts throughout his neighbourhood. We find them everywhere ; in railway carriages, in public rooms, wherever publicil? can be obtamed. 4^6. Mrs. Besant tells us in her autobiography what a large number of letters she received from grateful women, amongst them clergymen's wives, for having been the means of bringing such valuable information to their knowledge and use. It has been acted upon. Page 10— *07 This wide distribution of modem literature advocating Neo-Malthusianism has brought about a very serious condition of things. What was merely hinted at twenty years ago is now openly talked about as the most proper and useful course to adopt. Is it any wonder, then, that the birth- rate decreases ? All classes seem to be smitten by the Neo-Malthusian craze, now rapidly spreadmg, fondly imaginmg that it will remove all human woes and totally eradicate poverty and wretchedness. The matter will soon have to be grappled with in a very vigorous way, for those who think atall must see that to voluntarily cause the population of a civilised countey to decline is of the most vital interest to everybody concerned. The nations of civilised countries need to be shown how utterly mistaken they are if they should persist in following the Neo-Malthusian practice. That it is Immoral is not the least doubtful, and as regards the destruction of the -prosperity of the nation that adopts it there can be no doubt whatever. 408. , .... "to later times our sense of decency has been shocked by the outspoken denunciation, not 01 marrmge, but of its consequences, and the bold inculcation of means whereby the gratification of natural mchnafaons may be joined with the violation ol Natiire's laws and the frustration of Nature's ends. ' (Bourne). ^^' t -KT^ $i*^ ^^ following testimony— I could cite a great deal more— just to show how the dootrmea of Neo-Malthusianism are rapidly spreading in England. So long ago as the Manchester Church 75 CongreBS of 1888, Professor Symes aaid, "I have the strongest reason to know that. the subject ia engaging the attention of an immense number of people of all classes in England and elsewhere." Another speaker at the same Congress aaid, " The awful heresy which is prevailing throughout the country as to restraining the growth of population by artificial means." What will be Said now when the system is increasing by leapt and bounds ? 410. At the present time a more modem school of thought on the. same subject has arisen. It is composed cUe&y of women, who declare that the duties of matranify are becoming increasingly irksome to all classes of women, especially to the more highly educated, and iiiat maternity is utterly repugnant to a proper woman's feelings. It is an entire revolt against wliat has hitherto been bdieved to be the moral duties of woman. Women who write upon thS subject declare maternity to be a degradation to them, and they refuse to undergo it in the future. We have arrived at this state of thing s in England. Page 14— 411. Professor Funt says that the so-called wise regulation of the birth-rate advocated in such books as " Scientific Procreation " — what the members of the Ualtbusian League mean by it — would lead to the most shocking demoralisation of all classes. He truly observes, ' ' Malthus would hme disowned iwitik horror the Malthusian League." Page 26— ^2. " The Malthusian theory still has its advocates ; but we imagine they are few in number. The theory has been effectually smashed by political economists of the heaviest metal, and we fondly thought that it was dead, but it appears not. But whatever there was to be said in favour of this theory from the standpoint of the economist or sociologist — and, to give its originator his due, he never advocated the limitation of the family from any other standpoint — there is absolutely nothing to be said in its favour as at present practised. The good of the State or of society does not enter into the question at all in the present day. The whole thing has its root and origin in pure and un- adulterated selfishness, in nndenyingaelf-gratification, and so never comes wittiin the purview of either economist or sociologist." (Strahan.) Page 33— 413. The Neo-Malthusians unhesitatingly afiSrm that their system would remove all hindrances to marriage, and would, moreover, cure all OUT social troubles. They point with delight to the wonderful increase of its practice, which proves that they have supplied a want, and that a still 'further and , gigantic increase is looming in the immediate future. They declare that it is a cruel and a hard lot " to force upon others what is now forced upon them, viz.. ' to resist and forego, habitually and generally, sometimes altogether, always during the craving period of Ufe, those imperious longings of the heart, which, combined, constitute the most urgent necessity of our nature, and which the Creator must have made thus urgent for wise and righteous purposes.' " (Greg). 413a. The statement is freely made that in consequence of marriage being out of the question for very many, a certain form of abominable vice is becoming adopted far more than it used to be. This, whatever may be the cause, is, I believe, correct in the main. It is also declared that postponement of marriage imtil the physical powers are failing wiU inevitably bring about a serious deterioration of the race. This the Keo-Malthusians declare is actually takmg place before our eyes. That the universal practice of iN'eo-Malthusianism would remove all these adverse influences so detrimental to social welfare and human happiness. Page 39— 414. .... The fact is that no matter what numbers of people practised Neo-Malthusianism, poverty would remain just as urgent and severe, as long as the economic conditions remained adverse. 415. " Suppose that a hundred, a thousand, or a hundred thousand men followed the ]!feo-Malthnsian precept, this condition would not be altered in the least, because the general conditions would remain unchanged. But let us suppose, for the sake of argument, that this abstention were possible in an entire nation, the foundations of capitalist economy would remain the same, and the causes of poverty would remain the same. The argument which ruins the whole Neo-Malthusian structure, which makes poverty simply dependent upon excess of population and not upon the economic order, is the fact that the severest poverty has always occurred in countries and at times when the means of subsistence sufficed for the population and far exceeded it. In contemporary France food far exceeds the population, yet the persistence of the most squalid poverty, the frequency of crises, the continual agitation of the uuHnployed, are standing proofs that poverty is not the result ol an excess Of men over flie means of subsistoice, but of a vitiated distribution of food." (Nitti). Page 40— r4I6. ... " The supposition tiiat excess of population is the cause of all poverty is completely . erroneous, not merely in its practical conclusions, but also in its very essence." (Nitti). 76 Page 41— 417. Hbebebt Spinckb commente on the bids o! legislators in interfering with the beneficent operations ot the pitiless discipline which kills off the unsuccessful members of society ; but he himself is criticised pretty freely by well-known writers. " Mr. Herbert Spencer's tiny knot of disciples who follow their master to the bitter end of individualist anarchism." " Herbert Spencer, whose unchallenged eminence is only equalleid by his eccentricity, represents the theories of doctrinaire individualism in England : " and (John has obaimingly remarked that his voice is as the voice of one crying in tiie wilderness. Page 43— 418. " With the doctrine ol Malthus will die an older and still more pernicious belief that God has ordained the poot man's lot, with its attendant hopelessness and misery. The dawn of a brighter day seems breaking, when in time it will be perceived that poverty, and well nigh all the ills ot life, arise from man's ignorance and selfishness, and are curable as he grows." (Minton). 419. Even moderately youthful marriages are not the rule in France. Mr. Lyttblton says : " Marriages in France are later than in England, whether you take the ages of men or women." Dr. Drysdale, the President of the Malthusian League, incidentally remarked that " marriage is later in France than in Engluid, and there is fair more prostitution." Page 53— 420 That prostitution will exist as long as the world lasts is, I suppose, to be admitted. Foreign Governments say that this great evil should be supervised, and placed under rigid control ; that no woman need follow the vocation unless she pleases, and that if she does, in spite of every warning, she ought to deprive herself of personal liberty. Also, that the moral condition of (heir streets is far superior to Eii«^h ones, where vice is horribly rampant, and open scandals and temptations are visible to Qie young of both sexes. 421. Writing on prostitution as it is carried on in London. Dr. Richblot, says : " La prostitution y marche sans entraves, sans controle, sans lois mod^ratrices, la tSte levfe, en plein soleil." The French authorities say that it is utterly wrong that this great evil should be allowed to flaunt itself in public. Mid that if people are so depraved as to wish for it they should go in search of it, not have it brought prominently before them. Page 100— 422 In " The Woman Who Did," Grant Allen says : " Every good woman is by nature a mother, and finds best in maternity her social and moral salvation. She shall be saved by the child- betuing. Herminia was far removed from that blatant and decadent sect of ' advanced wonen' who talk as though mo&erhood were a disgrace and a burden, instead of being, as it is, the full realisation of woman's faculties, the natural outlet for woman's wealth of emotion. She knew that to be a mother is the best privilege of her sex, a privilege of which unholy man-made institutions now conspire to deprive half the finest and noblest women in our civilised communities." 423. Lady Hbnby Sombbsbt deals with the question in " The Arena " for March, 1895, under an article termed " The Welcome Child." In it she enlarges upon the disadvantages of the unwelcome child, and that the millennium will only set in when every child is welcome. By a child's being wel- come, she means, of course, only welcome to the mother ; the father's wishes on the subject are not to be considered as of any account. She says : " Let us remember the number of children that are at this moment awakening into this world whose mothers greet them with a sigh, and hold out their arms to take them with a sob instead of a kiss, wishing that the Uttie baby face turned up to theirs had never seen the light ; yet they crowd in, these little unwelcome strangers, upon the weary workers of the world ; the women who bend over their tasks until they lie down under the great agony of maternity, and know that when it is over, weak and wan, they must take up their labour again, with another mouth to feed, and less strength to gain the wherewithal. Through those dreary months before the final tragedy, the child has been environed with the consciousness that it was not wanted ; gloomy anticipation has robbed the Uttie one of joy and hope, and so once more a being comes into existence with a life blighted, a nature narrowed and cramped, affections chilled, before it has seen the sun in the heavens or drawn the breath of life. And this happens not only in the garret and cellar, but in homes ot opulence and ease. The unwritten tragedy of woman's life is there." Page 130— 424. Hbney Gbobob said : " The increase of man involves the increase of his food. Formerly, in the United States there were only a few hundred thousand, now forty-five millions, but there is no difficulty in providing the food, which did not bring the men, but the men it. The substances which form man's food have the power to reproduce themselves some billion folds more thnn man hhnielf has." 425. With regard to the space on the earth's surface for containing population, some curious and interesting calculations have been made. For instance, taking the world's population at present 77 to amount to about 1,450,000,000, one calculator writes aa follows : " If all these persons were in England and Wales, they would each have a space of about one hundred and fifty square yards. If spread over the whole of the United Kingdom, they would each have a space of rather more than three hundred square yards. If collected in a city built in the ordinary way, their houses, streets, gardens, parks, etc., would occupy "space of some twenty millions of acres, say one half of England and Wales. But if formed into a crowd, they would find abundant standing room in the county of Butland. If the United Kingdom were all as densly populated as England it would possess about 60,000,000 inhabitants. If Europe were' all as densely populated as England, it would possess about 2,100,000,000, more than six times as many as it now has. If the whole world were as densely populated as England, its population would be about 28,000,000,000, or more than twenty times what it is at present." Page 151— 426. Jules Simon : " Our families are dwincUii]^ away ; our comitry is dwindling with them ; onr race is doomed. But to be sure, we shall be able to afioid a luxurious burial." Page 154— 427. Unfortunately the practice of Neo-Malthusianism seems to be rapidly increasing in England. I mentioned previously that we would, under the heading of population, examine into some of the evidence which seems to be accumulating on this point. 428. One of the most distinguished medical authorities in England, one most competent to give an opinion, writes to me, in answer to a question I ventured to put to him, as follows : " I have no doubt that prevention of conception is greatly increasing in England amongst the better classes. I think it is the exception to find families which are unlimited among those classes, and in most cases this is due to prevention of concepticm. Morbid fear of pregnancy is very common." Dr. Strahan writes: " I can remember the time, and that not so very many years ago, when no respectable women would have dared to have ventured such matters to her medical attendant. Now it is the everyday practice to ask the family doctor's advice as to the varying efficacy of the various means commonly in use, and to make unblushing inquiries as to better and more modem weapons. In fact, the state of fbii^ is fast becoming as bad in ttiis country as it has been for some years past in either France or America. Ask any medical man in pruitice among the middle and npper classes, and he will tell you that the married woman among b}% patients who is not fuUy alive to these practices is the laia avis. Some women have too high a sense of morality to sink to the level of their sisters in this respect ; but assuredly these are in the minority, and in a minority which is decreasing daily. ' ' He quotes the figures from the Begistrar-General's Koport, and says they speak for themselves : — Year, Persons Married Births per 1000 living. per 1000. 1864 .. 17.2 .. 35.4 1874 .. 17.0 .. 36.0 1884 .. 15.1 .. 33.6 1894 .. 15.1 .. 29.6 429. Although the marriage-rates in 1884 and 1894 were identical, yet the birth rate has actually fallen 4. " From a dispassionate survey of the foregoing facts, it would appear that within a limited number of years England viill find herself in the unenviable position which France occupies today. The evils to which I refer have been growing for years past, their nature causing them to be winked at rather than dragged into public view for condemnation ; and, as a consequence from familiarity, society has come by degrees to tolerate, and even to look upon with favour, conduct which aforetime it would have scouted with abhorrence." Page 163— 430. I am quite well aware that close observers of what is taking place in America with regard to the declension of the birth-rate ascribe it more to the general practice of abortion, which is very prevalent there, than to Neo-Malthusianism. Indeed, Dr. F. Napheys writes as follows : " The detestable crime of abortion is appallingly rife in our day ; it is abroad in our land to an extent which would have shocked the dissolute women of pagan Rome. The crime is common ; it is fearfully preval<>nt. Hundreds of persons are devoted to ii» perpetration ; it is their trade. In nearly every village its ministers stretch out their bloody hands to lead the weak women to suffering, remorse and death. Those who submit to this treatment are not generally unmarried women who have lost their virtue, but the mothers of families, respectable Christian matrons, members of churches, and walking in the better classes of of society. Testimony from all quarters, especially from New England, has accumulated within the last few years to sap our faith in the morality and religion of American women. Both Bishop Coxe and the Roman Catholic Archbishop Spauldiog have issued Pastorals upon this great crime." Well, whichever vice is tiie most prevident, the effect on the moral nature of the women and the nations is the same. 78 Page 180— 431. The more active the brain and nervous system is, the less is the physical power of the body. This in women especially prevents the proper development of generating power, con- sequently, women of genius are always infertile. Tliis fact, as women become more and niore highly educated, will tell largely on popi£ation. Women will be able to choose which they will indulge in, books or babies. Thousands of years experience baa unquestionably proved that women aire de- signed more for activity of heart, and emotions than for intellectual capacity. Whatever certain women may say, marriage is a woman's natural profession, and any other is exceptional, And un- natural. A married woman's life is far healthier than a spinster's. The former has in her children the natural outlet for her emotions ; the latter seeks something to love. She is driven to it J)y her nature, and finds in pets like cats, dogs, and monkeys, miserable substitutes for joyons children. The same in the cases of childless married women. Page 181— ' 432 Dr. Cyrus Edson writes : " Expressed in the fewest words, the evil is that an increasingly large proportion of the women of the American race are unable to perform their functions as mothers, and these women include the mentally-best we have among us. The gravity of the evil confronting us lies in this, that we seem to be able to bring the women up to a certain point in mental development, and then they cease to-be able to be mothers." Alluding more particularly to the practice of Neo- Malthusianism in America, he says : " I once heard a married woman say women were growing very scientific in these days. It is a fact that a very large number of American women now refuse to bear children. Ideas have changed. The religious sentiment, which forbids efforts to prevent the accomplishment of the natural function of their sex, has been greatly lessened in force for many of them. To no class in the community is the realisation of what is going on so vivid as to physicians, because to them ttie sufferers, from the results of their own acts, must come tor relief. It is almost useless to point out the terrible consequences of this interference with nature, or to say that pain during a short period is avoided, and pain during life secured. So far as the act is a result of a dislike to be deprived of the pleasures of society by the care of children, it is damnably wrong. So far as it results from the dread of pain of child-birth, it is folly so absolute that it may not be expressed in words. But when it is the result of an innate feeling that there is not stamina enough to stand the strain, what then ? If the system of education prevents American women having children, and if the influence of those women is strong enough to put a stop iio any change in that system, or if those women refuse to be mothers, American men will, SO far as they can, marry girls of other races. In time there would gradually permeate throug:h the minds of men the understanding that health was requisite in the women they would make their wives. Healthy girls, girls with stamina, would then have the same advantage over their less fortunate sisters that is now possessed by the pretty girls over those that are ugly." Page 182— 433 Compare the Celtic wife, Scotch or Irish, on her native hill-side — magnificent in physique, with flowing tresses, the mother of six or eight healthy children, splendid in proportion, Umbs per- fectly modeEed, smiling and happy in the enjoyment of perfect health — with the unmarried woman, the product of civilisation — pale, nervous, luir scanty and short, spectacled, a book in her hand ; and then say which product, that one of nature or that one of civilisation, oi^ht to be the type of woman which should prevaQ in the future. 434. Those of us who are interested in women's questions, and, wanting to know what women are thinking and saying about them, attend socialistic meetings at home and abroad which are addressed by women, must be very struck with the mental power of the women of all nationalities who speak at them. Their physical appearance, however, is disastrous. K.een, vigorous in mind, ready and perfectly competent to give repUes to most able questions, they exhibit very remarkable intellectual powers. But judging from the sparkling eyes blazing with light, the quivering figure, the nervous , tension, the short hair, the spectacles, they certainly present about the very last specimens which one should be likely to choose to be mothers. In accor^nce with their natures, such women loathe the idea of maternity, and are nnauestionabiy right in reframmg from it. Page 195— 435. On the other hand, Roman writers condemned the practice of abortion, although they state it was very common, and that the patrician women practised it to preserve their figures, which we are told is the same object for which Frenchwomen now practice Neo-Malthusianism. 79: "POPULATION AND THE SOCIAL SYSTEM." By Fbancesco S. NiTti, Professor at the University of Naples. London, Swan, §onnenschein & Co., 1894. 19— 436. The whole Malthusian theory is impregnated with so thorough a pessimism that it is difScult to say who, before the time of Malthus, had unfolded with great skill the theses which were afterwards largely developed in the works of Schopen»> hauerj Bolph and Hartmann. Page 22^ 437. But these were but isolated opinions ; Malthus was really the great precursor of modem pessimism. 438. In the Malthusian theory the irrestrainable generative instinct, causing a . disproportion between man and the means of subsistence, condemns them to pay a penalty, which is a part of nature itself ; hence pleasure apppars as a negative fact, and simply originates pain. So far, and not as in Schopenhauer and Hartmann, pain appeared to Malthus, not th& eternal irremediable condition of beings, the penalty only to be escaped by self-annihilation, but it was the fatal counterpart of every being, condemned to a perpetual conflict between two equally profotmd needs, love and hunger 439. Perhaps no Er^lish Economist of the last or present century has ever had the rapid and immense success which befel Malthus, notwithstanding that there' have been others much more sympathetic and profound. Upon what did his success depend ? To what unknown cause must it be attributed ? 440. A deep study of the history of economic theories has made me quite certain on this point. None of the English Economists before Malthus, nor any of his contemporaries, or of those who Uved for a short time after him, was more strictly individualist than he ; no one lent himself more to the justification of "the abuses, the indiSetence, the privileges of the dominant classes. If the orthodox EngUsh school assumed so severely individuaUst and anti-democratic a character, it was simply by reason of Malthus. Page 24— 441. Even N. W. Senior, the most vehement adversary of factory legislation, the Economist, who in the interests of capital invented the terrible expression starvation wage, has frequently noble ideas, as when he maintains against the then prevalent opinion, that high wages do not in any way diminish the production. 442. Eingland has had but one truly; absolutely and strictly individuaUst Economist, and this was Malthus, who was led by an inflexible logic to the most extreme and odious consequences of his social system. 443. The success of Malthus' short treatise was therefore and necessarily enormous. Naturally such, both on accoimt of the cause he defended, as weU as on account of the novelty and attractiveness of the theories which it exposed. Page 26— 444. The theory of human perf ectibiKty, exaggerated and ridiculed, still found supporters, but they did not appear till a late and remote period. Notwithstanding . his Utopias of a pacific anarchy, after the successes of his youth, Godwin was compelled to lead a poor life ; and the misunderstood prophet of' the greatest reforms died in poverty and neglect in 1836. His refutation of Malthus was read by only a few ; disordered, confused, and uncertain, it was practically nothing 80 else than a defence of social help. In his old age he was obliged to find a Hvelihood in writing Uttle books for the use of schools, which he sold at a shop in London, and which passed under the nom-de-plume of Baldwin. Page 27— 445. In the Malthusian theory lies the chief sonrce of modem sociology. Page 30— 446. Like Godwin's optimism, the fatalism of Malthns knew no limits. To Malthus it appeared a miserable ambition to wish to snatch the rod from the hand of Nature, and the man who has begotten children without being able to maintain them, must submit to the terrible action of the laws of Nature, which are the laws of God, and have condemned himself and his family to sufiering. Whoever generates beyond the hmits of his economic capacity acts against the will of God. 447. The teaching of Malthus was therefore not simply a biological and economic theory, but it was a political one also, and this assured its success. According to Malthus, society should abhor every kind of legal assistance ; those who have violated the law of Nature must Hve a painful Ufe, paying the penalty of its violation. Malthus even goes so far as to call for a law which would deny parish help to the children born in wedlock contracted within a year afterwards, and to illegitimate children born two years after the promulgation of the law itself Page 31— 448. The general enthusiasm for Malthus was so intense that no one dared to entirely controvert the new theory of population. Ingram says that the favour which the richer classes displayed towards the Malthusian theory is to be ascribed to the pleasure which they felt in being thus exonerated from blame, because Malthus asserted that the poor and not the rich were to be blamed for the evil state of the poor. Page 34— " 449. A very great number of economic theories, to anyone who wishes to penetrate them deeply, appear to be nothing else but a continual effort to legitimise interests or to defend abuses. And it is still more wonderful that theories have always chained with the change of phenomena ; far from overcoming them, they have been overcome by them ; far from anticipating them, they have done nothing else but follow them. Page 42— 450. The proposals of the EngHsh Neo-Malthusians, tending to check the birth-rate, have hence necessarily found a large acceptance notwithstanding their distasteful character, which would have caused their repudiation by a nation imbued with ideaUty and the Christian spirit. Page 43— 451. But against all the efforts of the Neo-Malthusian school, there has been formed and is still forming a strong current of opposition ; doctors and demographists daily protest against a school, the principles of which if carried into effect would change matrimony into a monogamic prostitution, and would gradually lead to the weakenii^ of social relations and to the degradation of i^e moral sentimente. Page 50— 452. And as a remedy to the Uebervolkerung not only have the majority of German Economists gone so far as to counsel the Malthusian moral restraint, that is to say abstention ; but even abortion has been legitimated ; nay, even profound thmkers have wished that matrimony should become a real privilege of the richer 81 classes ; and they have had lecoorse to more immoral and degrading advice. Not long since WEmnoLD, a C!ounsellor of the King of Saxony, seriously proposed the annual castration of a certain number of children of the popular classes. Page 60— 453. By preaching moral restraint and the adoption of preventive means, the EngUsh Economists ended with creating and authorising the immoral movement of tiie so-called Neo-Malthusian school. Page 61— 454. Until 1878, the annual increase of the population of Great Britain was un- equalled and unsurpassed throughout Europe, with the exception of Germany, and some of the small states but slightly advanced in progress. But it is well to repeat here the number of births which in 1878 was 35.5 for 1000 inhabitants, decreased to 34.2 in 1880, to 33.3 in 1884, and to 30.5 in 1889 : during the same ten years the Irish and Scotch birth-rates also diminished ; thus the total number of births in the United Kingdom decreased in ten years from 33.3 to 29.6. [But it has since diminished to 26, with certitude of further fall.] 455. This singular phenomenon, which contradicts aU the dictates of classic Economy with regard to population, found a strange coincidence in the campaign opened in 1877 by the so-called School of Neo-Malthnsianism. 456. It was exactly in the year 1877, that is at the time when the birth-rate was greatest, that the famous atheist, Charles Bradlaugh, and Mrs. Annie Besant, began their campaign in favour of Malthusian practices, a campaign which found a great echo, since it raised to the rank of a principle what had begun to be secretly practised^ 457. Until then Malthusian practices and moral restraint had been recommended by the upper classes only, and in the interests of a conservative party ; hence, they met with a no very great acceptance. But Bradlaugh was an atheist and a Radical : Mrs. Besant was a sociaUst and an atheist. The acceptance of her theory, she told her followers when speaking of Malthusianism, was absolutely essential to the success of SociaUsm. It is quite intelligible why the Neo-Malthusian cam- paign, when promoted by such advanced persons, should have found in England generally and among the middle classes in particular a greater favour and wider results than the involved hypothesis and counsels of Stuart Mill and Derby, and the numerous followers of the Malthusian school. 458. The campaign in favour of Malthusian practices was opened by Mrs. Besant and Bradlaugh with a httle work — the " Fruits of Philosophy," a work which, being held immoral and condemned, was precisely on this account sold in hundreds of thousands of copies. The " Fruits of Philosophy," notwithstanding its full and pompous title, contains nothing but advice to young married people. After a noisy process, which only served to difiuse the incriminated theory, Mrs. Besant with- drew her book from sale, and pubUshed another book on ttie law of population much larger and endowed with a more scientific appearance. But not even does this mediocre book contain nothing notable for the impartial searcher : Mrs. Besant, accepting the two famous progressions as an indisputable fact, builds upon them a vain structure of hypotheses and conjectures. 459. " Anyhow, issued in 200,000 copies, reproduced in the newspapers, defended with ardour, the new publication did not delay in producing its efEects, more especially among persons who had already begun to secretly practice what the Maltiiusians publicly advocated 82 160. So arose the Malthusian League, which, presided over by Doctor Drysdale, himself author of a brochure on population and of several popular vrorks, at once undertook the pnbUcation of a monthly review, "The Malthusian,'' in-order to spread the teaching of Malthus, the divine protestant. Several little treatises for. a few pence each were also published. Adopting the methods of the religions' societies, they went so far as to distribute in the streets "The Duties of Parents " br Drysdale, a treatise on "The Prosperity of the French Peasants," and iimumer- able Uttle works containing extracts from the writings of Mill, and of other authors in praise of a limited family. 461. This campaign, carried on vrith such ardour, naturally produced results within a very short time. Neo-Malthusianism did not appeal to elevated instincts or noble feelings ; it was neither more nor less than a brutal affirmation of individual egoism. Well-conditioned working-men, seeing in the absence or scarcity of children a means of putting an end to the difference between them and the lower middle class ; and these knowing that they had to rely upon a small income, feared that a large family might reduce them to the condition of the working men ; people who were independent, desirous of maintaining their social position ; all accepted it enthu- siastically. 462. These results did not delay in showing themselves. The birth-rate, which until 1877, had always been on the increase, began, as I have said, to decrease from- 1878 downwards; marriages became fewer, and there occurred a demographic phenomenon, which had appeared altogether unlikely, owing to the traditional fecundity of the people of Great Britain. 463. Then the very apostles of the Neo-Malthusian practices appeared to be dismayed by the effects which their propaganda had produced, and some of them even wished to withdraw. Mrs. Annie Besant honestly declared that the experience of Neo- Malthusianism had convinced her that the practices suggested by the Malthusian League were contrary to the interests of the nation as well as to those of moraUty, that, while on the one hand they hindered every development of the more elevated feelings, on the other hand they weakened and unfitted the people of Great Britain for the struggle of Ufe. Page 76. 464. Even the physicians have attacked moral restraint, with a violence perhaps unecLualled elsewhere. Bergeret condenms every dishonesty in the generative action as an infanticide fatal to morality and civilisation. Amelia adds in a spirit of indignation ; La castration vaut mieux, a tout prendre, qu'une prudence voisine de la pratique de I'avortement. Page 116. 465. Notwithstanding all the persecutions and troubles which it has been condemned to suffer for centuries, the little Jewish people has maintained itself, and has increased simply because it has always considered marriage as the first duty of mankind, and because it has maintained and still maintains the family ideal. Page 142. 466. "In certain communes," says a French writer, "the names brother and sister are hardly any longer in use ; the primogeniture, abolished in 1789, has been re- placed by unigeniture." And Gtjyau, who was the angelical doctor of the new philosophy, recognised that French steriUty is much rather an economic than a physiological phenomenon. Page 181. 467. But when the population voluntarily, and through a spirit of egotism, obeys the Malthusian precept and tends to check its fecundity, even individuation most 83 decrease, since, with the failure o! moral ties, the change of marriage into monogamic prostitution, the weakening of social solidarity, even the individual ends, sooner or later by feeling the efiect^ the degradation of his surroundings. THE EDUCATED CLASSES ALMOST ALWAYS WRONG. Benjamin Kidd, " Social Evolution," page 237 : 468. It has to be confessed that in England during the nineteenth century the educated classes, in almost all the great political chg,nges: that have been effected, have taken the side of the party afterwards admitted to have been in the wrong — they have almost invariably opposed at the time the measures they have subse- quently come to defend and justify. The educated classes have even, it must .be confessed, opposed measures which have tended to secure religious freedom and to aboUsh slavery. The motive force behind the long Ust of progressive measures carried during this period has in scarcely any appreciable measure come from the educated classes, it has come almost exclusively from the middle and lower classes, who have in turn acted, not under the stimulus of intellectual motives, but under the iafluence of their altruistic feehngs. Against that, the fact must be remembered, amongst others, that it was the . Tories who fought for mercy to children, in face of much obloquy. "LAISSEZ FAIBE, LAISSEZ PASSER," THE FORMULA CLAIMED BY POLITICAL ECONOMISTS. Yves Guyot, " Principles of Pohtical Economy." London, Swan, Sonnensfcheii^ 1892 : Page 13. 469. M. Clattde (of the Vosges) has not hesitated to make this solemn declaration : "In Political Economy there are no principles, hut only interests." M. Thieks' sarcasms on " this tediojis hterature " were inexhaustible. Page 18. 470. The masters of Political Economy, those who have the decisive influence which DB TocQTJEViLLE and Hebbebt Spencbb exert, are not Rothschilds ; it is a surgeon hke QuBSNAY, a solitary professor hke Adam Smith, a journalist like J. B. Say a