PHYSICAL DEGENERACY OR RACE SUICIDE? 525 



Adding the two together we find that, out of the 128 marriages in 

 which the cause of limitation is stated, the poverty of the parents in 

 relation to their standard of comfort is a factor in 73 cases, sexual ill- 

 health (that is, generally, the disturbing effect of child-bearing) in 24 

 and the other ill-health of the parents in 38 cases. In 24 cases the 

 disinclination of the wife is a factor, and the death of a parent has in 

 eight cases terminated the marriage. It should be added that in one 

 or two cases of marriages in the earlier years tabulated recent deaths 

 of parents are mentioned which could not have affected the size of the 

 families, and these are not included in the above. 



The confidential voluntary census thus taken is, of course, far too 

 small to be, in itself, any proof of a widespread custom. But taken in 

 conjunction with the very extensive statistical evidence already adduced, 

 it seems to me to complete the demonstration. We must, I think, now 

 take it as proved that the principal, if not the sole, cause of the present 

 continuous decline in the birth rate in Great Britain is the deliberate 

 regulation of the marriage state. This practise prevails, it must be 

 inferred, either with the object of family limitation, or merely with that 

 of regulating the intervals between births, among at least one half, and 

 probably among three fourths, of all the married people in Great Britain 

 of reproductive age — not, as is often imagined, only among those above 

 the ranks of labor, but practically among all classes, from the agricul- 

 tural laborer in sparsely populated districts, and the artisan in the 

 towns, up to the various grades of professional men and even to the 

 wealthy property owners. The result is that after a quarter of a cen- 

 tury of this practise, the total number of children born annually in 

 Great Britain is less than four fifths of what it would be if no such 

 interference took place. Nor is the practise confined to this country. 

 The statistics indicate that New South Wales and Victoria have already 

 carried it further than we have, whilst New Zealand is not far behind. 

 Eegistration in the United States is very imperfect, but it is clear that 

 the American-born inhabitants of New England, and perhaps through- 

 out the whole of the northern states, are rapidly following suit. The 

 same phenomenon is clearly to be traced in the German Empire, espe- 

 cially in Saxony, Hamburg and Berlin, but the German rural districts 

 are as yet unaffected. The Koman Catholic population of Ireland (and 

 of the British cities), as well as those of Canada and Austria, appear to 

 be still almost untouched, but those of Belgium, Bavaria and Italy are 

 beginning to follow in the footsteps of France. The fact that almost 

 every country which has accurate registration is showing a declining 

 birth rate indicates — though, of course, it does not prove — that the 

 practise is becoming ubiquitous. 



These clearly proved facts — which we are bound to face whether we 

 like them or not — will appear in different lights to different people. In 

 some quarters it seems to be considered sufficient to dismiss them with 



