DECREASING POPULATION OF FRANCE 255 



the resources of which are insufficient for their support shall receive an 

 additional grant for every child above the third under thirteen years of 

 age. The amount of the allocation is to be determined by the munici- 

 pal council subject to the approval of the Council General and the 

 Minister of the Interior, but it can not be lower than 60 francs per 

 year for each child nor superior to 90 francs. 



More effective measures for combatting tuberculosis, the abolition 

 of divorce, legislation permitting the judicial determination of pater- 

 nity in the case of illegitimate births and the suppression of convents 

 with their 60,000 female celibates are some of the other secondary 

 remedies proposed, but it is certain that such measures will not reach 

 the real cause of the evil. As I have said, the parliament passed a law 

 during the past summer authorizing the judicial determination of il- 

 legitimate paternity and its results will be watched with interest. In 

 regard to the suppression of convents, M. Bertillon has remarked that 

 at best it would not result in the addition of more than four or five 

 thousand children annually to the population, whereas France needs 

 at least 500,000 more births per year. 



The restoration of religious sentiments would, according to many 

 students of the problem, result in a new attitude toward the obligation 

 to rear families. Among those who share in this view is M. Leroy- 

 Beaulieu who, in a recent article in the Journal des Debats, protested 

 against the government's hostile attitude toward the traditional relig- 

 ious beliefs of the people. It is necessary, he declared, that our states- 

 men should at once abandon the absurd and odious war which they have 

 waged for a quarter of a century, and particularly during the last fif- 

 teen years, against our country's traditional religious beliefs. 



The criminal suppression of the methods now being employed by 

 the Malthusian propagandists is another proposed remedy. During the 

 past year the senate has had under consideration a law for this pur^ 

 pose and one which proposes to give the correctional tribunals jurisdic- 

 tion of cases of abortion, with a view to rendering convictions in such 

 cases more certain. Senator Barthou, Premier and Minister of Justice, 

 in advocating the adoption of this law in 1912 said : " I am certain that 

 the senate will understand that the proposed law is a measure of public 

 safety and national salubrity." There is little doubt that the suppres- 

 sion of provoked abortions and of infanticide would have important 

 results upon the increase of the population, and it is equally certain 

 that the best public sentiment of France demands legislation for this 

 purpose, but its enforcement would obviously be attended with great 

 practical difficulties. 



Simplification of the formalities of marriage with a view to en- 

 couraging an increase in the number has also been advocated. It may 

 be added that by laws passed in 1896 and 1897 a number of the old 

 rigorous requirements of the civil code were abolished, notably those 



