THE FALL OF THE BIRTH-RATE 3 9 



the waves in the marriage rate. It seems clear then 

 that the birth-rate does show a direct, as well as an 

 indirect, response to the economic wave. 



Is there any economic variable that can be sug- 

 gested as apparently possessing a dominant influence 

 on the secular trend of the birth-rate? The answer 

 was suggested to me by the work already done on the 

 marriage-rate. In that case I showed that prices were 

 the only economic variable (so far as I could find) 

 which fulfilled the essential conditions and that it ful- 

 filled them very well, but that after 1885 or there- 

 abouts some other dominating cause seemed to be in 

 operation. Precisely the same conclusion holds for 

 the birth-rate or rather let us say for the course of 

 fertility. If we draw a curve showing for each year 

 the average of, say, Sauerbeck's (the Statist) index- 

 number for that year and a few years preceding it we 

 get a curve very like that showing the course of fer- 

 tility, but the latter fails to respond to the rise in 

 prices which took place from 1896 onwards: as in the 

 case of the marriage-rate some other dominating 

 factor seems to enter in. That the course of prices is 

 closely related to the trend of the marriage-rate and 

 of fertility I am as convinced now as I was in 1905, 

 but am equally at a loss to suggest the precise nature 

 of the nexus. That the nexus is economic, and that 

 it probably operates via psychology rather than 

 directly through physiology is my view; and I doubt 

 in fact I disbelieve its being wholly conscious, or 

 he phrase now goes "volitional." 

 In the paper to which I am referring I illustrated 

 further the apparent influence of prices by comparing 

 course of prices during the nineteenth century 

 with the course of population. That comparison can 

 now be carried on to one additional intercensal 

 decade. I have plotted on a rough chart a line show- 



