SELECTIVE BIRTH-RATE 171 



problem ; there was especial emphasis on the word 

 " respectable." 



Forty or fifty years ago, the thrifty and far-seeing 

 workman desired and often produced many children, 

 who were legally bound to maintain him and his wife 

 in their old age ; and the burden, spread over a large 

 family, was often not very serious. At any rate there 

 was neither a demand nor a need for old age pensions 

 in normal cases. But, as we have seen from the 

 Friendly Societies' returns, it is precisely the respectable 

 workman who, for the last twenty or thirty years, has 

 restricted his family most severely. And now, as he 

 grows old and past work, his maintenance becomes a 

 well-nigh intolerable burden on the one or two children, 

 who, possibly with families of their own to rear, suffer 

 acutely, largely owing to the suppression of the brothers 

 and sisters, who would have shared the responsibility 

 with them at this juncture. So the pressing need and 

 outcry for old age pensions has arisen ; exactly at the 

 psychological moment to fit in with results and dates 

 which might have been deduced from the statistics 

 previously given. 



Now, with the fundamental proposition of the Old 

 Age Pensions Act we have nothing to do at this 

 present moment. It may be, and possibly is, perfectly 

 right and desirable that the community should step in, 

 and that the maintenance of those respectable members 

 of society who are past work should become a general 

 rather than an individual charge. But, if the com- 

 munity undertakes the duties of the children, it might 

 not be unwise on its part to make some inquiry as to 

 the actual existence and number of those children 



