128 THE LAW OF BIRTHS AND DEATHS 



lowering of the standard of comfort. Lafcadio Hearn 

 declares that with no legislation to protect the workers 

 there have been brought into existence " all the horrors 

 of the factory system at its worst." l The effect is to 

 be seen in an enormous increase of the birthrate, com- 

 parable in magnitude with the corresponding phenomenon 

 in England. Thus we are told that " in Japan the birth- 

 rate is rising, and has increased in the last twenty-five 

 years from 25'8 to 39'9 per 1,000 of the population." 2 

 No doubt a good deal of this apparent increase is merely 

 statistical, but not all of it. This is shown by the fact 

 that with the increased prosperity brought about by the 

 war, and probably also as the result of legislative measures 

 to protect the workers, the birthrate has begun to decline. 

 One peculiarity of the advocates of the view that the 

 decline of the birthrate is due to deliberate restrictive 

 measures is their failure to realise that a rise in the birth- 

 rate stands in just as much need of explanation as a 

 fall. Birthrates have risen as well as fallen in many 

 countries at periods long before the Neo-Malthusian 

 League was heard of. And if natural causes are capable 

 of causing an increase, then a reversal of the conditions 

 which brought about the increase should produce a 

 decline. The conditions which brought about the in- 

 crease in England about the beginning of last century, and 

 in Japan towards the end of it, have now been reversed, 

 and the decline to be anticipated has actually occurred. 

 As the result of natural causes both increase and decrease 

 are readily understood. But how explain the increase 

 on the accepted theory ? Nitti, who is evidently not un- 

 conscious of this dilemma, hints at a " prudent foresight " 

 as having been practised before the increase occurred, but 



1 Japan: An Interpretation. Lafcadio Hearn. 



* Aristocracy of Birth, R. J. Ewart. Eugenics Beview, July, 1911. 



