30 National Life 



the largest families ? The professional 

 classes, the trading classes, the substantial 

 and provident working classes shortly, the 

 capable elements of the community with a 

 certain standard of life have been marrying 

 late, and have been having small families ; 

 they have been increasing their individual 

 comfort. All this is at the expense of 

 the nation's future. We cannot suspend the 

 struggle for existence in any class of the 

 community without stopping progress; we can- 

 not recruit the nation from its inferior stocks 

 without deteriorating our national character. 



Now, what have our economic conditions 

 in England been during the last thirty years ? 

 The accumulation of wealth has been such 

 at one end of society that no test of brains 

 or of physique was needful before a man 

 multiplied his type. Death duties and the 

 inherent tendency of folly to squander its 

 substance were only very inefficient, very 

 partial, checks on the endowment in perpe- 

 tuity of the brainless. At the other end of 

 society we allowed a condition of affairs to 

 exist in which no greater discomfort could 

 well be produced by the introduction of 



