104 Appendix III 



A reconsideration of current feeling in the 

 educated classes may achieve something ; it 

 might even modify the disastrous drop in 

 fertility to which I have just referred. But 

 it cannot achieve everything. Even if we 

 succeeded in convincing the better type of 

 artisan of the anti-social character of his 

 present conduct, we have also to meet the 

 fact that the fertility of the unthrifty, of the 

 mentally defective, and of the criminal classes, 

 cannot be influenced in this way, and it is 

 relatively larger than that of the better stock. 



Now, I do not advocate any return to the 

 hanging of rogues, nor would I propose to 

 cease medically assisting the physically and 

 mentally unfit ; but I would, both by social 

 opinion and by legislative action, limit in 

 every way their multiplication. Society is 

 bound to provide for the criminal, the tramp, 

 the congenital pauper, and the imbecile born 

 in its midst, yet, while undertaking this duty, 

 it should insure that, so far from increasing in 

 numbers, their stock should diminish. It is 

 easy to see a variety of ways in which some 

 effect could be given to this idea. 



I do not believe that the closing of all the 

 casual wards in the country would be unjust 

 to a single human being who is of any value 

 to the nation at large. Again, we have the 

 undesirable alien admitted because he keeps 

 wages down. He comes with a poor physique 

 and a low standard of life, and is often merely 



