390 



The Review of Reviews. 



IN PRAISE OF LIMITED FAMILIES. 



The Example of France. 



Mr. Walter E. Weyl stoutly maintains, in the 

 l<!orth American Review for March, that to call limita- 

 tion of families race suicide is all nonsense. His object- 

 lesson is France, which, he maintains, is a magnificent 

 example of the good results following the limitation of 

 families. He says that all the nations are moving 

 towards a slackening of an excessive birth-rate, and at 

 the head of these nations is France. The road to civili- 

 sation lies in the lowering of the birth-rate. Europe 

 must decide whether it is to have half a billion of 

 civilised people or two billions of helots when the 

 twenty-first century dawns. 



Mr. Weyl admits that the population of France is 

 stationary ; eight hundred thousand children are born 

 every year to lake the place of the eight hundred 

 thousand Frenchmen who annually die. It is the 

 peasant woman who decides that question ; she is 

 ( oming to the conclusion that two children are the 

 largest family that she can afford ; and against that 

 conviction all arguments as to the duty of multiplying 

 and increasing the [)opulation at the German rate are 

 fruitless. French population is limited by her economic 

 conditions. With the rising standard of living in 

 France the population will probably not exceed the 

 number who can lead a comfortable and civilised life 

 upon French soil. The theory of the French towards 

 children is " quality before quantity." The decreasing 

 birth-rate is in reality a strike again.st evil conditions. 

 France aspires to be comfortable and civilised. She 

 has the choice of being populous or democratic, and 

 she is choosing the latter. The standard of living is 

 rising, saving is becoming more and more widespread. 

 Every year adds enormously to the wealth of France 

 and to the diffusion of that wealth among ever-wider 

 sections of the population. France as a financial demo- 

 cracy is seeking to build upon its increasing material 

 resources an improved civilisation for a limited number 

 of inhabitants. 



As for the danger that Germany may o\-erwhelm 

 France by her increased population, Mr. Weyl says 

 that the battle is not always to the populous nor to the 

 land of large armies, still less is the liattle always to the 

 millions when these millions represent a surplus of 

 stomachs in excess of the number of armed men that 

 can be put into the field. France is not only building a 

 treble line of Port Arthurs across the frontier, but is 

 accumulating a mound of gold in the vaults of the 

 Bank of France. Every year France saves an addi- 

 tional sum of three or four, or perhaps even five 

 hundreds of millions of dollars. The Bank of France 

 always keeps a hoard of eight hundred million dollars 

 of gold. 



New York is evidently a very safe place to li\e in — 

 for murderers. One hundred and forty-eight murders 

 were recorded in the city last year, and thirteen con- 

 victions were obtained. None of the thirteen convicted 

 persons were hanged.— For;<w (.March). 



PENALISING PARENTAGE. 



Mr. a. J. Nock has discovered the eugenics labora- 

 tory of Mr. Karl Pearson, and forthwith reports his 

 discovery in the American Magazine for March. 



LAW'S against child labour. 



He points out that the fall in the English birth-rate 

 coincides with the passing of laws against child- 

 labour : — 



Let us look closer: From 1S64 to 1867 we see a series of 

 Acts of r.irliament applying, among oilier things, to ihe iron, 

 steel, and copper industries, culminating in the Workshoji 

 Kegulation Act of 1S67 ; and in 1S67 down went the birth-rate 

 in the mining districts of Cornwall. 



In 1877 we have the Compulsory f^ducation Act, and in 187S 

 an Act, too complex to be described here, raising the age of 

 child-employment and in various ways throwing especially 

 discouraging responsibility on the employer of child-labour. 

 Down went the birth-rate in the factory towns, like Bradford, 

 Bolton, and Leeds. 



In 18S7 we have the Mines Act, which, applied to child- 

 labour on minerals, fire-clay, pottery-clay, etc., as well as iron 

 and coal. Sensitively and obediently, the birth-rate of the 

 mining region of Cornwall dropped again, and so did that of 

 ihe trading towns and country centres like York. 



.\fler these, we find the Education Act of 1S99 forbidding the 

 employment of children under twelve in any way to interfere 

 with full attendance at school. We find a Factory .■\ct in 1891, 

 again raising the age of child-employment, and restricting the 

 employment of women after child-birth. And the whole birth- 

 rate of England responded with a brisk decline. 



FIRST AND SECOND CHILD MORe'aBNOEMAL. 



So he proves his thesis that " every child-labour law 

 that puts an economic penalty on parentage reduces 

 the birth-rate." Another finding of eugenics he puts 

 forward thus :— 



Where tuberculosis, insanity, criminality, albinism are found 

 in a family, they are found to predominate tremendously in 

 the first- and second-born over those born later. Clearly, if 

 you cut off the later members of the family — if you have two 

 children instead of seven to a family — you are cutting into the 

 exempt class, reducing the relative proportion of sound slock ii^ 

 the community, and greatly increasing the relative proportion of 

 the tuberculous, insane, criminal, and albionotic. 



HOW TO DE-PEN ALISE PARENTAGE. 



Moreover, families of diseased stock contain about 

 20 per cent, more children than those of normal stock. 

 Our child-labour laws penalise parentage. We must, 

 says the writer, maintain those laws without putting 

 an economic penalty on parentage : — - 



This might be effected in several ways : by difi'erential wages, 

 perhaps by a scheme of national insurance with provisions — a 

 liind of bounty — for motherhood and for each child as it comes 

 along. Best of all, probably, it might be effected by the State's, 

 power of ajiplying dificrenlial taxation. 



The writer declares that the science of eugenics has 

 arrived too late, and speaks of " England's mournful 

 lesson " as though the whole population of the United 

 Kingdom were a pack of degenerates. 



Mr. Ri'DVARM KifiiNc's story in the London 

 Magazine for April fizzles out in a very disappointing 

 fashion. Instead of being a serial, it is completed in 

 tlic present number, and the second part adds hardly 

 anvthing to the contents of the first. 



