544 



NATURE 



[July i, 1920 



self alone. Previously the word " Commission " 

 had been generally applied only to bodies created 

 by Royal or Parliamentary authority, and having 

 power to call witnesses before them, to whom 

 each member of the Commission could put ques- 

 tions. Where bodies had been created for the 

 purpose of hearing evidence tendered by volun- 

 tary witnesses, as had been done with advantage 

 by the Charity Organisation Society, they were 

 usually called "special committees." They are 

 now often called ** Commissions " in imitation of 

 Mr. Chamberlain's action, and if it is clearly 

 understood that they have no compulsory powers, 

 there seems no harm in applying that term to 

 them as denoting their method of action rather than 

 the authority under which they act. In one respect 

 they are not unlike many Royal Commissions. 

 They consist largely of people who are known to 

 have formed strong opinions on one side or the 

 other, and accordingly their conclusions, if any sort 

 of unanimity can be arrived at, are often in the 

 nature of a feeble compromise, or, on the other 

 hand, if both parties stand to their guns, are split 

 into majority and minority reports. Even so, 

 such reports may be useful as collections of facts 

 and as presenting to the public materials for 

 forming its own judgment. 



The test, therefore, is : Are the results obtained 

 of value ? We think the report of the " National 

 Birth-rate Commission," which has been pub- 

 lished under the title of " Problems of Population 

 and Parenthood," very fairly answers this test. 

 It shows a continuous reduction in the birth-rate 

 in England and Wales from 24 per thousand of 

 the population in 191 3 to 18 per thousand in 

 1 918. For the further elucidation of the problems 

 arising out of this fact, the Commission unani- 

 mously passed resolutions in favour of the estab- 

 lishment of a permanent Anthropometric Depart- 

 ment under the Ministry of Health, and of a 

 General Register. The practice of restricting the 

 family has begun with educated and professional 

 persons, and is gradually spreading through the 

 whole community. That it should be so seems to 

 be regarded by the majority of the Commissioners 

 as inevitable, but they acknowledge the value of 

 the unrestricted family as a training in self-sacri- 

 fice, mutual help, and efficiency, conducing to a 

 better prospect of happiness than the restricted 

 family in general can afford. When the practice 

 of restriction of families is adopted, the tendency 

 is to limit the number to that which will not 

 restore the deficit caused by the loss of the 

 generation that is passing. We thus get a dimin- 

 ishing population, leading to what has been called 

 "race-suicide." 



The conditions in which an increase of 

 NO. 2644, VOL. 105] 



the population is not desirable do not exist 

 in the British Empire. So far as they exist 

 in Great Britain, emigration (as Sir Rider 

 Haggard suggests) seems to be the right means 

 of meeting them. The Commission reports that 

 there is no moral issue raised in respect of the 

 limitation of the family when there are good 

 reasons for such a course, but that the moral 

 difficulty arises as to the means which may be 

 used for that purpose. Ecclesiastical authorities 

 allow of a limitation of intercourse, which does 

 not afford a complete security, but not of any 

 other method. If, however, the rightfulness of 

 the limitation be admitted, the method by which 

 it is to be effected would seem to be a question 

 of physiology and perhaps of aesthetics rather 

 than one of ethics. Some of the methods sug- 

 gested are repulsive, and it is to be hoped none 

 of them will become popular. 



(2) Dr. H^ricourt approaches the subject from 

 a different point of view in dealing with sterility 

 as one of the social diseases of France, where the 

 birth-rate has been steadily falling and depopula- 

 tion in progress for many years. He attri- 

 butes this to voluntary restriction, and shows 

 that the richer inhabitants are the less fruitful, 

 and the poorer the more fruitful. He proposes 

 a variety of remedies, ranging from the moral 

 encouragement of large families to the taxation 

 of celibates and of small families. He rejects the 

 expedient of a direct bounty from the State to the 

 parent. He would use all legal means to suppress 

 publications in which the limitation of families is 

 recommended, and to prevent the sale of articles 

 designed to effect that object. 



(3) The venereal problem is a subject common 

 to all the three volumes under review, and it is 

 curious to note that it is only recently that it has 

 been possible to discuss it with the freedom that 

 all alike use. This is in some degree due to the 

 war. Since the days when Alva brigaded his 

 "quatre cents courtesanes a cheval, belles et 

 braves comme princesses, et huit cents k pied, 

 bien a point aussi," and long before, indiscriminate 

 sexual indulgence has been one of the incidents of 

 a time of warfare. The risk attaching to it may 

 be mitigated by suitable measures of military 

 discipline, but the effectual application of similar 

 measures to the civil population would be difficult, 

 if possible. The urgency of the problem lies in 

 the possibility of communicating the infection to 

 innocent persons and to unborn children, and in 

 the loss to the community arising from the destruc- 

 tion of life and efficiency caused by the disease. 

 In the face of these evils it is not necessary to 

 discuss the old view that syphilis was a disease 

 the risk of which was voluntarily incurred in the 



