Science and Physical Development 



and energetic men and women, but these are just 

 the people we cannot spare. The State at least 

 should not help such to emigrate. The colonies 

 need a larger infusion of English blood, and there 

 seems to be every reason why men and women 

 who have more or less failed at home, but who 

 are physically and mentally fairly sound, should 

 be helped, perhaps on some such lines as those 

 recently proposed by General Booth, to start anew 

 in the freer and healthier surroundings of colonial 

 life. Canada does not in equity belong to the 

 Canadians, nor Australasia to the Australians. They 

 did not conquer the broad lands in which they 

 live ; they have not defended them, nor even paid 

 for their defence. They cannot claim a right to 

 suck the best blood of the Empire, and to refuse 

 to help it solve its problems. Shall the children, 

 whose young lives depended on deep draughts 

 from the mother's breast of England, grow up to 

 refuse to help her because they no longer need 

 her help ? 



There has not of late years been sufficient emi- 

 gration from England to cause serious deteriora- 

 tion, but Sir John Gorst and others believe that 

 the decrease in the birth-rate, which has been 

 noted in the last two decades, has had this effect, 

 since " the race is propagated in the greatest pro- 

 portion by the least fit part of it, the restraints on 

 marriage disappearing as you reached the most 

 unfit." There seem to be no statistics to bear out 

 this view, and expert opinion differs both as to the 

 actual facts and the tendencies behind the facts. 



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