SELECTIVE BIRTH-RATE 147 



reversed the action of selection, and are breeding to the 

 lower types among us. 



If the same decrease in reproduction had reached 

 all classes of the community, its effects would have 

 arrested more general attention. It would have changed 

 to such a degree the Registrar-General's returns that the 

 birth-rate of the country as a whole would have sunk 

 below the death-rate, and a rapidly shrinking popula- 

 tion would have become the most obvious problem of 

 the age. Yet the actual position is more serious than 

 one which immediately would have been recognized 

 as a manifest danger. While the birth-rate of the 

 best elements of all classes — of the skilled artisan no 

 less than the landed family of ancient lineage and the 

 professional man of eminent ability — is falling fast, that 

 of the casual labourer of thriftless stock and of the 

 feeble-minded class, still at large in our midst, remains 

 at its old high level. Increased hygienic knowledge 

 and growing medical skill keep alive an ever larger 

 fraction of defective offspring to perpetuate the evils 

 of which they bear the seeds. 



The Jews and other foreign races in the East End 

 of London maintain their natural birth-rate, and, to 

 some extent, conceal the fall in that among Londoners 

 generally. Whatever good qualities these aliens may 

 possess, they are not those typical of the Anglo-Saxon ; 

 and these immigrants cannot be regarded as a satis- 

 factory equivalent to the native population. 



Although this suppression of the best blood of the 

 country is a new disease in modern Europe, it is an 

 old story in the history of nations, and has been the 



