CONCLUSION 211 



answer for. The failure to pay due honour and respect 

 to the natural duties of women — more important in 

 their way than those of men — has been one reason why 

 some women have desired to assume responsibilities 

 for which they are less fitted. In industrial life, the 

 welfare of the children has been shown to be incom- 

 patible with the general employment of married women 

 in factories and workshops. 



The long immunity of England from wars in which 

 her national existence has been at stake has tended to 

 reduce the healthy sense of the duty of personal service 

 to the community, and to obliterate the feeling of 

 social responsibility. Countries in which universal 

 military training has been enforced seem to have 

 suffered less from this weakening of the moral fibre. 

 Universal military training is doubdess good for the 

 moral and physical welfare no less than for the security 

 of a nation. But some of those who advocate such 

 training for other people's sons might do more to 

 provide sons of their own to share its benefits. 



One generation of the successful classes has been 

 halved in number, while the unsuccessful have con- 

 tinued to increase. The relative burden of incom- 

 petence carried by the nation is heavier, and, judged 

 by the returns of pauperism and insanity, tends to 

 increase yet more. Incalculable harm has been done 

 to the race. For years the returns of the Registrar- 

 General have contained results which ought to have 

 warned the nation. Yet our politicians, even our 

 statesmen, occupied with questions of party interest, 

 have failed to proclaim, perhaps to notice, the 

 significance of the position. 



