BIRTH SELECTION VERSUS BIRTH CONTROL 35 



less competent who are first selected for suspension while the few highly 

 competent people are retained because they are still indispensable. In 

 nature these less-fitted individuals would gradually disappear, but in civili- 

 zation we are keeping them in the community in the hopes that in brighter 

 days they may all find employment. This is only another instance of 

 humane civilization going directly against the order of nature and en- 

 couraging the survival of the unfittest. 



Recent world population figures 



1927 Dutch East Indies, total 51,882,842 



Dutch Java 41,719,524 



1921 British Possessions: 



Asia (1921) 364,646,807 



Africa (1921, 1928, 1925) 46,948,380 



America (1921) 11,149,110 



Australia (1921, 1926) 7,886,217 



Europe (1931) 46,216,099 



476,846,613 



American Philippine Islands 12 ,082 ,366 



1928 Europe 478, 114,000 



North and South America 238,332,000 



Africa 140,269,000 



Asia 1,070,483,000 



China 474,000,000 



Japan 69,336,000 



Korea 21,058,000 



Oceania 9,369,000 



RIGHTS AND WRONGS OF BIRTH CONTROL 



In civilized countries the birth control people are on strong theoretic but 

 not practical grounds as regards the mechanical prevention of over-popula- 

 tion, but in half-civilized or uncivilized countries their principles have 

 already been anticipated by more or less barbaric, cruel or inhuman meas- 

 ures, such as the control customs of the Australians, or the killing of female 

 children by the Chinese. 



Birth control has become a national and in a measure an international 

 movement. The country which has birth control in its most radical form 

 is Russia, where it is said to be connected with a great deal of sexual promis- 

 cuity. There the State is coming to the aid of young women with whom 

 contraceptive methods have miscarried. Birth control has been welcomed 

 by radicalism in several countries, especially in England, as an opening 

 means whereby the two sexes will be placed on the same level of sexual free- 

 dom. One eminent American eugenist who attended the birth control 



