E.—GEOGRAPHY, 135 
‘Moreover, no change in the distribution of available minerals can ever 
do away with the commercial advantage conferred by our central and 
focal position on the natural maritime routes. Hence the population 
which can be supported in Great Britain depends upon services to 
outside nations to a much greater extent than in most countries. 
The population which can be maintained in our home country 
depends, therefore, to an exceptional degree upon the population and 
prosperity of the rest of the world, so that when the world again gets 
into its stride there should be improved conditions here, and as the popu- 
lation of the world grows so should the number of jobs in the country 
increase. There is, therefore, no sufficient ground for stating that we 
have passed or reached the limit of population which the island can 
ever support. 
The teaching of those who advocate reduction of population as the 
salyation of Great Britain includes eugenic and ethical arguments. 
Thus it is said that very small families conduce to a high standard of 
civilisation since more care can be devoted to the child. This, however, 
leaves out of account the educative influence of the children of a family 
upon one another. Everyone knows that an only child is at a disadvan- 
tage in life. The world being of both sexes, and the society in which 
we move mainly of our own generation, the full home training for life 
is only obtained if each child have a brother and sister, which implies 
a family of at least four. 
The desirability of birth-restriction among the poorer classes is 
strongly pressed on the plea that we are breeding to an increasing 
extent from inferior stock, and thereby lowering the national type. As 
far as the allegation relates to defectives, it is indisputable that most of 
them are among the poorest of the poor, and that their breeding is an 
injury to the community, as is also the admission of defective or criminal 
aliens, but these are categories quite apart from our great working-class 
community. 
' The professional families are far too few to maintain the supply of 
original genius needed for this country’s advance, for genius is largely 
in the nature of a sport, and has to be replenished from a very large 
reservoir of population. To recruit the professions entirely from the 
present professional families would, therefore, in the long run be fatal 
to originality, On the other side of the picture, a working-class home 
is the best preparatory school for the colonial frontier, where to have few 
wants is better than the possession of many attainments. 
We are told that an increase of population in Great Britain will pack 
the slums and thereby reduce us to the ‘C3’ category of physique, 
but this argument takes too little account of the redistribution of urban 
population which has been going on for the last forty years. The 
density of population in central London has diminished, and factories 
have sprung up along the railways which radiate from the town. In 
1911 the five Counties surrounding London, with their two included 
County Boroughs, contained no less than one million residents born in 
London who had migrated into these more rural districts. Migration, 
it should be observed, whether to or from the town, prevents the close 
breeding which used to be a serious disgenic factor in villages. 
