F.—ECONOMIC SCIENCE AND STATISTICS. 107 
into the calculating and non-calculating classes, those who expect security 
and those who do not: an expectation which probably makes a far 
sharper class distinction than that made by riches and poverty. ‘ Calcu- 
lating the future’ is an expensive and harassing occupation, generally 
indulged in on an extensive scale only by the comparatively well-to-do, 
including those whose high productivity and, again comparatively, rare 
gifts have secured high earnings. The supposed security of those who 
draw their incomes entirely from rents and interest, rudely as that security 
has been shaken from time to time, has been accepted as an ideal by many 
able to afford it through high earnings of hand and brain. Arrangements 
for contributory insurance schemes have long been common in the pro- 
fessions. Civil Servants are accustomed to compulsory schemes. Com- 
pulsory schemes have been accepted by section after section of the teaching 
profession. They are under discussion for the clergy. The Local Govern- 
ment and Other Officers Superannuation Act of 1922 covered members 
of the medical profession working under local authorities, and a scheme 
which would apply to all doctors on the panel is being mooted by some 
of the doctors concerned. Contributory insurance schemes for the pro- 
vision of pensions have, with the exception of some of the less exalted 
branches of the Civil Service, in the past been made compulsory among 
those classes who before their introduction attempted to make similar 
provision voluntarily. 
The same classes have perhaps more than others calculated the number 
of children whom their earnings would maintain. The fertility statistics 
of the last census show that the professional classes, who are very largely 
the calculating classes, have a lower fertility rate than any other occupied 
section of the community : .90 being the average number of children under 
sixteen for married men in the professional classes as compared with 1.27 
among all married men. 
These classes who calculate the future are but a small section of 
the community. For most earners the exigencies of present maintenance 
exclude considerations of future maintenance. With dependants the case 
is somewhat different ; more and more every class of the community tends 
to consider the possibility of making good provision for its children, and 
more and more do the parents of every class recognise that they can 
provide for their own needs by limiting the size of their families. The 
im portance of both considerations is enhanced by the raising of the school- 
leaving age. The first consideration reacts on the health and efficiency 
of the children and stimulates the activity of the parents, while both tend 
fo lessen the number cf children. 
The effect on earnings of calculations made by the worker, either for 
his own future and that of his dependants or for the present needs of his 
dependants, is not easy to trace. A stimulus to activity which in effect 
raises the wage-earner to a higher grade, increasing his productivity and 
general wealth, makes him worth a higher wage. A limitation of numbers 
is slow in its action on supply, and, since it cannot be assumed that each 
grade or occupation is entirely self-recruiting, no positive result can be 
ascribed to it, except in so far as it is thought that a general increase or 
decrease of population is likely to cause a general rise or fall in wages— 
 @ question round which controversy has raged for the last and is likely 
fo rage for the next century. It may be assumed that a limitation of 
— CULT h eC ee rrr rrr. ——n ee ee SS ee lee eee 
