m. Such is the proper criticism. The reply to it is
that the State will have to see to it that, in future, husbands _do_
take this trouble. To this we shall return.

Next we may consider the case of the unmarried mother and her
"illegitimate" child or children. Here, again, the child must be cared
for, and the care of the child is the work which has been imposed upon
the mother. We must enable her to do it, nor must we countenance the
monstrous and unnatural folly, injurious to both and therefore to us, of
separating them. Napoleon, desirous of food for powder, forbade the
search for the father in such a case, though the French are now seeking
to abrogate that abominable decree. Our law recognizes that the father
is responsible, and under it he may be made to pay toward the upkeep of
the child. Some contemporary writers on the endowment of motherhood are
advocating changes which would make this law absurd, for they are
seeking to free the married father from any responsibility for his
children, and could scarcely impose it upon the unmarried father. Such
proposals, however, are palpable reversions to something much lower and
aeons older in the history of life than mere barbarism, and I have no
fear of their success. Assuredly the unmarried father must be held
responsible; and no less certainly must we see to it that, with or
without his help, the unmarried mother and her children are adequately
provided for. The present death-rate amongst illegitimate children is a
scandal of the first order and must be ended. If we are wise, our
provision will involve protecting ourselves against the need for new
provision, especially where the mother is feeble-minded or otherwise
defective, as is so often the case: but provision there must be.

Finally, we come to the central problem of the mother who has a living
husband in employment. It is the case of the working classes that really
concerns us, not least because the greater part of the birth-rate comes
therefrom. It is the contemporary settling-down of the birth-rate in
this class, combined with the novel consequences of modern
industrialism, especially in the form of married women's labour, that
makes the question so important. Before we go any further, the
proposition may be laid down that married women's labour, as it commonly
exists, is an intolerable evil, condemned already by our first
principles. It need scarcely be said that one is not here referring to
the labours of the