tives." As a
matter of fact, this rough estimate appears to be rather under
than over the mark. In the very able paper already quoted, in
which Sidney Webb shows that "the decline in the birthrate
appears to be much greater in those sections of the population
which give proofs of thrift and foresight," that this decline is
"principally, if not entirely, the result of deliberate
volition," and that "a volitional regulation of the marriage
state is now ubiquitous throughout England and Wales, among,
apparently, a large majority of the population," the results are
brought forward of a detailed inquiry carried out by the Fabian
Society. This inquiry covered 316 families, selected at random
from all parts of Great Britain, and belonging to all sections of
the middle class. The results are carefully analyzed, and it is
found that seventy-four families were unlimited, and two hundred
and forty-two voluntarily limited. When, however, the decade
1890-99 is taken by itself as the typical period, it is found
that of 120 marriages, 107 were limited, and only thirteen
unlimited, while of these thirteen, five were childless at the
date of the return. In this decade, therefore, only seven
unlimited fertile marriages are reported, out of a total of 120.

What is true of Great Britain is true of all other civilized
countries, in the highest degree true of the most civilized
countries, and it finds expression in the well-known phenomenon
of the decline of the birthrate. In modern times, this movement
of decline began in France, producing a slow but steady
diminution in the annual number of births, and in France the
movement seems now to be almost, or quite, arrested. But it has
since taken place in all other progressive countries, notably in
the United States, in Canada, in Australia, and in New Zealand,
as well as in Germany, Austro-Hungary, Italy, Spain, Switzerland,
Belgium, Holland, Denmark, Sweden, and Norway. In England, it has
been continuous since 1877. Of the great countries, Russia is
the only one in which it has not yet taken place, and among the
masses of the Russian population we find less education, more
poverty, a higher deathrate, and a greater amount of disease,
than in any other great, or even small, civilized country.

It is sometimes said, indeed, that the decline of the