reets, by word of
mouth, the secret goes. And wherever it goes, death begins to reign.
And the nation disregards the undermining of its existence. It is not
enough that bomb and shell and gas should be laying its manhood low in
swathes; it suffers a campaign {29} in its streets and alleys that
wages war on the life that is struggling to be born. If the hands that
sway the destiny of the race were not paralysed such a propaganda would
not be suffered for a day.

The secretary of the Malthusian League made it clear in his evidence
that he had a grievance against the educated and leisured classes in
this country. It was not the intention of the League that its teaching
should result in the impoverishment of what is good in humanity. The
teaching of eugenics aims at the improvement of the soul of the race by
developing the force of heredity and by improving environment. The
effect of the Neo-Malthusian propaganda has been hitherto to discourage
worthy parentage, and to limit the birth of children among the class
who would transmit a worthy heredity and could supply a good
environment. Thus the result has been the very reverse of that aimed
at by eugenics. But the Malthusian League is not repentant.
'Notwithstanding the fact that, in spite {30} of its efforts, the
limitation of families has up to the present been on dysgenic lines,
the Malthusian League cannot profess regret that the limitation has
occurred'--thus its secretary. It did not intend that result, but it
does not regret it. It desired to direct its teaching to the poor and
enable them to restrict their children, but the well-to-do classes
prevented them. 'All we could do was continually to direct all our
movement to convincing the educated classes of the necessity of so
extending it; but they allowed it to stop at themselves and did not let
it go any further....[2] I think it would have been far better had
they realised that the restriction should have been conveyed to the
quarters where it was most needed.' The position seems to be this: The
upper classes who already had established a monopoly of the good things
of this world, when the teaching of race-limitation came their way,
added this also to their monopoly. Having assimilated it, they kept it
to {31} themselves. This was the last fine fruit of their selfishness!
But, now, the opposition has weakened in a world of greater
enlightenment, and the Malthusian League is determined to resist that