iages they have
voluntarily restricted.' The super-intelligent of the Socialists have
set their faces towards the drying up of life's sources. The evidence
amply proves that everywhere 'the size of the family tends to vary
inversely as the social status of the parents.' The figures provided
by the Registrar-General for {39} England and Wales showing the births
classified according to the occupation of the father, are as follows:

Births per 1000
married males aged
under 55 years,
Social Class including retired.

1. Upper and middle class . . . . . 119
2. Intermediate . . . . . . . . . . 132
3. Skilled workmen . . . . . . . . 153
4. Intermediate class . . . . . . . 158
5. Unskilled workmen . . . . . . . 213

The race is now being carried on mainly by the poorest classes of the
population. But, when the Neo-Malthusians have carried out to the full
that campaign on which they have now entered; when the faith in life
which the poor have not yet lost, shall at last be undermined; when it
will be true of Poplar as of Belgravia, and of the Canongate as of the
West End, that having a family is no longer a British ideal--what then
is to become of the race and the Empire? What we must realise is that
this process of racial destruction will steadily go on working down the
social {40} scale until the race is doomed--unless the conscience of
the race be roused and the forces of degeneration routed. Nobody has
studied the whole problem with more thoroughness than Dr. J. W.
Ballantyne of Edinburgh. 'If this voluntary restriction has begun in
one group of society,' says Dr. Ballantyne, 'it has not expended itself
yet upon the other groups ... it is working its way, one might almost
say, as a leaven, it has not yet reached the larger groups of people,
and therefore I expect the fall in the birthrate to go on.' In the
present miasma which has fallen on the race, when women have become
'less scrupulous,' and doctors advise with greater and greater
frequency the restriction of birth, Dr. Ballantyne can only summon us
to 'bring up the reserves and strengthen the recruits.' Life has
ceased to be desired; its continuance is no longer 'convenient.' It is
inevitable that, unless a change comes in the spirit of our day, the
process of decay will go steadily on.

{41}

IV

It is a r