Birth Control Part 5

On the other hand, it is good to read that the Governor of New York has recently signed a bill making it a misdemeanour for landlords to refuse to rent apartments to families in which there are children. In that State children thus regain equal rights with dogs, cats, and canaries. Is it too much to ask of the House of Commons that they should pa.s.s a similar law? We shall see.

The dangers of birth control were apparent to that great American, Theodore Roosevelt, when he said:

"The greatest of all curses is the curse of sterility, and the severest of all condemnations should be that visited upon wilful sterility. The first essential in any civilisation is that the man and the woman shall be the father and the mother of healthy children, so that the race shall increase and not decrease." [43]

Section 4. THE SAME RESULTS IN ENGLAND

On a smaller scale the position is the same in England and Wales, where Catholicism has probably checked to some extent the general decline of the birth-rate. In 1919 there were only six towns in England [44] with a birth-rate of over 25 per 1,000, these being St. Helens (25.6), Gateshead (25.9), South s.h.i.+elds (26.9), Sunderland (27.1), Tynemouth (25.9), and Middlesbrough (26.7). Now in these towns the Catholic element is very strong. During the same year in the four registration counties in which these towns are situated, a larger proportion of marriages were celebrated according to the rites of the Church of Rome than in the other counties of England and Wales. [45] The actual proportion of Catholic marriages per 1,000 of all marriages in these four counties was: Lancas.h.i.+re 116, Durham 99, Northumberland 92, and the North Riding of Yorks.h.i.+re 92. That gives a fair index of the strength of the Catholic population. Again in 1919 we find that Preston, a textile town, has a birth-rate of 17.1, whereas two other textile towns, Bradford and Halifax, have rates of 13.4 and 13.1 respectively: and there can be little doubt that the relative superiority of Preston is mainly owing to her large Catholic population.

The actual birth-rate amongst Catholics in England may be estimated from information contained in _The Catholic Directory_ for 1914. As that work gives the Catholic population and the number of infant baptisms during the previous year in each diocese of Great Britain, and as Catholic children are always baptized soon after birth, it is possible to estimate the birth-rate of the Catholic population. Working on these figures Professor Meyrick Booth [46] has published the following table:

TABLE VI

Diocese. Birth-rate per 1,000 of the Roman Catholic population.

Menevia (Wales) 45.2 Middlesbrough 38.0 Leeds 42.0 Liverpool 40.0 Newport 53.0 Northampton 33.0 Plymouth 26.0 Shrewsbury 38.0 Southwark 39.O Westminster 36.0 ---- Average 38.6 ----

During the same period the general birth-rate amongst the whole population of England and Wales was about 24 per 1,000. And figures that are even more remarkable have been published by Mr. W.C.D. Whetham and Mrs. Whetham. [47]

These writers, having investigated the number of children in the families of the landed gentry, show that the birth-rate amongst the aristocracy has declined.

"A hundred fertile marriages for each decade from 1831 to 1890 have been taken consecutively from those families who have held their t.i.tle to n.o.bility for at least two preceding generations, thus excluding the more modern commercial middle-cla.s.s element in the present Peerage, which can be better dealt with elsewhere. We then get the full effect of hereditary stability and a secure position, and do away with any disturbing influence that might occur from a sudden rise to prosperity." [48]

The results were as follows: [Reference: Population]

Year. Number of children to each fertile marriage.

1831-40 7.1 1841-60 6.1 1871-80 4.36 1881-90 3.13

The birth-rate amongst thirty families of the landed gentry, who were known to be definitely Catholic, was also investigated, with the following results:

Years. Number of children to each fertile marriage.

1871-90 6.6

(as compared with 3.74 for the landed families as a whole during the same period.)

The interpretation of these figures is not a matter of faith, but of reason. I submit that the facts are _prima facie_ evidence that by observance of the moral law, as taught by the Catholic Church, even a highly cultured community is enabled to escape those dangers of over-civilisation that lead to diminished fertility and consequently to national decline.

The truth of this statement has been freely acknowledged by many Anglicans.

According to Canon Edward Lyttelton: "The discipline of the Roman Communion prohibits the artificial prevention of conception, hence Ireland is the only part of the United Kingdom in which the birth-rate has not declined, and the decline is least in places like Liverpool and those districts where Roman Catholics are most numerous." As we have already seen, there are also other reasons why Catholicism preserves the fertility of a nation.

Without wis.h.i.+ng to hurt the feelings of the most sensitive materialist, it is necessary to point out that, apart altogether from the question as to whether the chief or immediate cause of a declining birth-rate is the practice of artificial birth control, or, as seems to be possible, a general lowering of fertility, birth-rates are more dependent on morals and religion than on race and country. During the past century irreligion spread throughout France, and the birth-rate fell from 32.2, during the first decade of the nineteenth century, to 20.6, during the first ten years of the twentieth century. In America, amongst the descendants of the New England Puritans a decay of religion and morals has also been accompanied by a dwindling birth-rate. The decline of the original New England stock in America has been masked to some extent by the high birth-rate amongst the immigrant population; but nevertheless it is apparent in the Census Returns for 1890, when a population of 65,000,000 was expected and only 62,500,000 was returned. Moreover, there is ample evidence in history that, wherever the Christian ideal of a family has been abandoned, a race is neither able to return to the family life of healthy pagan civilisations nor to escape decay. During the past fifty years in England family life has been definitely weakened by increased facilities for divorce amongst the rich, by the discouragement of parental authority amongst the poor, and by the neglect of all religious teaching in the schools. And thus, in the words of Charles Devas, "We have of late years, with perverse ingenuity, been preparing the way for the low birth-rate of irreligion and the high death-rate of civil disorder." [49] The birth-rate in England and Wales reached its highest point, 36.3, in 1876, and has gradually fallen to 18.5 in 1919. During the first two quarters of that year the rate was the lowest yet recorded. During the pre-war year, 1913, the rate was 24.1.

In conclusion, the following statements by a Protestant writer are of interest:

"Judging from a number of figures which cannot be quoted here, owing to considerations of s.p.a.ce, it would seem that the English middle-cla.s.s birth-rate has fallen to the extent of _over 50 per cent_. during the last forty years; and we have actual figures showing that the well-to-do artisan birth-rate has declined, _in the last thirty years, by 52 per cent.!_ Seeing that the Protestant Churches draw their members mainly from these very cla.s.ses, we have not far to seek for an explanation of the empty Sunday Schools...."

"Under these circ.u.mstances it is not in the least necessary for Protestant ministers and clergymen to cast about them for evidence of Jesuit machinations wherewith to explain the decline of the Protestant Churches in this country! Let them rather look at the empty cradles in the homes of their own congregations!" [50]

The author of the above-quoted paragraphs thus attributes the decline both of the birth-rate and of the Protestant Churches to the general adoption of artificial birth control. With that explanation I disagree, because it puts the horse behind the cart. When the Protestant faith was strong the birth-rate of this country was as high as that of Catholic lands. The Protestant Churches have now been overshadowed by a rebirth of Rationalism, a growth for which they themselves prepared the soil: and diminished fertility is the natural product of a civilisation tending towards materialism. Although the practice of artificial birth control must obviously contribute towards a falling birth-rate, it is neither the only nor the ultimate cause of the decline. The ultimate causes of a falling birth-rate are more complex, and the decline of a community is but the physical expression of a moral change. That is my thesis.

[Footnote 35: _Evening Standard_, October 12, 1921.]

[Footnote 36: "The Declining Birth-rate" in _The Month_, August 1916, p.

157, reprinted by C.T.S. Price 2_d_.]

[Footnote 37: "Religious Belief as affecting the Growth of Population,"

_The Hibbert Journal_, October, 1914, p. 144.]

[Footnote 38: The Secretary of the Malthusian League. Vide _The Declining Birth-rate_, 1916, p. 99.]

[Footnote 39: _The Month_, August 1916, p. 157, C.T.S.: 2_d_.]

[Footnote 40: _The Hibbert Journal_, October 1914, p. 147.]

[Footnote 41: _The Hibbert Journal_, October 1914, p. 150.]

[Footnote 42: "Race-suicide and Dr. Bell," _America_, October 29, 1921, p.

31.]

[Footnote 43: _Daily Chronicle_, April 25, 1910.]

[Footnote 44: _Eighty-second Annual Report of the Registrar-General of Births, Deaths, and Marriages in England and Wales_, 1919, p. 89.]

[Footnote 45: Ibid., p. xxvi.]

[Footnote 46: _The Hibbert Journal_, October 1914, p. 141.]

[Footnote 47: _The Family and the Nation_, 1909, pp. 139, 142.]

[Footnote 48: Quoted in _Universe_, October 22, 1921.]

[Footnote 49: Charles S. Devas, _Political Economy_, 2nd edition, 1901, p.

193.]

[Footnote 50: Meyrick Booth, B. Sc., Ph.D., _The Hibbert Journal_, October 1914, pp. 142 and 152.]

CHAPTER V

IS THERE A NATURAL LAW REGULATING THE PROPORTION OF BIRTHS AND DEATHS?

Section 1. THE THEORY OF THOMAS DOUBLEDAY REVIVED