Birth Control

H >> Halliday G. Sutherland >> Birth Control

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The following is a general outline of these dangers, and in a later chapter
(p. 70)(see [Reference: Dangers]) I shall quote an example of how
they have operated in the past.

Section 9. PHYSICAL CATASTROPHES

Deaths from famine, floods, earthquakes, and volcanic eruptions are
confined to comparatively small areas, and the two physical catastrophes
that may seriously threaten a civilisation may be reduced to endemic
disease and war.

(a) _Disease_

Disease, in the form of malaria, contributed to the fall of ancient Greece
and Rome. In the fourteenth century 25,000,000 people, one-quarter of the
population of Europe, were exterminated by plague, the "Black Death," and
in the sixteenth century smallpox depopulated Spanish America. Although
these particular diseases have lost much of their power owing to the
progress of medical science, we have no right to assume that disease in
general has been conquered by our civilisation, or that a new pestilence
may not appear. On the contrary, in 1805, a new disease, spotted fever,
appeared in Geneva, and within half a century had become endemic throughout
Europe and America. Of this fever during the Great War the late Sir William
Osler wrote: "In cerebro-spinal fever we may be witnessing the struggle of
a new disease to win a place among the great epidemics of the world." There
was a mystery about this disease, because, although unknown in the Arctic
Circle, it appeared in temperate climates during the coldest months of the
year. As I was able to prove in 1915, [8] it is a disease of civilisation.
I found that the causal organism was killed in thirty minutes by a
temperature of 62 deg. F. It was thus obvious that infection could never be
carried by cold air. But in overcrowded rooms where windows are closed, and
the temperature of warm, impure, saturated air was raised by the natural
heat of the body to 80 deg. F or over, the life of the microorganism,
expelled from the mouths of infected people during the act of coughing, was
prolonged. Infection is thus carried from one person to another by warm
currents of moving air, and at the same time resistance against the disease
is lowered. Cold air kills the organism, but cold weather favours the
disease. In that paradox the aetiology of cerebro-spinal fever became as
clear as the means of prevention. The story of spotted fever reveals the
forces of nature fighting against the disease at every turn, and implacably
opposed to its existence, while man alone, of his own will and folly,
harbours infection and creates the only conditions under which the malady
can appear. For example, during two consecutive winters cerebro-spinal
fever had appeared in barracks capable of housing 2,000 men. A simple and
effective method of ventilation was then introduced. From that day to this
not a single case of cerebro-spinal fever has occurred in these barracks,
although there have been outbreaks of this disease in the town in which the
barracks are situated.

There are many other diseases peculiar to civilisation, and concerning
the wherefore and the why an apposite passage occurs in the works of Sir
William Gull.

"Causes affecting health and shortening life may be inappreciable in
the individual, but sufficiently obvious when their effect is
multiplied a thousandfold. If the conditions of society render us
liable to many diseases, they in return enable us to establish the
general laws of life and health, a knowledge of which soon becomes a
distributive blessing. The cure of individual diseases, whilst we leave
open the dark fountains from which they spring, is to labour like
Sisyphus, and have our work continually returning upon our hands. And,
again, there are diseases over which, directly, we have little or no
control, as if Providence had set them as signs to direct us to wider
fields of inquiry and exertion. Even partial success is often denied,
lest we should rest satisfied with it, and forget the _truer and better
means_ of prevention." [9]

Medical and sanitary science have made great progress in the conquest of
enteric fever, diphtheria, scarlet fever, measles, and whooping cough. The
mortality from bronchitis and from pulmonary tuberculosis has also been
reduced, but nevertheless tuberculosis still claims more victims in the
prime of life than any other malady. It is a disease of civilisation and is
intimately associated with economic conditions. The history of tuberculosis
has yet to be written. On the other hand, deaths from certain other
diseases are actually increasing, as witness the following figures from the
Reports of the Registrar-General for England and Wales:

Disease. Number of Number of
deaths in Deaths in
1898. 1919.

Diseases of the heart and
circulatory system 50,492 69,637
Cancer 25,196 42,144
Pneumonia 35,462 38,949
Influenza 10,405 44,801

In view of these figures it is folly to suppose that the final conquest of
disease is imminent.

(b) War

War, foreign or civil, is another sword hanging over civilisations, whereby
the fruits of a long period of growth may be destroyed in a few years.
After the Thirty Years War the recovery of Germany occupied a century and
a half. During the fourteen years of the Taiping rebellion in China whole
provinces were devastated and millions upon millions of people were killed
or died. In spite of the Great War during the past decade, there are some
who would delude themselves and others into the vain belief that, without
a radical change in international relations and a determined effort to
neutralise its causes, there will be no more war; but unless the nations
learn through Christianity that justice is higher than self-interest the
following brilliant passage by Devas is as true to-day as when it was
written in 1901:

"True that the spread of humanitarianism and cosmopolitanism made many
people think, towards the end of the nineteenth century, that bloodshed
was at an end. But their hopes were dreams: the visible growth of
national rivalry and gigantic armaments can only issue in desperate
struggles; while not a few among the nations are troubled with the
growth of internal dissensions and accumulations of social hatred that
point to bloody catastrophes in the future; and the tremendous means of
destruction that modern science puts in our hands offer frightful
possibilities of slaughter, murderous anarchical outrages, and rivers
of blood shed in pitiless repression." [10]

Malthusians may inveigh against wars waged to achieve the expansion of a
nation, but so long as international rivalry disregards the moral law their
words will neither stop war nor prevent a Malthusian country from falling
an easy prey to a stronger people. On the contrary, a low birthrate,
by reducing the potential force available for defence, is actually an
incentive to a declaration of war from an envious neighbour, because it
means that he will not hesitate so long when attempting to count the
cost beforehand. In 1850 the population of France and Germany numbered
practically the same, 35,500,000; in 1913 that of France was 39,600,000,
that of Germany 67,000,000. [11] The bearing of these facts on the
Great War is obvious. In 1919 the new Germany, including Silesia, had a
population of just over 60,000,000; whereas, in 1921, France, including
Alsace-Lorraine, had a population of 39,200,000. Thus, despite her victory
in the war, the population of France is less to-day than it was seven years
ago.

Section 10. MORAL CATASTROPHES

In view of past history only an ostrich with its head in the sand can
profess to believe that there will be no calamities in the future to reduce
the population of the earth. And apart from cataclysms of disease or of
war, empires have perished by moral catastrophe. A disbelief in God results
in selfishness, and in various moral catastrophes. In the terse phrase of
Mr. Bernard Shaw, "Voluptuaries prosper and perish." [12] For example,
during the second century B.C. the disease of rationalism, [13] spread over
Greece, and a rapid depopulation of the country began.

The facts were recorded by Polybius, [14] who expressly states that at the
time of which he is writing serious pestilences did not occur, and that
depopulation was caused by the selfishness of the Greeks, who, being
addicted to pleasure, either did not marry at all or refused to rear more
than one or two children, lest it should be impossible to bring them up in
extravagant luxury. This ancient historian also noted that the death of a
son in war or by pestilence is a serious matter when there are only one or
two sons in a family. Greece fell to the conquering Romans, and they also
in course of time were infected with this evil canker. There came a day
when over the battlements of Constantinople the blood-red Crescent was
unfurled. Later on all Christendom was threatened, and the King of France
appealed to the Pope for men and arms to resist the challenge to Europe
of the Mohammedan world. The Empire of the Turk spread over the whole of
South-Eastern Europe. But once more the evil poison spread, this time into
the homes in many parts of Islam, and to-day the once triumphant foes of
Christianity are decaying nations whose dominions are the appanage of
Europe. In face of these facts it is sheer madness to assume that all the
Great Powers now existing will maintain their population and prove immune
from decay. Indeed, the very propaganda against which this Essay is
directed is in itself positive proof that the seeds of decay have already
been sown within the British Empire. Yet, in an age in which thought and
reason are suppressed by systematised confusion and spiritless perplexity,
the very simplicity of a truth will operate against its general acceptance.

From the theological point of view, the myth of overpopulation is
definitely of anti-Christian growth, because it assumes that, owing to the
operation of natural instincts implanted in mankind by the Creator, the
only alternative offered to the race is a choice between misery and vice,
an alternative utterly incompatible with Divine goodness in the government
of the world.

[Footnote 1: The birth-rate is the number of births per 1,000 of the whole
population. In order to make a fair comparison between one community and
another, the birth-rate is often calculated as the number of births per
1,000 married women between 15 and 45 years of age, as these constitute
the great majority of child-bearing mothers. This is called the _corrected
birth-rate_.]

[Footnote 2: _Economic Review_, January 1892.]

[Footnote 3: So says the Secretary of the Malthusian League. Vide _The
Declining Birth-rate_, 1916, p. 88.]

[Footnote 4: Bagehot, _Economic Studies_, p. 193.]

[Footnote 5: To assign a personality to "Nature" is, of course, a mere
_facon de parler_; the believer holds that the "course of Nature" is an
expression of the Mind and Will of the Creator.]

[Footnote 6: _Problems of Population_, p. 382.]

[Footnote 7: _The Malthusian_, July 15, 1921.]

[Footnote 8: _Lancet_, 1915, vol. ii, p. 862.]

[Footnote 9: The New Sydenham Society, vol. clvi, section viii, p. 12.]

[Footnote 10: Charles S. Devas, _Political Economy_, 1901, p. 191.]

[Footnote 11: _Revue Pratique d'Apologetique_, September 15, 1914.]

[Footnote 12: _Man and Superman_, p. 195.]

[Footnote 13: By rationalism we mean a denial of God and of responsibility
for conduct to a Higher Being.]

[Footnote 14: Quoted by W.H.S. Jones, _Malaria and Greek History_ 1909,
p95.]

CHAPTER II

THE FALSE DEDUCTIONS CONCERNING POVERTY

From the original root-fallacy Malthus argued that poverty, prostitution,
war, disease, and a high death-rate are necessary in order to keep down
the population: and from the same false premises birth controllers are
now arguing that a high birth-rate causes (1) poverty, and (2) a high
death-rate. The steps in the argument whereby these amazing conclusions are
reached are as follows. Before the death-rate can be lowered the social
conditions of the people must be improved; if social conditions are
improved there will be an enormous increase of population in geometrical
progression; the food supply of the country and even of the world cannot be
increased at the same rate; and therefore there will be greater poverty
and a higher death-rate unless the birth-rate is lowered. Thus Malthusians
argue. In view of the false premises on which their argument is based, it
is not surprising to find that their deductions are erroneous and contain
many economic and statistical fallacies, to the consideration of which we
may now devote our attention.

Section 1. BIRTH-RATE AND POVERTY

The first false deduction of birth controllers is that a high birth-rate,
by intensifying the struggle for existence, increases poverty. In order to
bolster up this contention, Malthusians quote three arguments concerning
(a) famines, (b) abundance, and (c) wages, and each of these arguments is
fallacious.

(a) _Famines_

The prevalence of famines is quoted as a proof of reckless overpopulation.
Now a famine may occur from several different causes, some within and
others beyond the control of man, but a failure of crops has never yet been
caused by pressure on the soil. On the contrary, famine is less likely to
arise in a country whose soil is intensively cultivated, because intensive
cultivation means a variety of crops, and therefore less risk of all the
crops failing. Moreover, during the past century famine has occurred
in Bengal, where population is dense; in Ireland, where population is
moderate, and in Eastern Russia, where population is scanty. The existence
of famine is therefore no proof that a country is overpopulated, although
it may indicate that a country is badly governed or under-developed.

(b) _Abundance_

Malthusians also claim that by means of artificial birth control we could
live in a land of abundance. They point out that, as the population of
a new colony increases, the colonists, by applying the methods of
civilisation to the rich soil, become more and more prosperous. Eventually
there comes a time when capital or labour applied to the soil gives a
_maximum_ return _per head_ of population. Once that point has been reached
any further capital or labour applied to the soil will produce a smaller
return per head of population. This "law of diminishing returns" may be
illustrated by a simpler example. Let us suppose that during one year a
market garden worked by one man has produced vegetables to the value of
L10. During the second year the garden is worked by ten men and produces
vegetables to the value of L200. It is obvious that the work of ten men has
produced twice as much per head as the work of one man, because each man
has produced not L10 but L20. During the third year the garden is worked by
twenty men and yields vegetables to the value of L300. The total yield is
greater, but the yield per head is less, because each man has produced not
L20 but L15. The point of maximum production per head has been passed, and
the law of diminishing returns is operating.

By restricting the birth-rate Malthusians would limit the population to the
number necessary for maximum production per head. Now, in the first place,
it would be very difficult, if not impossible, in the case of a country
with various industries, to decide when the line of maximum production had
been passed at any given time. Moreover, it would be utterly impossible
to fix this line permanently. In the case of our market garden the
introduction of intensive horticulture might mean that maximum production
per head required the work of forty men. Again, the very phrase "maximum
production per head" implies sterling moral qualities in the workers,
and an absence of drones; and sterling moral qualities have never been
prominent in any nation, once the practice of artificial birth control has
been adopted. Lastly, the Christian ideal requires for its realisation, not
a maximum, but an adequate supply of food, clothing, shelter, and fuel.
Christianity teaches that to seek after the maximum enjoyment of material
things is not the chief end of man, because the life of a man in this world
is very short compared with his life in eternity.

(c) _Wages_

The Wages Fund Theory is an economic reflection of the Malthusian myth.
This theory assumes that a definite fixed sum is available every year for
distribution as wages amongst labourers, so that the more numerous
the labourers the less wages will each one receive. From this theory
Malthusians argue that the only remedy for low wages is artificial birth
control. They carefully refrain from telling the working classes the other
aspect of this Wages Fund theory--namely, that if the workers in one trade
receive a rise in wages, a corresponding reduction must be made in the
wages of others, so that a rise in wages here and there confers no
real benefit on the labouring classes as a whole. That is merely one
illustration of capitalist bias in the Malthusian propaganda. In any case,
economic science has discarded the Wages Fund Theory as a pure fiction.
No fixed or definite sum is available for wages, because the wages of a
labourer are derived from the produce of his work. Even in the case of
making a railway, where wages are paid before the work is completed, the
money is advanced by shareholders on the security of the proceeds that will
eventually accrue from the produce of the labourers.

Section 2. POVERTY IN GREAT BRITAIN DUE TO OTHER CAUSES

(a) _Under-development_

Even if the theory of birth controllers, that a high birth-rate increases
poverty, were as true as it is false, it could not possibly apply to Great
Britain or to any other country open to commercial intercourse with the
world; because there is no evidence that the supply of food in the world
either cannot or will not be increased to meet any actual or possible
demand. Within the British Empire alone there was an increase of 75 per
cent. in the production of wheat between 1901 and 1911. [15] In Great
Britain there has been not only an increase of population but also an
increased consumption of various foods per head of the population.
Moreover, if Britain were as well cultivated as is Flanders we could
produce all or nearly all our own food. [16]

The truth is that in countries such as England, Belgium, and Bengal,
usually cited by Malthusians, as illustrating the misery that results
from overpopulation, there is no evidence whatsoever to prove that the
population is pressing on the soil. On the contrary, we find ample physical
resources sufficient to support the entire population, and we also find
evidence of human injustice, incapacity, and corruption sufficient to
account for the poverty and misery that exist in these countries. This was
especially so in Ireland during the first half of the nineteenth century.
[17] Moreover, so far from high birth-rates being the cause of poverty, we
shall find that poverty is one of the causes of a high birth-rate (p. 69).

(b) _Severance of the Inhabitants from the Soil_

It was not a high birth-rate that established organised poverty in England.
In the sixteenth century the greater part of the land, including common
land belonging to the poor, was seized by the rich. They began by robbing
the Catholic Church, and they ended by robbing the people. [18] Once
machinery was introduced in the eighteenth century, the total wealth of
England was enormously increased; but the vast majority of the people
had little share in this increase of wealth that accrued from machinery,
because only a small portion of the people possessed capital. More children
came, but they came to conditions of poverty and of child-labour in the
mills. In countries where more natural and stable social conditions exist,
and where there are many small owners of land, large families, so far from
being a cause of poverty, are of the greatest assistance to their parents
and to themselves. There are means whereby poverty could be reduced, but
artificial birth control would only increase the total poverty of the
State, and therefore of the individual.

From early down to Tudor times, the majority of the inhabitants of England
lived on small holdings. For example, in the fifteenth century there were
twenty-one small holdings on a particular area measuring 160 acres. During
the sixteenth century the number of holdings on this area had fallen to
six, and in the seventeenth century the 160 acres became _one_ farm.
Occasionally an effort was made to check this process, and by a statute of
Elizabeth penalties were enacted against building any cottages "without
laying four acres of land thereto." On the other hand, acres upon acres
were given to the larger landowners by a series of Acts for the enclosure
of common land, whereby many labourers were deprived of their land. From
the reign of George I to that of George III _nearly four thousand enclosure
bills_ were passed. These wrongs have not been righted.

"To urge," wrote Professor Bain, "that there is sufficient poverty and
toil in the world without bringing in more to share it than can be
provided for, implies either begging the question at issue--a direct
imputation that the world is at present very badly managed--or that all
persons should take it upon themselves to say how much poverty and toil
will exist in any part of the world in the future, or limit the
productiveness of any race, because inadequate means of feeding,
clothing, or employing them may be adopted in that part of time
sometimes called unborn eternity. As a rule, the result usually has
been: limit the increase of population without adequate cause, and the
reaction causes deterioration or annihilation." [19]

Lastly, there is evidence that poverty has existed in thinly populated
countries. Richard Cobden, writing in 1836, of Russia, states: "The mass of
the people are sunk in poverty, ignorance, and barbarism, scarcely rising
above a state of nature, and yet it has been estimated that this country
contains more than 750,000 square miles of land, of a quality not inferior
to the best portions of Germany, and upon which a population of 200,000,000
might find subsistence." [20]

Section 3. CAUSES OF POVERTY IN INDIA

In reality chronic poverty exists both in the thickly-peopled and in the
thinly-peopled regions of India, and therefore the overpopulation theory is
an inadequate explanation. Moreover, there are certain obvious and admitted
evils, sufficient in themselves to account for the chronic poverty of
India, and of these four are quoted by Devas. [21]

"(1) The grave discouragement to all rural improvement and in
particular to the sinking of deep wells, by the absence outside Bengal
of fixity of tenure, the landholder having the prospect of his
assessment being raised every fifteen or thirty years. (2) Through most
of India the unchecked oppression of usurers, in whose toils many
millions of landholders are so bound as to lack means or motive for the
proper cultivation of the soil. (3) A system of law and police totally
unfit for small cultivators--witness the plague of litigation, appeals
as 250 to 1 in England, habitual perjury, manufactured crime, and
blackmailing by corrupt native police, all destructive of rural amity,
co-operation, and industry. (4) Taxation oppressive both in quantity
and quality: demanded, on pain of eviction and imprisonment, to be paid
punctually and rigidly in cash, instead of optionally or occasionally
in kind, or flexible, according to the variations of the seasons;
moreover, levied on salt, raising the price of this necessity of life
at least ten times, often much more; when precisely an abundant supply
of salt, with the climate and diet of India, is a prime need for men
and cattle."

Section 4. POVERTY IN FACT CAUSES A HIGH BIRTH-RATE

As will be shown in Chapter V, poverty is generally the cause and not the
result of a high birth-rate. The Malthusian doctrine has been and is to-day
a barrier to social reform, because it implies that humane legislation,
by encouraging population, will of necessity defeat the aim of those who
desire to improve the conditions of the poor by methods other than the
practice of artificial birth control. To a very great extent Malthusian
teaching was responsible for the Poor Law of 1834, the most severe in
Europe, the demoralising laxity of the old Poor Law being replaced by
degrading severity. Again, as recently as 1899, a Secretary of State
reiterated the Malthusian doctrine by explaining that great poverty
throughout India was due to the increase of population under the _pax
Britannica_. Now the truth is that if the social conditions of the poor
were improved, we have every reason to believe that their birth-rate would
be reduced, because as civilisation in a community progresses there is a
natural decline in fertility. Hence:

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