In all probability Lord Dawson was unaware of the foregoing, but there is one fact which, as a Neo-Malthusian, he ought to have known, because the omission of this fact in his address is a serious matter. When referring to France as a country where birth control had come to stay, Lord Dawson did not tell his audience that the Government of France has now suppressed the only Malthusian periodical in that country, and has proposed a law, whereby those who engage in birth control propaganda shall be imprisoned.
Section 2. EVIDENCE FROM HOLLAND
As regards other countries, Holland is usually described as the Mecca of Malthusians, being "the only country where Neo-Malthusianism has been given the opportunity of diminishing the excessive birth-rate on eugenic lines, i.e. in the reduction of the fertility of the poorest classes," [38] and where a "considerable rise in the wages and general prosperity appears to have taken place side by side with an unprecedented increase of population." When we come to investigate this claim we find that, of the eleven provinces of Holland, two are almost entirely Catholic, these being North Brabant, with 649,000 inhabitants, and Limburg, with 358,000 inhabitants. On the other hand, in Friesland, with 366,000 inhabitants, not more than 8 per cent, are Catholics. The vital statistics for 1913 are quoted by Father Thurston, S.J.:
"… We find that in Limburg the crude birth-rate is 33.4, in North Brabant it is 32.5, but in Friesland it is 24.3. Of course, this is not the beginning and end of the matter. In North Brabant the death-rate is 16.36, in Limburg it is 15.28, in Friesland it is only 11.21, but the fact remains that in the two Catholic provinces the natural increase is 16.17 and 18.15, while in the non-Catholic province of Friesland it is 13.15. Further, no one can doubt that in such densely populated districts as North and South Holland and Gelderland the Catholics, who number more than 25 per cent, of the inhabitants, exercise a perceptible influence in raising the birth figures for the whole kingdom. The results would be very different if the entire country adopted Neo-Malthusian principles." [39]
Section 3. THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
As was proved by the census of religions in 1906, the United States of America is becoming a great stronghold of the Faith. In Massachusetts the Catholic Church numbered 1,100,000 members, whereas the total membership of all the Protestant Churches was 450,000. In Illinois there were about 300,000 Methodists and 1,000,000 Catholics. There were 2,300,000 Catholics in the State of New York, and about 300,000 Methodists, while no other Protestant Church numbered more than 200,000. The New England States, once the home of American Puritanism, are now great centres of Catholicism.
Professor Meyrick Booth [40] explains this remarkable change as being due to two causes: (1) The influx of large numbers of European Catholics, who cling tenaciously to their religion; (2) the greater fertility of these stocks as compared with the native population. Moreover, he has tabulated the following statistics:
TABLE IV
State. Population Chief Religious Bodies Births & Birth
(1906) Deaths rate per
(b. and d.) 1,000
Indiana 2,700,000 Methodist 233,000 b. 36,000 13.0
Prot. Episcopalian 102,000 d. 36,500
Disciples 118,000
R.C. 175,000
Iowa. 2,224,000 Methodist 164,000 b. 36,000 16.0
Lutheran 117,000 d. 20,000
Presbyterian 60,000
R.C. 207,000
Maryland. 1,295,000 Methodist 137,000 b. 19,000 15.0
Prot. Episcopalian 35,000 d. 20,000
Baptist & smaller,
about 100,000
R.C. 167,000
California. 2,377,000 R.C. 354,000 b. 32,100 14.0
Prot. bodies about d. 32,400
(All Churches weak) 250,000
Kentucky 2,290,000 Baptist 312,000 b. 35,000 15.0
Methodist 156,000 d. 18,000
R.C. 166,000