176 married couples had 0 children = 0 children
106 " " " 1 child = 106 "
88 " " " 2 children = 176 "
40 " " " 3 " = 120 "
19 " " " 4 " = 76 "
7 " " " 5 " = 35 "
4 " " " 6 " = 24 "
3 " " " 7 " = 21 "
1 " " " 9 " = 9 "
1 " " " 11 " = 11 "
Total 445 with 578
That is, an average one and a third children per couple, while each single one of these families could much more easily have supported twenty children than a working-class family a single child."
"Comment on the above is superfluous," adds Dr. C.V. Drysdale, and with that remark most people will cordially disagree. The obvious interpretation of the foregoing figures is that there has been a decline in natural fertility amongst highly educated and civilised people. But that interpretation does not suit Dr. Drysdale's book, and hence we have the disgraceful spectacle of a writer who, in order to bolster up an argument which is rotten from beginning to end, does not hesitate to launch without a particle of evidence a charge of gross hypocrisy against the Quakers of England, a body of men and women who in peace and in war have proved the sincerity of their faith, and against four hundred and seventy respected citizens of Paris. Further comment on that is superfluous. At the same time it is obvious that, in so far as their pernicious propaganda spreads and is adopted, Malthusians may claim to contribute to the fall of the birth-rate, and towards the decline of the Empire.
Section 2. DECLINE IN FERTILITY DUE TO SOME NATURAL LAW
In the course of an inquiry on the fertility of women who had received a college education, the National Birth Rate Commission [63] attempted to discover to what extent birth control was practised amongst the middle and professional classes. Of those amongst whom the inquiry was made 477 gave definite answers, from which it was ascertained that 289, or 60 per cent., consciously limited their families, or attempted to do so; and that 188, or 40 per cent. made no attempt to limit their families. Amongst those who limited their families 183 stated the means employed, and of these, 105, or 57 per cent., practised continence, whilst 78, or 43 per cent., used artificial or unnatural methods.
Now comes a most extraordinary fact. Dr. Major Greenwood, [64] a statistician whose methods are beyond question, discovered that there was no real mathematical difference between the number of children in the "limited" families and the number in the unlimited families. In both groups of families the number of children was smaller than the average family in the general population, and in both groups there were fewer children than in the families of the preceding generation to which the parents belonged. Dr. Greenwood states that this is prima facie evidence that deliberate birth control has produced little effect, and that the lowered fertility is the expression of a natural change. Nevertheless, he holds that the latter explanation cannot be accepted as wholly proved on the evidence, owing to certain defects in the data on which his calculations were based.
"I am of opinion that we should hesitate before adopting that interpretation in view of the cogent indirect evidence afforded by other data that the fall of the birth-rate is differential, and that the differentiation is largely economic. There are at least two considerations which must be borne in mind in connection with these schedules. The first is, that all the marriages described as unlimited may not have been so. I do not suggest that the answers are intentionally false, but it is possible that many may have considered that limitation implied the use of mechanical means; that marriages in which the parties merely abstained from, or limited the occasions of, sexual intercourse may have frequently entered as of unrestricted fertility."
The above italics are mine, because, if that surmise be correct, it goes to prove that the restriction of intercourse to certain periods, which restriction the married may lawfully practise, is as efficacious in limiting the size of a family as are those artificial methods of birth control contrary both to natural and to Christian morality. Dr. Major Greenwood continues as follows:
"In the second place, the schedules do not provide us with information as to when limitation was introduced. We are told, for instance, that the size of the family was five and that its number was limited. This may mean either that throughout the duration of the marriage preventive measures were adopted from time to time, or that after five children had been born fertile intercourse was stopped. In the absence of detailed information on this point it is plainly impossible to form an accurate judgment as to the effect of limitation."