It is an important question whether a crowded population adds to the security of a nation or not. Numbers are undoubtedly of great importance in modern warfare. The French would have been less able to resist the Germans without allies in 1914 than they were in 1870. But we must not suppose that France could support a much larger population without reducing her standard of living to the point of under-deeding; and an under-fed nation is incapable of the endurance required of first-class soldiers. A nation may be so much weakened in physique by under-feeding as to be impotent from a military point of view, in spite of great numbers; this is the case in India and China. Deficient nourishment also diminishes the day's work. If European and American capital goes to China, and provides proper food for the workmen, we may have an early opportunity of discovering whether the supporters of the League of Nations have any real conscientious objection to violence and bloodshed. We may surmise that the European man, the fiercest of all beasts of prey, is not likely to abandon the weapons which have made him the lord and the bully of the planet. He has no other superiority to the races which he arrogantly despises. Under a régime of peace the Asiatic would probably be his master. To return from a short digression, we must note further that a nation with a low standard has no reserve to fall back upon; it lives on the margin of subsistence, which may easily fail in war-time, especially if much food is imported when conditions are normal. It can hardly be an accident that in this war the nations with a high birth-rate broke up in the order of their fecundity, while France stood like a rock. The sacrifice of comfort to numbers, which we have seen to be possible by maintaining a low standard of living, not only diminishes the happiness of a nation, and keeps it low in the scale of civilisation; it may easily prove to be a source of weakness in war.
The expedients often advocated to encourage denser population—which those who urge them thoughtlessly assume to be a good thing—such as endowment of parenthood, and better housing at the expense of the taxpayer—have no effect except to penalise and sterilise those who pay the doles, for the benefit of those who receive them. They are intensely dysgenic in their operation, for they cripple and at last eliminate just those stocks which have shown themselves to be above the average in ability. The process has already advanced a long way, even without the reckless legislation which is now advocated. The lowest birth-rates, less than half that of the unskilled labourers, are those of the doctors, the teaching profession, and ministers of religion. The position of this class, intellectually and often physically the finest in the kingdom, is rapidly becoming intolerable, and it is the wastrels who mainly benefit by their spoliation.
The causes of shrinkage in population are the opposites of those which we have found to promote its increase. The production of food may be diminished by the exhaustion of the soil, or by the progressive aridity caused by cutting down woods. The manufacture of goods to be exchanged for food may fall off owing to foreign competition, a result which is likely to follow from a rise in the standard of living, for the labourer then demands higher wages, and consumes more food per head, which of itself must check fertility, since the same amount of food will now support a smaller number. The delusion shared by the whole working class that they can make work for each other, at wages fixed by themselves, is ludicrous; a community cannot subsist 'by taking in each other's washing.' Or the supply of importable food may fail by the peopling up of the countries which grow it. Any conditions which make it no longer worth while to invest capital in business, or which destroy credit, have the same effect. One of the causes of the decay of the Roman Empire was the drain of specie to the East in exchange for perishable commodities. When trade is declining a general listlessness comes over the industrial world, and the output falls still further. There have been alleged instances of peoples which have dwindled and even disappeared from taedium vitae. This is said to have been the cause of the extinction of the Guanches of the Canary Islands; but the symptoms described rather suggest an outbreak of sleeping-sickness.
Paradoxical as it may seem, neither voluntary restriction of births, nor famine, nor pestilence, nor war, has much effect in reducing numbers. Birth-control instead of diminishing the population, may only lower the death-rate. France in 1781, with a birth-rate of 39, had much the same net increase as in the years before the war with a birth-rate of 20. The parallel lines of the births and deaths in this country have already been mentioned. Famine and pestilence are followed at once by an increased number of births. India and China, though frequently ravaged by both these scourges, remain super-saturated. Of course, if the famine is chronic, the population must fall to the point where the food is sufficient; and a zymotic disease which has become endemic may be too strong for the natural fertility of the nation attacked, as has happened to several barbarous races; but an invasion of plague, cholera, or influenza has no permanent effect on the numbers of Europeans. War resembles plague in its action upon population. When, as in the late war, nearly the whole of the able-bodied men are on active service, the loss of population caused by cessation of births is greater than all the fatal casualties of the battle-field. A rough calculation gives the result that twelve million lives have been lost to the belligerent nations by the separation of husbands and wives during the war. And yet it may be predicted that these losses, added to the eight millions or so who have been killed, would be made good in a very few years but for the destruction of capital and credit which the war has caused. If we study the vital statistics of a country like Germany, which has engaged in several severe wars since births and deaths began to be registered, we shall find that the contour-line representing the fluctuations of the birth-rate indicates a steep ravine in the year or years while the war lasted, followed by a hump or high table-land for several years after. In a short time, as far as numbers are concerned, the war is as if it had never been. When we remember that the number of possible fathers is much reduced by casualties, this rise in the birth-rate after a war offers a strong confirmation of the thesis which we have been maintaining, that the ebb and flow of population are not affected by conscious intention, but by increased or diminished pressure of numbers upon subsistence. If the German people, who before the war consumed more food than was good for them, have been habituated by our blockade to a reasonable abstemiousness, we shall have contributed to the eventual increase of the German people, in spite of all their soldiers whom we killed in France, and the civilians whom we starved in Germany. And if our success leads to a greater consumption by our working class, our population will show a corresponding decline. Emigration, as we have seen, does not diminish the home population by a single unit; and so, while there are empty lands available for colonisation, it is by far the best method of adding to the numbers of our race.
It should now be possible to form a judgment on the prospects of the Anglo-Saxon race in various parts of the world. In India, Burma, New Guinea, the West Indian Islands, and tropical Africa there is no possibility of ever planting a healthy European population. These dependencies may grow food for us, or send us articles which we can exchange for food, but they are not, and never can be, colonies of Anglo-Saxons. The prospects of South Africa are very dubious. The white man is there an aristocrat, directing semi-servile labour. The white population of the gold and diamond fields will stay there till the mines give out, and no longer. Large tracts of the country may at last be occupied only by Kaffirs. The United States of America are becoming less Anglo-Saxon every year, and this process is likely to continue, since in unskilled labour the Italian and the Pole seem to give better value for their wages than the Englishman or born American, with his high standard of comfort. In Canada, the temperate part of Australia, New Zealand, and Tasmania the chances for a large and flourishing English-speaking population seem to be very favourable, though in these dominions the high standard of living is a check to population, and in the case of Australasia the possibility of foreign conquest, while these priceless lands are still half empty, cannot be altogether excluded.
Even more interesting to most of us is the future of our race at home. As regards quality, the outlook for the present is bad. We have seen that the destruction of the upper and professional classes by taxation directed expressly against them has already begun, and this victimisation is certain to become more and more acute, till these classes are practically extinguished. The old aristocracy showed a tendency to decay even when they were unduly favoured by legislation, and a little more pressure will drive them to voluntary sterility and extermination. Even more to be regretted is the doom of the professional aristocracy, a caste almost peculiar to our country. These families can often show longer, and usually much better pedigrees than the peerage; the persistence of marked ability in many of them, for several generations, is the delight of the eugenist. They are perhaps the best specimens of humanity to be found in any country of the world. Yet they have no prospects except to be gradually harassed out of existence, like the curiales of the later Roman Empire. The power will apparently be grasped by a new highly privileged class, the aristocracy of labour. This class, being intelligent, energetic, and intensely selfish, may retain its domination for a considerable time. It is a matter of course that, having won its privilege of exploiting the community, it will use all its efforts to preserve that privilege and to prevent others from sharing it. In other words, it will become an exclusive and strongly conservative class, on a broader basis than the territorial and commercial aristocracies which preceded it. It will probably be strong enough to discontinue the system of State doles which encourages the wastrel to multiply, as he does multiply, much faster than the valuable part of the population. We are at present breeding a large parasitic class subsisting on the taxes and hampering the Government. The comparative fertility of the lowest class as compared with the better stocks has greatly increased, and is still increasing. The competent working-class families, as well as the rich, are far less fertile than the waste products of our civilisation. Dr. Tredgold found that 43 couples of the parasitic class averaged 7.4 children per family, while 91 respectable couples from the working class averaged only 3.7 per family. Mr. Sidney Webb examined the statistics of the Hearts of Oak Benefit Society, which is patronised by the best type of mechanic, and found that the birth-rate among its members has fallen 46 per cent, between 1881 and 1901; or, taking the whole period between 1880 and 1904, the falling off is 52 per cent. This decline proves that the period of industrial expansion in England is nearly over. It would be far better if our birth-rate were as low as that of France, as it would be but for the reckless propagation of the 'submerged tenth,' England being now a paradise for human refuse, the offscourings of Europe (170,000 in 1908) take the place of the better stocks, whose position is made artificially unfavourable. These doles are at present paid by the minority, and this method may be expected to continue until the looting of the propertied classes comes to an enforced end. This will not take long, for it is certain that the amount of wealth available for plunder is very much smaller than is usually supposed. It is easy to destroy capital values, but very difficult to distribute them. The time will soon arrive when the patient sheep will be found to have lost not only his fleece but his skin, and the privileged workman will then have to choose between taxing himself and abandoning socialism. There is little doubt which he will prefer. The result will be that the festering sore of our slum-population will dry up, and the gradual disappearance of this element will be some compensation, from the eugenic point of view, for the destruction of the intellectual class. This process will considerably, and beneficially, diminish the population: and there are several other factors which will operate in the same direction. High wage industry can only maintain itself against the competition of cheaper labour abroad by introducing every kind of labour-saving device. The number of hands employed in a factory must progressively diminish. And as, in spite of all that ingenuity can do, the competition of the cheaper races is certain to cripple our foreign trade, the trade unions will be obliged to provide for a shrinkage in their numbers. We may expect that every unionist will be allowed to place one son, and only one, in the privileged corporation. A man will become a miner or a railwayman 'by patrimony,' and it will be difficult to gain admission to a union in any other way. The position of those who cannot find a place within the privileged circle will be so unhappy that most unionists will take care to have one son only. Another change which will tend to discourage families will be the increased employment of women as bread-winners. Nothing is more remarkable in the study of vital statistics than the comparative birth-rates of those districts in which women earn wages, and of those in which they do not. The rate of increase among the miners is as great as that of the reckless casual labourers, and the obvious reason is that the miner's wife loses nothing by having children, since she does not earn wages. Contrast with these high figures (running up to 40 per thousand) the very low birth-rates of towns like Bradford, where the women are engaged in the textile industry and earn regular wages in support of the family budget. If the time comes when the majority of women are wage-earners, we may even see the pressure of population entirely withdrawn. Thus in every class of the nation influences are at work tending to a progressive decrease in our national fertility. It must be remembered, however, that at present the annual increase, in peace time, is 9 or 10 per thousand, so that it may be some time before an equilibrium is reached. But if our predictions are sound, a positive decrease, and probably a rapid one, is likely to follow. For our ability to exchange our manufactures for food will grow steadily less, as the self-indulgent and 'work-shy' labourer succeeds in gaining his wishes. If the coal begins to give out, the retreat will become a rout.
We are witnessing the decline and fall of the social order which began with the industrial revolution 160 years ago. The cancer of industrialism has begun to mortify, and the end is in sight. Within 200 years, it may be—for we must allow for backwashes and cross-currents which will retard the flow of the stream—the hideous new towns which disfigure our landscape may have disappeared, and their sites may have been reclaimed for the plough. Humanitarian legislation, so far from arresting this movement, is more likely to accelerate it, and the same may be said of the insatiate greed of our new masters. It is indeed instructive to observe how cupidity and sentiment, which (with pugnacity) are the only passions which the practical politician needs to consider, usually defeat their own ends. The working man is sawing at the branch on which he is seated. He may benefit for a time a minority of his own class, but only by sealing the doom of the rest. A densely populated country, which is unable to feed itself, can never be a working-man's paradise, a land of short hours and high wages. And the sentimentalist, kind only to be cruel, unwittingly promotes precisely the results which he most deprecates, though they are often much more beneficial than his own aims. The evil that he would he does not; and the good that he would not, that he sometimes does.
For, much as we must regret the apparently inevitable ruin of the upper and upper middle classes, to which England in the past has owed the major part of her greatness, we cannot regard the trend of events as an unmixed misfortune. The industrial revolution has no doubt had some beneficial results. It has founded the British Empire, the most interesting and perhaps the most successful experiment in government on a large scale that the world has yet seen. It has foiled two formidable attempts to place Europe under the heel of military monarchies. It has brought order and material civilisation to many parts of the world which before were barbarous. But these achievements have been counterbalanced by many evils, and in any case they have done their work. The aggregation of mankind in large towns is itself a misfortune; the life of great cities is wholesome neither for body nor for mind. The separation of classes has become more complete; the country may even be divided into the picturesque counties where money is spent, and the ugly counties where it is made. Except London and the sea-ports, the whole of the South of England is more or less parasitic. We must add that in the early days of the movement the workman and his children were exploited ruthlessly. It is true that if they had not been exploited they would not have existed; but a root of bitterness was planted which, according to what seems to be the law in such cases, sprang up and bore its poisonous fruit about two generations later. It is a sinister fact that the worst trouble is now made by the youngest men. The large fortunes which were made by the manufacturers were not, on the whole, well spent. Their luxury was not of a refined type; literature and art were not intelligently encouraged; and even science was most inadequately supported. The great achievements of the nineteenth century in science and letters, and to a less degree in art, were independent of the industrial world, and were chiefly the work of that class which is now sinking helplessly under the blows of predatory taxation. Capitalism itself has degenerated; the typical millionaire is no longer the captain of industry, but the international banker and company promoter. It is more difficult than ever to find any rational justification for the accumulations which are in the hands of a few persons. It is not to be expected that the working class should be less greedy and unscrupulous than the educated; indeed it is plain that, now that it realises its power, it will be even more so. In some ways the national character has stood the strain of these unnatural conditions very well. Those who feared that the modern Englishman would make a poor soldier have had to own that they were entirely wrong. But as long as industrialism continues, we shall be in a state of thinly disguised civil war. There can be no industrial peace while our urban population remains, because the large towns are the creation of the system which their inhabitants now want to destroy. They can and will destroy it, but only by destroying themselves. When the suicidal war is over we shall have a comparatively small population, living mainly in the country and cultivating the fruits of the earth. It will be more like the England of the eighteenth century than the England which we know. There will be no very rich men; and if the birth-rate is regulated there should be no paupers. It will be a far pleasanter age to live in than the present, and more favourable to the production of great intellectual work, for life will be more leisurely, and social conditions more stable. We may hope that some of our best families will determine to survive, coûte que coûte, until these better times arrive. We shall not attempt to prophesy what the political constitution will be. Every existing form of government is bad; and our democracy can hardly survive the two diseases which generally kill democracies—reckless plunder of the national wealth, and the impotence of the central government in face of revolutionary and predatory sectionalism.
Meanwhile, we must understand that although the consideration of mankind in the mass, and the calculation of tendencies based on figures and averages, must lead us to somewhat pessimistic and cynical views of human nature, there is no reason why individuals, unless they wish to make a career out of politics (since it is the sad fate of politicians always to deal with human nature at its worst), should conform themselves to the low standards of the world around them. It is only 'in the loomp' that humanity, whether poor or rich, 'is bad.' There are materials, though far less abundant than we could wish, for a spiritual reformation, which would smooth the transition to a new social order, and open to us unfailing sources of happiness and inspiration, which would not only enable us to tide over the period of dissolution, but might make the whole world our debtor. No nation is better endowed by nature with a faculty for sane idealism than the English. We were never intended to be a nation of shopkeepers, if a shopkeeper is doomed to be merely a shopkeeper, which of course he is not. Our brutal commercialism has been a temporary aberration; the quintessential Englishman is not the hero of Smiles' 'Self-help'; he is Raleigh, Drake, Shakespeare, Milton, Johnson, or Wordsworth, with a pleasant spice of Dickens. He is, in a word, an idealist who has not quite forgotten that he is descended from an independent race of sea-rovers, accustomed to think and act for themselves. Mr. Havelock Ellis, one of the wisest and most fearless of our prophets to-day, quotes from an anonymous journalist a prediction which may come true: 'London may yet be the spiritual capital of the world; while Asia—rich in all that gold can buy and guns can give, lord of lands and bodies, builder of railways and promulgator of police regulations, glorious in all material glories—postures, complacent and obtuse, before a Europe content in the possession of all that matters.' For, as the Greek poet says, 'the soul's wealth is the only real wealth.' The spirit creates values, while the demagogue shrieks to transfer the dead symbols of them. 'All that matters' is what the world can neither give nor take away. The spiritual integration of society which we desire and behold afar off must be illuminated by the dry light of science, and warmed by the rays of idealism, a white light but not cold. And idealism must be compacted as a religion, for it is the function of religion to prevent the fruits of the flowering-times of the spirit from being lost. Science has not yet come to its own in forming the beliefs and practice of mankind, because it has been so much excluded from higher education, and so much repressed by sentimentalism under the wing of religion. The nation that first finds a practical reconciliation between science and idealism is likely to take the front place among the peoples of the world. In England we have to struggle not only against ignorance, but against a deep-rooted intellectual insincerity, which is our worst national fault. The Englishman hates an idea which he has never met before, as he hates the disturber of his privacy in a steam-ship cabin; and he takes opportunities of making things unpleasant for those who utter indiscreet truths. As Samuel Butler says: 'We hold it useful to have a certain number of melancholy examples whose notorious failure shall serve as a warning to those who do not cultivate a power of immoral self-control which shall prevent them from saying, or even thinking, anything that shall not be to their immediate and palpable advantage.' To do our countrymen justice, it is often not self-interest, but a tendency to deal with the concrete instance, in disregard of the general law, that blinds them to the larger aspects of great problems. Those who are able to trace causes and effects further than the majority must expect to be unpopular, but they will not mind it, if they can do good by speaking. The logic of events will justify them, and science has a new weapon in official statistics which will register at once the disastrous effects upon wealth and trade which the insane theories of the demagogue will bring about. No agitator can explain away ascertained figures; if we go down hill, we shall do it with our eyes open. It may be that reactions will be set up which will render the anticipations in this article erroneous. Things never turn out either so well or so badly as they logically ought to do. Prophecy is only an amusement; what does concern us all deeply is that we should see in what direction we are now moving.