C. P. Blacker

“ After further tension has accumulated, a trivial incident—the possible murder of an American official in Japan by some irresponsible person—might lead to the despatch of a curtly-worded note or to the formulation of an abrupt ultimatum out of which a second world war might, like the last, suddenly flare up, to reduce modern civilization to ruins and ashes. ”

“ The fact remains that if the price that humanity will have to pay for learning to regulate its over-multiplication is to be a second world war—the much talked of war, this time, between East and West—it is doubtful if there will be left a civilization capable of learning the lesson. ”

“ It has achieved a mastery over nature such that mankind is now economically unified throughout the world by the astounding feats of intercommunication and transport. But as yet the human race has achieved little ethical unification. It is directly in the interests of the race that such unification should take place, and all things which promote it may therefore be considered biologically good. And of those things a restriction of human fertility is one of the most important.
What then is to be our biological criterion of racial fitness and our standard [78] for judging of a nation’s merit? ”

“ This spirit now makes it difficult for those endowed with a superfluity, or even a sufficiency of wealth, to contemplate with indifference the misery and degradation of less fortunately placed fellow human beings. ”

“ It is clear that our biological criterion must be racial rather than individual. Division of labour and differentiation of function are carried to such lengths in civilized societies that it does not seem possible to hold up any individual type as an ideal of biological fitness. Qualities which, to the solitary animal, would irrevocably spell extinction may for the gregarious animal have the highest survival value. Thus no attribute would be more irremediably fatal to a non-social animal than sterility. ”

“ The last outstanding argument is to the effect that the popularization of Birth Control will lead to a general increase in promiscuity, both among married and unmarried people. The temptation to illicit indulgence would be made greater, the process of seducing an innocent girl would be made easier, the ever-present lure of prostitution to the underpaid girl worker would be made more difficult to resist, if an assurance could be felt that the subsequent birth of a child—hitherto a generally prevalent and effective deterrent—could be prevented by the exercise of a popularly known technique. ”

“ But our numbers have not adapted themselves to our diminished power of employing labour thus created. On the contrary, the population has continued steadily to increase, with the result that by slow degrees the unemployment problem which, at present, looms so large on our political horizon began insidiously to disclose itself. ”

“ By the time a war comes it is possible that the exploitation of China by Japan will be more complete, and the effects of anti-foreign propaganda, carried on by Russia, more far-reaching. The increase of anti-British feeling in India, also stimulated by Russia, will co-operate to unify Asia and European Russia in a solid block, determined to shake off the yoke of the Western Powers and of America. ”

“ Thus from a social point of view it is to be observed that quantitatively, in relation to the present resources of the country, England is at the present day considerably over-populated; and qualitatively that many persons of all classes possessing inferior physique are now artificially kept alive to perpetuate their stock, while at the same time those elements of the population who, by lack of intelligence or thrift or steadiness, or who by possession of other defects have been reduced to the lowest level of the social structure, to-day constitute the most fertile strain in the country. ”

“ When, however, we contemplate the war after a lapse of several years through an aftermath of much suffering and disillusionment, we realize that it was the product of historical causes and racial antipathies and of certain social and economic phenomena rather than of any unequal partition of moral qualities. ”

“ There is an ‘economic’ argument against Birth Control, which itself takes two forms.
In the first place it is felt, in under-populated countries like New Zealand, Australia, and perhaps to a less extent the United States, that since it is desirable in the general interests that the population should increase, it is to be preferred that this increase be effected from native-born stock rather than through the process of accretion by often undesirable aliens. Hence in most under-populated countries, Birth Control is opposed. ”

“ It is clear, however, that all arguments relating to the individual are limited in their appeal to those in whose minds the conception of morality [50] is somehow related to that of individual harmony and happiness and to the ideal of the general good. To those for whom the word ‘morality’ has an ulterior meaning, unconnected with the affairs of this world and relevant, solely, to the destiny of the individual soul—I refer, here to those who enlist the ‘Will of God’ of which they are the self-constituted interpreters, on their side—no argument can be of any avail. ”

“ To what extent is the relative sterility of the professional and skilled working classes attributable to the heavy taxation now imposed on them, and to the rise in the cost of living due to the war, and to what extent is it the result of a preference shown by many people for a more or less luxurious life, with few or no children, to a simpler life with several children? ”

“ There should be a high average standard of comfort, self-respect and happiness, and a high moral standard of honesty, tolerance, and kindliness. One would hope for a wide prevalence of that ‘joie de vivre’ and contentment which is doubtless largely temperamental in origin and which contributes more to an individual’s happiness than any number of worldly possessions can ever do. And the social cleavage between classes, and the now stupendous discrepancies between the very rich and the very poor should be reduced to a minimum. ”

“ It is unlikely that the antagonism between capital and labour will be much affected by a control of population beyond removing that source of social unrest which is furnished by a large body of unemployed. It remains doubtful, however, if the essential political issue will be much modified by a solution of the unemployment problem. The psychological forces which give the Labour party its driving power are not such as to produce the fullest economic prosperity in this country ”

“ It is difficult to know what percentage of the unwanted children born in the poorer quarters of our large towns are conceived as the result of a culpable aggression on the part of the husband upon his wife—as when he returns home drunk on Saturday night and threatens her with physical violence if she refuses to submit to his conjugal rights—or as the result of an ignorance of Birth Control methods which are familiar to the more educated classes. ”

“ Failure to do so would result in the depressing spectacle of the leader of the religion of ‘Peace and Goodwill’ among men deliberately refusing to take a step to avert war.
The second type of religion is represented in Japan and is tribal in the sense that it is avowedly concerned with the glorification of the Japanese, irrespective of the consequences to the world that this may involve. In its object of elevating Japan to the status of a first class power the cult of revived Shinto has succeeded admirably and has proved itself, in several wars, to be a splendid fighting creed. ”

“ Because England was the pioneer of the Industrial Revolution, she enjoyed initially an unprecedented national prosperity, unharassed by competitors and with the world as her market. Though the conditions of many of the early factory-workers were unquestionably appalling, the wealth and economic importance of this country increased so rapidly that she was enabled to support immensely greater numbers than at any previous period of her history. ”

“ By Roman Catholics it is held to be a mortal sin to employ any chemical or mechanical means to prevent conception, the only permissible form of control being voluntary abstinence from each other on the part of both parents. The abstinence of one parent against the will of the other is also considered a mortal sin on the part of the refractory parent. An exception to this rule is now made which permits parents not desiring children to make use of a moment in the periodic life of the mother during which conception is less likely to take place than at other times—the so-called ‘safe’ period. ”

“ And no sooner is a child born than the husband reasserts his “rights,” and the same dismal cycle repeats itself without prospect or hope of change, or of relief from a body that has ceased to know the easy freedom and self-forgetfulness of good health. ”

“ At the moment the indisputable facts of the problem in this country are that we are over-populated, that contraception is practised too much by the upper and middle classes—perhaps even by the skilled working classes—and not enough by the improvident unskilled masses at the bottom of the social edifice. ”

“ The sterilization of the male leaves quite undisturbed his sexual function, though it destroys his power of reproduction. The infringement which it therefore involves of the liberty of the individual is far less than that made by the State when it takes it upon itself to hang a man. Yet the social benefit arising from the two measures cannot be compared. Though it is difficult at this stage to define the details of Eugenic legislation it seems likely that the physical and moral standard of the race could broadly be raised by such a qualitative Birth Control. ”

“ By the Japanese, Birth Control is condemned on grounds that seem to be, partly at any rate, nationalistic. The Japanese religion, intimately connected as it is with Ancestor Cult, holds that it is the duty of every man to marry young, and to produce the largest possible number of children, especially males, who may carry on the tradition of the family and at the same time grow up into soldiers capable of fighting for the Mikado in war. ”

“ The mutual fear and distrust is growing and will probably continue to grow. There is little doubt, that, if this war comes about, its essential cause, the increase of Japanese in excess of the [68] power of maintenance of their country, will be obscured by that outburst of vilification of the enemy and glorification of self which is now demanded by popular sentiment in the conduct of wars. Yet this cause will remain here incomparably the most important of the predisposing causes. After such a war will there remain any vestige of civilization to profit from the hard-won lesson? ”

“ The ‘military’ argument finds exponents among Nationalists, who are convinced that the essential merit of a country lies in its powers of offence and defence, or who are persuaded that future wars are, by the constitution of human nature, inevitable, and that it is therefore necessary for the country to which they belong to be fully equipped. By such persons, Birth Control is opposed in so far as it would impair their country’s man power. ”

“ Before the war, Great Britain was the most powerful nation in the world and was naturally jealous of any other nation that coveted, or aspired to usurp, her enviable status.
Russia found herself in a condition of acute social instability, momentarily threatened by the event which in 1917 cast her beyond the pale of western civilization. ”

“ This obtains of the man who suffers from a sense of obligation towards his children. The opposite holds good of the unemployed man at the other end of the social scale. He feels that he has sunk as low as is possible for him while still remaining out of prison. Insidiously his ambition and his self-respect become sapped by the soul-killing experience of finding himself a useless parasite upon the community. ”

“ In face of the absence of any authoritative source of information on Birth Control, and of the indifference of the medical profession with regard to it, certain popular works on the subject have acquired an immense vogue and have enjoyed an enormous sale. Though not intended for this purpose, they are purchased and read extensively by young persons in much the same spirit that improper literature in general is read. ”

“ Omitting from consideration, as probably unjust, the motive of wishing to increase the number of its adherents, with which the Roman Catholic Church has been charged by reason of its attitude towards Birth Control, there remains a motive arising from a theory of a relation between salvation in the next world and certain modes of behaviour in this. Contraception is condemned because it is held to incur damnation. It is not condemned because it leads to social injustice, to wars, to human suffering. ”