The point for our consideration at the moment, however, is that if the production of all capable workers, whether mental or manual, is to be curtailed and the numbers of the population maintained in greater proportion from the mentally deficient or criminal cla.s.ses, the result must be national disaster. For in a very short time there will not be enough leaders of real capacity to occupy positions of initiative and responsibility in the various activities of the country at home and abroad, nor will there be an adequate supply of good practical work: a lowered standard of efficiency must result. From a national point of view, therefore, we regard the propaganda in favour of conception control to be a real and increasing danger.
The problem of the mentally deficient is of another order. In this case another kind of control is urgently needed, but it is one which can only be undertaken by the State, and not by the individual. It is to put in force such a method of compulsory segregation as would ensure the comfort and contentment of the mentally deficient, and safeguard them and the nation from the reproduction of their kind.
The problem also of the insane and criminal cla.s.ses in relation to heredity is one which demands careful consideration by those competent to give it.
SUMMARY OF CONCLUSIONS
1. There are certain women who for medical reasons should be prevented from bearing children.
2. There are couples with undesirable inheritance who rightly decline to bear children.
3. There are many women of the poorer cla.s.ses in whom child-bearing is sometimes the last straw in circ.u.mstances all of which tend to destroy health and vitality.
4. Public teaching on contraceptives, like medical advice advertised in newspapers, is generally applied to cases for which it is unsuitable and applied in the wrong way.
It is therefore detrimental to public health as well as being detrimental to public morality.
5. A public opinion in favour of small s.p.a.ced families does not serve the best interests of the children or of their mother.
6. Married love should express itself at once in the usual way without the use of artificial contraceptives.
7. The diminishing fertility of the more capable cla.s.ses is a national peril.
To counteract this tendency every encouragement should be given to the intelligent and efficient cla.s.ses of the community to bear healthy children.
The study of problems which give rise periodically to a propaganda in favour of the practice of conception control reveal the fact that excessive child-bearing is found in those cla.s.ses who suffer the greatest privation, and in whom large families are a real hardship, while many couples among the well-to-do are childless though greatly desiring children.
Such facts suggest that the true remedy for the general problem lies in raising the standard of living among working-cla.s.s mothers and advising a more simple life to the more richly endowed.
8. It is desirable that the Government should make provision for methods which will arrest the propagation of the mentally deficient, insane and criminal cla.s.ses.