iscussion in England than it
has hitherto received. The second method--operating at present only in a
very casual and unsystematic way--ought, one would say, to be very
systematically considered and dealt with by the modern States. For a
nation to plant out large bodies of colonists on comparatively
unoccupied lands, as in Africa or Australia or Canada, in a deliberate
and organized fashion, with every facility towards co-operation and
success, and yet on the principle of leaving, each colonial unit plenty
of freedom and autonomy, would not be a very difficult task, nor a very
expensive one, considering the end in view. And in such a case there
would really be no adequate reason for jealousy between States having
colonies in the neighbourhood of each other. If Germany (or any other
country) wishes to have a colony in East Africa or West Africa, it is
really ridiculous to go to war about such a matter. Any peaceful
arrangement would be less expensive; and, as a matter of fact, a
flourishing German (or other) colony in the neighbourhood of a British
settlement would help to bring prosperity to the latter. The two
colonies would benefit each other. It is only _unreasoning jealousy_
which prevents people understanding this.

Finally, there is the third method, of the intentional limitation of
families. Surely the time has come when blind and unlimited propagation
among civilized and self-respecting peoples must come to an end. The
old text "Blessed is he that hath his quiver full of them" has ceased to
have any use or application. Eugenic and healthy conditions of
child-rearing and nurture demand small families. The well-to-do and
educated do already limit their families; and for the poorer classes to
breed and propagate indefinitely is only to play into the hands of the
dividend-hunting rich by increasing the supply of cheap labour, while at
the same time the general standard of the population becomes more and
more degraded. It is indeed a curious question why, in the Press and
among the official classes, every effort to spread abroad the knowledge
of how in a healthy, humane, and eugenic way to limit the size of the
family is discountenanced. Sometimes one thinks that this is done partly
in order to encourage that said pullulation of workers which is so
favourable to, the keeping down of wages; but, of course, ancient
reasons of ignorance and religious bias weigh also. In the United States
the persecutions of Comstockery