3.7

An examination of the entries in 'Who's Who' gives about the same
proportion for well-to-do families in England. The Catholic birth-rate
of the Irish is nearly 40.[21] The French-Canadians are among the most
prolific races in the world. On the other hand, their infant mortality
is very high, and it is said that French-Canadian parents take these
losses philosophically. It is quite a different question whether it is
ultimately to the advantage of a nation which desires to increase its
numbers to profess the Roman Catholic religion. The high birth-rates are
all in unprogressive Catholic populations. When a Catholic people begins
to be educated, the priests apparently lose their influence upon the
habits of the laity, and a rapid decline in the births at once sets in.
The most advanced countries which did not accept the Reformation, France
and Belgium, are precisely those in which parental prudence has been
carried almost to excess. We must also remember that the Dutch Boers,
who are Protestants, but who live under simple conditions not unlike
those of the French-Canadians, are equally prolific, as were our own
colonists in the United States before that country was industrialised.
The advantages in numbers gained by Roman Catholicism are likely to be
confined to half-empty countries, where there is really room for more
citizens, and where social ambition and the love of comfort are the
chief motives for restricting the family.

The population of a settled country cannot be increased at will; it
depends on the supply of food. The choice is between a high birth-rate
combined with a high death-rate, and a low birth-rate with a low
death-rate. The great saving of life which has been effected during the
last fifty years carries with it the necessity of restricting the
births. The next question to be considered is how this restriction is to
be brought about. The oldest methods are deliberate neglect and
infanticide. In China, where authorities differ as to the extent to
which female infants are exposed, the practice certainly prevails of
feeding infants whom their mothers are unable to suckle on rice and
water, which soon terminates their existence. Such methods would happily
find no advocates in Europe. The very ancient art of procuring
miscarriage is a criminal act in most civilised countries, but it is
practised to an appalling extent. Hirsch, who quotes his authorities,
estimates that 2,000,000 births are so p