e the situation and that in
certain parts of India there are foreshadowings of birth-control. For
example, he quotes from the census report for 1901 this official
explanation of a slight drop in the birth-rate of Bengal: "The
postponement of the age of marriage cannot wholly account for the
diminished rate of reproduction. The deliberate avoidance of
child-bearing must also be partly responsible.... It is a matter of
common belief that among the tea-garden coolies of Assam means are
frequently taken to prevent conception, or to procure abortion." And the
report of the Sanitary Commissioner of Assam for 1913 states: "An
important factor in producing the defective birth-rate appears to be due
to voluntary limitation of birth."[270]

However, these beginnings of birth-control are too local and partial to
afford any immediate relief to India's growing over-population. Wider
appreciation of the situation and prompt action are needed. "The
conclusion is irresistible. We can no longer afford to shut our eyes to
the social canker in our midst. In the land of the bullock-cart, the
motor has come to stay. The competition is now with the more advanced
races of the West, and we cannot tell them what Diogenes said to
Alexander: 'Stand out of my sunshine.' After the close of this gigantic
World War theories of population will perhaps be revised and a reversion
in favour of early marriage and larger families may be counted upon.
But, (1) that will be no solution to our own population problem, and (2)
this reaction will be only for a time.... The law of population may be
arrested in its operation, but there is no way of escaping it."[271]

So concludes this striking little book. Furthermore, we must remember
that, although India may be the acutest sufferer from over-population,
conditions in the entire Orient are basically the same, prudential
checks and rational birth-control being everywhere virtually
absent.[272] Remembering also that, besides over-population, there are
other economic and social evils previously discussed, we cannot be
surprised to find in all Eastern lands much acute poverty and social
degradation.

Both the rural and urban masses usually live on the bare
margin of subsistence. The English economist Brailsford thus describes
the condition of the Egyptian peasantry: "The villages exhibited a
poverty such as I have never seen even in the mountains of anarchical
Macedonia or among the bogs of Donegal.... The villag