ty, but who have only preached it. At any time there are at least a
million of perfectly innocent sufferers, principally women and children,
in the United Kingdom.

During the war a disloyal faction in every Dominion endeavoured to prevent
the sending of help to the Mother Country. A principal cry of this faction
was, "Do not let us send our clean lads to that cesspool, England."
England is more than the world-cesspool. Since Englishmen are the greatest
travellers, she has been the principal source of infection for the world.
At one time during the war the Australasian Governments threatened to
withdraw their forces unless measures were taken to protect them.

When the German offensive was impending a sanitary method was published,
so effective that the venereal rate was reduced from 92 to 15 per thousand
per annum. The Government proposed to bring the method into general use in
the Army, but was prevented by influences which preferred to see the
country poisoned and the British Army defeated. While the opponents of
sanitation sat snugly at home hundreds of thousands of British soldiers
were killed or maimed, enormous material was lost with territory which
other hundreds of thousands of brave men had died to win, the war was
prolonged, thousands of millions were added to the National Debt, and half
trained boys and elderly fathers of families were hurried into the firing
line. At that time there were in hospitals or in depots, convalescent from
venereal disease, enough fully-trained allied soldiers to furnish, not an
army corps but a great army, complete almost from G.O.C. to trumpeter.

Fear of disease does not prevent immorality, as may be judged from the
immense prevalence of venereal disorders. But it does drive baser
characters to the pursuit and seduction of "decent" girls. In this way
nearly all prostitutes begin their careers. Prostitutes are much more
diseased than other women, who, though often diseased, are seldom
suspected of disease. Yet, since it has been found statistically that
three out of four men acquire their maladies from amateurs, it is manifest
that prostitutes only hang on the fringe of a vaster immorality. Men, who
know more of these diseases than women, are, on the average, much less
chaste. Medical students who know most are not more moral than other men.
Plainly venereal diseases are causes, not preventives, of immorality.
Nothing, therefore, is gained from their prevalence except a flood of