THE JUBILEE CHURCH CONGRESS.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 968, 8 November 1910, Page 6

THE JUBILEE CHURCH CONGRESS.

IF PARLIAMENT WERE TO DICTATEIMPORTANT DEBATE ON THE BIRTH-RATE. A NATIONAL MENACE. The opening on Tuesda}-, September 27, of the Jubilee Church Congress was marked by striking scenes in Ely Cathedral and in Great St. Mary's Church at Cambridge. Of the two scenes main interest centred in that in the noble cathedral Special trains had been run, and the vast building was crowded to its fullest capacity—somewhere about five thousand. There marched up the aisle of the famous nave of Ely as wonderful and as impressive a procession as it has ever seen. First came the choir, singing. Then succeeded the banners of the great majority of the congresses, beginning with that of Cambridge in 1861, and finishing with that of this jubilee congress. Some of the lay members of the congress appeared next, but they were few in number. They were followed by about 250 robed bishops and surpliced clergy, tho Bishop of Ely and the Archbishop of York closing the procession. It took twenty minutes to pass from the entrance into the chancel and transepts. Growth of Corporate Life. The Archbishop, of York was the preacher, his subject being the corporate growth of the Church as shown since the meeting of the first, congress fifty years ago and what may he expected from its future development. Looking back over those fifty years, )r. Lang said that at every stage almost there were anxieties and troubles. There seemed to be a fresh crisis every few years. The Church seemed like a ship buffeted by contrary winds, tossed by unexpected waves, labouring heavily in a confused sea; but when they looked long enough and close onough they saw that he , ship was making her way, that she iad a course, and was keeping to it. The lessons of the half century rebuked the anxiety of the years. There was one line along which this advance seemed clear and full of hopenamely, the growth of the corporate life of the Church. Fifty, years ago there was scarcely any visible expression of corporate life at all. (There was a wealth of scholarship, earnestness of work, beauty of devoted life, but the virtuo and energy were individual rather than corporate. It was a circumstance full of encouragement that the laity now took so great an interest i u the affairs of the Church. The Church was emerging in the eyes of the world not as a mere establishment but as a living society rather than an established institution, a body with a mind, spirit, and will of its own. AVhat had been begun must, please God, be continued.

Most of the privileges of the Church had gone, and the Church valued its connection with the State not because of the privileges it gave, but becauso of the opportunities to servo the nation which it opened out.' It was rather, perhaps, from the State that the danqsr was likely to arise. If the, State, in Parliament, were to attempt, without consulting the Church, to decide its doctrine or modes of worship, or were to compel them in their spiritual office to obey a law of the State which was inconsistent with the law of the Church, or were to dictate to the Church the terms in which it would admit persons to its Communion, then certainly claims would bo asserted which no. self-respecting. Church would acknowledge. The Feeble-minded. Long before the hour set for the formal opening of the congress great crowds hllcd the streets of Cambridge, and two continuous queues stretehing for a considerable distance patiently waited in front and in the neighbourhood of the Corn Exchange;- in i which 'itho > meeting was held. Some time before Dr. Chase the Bishop of Ely (the president of Hie congress); appeared in the Exchange it was already packed so that it could hold no more. The numbers present were nut at 2000.

Dr. G. E. Shnttle.worth, of London, consulting physician to the Royal Albert Institution for the Feeble-minded, Lancaster, road an able paper on Wednesday September 28, on "Heredity and Social' Responsibility, with Special Reference to the Feeble-minded." He believed that continued excessive indulgence in alcohol exerted a direct influence on the germ plasm and caused impairment of the nervous system of tho offspring. It was recognised that the feeble-minded should be the care of the State as well as of the philanthropic efforts of the charitable. Ten thousand feoble-mindsd children were in suitable asylums, but this left still 25,000 such children unprovided for in that way. With regard to the course to be pursued towards the imbecile, the thing to do was to follow the maxim, "Detect early, protect always." . Feeblemindedness and other cognate neuropathic ills tended to be inherited. Repressive jneasiires such as the lethal chamber could not bo thought of, but marriage among the unfit should Iμ discouraged or forbidden, as was the case in six States of the United States. The unfit should he placed in industrial colonies, and. experience showed they were perfectly happy in them. Children who belonged to the unfit class should be placed in schools connected with the=e colonies. ,

Segregation of the Unfit. Dr. Shuttleworth was succeeded by Mrs Hume Finsent, a member of the Royal Commission on the Care of tie Feebleminded. She advocated both eloquently and forcibly the segregation of the unfit from the rest of the community, and their being kept ■ under kind but firm and efficient control. Mrs. Pinsent illustrated her argument from the histories of mentally defective families in which mental defects and criminal propensities could be traced through three or four (generations. The cost "of such families to the community was very large. Fourteen' individuals in one family had been supported at public expense in industrial schools, reformatories, workhouses, asylums, and homes They passed continually from one of these institutions W another, with short intervals of liberty, during which they reproduced their kind. There was evidence to show that the birth-rate among defectives was unnsually high and the death-rate not correspondingly high, so that a large nnmber of defectives survived. The Royal Commission had estimated that tho number of mentally defectives in England and Wales was 270,000,' or nearly one in every hundred of the population. The commission had suggested a new Act of Parliament which would enable local authorities to place mentally defective people under continuous and kindly control, and would prevent them from reproducing themselves.

Race Suicide. The Bishop of Ripon, in a paper bristling witli statistics, showed how the birth-rate had .been steadily decreasing for some years past. The featurb which was most noticeable about this was that the decrease had taken place among tho fit, while any increase there had been had been seen among the less fit. In London the birth-rate was declining in the West End, but increasing in tho East End. In Australia, too, tho saino kind of thing was noticed. In fact, there was an arrest of births in the English-speak-ing peoples of the British Empire, which was of evil augury and constituted . a genuine national menace. We ought to discourage marriage among the unfit. The diseased, the feeble-minded, the aland the tuberculous ought not to marry. Those incapable of self-re-straint ought to be restrained by "the State. There was ample room in our oversea Dominions for the capable children of the nation. We ought to cultivate an Imperial idea of national lii'o and a more sanctified idea of marriage. There was observable a tendency for the eldorly to live longer than in former times, and there were fewer young people in proportion. He called attention to the fact that in the East, as in Japan, the birth-rate increased, whereas in the West it declined, and asked if race suicide was to continue among the whites until the yellow races should rule them and the world.