BIRTH CONTROL

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXIX, Issue 5228, 18 January 1928, Page 4

BIRTH CONTROL

VIEW OF DEAN INGE. DUTY’ OF PARENTS. Dean Inge, of St. Paul’s, speaking on “ Scientific Ethics,” at the Goldsmith’s Hall, London, c aid There Jias been a marked recrudecence of superstition sine’e the Great War, chiefly perhaps among the halfeducated rich.

What a shameful and. discreditable thing- it is to see an otherwise intelligent person refusing to s't down to dinner as one of. 13, objecting to the married in: May, or “touching wood ” if he has said anything “ unlucky.”

If there is a God He is certainly not a capricious Oriental sultan from whom favours may be obtained by making friends with'. His. courtiers. He is not a magnified schoolmaster distributing marks and prizes and punishments, and He is certainly not the head of the clerical profession. The certainty that the lower animals are literally our distant cousins ought to make some change in our attitude towards them. The killing < ; f birds and beasts fbr the pleasure of killing them is mainly an aristocratic diversion. The amusement is supposed to be that of a gentleman with means, but it seems a. barbarous and degrading form of recreation. We cannot throw on the Deity the responsibility for bringing unwanted children into the world and leaving them to the State to clothe, feed, and support by outdoor relief. The morality of. birth-control depends on the motive. The good citizen wants to do his best for his children and for his country. If he has reaspn to .think that his children are not likely to be healthy in mind or body, or ifj it is plain that there; is no longer room for large families in the class or the nation to which he belongs, it is his duty to act jn accordance with that knowledge.

It is perhaps too much to hope that any Government will penalise the slum dwellers who still produce large families to add’new burdens to the rates.