DEPLORING EMPTY CRADLES

Mt Benger Mail, 9 November 1938, Page 1

DEPLORING EMPTY CRADLES

WOMEN’S ATTITUDE TO “CANNON FODDER.”

Conscription or voluntary service in some future war may appear a question of major importance, writes (filbert Frankau, in the Daily Mail. Infinitely more important, however, is the problem of the total population which will be available under either system if the birth-rate in the British Isles continues to decline. The limitation of the family—at one time a subject of furious controversy—is now an accomplished fact. Among our well-to-do classes, especially, those mothers of whom my friend, the late W. L. (feorge wrote: “They bore their husbands 12 children and no malice,” have disappeared. Statisticians, indeed, are so gloomy 'about our dwindling population that they predict the end of the British Empire within the next few generations from this sole cause. Eor we are, remember, primarily an Empire, or if you prefer the term, a Commonwealth of Free Nations. Take away—to give only one instance —India, and you remove some of the bread from every working man ’s breakfast table in Britain. ; Separate us in Great Britain from the rest of the Commonwealth and it is extremely doubtful whether we could keep more than 10,000,000 men, women and children in mediocre comfort — our present population exceeding 45,000,000. This is the mere bread-and-butter side of the problem. It excludes the entire question of war. And all major wars —let me further remind you—have been fought, primarily, for land hunger or food hunger. Increasing populations invariably sot upon decreasing populations. The temptation of the empty acres is too strong to resist. To-day European sentiment revolts at Japanese aggression in China. But the historian of the future, surveying the present struggle wihout sentiment, will perceive the root cause of it to have been inevitable. Japan’s swarming millions,, boxed in narrow islands, must spread or perish. MAN’S DEFIANCE. Nature abhors sentiment even more than she abhors a vacuum. “Be fruitful and multiply,’’ is her one and only command. But civilisation —being in its very essence man’s struggle against the savagery of Nature —urges him to defy that c'ommand. “Shall I- give up all the niceties of life,” cries the modern European woman, “merely to reproduce my own species?” “Shall I slave my soul out,” cries the modern European man, “just to feed and clothe and educate an enormous family?” So what? (as the modern American, who also limits his family, would say). What remedy shall civilisation find for its own disease? The totalitarian States —less senti mental and more war-minded than the democracies —are doing their utmost to discover the remedy. But so far—even if we accept the most optimistic forecasts—with very moderate success. MANY CAUSES. It appears, therefore, that however loudly a leader may beat his patriotic drum, he can neither persuade woman that her main duty is to provide national cannon fodder nor man info surrendering most of his creature comforts in favour of his procreative faculties. Writing for a nation of men and women whose main ideal, for which they could ever be persuaded to take up arms against an aggressor —is individual liberty under just laws, I cannot bring myself to pen any such balderdash as, “It is your duty to the State to have large families.” Let us bring all such parrot cries down to brass tacks. The basic causes of the limitation of the modern British family are manifold. First of all—at risk of shocking the ultra-prudes —we have knowledge. Our Victorian progenitors did not possess that knowledge. We do, and — wrongly or rightly—it is becoming more widely disseminated every day. FRIGHTENED WIVES. Secondly—at risk of shocking the super-patriots—we have the constant ‘ harping of so many public men on the chances of another Armageddon in the not-so-distant future. This makes many a young wife say to herself , subconsciously if not consciously, “Why should I bear a child in pain only to hazard its being murdered in agony?” ;■ And since I have used the word “pain” let me repeat what I wrote some years ago: That childbirth, generally speaking, need not entail any pain if our doctors would be less callous to human suffering.” Because this point, also, is pertinent to the affair in hand. Thirdly—and this, I trust, will shock none of my readers —we have, as roots of the decline in our population, a mass of economic causes. I Financial security—considered certain by the Victorians. Housing conditions (who lived in a flat then if he could afford even a cottage?) The shortage of domestic labour. Taxation. All ’these have influence on our problem. I But that the greatest of all birth'controllers is taxation, history itself, proves. From the very moment that French law decreed that a peasant’s land must be equally divided among his children, t the population of rural France began to

sink. Can any sane thinker maintain that the present burden of death duties, income tax, rates (how much of them squandered!), and indirect taxation encourage us to fill our nurseries? If we desire —and we must desire —to stay the decline in our population it is vital that we should encourage people to breed. How are we to do this? Not by the application of one remedy to many causes. Marriage allowances, allowances for children —even if we quadruple them —will not suffice. The prime needs of every potential mother are peace and security. • Unless and until these two boons —with all that they imply —are restored to all the nations in Europe, the ultimate end of European, and possibly of American, civilisation is sure. We, the white race, will go down before the black, the brown, and the yellow. Mother Nature knows not pity. You can beat her, sometimes, by reason and intelligence. But you will never beat her by beating drums.