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9
actual number of births is concerned, the number is the highest
recorded since 1908. The number appears lower than that of
1913, but that is accounted for by the fact that births of nonresidents
are now deducted and credited to other districts.
Throughout the kingdom since the Armistice and the return
home of the men from the Forces, there has been a substantial
recover}- in the birth-rate. In England and Wales the birth-rate
was 25:4 per 1,000 inhabitants in 1920, as compared with 18.5
in 1919 and 17.7 in 1918.
It is probably only a temporary phenomenon, and as far as
Acton is concerned, the birth-rate is again declining. The births
registered in the district in the four quarters were as follows :—
First quarter 423
Second quarter 399
Third quarter 337
Fourth quarter 283
The sharp rise in the first half of 1920 is not likely to affect
permanently the general tendency towards a reduced birth-rate,
which has been such an outstanding feature of our Vital Statistics
during the past 40 years.
No question has been the subject of more discussion in
recent years than the birth-rate, and the views held as to the
declining birth-rate are as divergent as the poles. On the one
hand we have persons who assert that those who seek to restore
the birth-rate of half a century ago are engaged in a task which
would be criminal if it were not based on ignorance, and which is
in any case fatuous.
On the other hand, there are people who regard the falling
birth-rate as nothing less than race suicide.
On one point, though, all are agreed. All admit that the
reduction in the birth-rate is deplorable in its differential distribution.
From the eugenic point of view, the reduced birth-rate
operates chiefly amongst those classes which, humanly speaking,
are the best fitted to be parents; whilst it operates little, if at all,
amongst those classes which are least fitted. Although the question
of the birth-rate is discussed quite freely nowadays, candidly,
one must admit that the question of over-pouplation is not faced
fairly and squarely. The following extract from a review in the
Medical Officer of the Registrar-General's Annual Report for 1919,
places the matter fairly, if somewhat strongly:—
"Has anyone, since the days of Malthus, ever faced, fairly
and squarely, the consequences of all the facts that are summarised
in these reports which come from the Registrar-General every
year? These islands are not distensible: already they are in
parts stretched almost to the limit of their capacity. How long
can they continue to accommodate and support a population