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61
Report on Birth Control Instruction by Public Authorities.
In view of the resolution forwarded by "-" Council for endorsement
by this Committee, I feel it necessary to make the following statement of
my own views in the matter, while recognising that the question is peculiarly
one for individual opinion, and one in which judgment must be based less on
medical grounds than on experience of married life in relation to diverse
social conditions. I must ask the indulgence of the Committee in legard
both to the length and to the character of the report, features which are
unavoidable in view of the complexity of the subject.
1. Is birth control necessary or desirable?
The main argument for birth control is the increasing stress of industrial
and social conditions, making it correspondingly difficult for parents to bring
up children under proper conditions of health and with sufficient amenities for
their self-development, except by some measure of spacing between successive
children. It has in this connection to be remembered that the chief " amenity "
for the self-development of a child is the continual contact with other children
not far apart in age and development; and the process of spacing out, seeing
that it can be controlled only in one direction and not in the other, may very
easilv result in such a gap between successive children as to make each prac.
tically an only child so far as development by contact with other children in
the household is concerned. The benefit to formation of character derived bv
children in large families in most cases far outweighs the disadvantages which
they may suffer from conditions which superficially may appear to be in the
nature of privation. The privation, such as it is, is physical, and oan be
remedied by help from outside ; but there is to set against it the all-round
development of character which can be produced best by the rough and tumble
in a large family. I feel, therefore, that this argument in favour of birth
control can readily be magnified. The argument commonly linked with it,
that a succession of children means severe physical and mental strain on the
mother, is undoubtedly true under existing conditions ; but here again, outside
assistance is capable of minimising the physical strain, while the closer and
more understanding co-operation of the father would do much to relieve the
mental strain, even under the conditions of aggregation found in the workingclass
home.
I feel, therefore, that these arguments for birth control are, as generally
applied, on the whole, more specious than sound. The proper course from the
standpoint of the general welfare is to deal as rapidly and as thoroughly as
possible with the adverse conditions of wages, of household economy, of
housing, of ignorance, and of physical and mental ill-health which are the
basis of the family difficulties, rather than weakly to surrender to these adverse
conditions by advising control of births. The general production of small
families is the easiest short cut to the temporary palliation of existing social
conditions ; but it is in my opinion vital that this easy course should not be
followed, rather than the more difficult course involved in dealing with the
evils out of which the problem arises.
Setting this forward as the view which should be stressed, it must never,
theless be granted that under existing conditions there must be among the
poorer working classes a considerable number of families where the stress is
such that some degree of birth control is inevitable, if they are to be prevented
from sinking in the struggle ;and it has to be decided what type of birth
control they can adopt. It is however, of some significance, as an indication
of the relatively small extent to which birth control can be applied even in the
poorest classes, without a risk of bringing the population to a standstill, that
in 3,201 consecutive households seen in house-to-house visitation in fifty of the
poorest streets in Croydon the average number of individuals per household
was less than 4.1 (4.08), showing the small margin even now over a stationary
population—for four persons per household would, allowing for inevitable
deaths, imply a dwindling population.