later, when mortality is appreciably higher."--Census of England and
Wales, 1911. General Report, with Appendices, pp. 62 and 65.

Of these facts the birth controllers, would appear to be ignorant. That
is a charitable assumption; but, in view of the vital importance of this
question their ignorance is culpable.

(b) _Birth Control tends to extinguish the Birth-rate_

Whatever may be the nebulous aim of birth controllers, the actual results
of birth control are quite definite. We have no accurate information
regarding the extent to which, birth control is practised, for, needless to
say, the Malthusians can provide us with no exact figures bearing on this
question; but we do know that birth control, when adopted, is mostly
practised amongst the better paid artisans and wealthier classes. After
full examination of the evidence; the National Birth-rate Commission were
unanimously agreed "That the greater incidence of infant mortality upon the
less prosperous classes does not reduce their effective fertility to the
level of that of the wealthier classes." [81] It is probable that this
Commission overestimated the extent to which birth control has contributed
to the declining birth-rate; but, even so, this does not alter the obvious
fact that artificial birth control, when adopted, reduces fertility to
a lower level than Nature intended. If language has any meaning, birth
control means a falling birth-rate, and a falling birth-rate means
depopulation. Here and there this evil practice may increase the material
prosperity of an individual, but it lowers the prosperity of the nation
by reducing the number of citizens. Moreover, as birth control is not
a prevailing vice amongst semi-civilised peoples, the adoption of this
practice by civilised nations means that the proportion of civilised to
uncivilised inhabitants of the world will be reduced. If birth control had