In China, where there is said to be a birth-rate of over 50 per 1,000, and where over 70 per cent. of infants are helped to die, the high death-rate is due clearly to degraded social customs. In the slums of Great Britain the high death-rate is also due to degraded social conditions. It is not due to the birth-rate. Of this the proof is simple, (a) Among the French Canadians, where the average family numbers about nine, this high birth-rate is not associated with a high death-rate, but with the increase of a thrifty, hard-working race. In Ontario the birth-rate went up from 21.10 in 1910 to 24.7 in 1911, and the death-rate _fell_ from 14 to 12.6. (b) Again, in 1911 the corrected birth-rate for Connaught was 45.3 as against a crude rate of 24.7 for England and Wales; and in Connaught, where there is no need for Societies for preventing Parents being Cruel to their Children, the infant mortality rate [27] is very much lower than in England, although the birth-rate is much higher and the poverty much greater. In Bradford, a prosperous English town which pays particular attention to its mothers and children, the infant mortality in 1917 was 132 per 1,000 and the birth-rate 13.2. In Connaught, where there are no maternity centres or other aids to survival, but on the contrary a great dearth of the means of well-being, the infant mortality was only 50, whilst the birth-rate was actually 45! [28] So untrue is it to say that a high death-rate is due to a high birth-rate. Section 3. A LOW BIRTH-RATE NO GUARANTEE OF A LOW DEATH-RATE Again, birth controllers claim that a low birthrate leads to a low infant mortality rate. Now, it is really a very extraordinary thing that, whatever be the statement made by a Malthusian on the subject of birth-control, the very opposite is found to be the truth. During the last quarter of last century a _falling_ birth-rate in England was actually accompanied by a _rising_ infant mortality rate! During 1918 in Ireland [29] the crude birthrate was 19.9, with an infant mortality rate of 86, whereas in England and Wales [30] the crude birthrate was 17.7 with an infant mortality rate of 97, and in the northern boroughs the appalling rate of 120. In England and Wales the lowest infant mortality rate was found to be in the southern rural districts, where the rate was 63, but in Connaught the rate was 50.5. This means that in England a low birth-rate is associated with a high infant mortality rate, whereas in Ireland a high birth-rate is associated with a low infant mortality rate. [31] These cold figures prove that in this matter at least the poorest Irish peasants are richer than the people of England. Section 4. VITAL STATISTICS OF FRANCE The Malthusian claim that a low birth-rate leads to a low death-rate is also disproved by the vital statistics of France.