[Footnote 60: _Report on the Prevention of Malaria in Mauritius_, p. 51.] [Footnote 61: C.V. Drysdale, O.B.E., D. Sc., _The Malthusian Doctrine and its Modern Aspects_, p. 3.] CHAPTER VI THE FALLING BIRTH-RATE IN ENGLAND: ITS CAUSES Birth controllers claim that the fall in the English birth-rate, which began to decline in 1876, is mostly due to the use of contraceptives: but the very fact that this claim is made by these reckless propagandists makes it imperative that we should scrutinise the evidence very carefully. Section 1. NOT, AS MALTHUSIANS ASSERT, DUE MAINLY TO CONTRACEPTIVES In support of the Malthusian contention, Dr. C.V. Drysdale, who is not a doctor of medicine but a doctor of science, has published the following statements: "... We might note that a recent investigation of the records of the Quakers (the Society of Friends) reveals the fact that family limitation has been adopted by them to a most astonishing extent. Their birthrate [_sic_] stood at 20 per thousand in 1876, and has now actually fallen to about 8 per thousand. The longevity of Quakers is well known, and the returns of deaths given by their Society show that the great majority live to between seventy and ninety years. Infantile mortality is practically unknown among them, although none of the special steps so dear to most social reformers have been taken for the protection of infant life. The Quakers are well known to be very earnest Christians, and to give the best example of religious morality. Their probity in business and their self-sacrifice in humanitarian work of all kinds are renowned. Yet it would seem that they have adopted family restriction to a greater extent than any other body of people, and, since the decline of their birth-rate only began in 1876, that it is due to adoption of preventive methods." [62] Again, he translates the following quotation from a Swiss author: "In France a national committee has been formed which has as its object an agitation for the increase of the population. Upon this committee these [? there] sit, besides President Poincaré, who, although married, has no children, twenty-four senators and littérateurs. These twenty-five persons, who preach to their fellow citizens by word and pen, have between them nineteen children, or not one child on the average per married couple. Similarly, a Paris journal (_Intransigeant_, August and September, 1908) had the good idea of publishing four hundred and forty-five names of the chief Parisian personalities who are never tired of lending their names in support of opposition to the artificial restriction of families. I give these figures briefly without the names, which have no special interest for us. Anyone interested in the names can consult the paper well known in upper circles. Among them: