It is a matter of indifference to him how many children are born to him since with each one his dole is increased. None of the restraints which enter into the longer view of the future held by the middle classes is felt by him. And so he goes ahead, and has as many children as time and the health of his wife (of which last he does not always show excessive consideration) will permit. The following figures clearly illustrate this state of things. Whereas the number of children produced annually by a thousand teachers is 95, by Church of England ministers is 101, by doctors is 103, the average number produced by general labourers is 231. And among these general labourers it is the least desirable individuals――those, with least self-restraint, least foresight and with least consideration for their wives or the future of their children――who have largest families. And the undesirability may be of another kind. Mental defectives generally are very prolific. Girls of this condition, if left unwatched, are constantly becoming pregnant, there being apparently no shortage of men prepared to take advantage sexually of such unfortunate victims. It is to be noted that the economic situation following war is especially favourable to this discrepancy of fertility between classes. It would seem that the recent experience of the significance of war, the existing sense of social instability, the universal prevalence of unrest, hatred and international discord, make the more considerate parents feel that the world is not a very desirable place to bring children into. And this feeling is emphasized if they have to pay in taxation four times what they had to pay before, after which what money remains is worth about sixty-five per cent. of its previous value. But these considerations hardly affect the classes whose occupation is manual labour, or who have accustomed themselves to no occupation at all. Thus from a social point of view it is to be observed that quantitatively, in relation to the present resources of the country, England is at the present day considerably over-populated; and qualitatively that many persons of all classes possessing inferior physique are now artificially kept alive to perpetuate their stock, while at the same time those elements of the population who, by lack of intelligence or thrift or steadiness, or who by possession of other defects have been reduced to the lowest level of the social structure, to-day constitute the most fertile strain in the country. (_c_) _Individual._――The argument has frequently been heard that it is desirable to communicate knowledge of Birth Control to the poorer classes in the interests of the mother and the children.