Yet I do not despair; a change is coming. The widespread interest, and also the more practical and moral view taken by the majority of people, during the agitation on the supposed existence of the “war-babies,” were to me a very hopeful sign. It is true the agitation was short-lived: soon we were told it was unnecessary. Nothing was done. The lesson must be driven deeper and then public opinion will awaken to the knowledge that the conditions causing illegitimacy and its disasters are present in times of peace as well as in times of war. In the meantime, it may be salutary for us to know the action that other countries are taking in this question. Certainly we have much to learn. Our law, in this matter of protection for the unmarried mother and maintenance for her child, lags far behind that of other countries, and is one example only, out of many, of our hide-bound attachment to ancient abuses. For the most enlightened legislative advances we have to look to Scandinavia, the birth-land of Ellen Key. Surely it is due to her beneficent influence that the position of the bastard child and its mother has been faced with a quite new practical efficiency; and as a result constructive legislation has been wisely undertaken, which will fix the rights of the illegitimate child and enforce responsible conduct upon both its parents. In Norway a bill, prepared by the Department of Justice, was laid before the Storthing in 1909, “whose simple but revolutionary intention was to give _every child two parents_. It aimed to equalise illegitimate children and legitimate children before the law: that is, to give the illegitimate child the right to a father.”[97] This bill, as one might expect, met with opposition; it was adopted as law only in 1915. I wish it were possible for me to give in detail all the bill’s wise enactments. Even its title, _Law Concerning Children Whose Parents Have Not Married Each Other_, is significant. The unjust stigma “illegitimate,” as applied to the innocent child, has been discarded. This gives the clue to the intention of the bill. It is concerned (1) with the welfare of the child, saving it from social disgrace and the position of legal disadvantage which hitherto has been the lot of half-parented children; (2) with the fixing of both parents’ responsibilities, so that no man or woman may escape the results of their sexual acts.