The last few years has been a period of continual persecution of the Neo-Malthusians whenever they try to instruct the poorer classes, and more stringent laws are being framed against them in many countries. I am glad to say that a recent attempt on the part of the dominant agrarian party in Hungary in this direction has been foiled by a judgment of the Hungarian Medical Senate, which has strongly reported against any attempt to check the practice of family limitation, in the interests of the quality of the race. CHAPTER IX CONCLUSION: EMINENT OPINIONS THE PROGRESS OF HOLLAND _WAGES AND THE COST OF LIVING. C. V. Drysdale, D.Sc._ Unlike those of other countries, who, in Lord Morley’s words, have shirked the population question, the statesmen of Holland have been fully alive to it, and have made their country the only one where facilities have been given to the poorer classes to freely obtain knowledge as to the best means of restricting families. The following strong statement by Heer S. van Houten, late Minister of the Interior in the Netherlands (Staats Kundige Brieven, 1899), leaves no doubt as to this difference of outlook:— “Wage-slavery exists as a consequence of the carelessness with which the former generation produced wage-slaves; and this slavery will continue so long as the adult children of these wage-slaves have nothing better to do than to reproduce wage-slaves. The fault lies in our poorer classes themselves, and also in some clergymen and _orthodox pedants_ who, in their preaching about morality, only permit a choice between an unnaturally lengthened celibacy or an ever-increasing family with the bonds of marriage, and who prevent the acceptance of the higher morality, which finds such easy acceptance among the better classes, of marriage and restriction of the family to the number which the parents can feed and comfortably rear.” And Heer N. G. Pierson, late Dutch Minister of Finance, has expressed himself equally strongly in his Political Economy, which has just been translated into English:— “No improvement in the economic situation can be hoped for if the number of births be not considerably diminished.” Under the ægis of these gentlemen and of Heer Gerritsen, a prominent Councillor of Amsterdam, a Dutch Neo-Malthusianische Bond was formed in 1881, and has carried on an active propaganda among the working classes, with the help of a number of qualified medical men and trained midwives. So great has its success been that it now numbers over 5,000 members, and it was recognised by Royal Decree in 1895 as a society of public utility. An enormous number of practical brochures describing methods of limitation are sent out gratis annually, and poor men and women can get gratuitous advice in every important centre in Holland.