I am pleased to hear that your MS. is to be published. The subject is one that must attract an increasing amount of attention on the part of all who have the true interests of the state at heart. There can be no doubt that the Parliamentary machine has failed, lamentably, to grapple with the problems you have referred to. At the present time, when some of our most earnest statesmen and greatest thinkers are discussing the supposed commercial decadence of the nation, the publication of such a treatise as you have prepared is opportune, and a perusal of it prompts the thought that the main remedy lies deeper, and may be found in sociological even more than in economic reform. I do not profess myself competent to express any opinion regarding the remedy you propose. That is a matter for a carefully selected expert Royal Commission. The whole question, however, is one that might with advantage be discussed, both in the Press and the Parliament, at the present time, and I feel sure your book will be welcomed as a valuable contribution on the subject. Yours sincerely, MALCOLM ROSS. * * * * * FROM SIR ROBERT STOUT, K.C.M.G., CHIEF JUSTICE. MY DEAR DR. CHAPPLE,-- I have read your MSS., and am much pleased with it. It puts the problem of our times very plainly, and I think should be published in England. I have a friend in England who would, I think, be glad to help, and he is engaged by one of the large publishing firms in England. If you decide on sending it to England I shall be glad to write to him, and ask his assistance. The subject is one that certainly required ventilation, and whether your remedy is the proper one or not, it ought certainly to be discussed. Yours truly, ROBERT STOUT. CONTENTS. INTRODUCTION CHAPTER I.--THE PROBLEM STATED p. 1 The spread of moral restraint as a check.--Predicted by Malthus.--The declining Birth-rate.--Its Universality.--Most conspicuous in New Zealand. Great increase in production of food.--With rising food rate falling birth-rate.--Malthus's checks.--His use of the term "moral restraint."--The growing desire to evade family obligations.--Spread of physiological knowledge.--All limitation involves self-restraint.--Motives for limitation.--Those who do and those who do not limit.--Poverty and the Birth-rate.--Defectives prolific and propagate their kind.--Moral restraint held to include all sexual interference designed to limit families.--Power of self-control an attribute of the best citizens.--Its absence an attribute of the worst.--Humanitarianism increases the number and protects the lives of defectives.--The ratio of the unfit to the fit.--Its dangers to the State.--Antiquity of the problem.--The teaching of the ancients.--Surgical methods already advocated. CHAPTER II.--THE POPULATION QUESTION p. 10