CHAPTER V.

Prudential Checks.

If the validity of the Malthusian position be admitted, there is no logical escape from the conclusion that the knowledge of innocent means by which families may be limited should be conveyed to the people. Yet, with characteristic inconsistency, the public advocacy of Malthusianism in the abstract is regarded with approval, whilst the practical application of the principle is met with the parrot-cry of “obscenity,” and menaced with penal infliction. In the Windeyer judgment it will be noted that the proceedings against Mr. Collins were based not upon those portions of Mrs. Besant’s pamphlet in which the subject was philosophically discussed, but upon the passages in which the preventive checks were described. An eminent English statesman, Mr. John Morley, has insisted in a public speech upon the “vital importance” of the population question, and, he added, “I wish that we did not shirk it so much.” A popular English clergyman, the Rev. H. R. Haweis, has declared in a popular weekly newspaper that the most important remedy for poverty is “to control the family growth, according to the family means of support.” But when the social reformer passes from vague precept to direct instruction, he is confronted by an anomalous law which threatens him as a foe to public morality.

The tragical element in this otherwise ridiculous inconsistency lies in the fact that the knowledge of prudential checks is denied to the very class which most urgently needs such information. It is the poor alone who suffer acutely from the effects of over-population: it is they who feel the actual sting of want when the small wage is distributed over a large family-area. For the well-to-do there is no mystery concerning prudential checks. The family doctor will whisper discreetly into the ear of the wealthy matron whose quiver is sufficiently filled. Expensive medical works containing full instructions are at the command of those who can afford to buy them. Why should the poor be kept in ignorance upon a matter of supreme importance to them?

Upon the subject of prudential checks the medical profession as a body has afforded little or no assistance. Here, as in many other matters, “doctors differ”; and no steps have as yet been taken to ascertain, by scientific investigation, the best method of preventing conception. The checks now to be described are of two kinds—first, those in which success depends upon self-control; and, second, those in which mechanical appliances are used.