It has already been suggested, that the desire to limit families is due
to a consciousness of responsibility on the part of prospective
parents. They realise the stress of competition in the struggle for
existence, they are anxious for their own pecuniary and social
stability, and even more anxious that the children, for whose birth they
are responsible, should be provided with the necessities and comforts of
life which health and development require. They are eager, too, that
their children should be equipped with a good education, and thus be
given a fair advantage in the race of life.
To the great mass of people this is possible only when the numbers of
the family are limited. As the numbers of the family increase, the
difficulties of clothing and feeding and educating increase, and each
member is the poorer for every birth, and in this sense an increasing
birth-rate is a cause of poverty. The sense in which poverty causes a
high birth-rate will be dealt with later on.
It will be readily conceded, that those actuated by the motives just
considered, those with the keenest sense of responsibility in life,
those capable of exercising the self-restraint which family limitation
requires, constitute the best type of citizens in any community.
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