other suffering, stood afar off from the woman in childbirth. So much as an anaesthetic to deaden the pain was forbidden, until quite recent times, as an interference with the will of the Almighty. It was Queen Elizabeth of England who broke that taboo. By virtue of her royal authority, she demanded chloroform. And got it. Her daring could then, of course, be followed by other women. Newer iconoclasts are calling for twilight sleep, that achieves maternity in a dream. Add birth control. And we shall be out of the trouble in which the unhappy lady called Eve so long ago involved all of her daughters.
Birth control means, instead of a maternity that is perpetual, unregulated and haphazard and miserable, a maternity that is intelligently directed and limited. So that it shall be volitional. The rising value of a baby at last requires that people shall be as carefully produced as the shells we are making with such infinite accuracy. Most of all, it is important that there shall not be too many babies lest some of them not well done shall be only worthless and good for nothing. You see, you have to think about quality as well as quantity when you are counting for a final output. Russia, which had a birth rate of 50 per thousand, the highest birth rate in Europe, is the nation whose military defences have crumpled like paper. It was France, with a birth rate of 28 per thousand, the lowest in Europe, that held the line for civilisation at the Marne. And it was Germany, which has always imposed on its
