The reason why I emphasize this is because I feel very strongly that we must not remodel our whole society, and recreate our moral standards, to meet a passing and an artificial state of affairs.  That is my answer to those who seem to think the solution of all our difficulties is to be found in the adoption of polygamy.  Now polygamy is a perfectly respectable institution in a large number of countries.  It is quite an old idea.  It has not occurred to people for the first time between last Sunday and to-day.  It has been discussed in the Sunday newspapers, which are the most widely read of any papers issued by the press.  My answer to it is that such an expedient would be just an instance of this remodelling of your whole moral standard to meet an entirely artificial state of affairs.  Polygamy is not possible and never has been possible on a great scale, because in hardly any country, certainly not in the world as a whole, is there a great disproportion of the sexes under ordinary circumstances.  The idea most people appear to have about it is that in some parts of the world, like India and China, every man is blessed with three or four wives.  It is a perfectly fantastic picture.  The balance of the sexes—­on the whole—­is equal.  It is, therefore, a physical impossibility for polygamy to be a universal custom.  It cannot be practised, and has never been practised, except among the rich—­a small class always.  Now that surely makes it obvious that it is not a real solution.  It might meet a temporary difficulty; but is it reasonable, is it statesmanlike, to alter our entire moral standard merely to tide over a temporary difficulty; to meet a state of affairs which is purely artificial?  I think that morals go deeper, and should be based on some fundamental need, rather than on a purely artificial need created by a passing difficulty, however great that difficulty may be at the time.  I do not, therefore, wish to dwell on other better but temporary solutions, such as emigration.  I do think that this is a solution which would ease the situation to some extent, and in a normal and right way, because the disproportion in the Overseas Dominions, where the balance is the other way, and there are more men than women, is every whit as unwholesome and as disastrous as is the disproportion of women in this country.  Consequently, from the point of view of both men and women, I think that emigration is a thing that ought to be considered and helped forward very much more than it is; but there, again, this is only a temporary solution.  We are trying to arrive at some moral position which is based on the permanent needs and the real nature of human beings.