The weekly rations (the standard food supply for soldiers—­Parkes’s) purchaseable by the weekly wages for these years respectively are 11.1, 14.3, 16, and 12.4; i.e., the average weekly wage of an artisan in constant employment in 1877 would purchase rations for 11.1 persons, in 1887 for 14.3 persons, in 1897 for 16 persons, and in 1901 for 12.4 persons.

Up to the year 1877, the birth-rate in England and Wales conformed to the law of Malthus, and kept pace with increasing prosperity; but, after that year, and right up to the present time, the nation’s prosperity has gone on advancing at a phenomenal rate pari passu with an equally phenomenal decline in the number of births per 1000 of the population.

Now, it is a remarkable coincidence that in this very year, 1877, the Neo-Malthusians began to make their influence felt, and spread amongst all classes of the people a knowledge of preventive checks to conception.

People were encouraged to believe that large families were an evil.  A great many, no doubt, had already come to this conclusion; for there is no more common belief amongst the working classes, at least, than that large families are a cause of poverty and hardship.  And this is even more true than it was in the days of the Neo-Malthusians, for then child and women labour was a source of gain to the family, and a poor man’s earnings were often considerably augmented thereby.

The uniform decrease of the birth-rate is a matter of statistics, and admits of no dispute.  It has been least rapid in the German Empire, and most rapid in New Zealand.

With the declining birth-rate the marriage-rate must be considered.

Malthus would have expected a declining birth-rate to be the natural result of a declining marriage-rate, and a declining marriage-rate to be due to the practice of moral restraint, rendered imperative because of hard times, and a difficulty in obtaining work, wages, and food.

Given the purchasing power of a people, Malthus would have estimated, according to his laws, the marriage-rate, and, given the marriage-rate, he would have estimated the birth-rate.

But anticipations in this direction, based on Malthus’s laws, have not been realised.  The purchasing power of the people we know has enormously increased; the marriage-rate has not increased, it has, in fact, slightly decreased; but the birth-rate per marriage, or the fecundity of marriage, has decreased in a remarkable degree.

In “Industrial Democracy,” by Sydney and Beatrice Webb (p. 637), the following occurs:—­“The Hearts of Oak Friendly Society is the largest centralised Benefit Society in this country, having now over two hundred thousand adult male members.  No one is admitted who is not of good character, and in receipt of wages of twenty-four shillings a week or upwards.  The membership consists, therefore, of the artisan and skilled operative class, with some intermixture of the small shopkeeper, to the exclusion of the mere labourer.  Among its provisions, is the “Lying-in Benefit,” a payment of thirty shillings for each confinement of a member’s wife.”