The important question now arises.  Is the desire uniform through all classes of Society, and is the practice of prevention uniform through all classes?

In other words, is the decline in the birth-rate due to prevention in one class more than in another, and if so which?

Experience and statistics force us to the startling conclusion, that the birth-rate is declining amongst the best classes of citizens, and remains undisturbed amongst the worst.

Now the first-class responsible for the decline includes those who do not marry, and those who marry late.  The Michigan vital statistics for 1894 (p. 125) show that the mean number of children to each marriage at the age of 15-19 years is 6.75, at the age of 20-25 years it is 5.32, a difference of 1.44 in favour of delayed marriage for a period of five years.

In New Zealand the marriage rate has gone up from 5.97 per thousand persons living in 1888 to 7.67 in 1900.

This class includes clerks with an income of L100 and under,—­a large number with L150, and all misogynists with higher incomes.

It includes labourers with L75 a year and under, and many who receive L100.

Their motives for avoiding marriage are mostly prudential.

Those who abstain from marriage for prudential reasons are as a rule good citizens.  They are workers who realise their responsibilities in life, and shrink from undertaking duties which they feel they cannot adequately perform.  By far the largest class who practice prevention, consists of those who marry, and have one or two children, and limit their families to that number, for prudential, health, or selfish reasons.

These too are as a rule good citizens, and there are two qualities that so distinguish them.  First, their prudence; they have no wish to burden the State with the care or support of their children.  Their fixed determination is to support and educate them themselves, and they set themselves to the work with thriftiness and forethought.

In order to do this, however, it is essential that the family is limited to one, two, or three, as the case may be, and before it is too late, preventive measures are resorted to.

The second quality that distinguishes them as good citizens is their self-control.  Every preventive measure in normal individuals implies a certain amount of self-restraint, and in proportion as prudential motives are strong is the self-imposed restraint easy and effective.

The existence of these two qualities, prudence and self-control, is a very important factor in human character, and upon their presence and prevalence in its units depend the progress and stability of society.  But the birth-rate varies in an inverse ratio with these qualities.  In those communities or sections of communities, where these qualities are conspicuous, will the birth-rate be correspondingly low.

There is another class of people that has strong desires to keep free from the cares and expense of a large family.  These are, too, good citizens and belong to good stock.  They are those possessed of ambition to rise socially, politically, or financially, and they are a numerous body in New Zealand.