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CONTRACEPTION

of the subject, reference should be made to the useful survey by Millard[1] and an invaluable analysis of the Australian census by Knibbs.[2]

A further national consideration involved in the use of contraception hinges on the quality of the offspring produced. It is maintained by those who are in favour of contraception that by its sound and proper use detrimental births (that is births which will either injure the mother or lead to unsatisfactory offspring) can be avoided in the cheapest and most wholesome way. This is a two-fold national advantage, both preventing the wastage of the mother's vitality and the outlay involved in the production of delicate, diseased or unwholesome infants which are unlikely to live, and are therefore a great source of expense and waste. For lack of such control we are in real danger of a race suicide not yet properly realized. Because the decline in the birth-rate appears to be much greater in "those sections of every class in which

  1. ↑ C. Killick Millard, M.D.: "Population and Birth Control." Presidential Address, to Leicester Lit. and Phil. Soc. Pp. 48. Leicester, 1917.
  2. ↑ G. H. Knibbs: "Appendix A, vol. i, to the Census of the Commonwealth of Australia" (applied to the data of Australian Census, 1911). Pp. xvi, 466. Melbourne, 1917 or 1918 (no date on title page).

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