Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 85.djvu/261

Rh fourth. But for fiscal reasons such proposals have not been favorably received. A proposed measure which has many advocates is the employment of the taxing power for the purpose of chastising celibates and the heads of families without children. The rearing of children, says M. Bertillon, one of the strongest advocates of the taxation of celibacy and infecundity, should be considered as a public duty in the same way as service in the army and the payment of taxes. The act of rearing a child should be considered as equivalent to the payment of a tax; he who does not discharge this duty should be subject to a sur tax; those who do, should be wholly or partially exempted from taxation. The statistics show that there are more than 1,500,000 male celibates over 25 years of age in France, nearly 2,000,000 families without any children at all, nearly 3,000,000 which have but one child each, and 2,500,000 which have but two each.

A sur tax on such persons would be to a large extent a tax on the rich and well-to-do and it would make possible a reduction of the taxes on the comparatively small number of large families which are to be found, for the most part, among the poorer classes.

Fiscal measures whose purpose is to discriminate and to punish celibacy and infecundity are, however, objectionable to many persons who believe that the better remedy consists in measures of a more elevated character addressed to the moral sentiments—measures which will tend to reward and honor fecundity and which shall have the character of a mark of recognition by the state of its esteem for those who have contributed to its strength and perpetuity by the rearing of families. Such a measure is the oft-repeated proposal to give the preference in the matter of appointments to the lower posts in the public-service which do not require special qualifications, to the heads of families and especially to the heads of families containing more than three children. This proposal has been advocated by Messrs. Bertillon, Leroy-Beaulieu, Levasseur, Senators Lannelongue, Piot and many others and has been the subject of numerous bills in parliament. M. Leroy-Beaulieu has, I believe, even proposed that no one be appointed a functionary who does not have at least three living children. This proposal recalls the action of a former prefect of the Seine, M. Poubelle, who refused to appoint to certain inferior positions, any man who was not the father of at least three children. But this is a rather heroic remedy, hardly conducive to administrative efficiency, and would scarcely be practicable unless the state should increase the present miserably low scale of salaries now allowed its employés, many of whom find it impossible to support a family of three children out of their official incomes.

A more moderate proposal is that the state should take account of the size of the family in fixing the salaries and retiring pensions of