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 army as well as for her military forces; but, seeing that each nation already has more than she can employ, we are not impressed by this phrase. It is not volume of production, or gross largeness of revenue, which makes a nation great. It is the proportion of her revenue to her population, and in that respect some of the smallest States are the most happily situated. The need of a large army alone justifies complaints about a falling birth-rate, and it is monstrous that we should lay this strain on parents merely in order to produce “fodder for cannon.” The actual need of each country, as long as the military system lasts, must, of course, be met, but—apart from the hope that we will soon cast off the greater part of this military burden—two circumstances show that we have not here a sound and permanent social need. The birth-rate is falling in all civilised countries, and will eventually reach a common low level; and the war has shown us that a nation with a reduced population may, like any nation with a small population, find compensation for its weakness in alliances.

The truth is that the premature advance of France in restricting its birth-rate has led to a general fallacy. France exposed itself to a particular danger in face of Germany, and this special weakness of France was converted into the general statement that any nation which reduces its birth-rate is in danger. Not only is the general statement untrue, but the particular case of France is very carelessly conceived. After 1871 the German