Old Winchester Hill
An ancient fort reminds us of what the Malthusians have forgotten
Note: This post was previously published on Thinking Coalition’s Substack as “Is eugenics making a comeback?”
Last week, I walked part of the South Downs Way. Prior to setting out, I looked at the Ordnance Survey map and was pleased to note the frequent “tumulus” and “tumuli” symbols along the route. I would be walking through an ancient and pleasant landscape.
On the ground however, I found the “tumulus” and “tumuli” to be underwhelming when compared to what I had imagined I might see.
The result was that, when I ascended Old Winchester Hill (in Hampshire), I was thrilled to see the emergence of worn, but clearly visible, ramparts. Beyond them, at the top of the hill, the ground flattened and mounds and a depression indicated that there had once been a settlement here.
A visitors’ guide told me I was standing on the site of an ancient Hill-Fort, thought to have been first inhabited almost four thousand years ago. Protected by ramparts on one side and a steep escarpment on the other, it was the perfect defensible position. A chalk path led evenly along the ridge, providing not only easy walking access to and from the site, but also allowing the traveller to be observed at some distance from the fort.
Naturally, I wondered about the people who lived here and what it might have been like. While an artist’s impression depicted a fence and thatched huts, the hilltop provided little protection from the wind and the rain.
I was the only visitor. The emptiness of the place (and my weary legs) led me to reflect on the impermanence of life.
I don’t know how, why or when the settlement ended, but I am glad that they—whoever “they” were—came down from the hill, because it was these people, others like them, and their descendants who gave me all of the things that I enjoyed: a Christian civilisation, the English language, a sense of humour, clean clothes, sturdy boots, a well-marked path, navigation aids, a map, smooth roads, comfortable accommodation, cooked food, clean water and good beer.
At around the time I stood on Old Winchester Hill, Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe stood in the House of Lords to support of the “Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill”. Drawing attention to the growth in world population over the previous century, he urged his fellow Lords to:
“Just think what the 2025 numbers would be if abortion had not been legalised or there had not been wide-scale usage and advocacy of contraception. Indeed, the growth of homosexuality throughout society has reduced the number of children that we would have had. Had the churches had their way, we would have had a very much bigger population than we presently have, facing the difficulties we have with climate change.”
“Had the churches had their way …”
The institutions that Brooke portrayed as miscreants had been the cornerstone for British civilisation! It was strange that he either didn’t notice it, or chose not to, given that the chamber in which he spoke is arguably the pinnacle of that civilisation. Instead, he depicted the churches as the ‘madman at the wheel’ of the population bus.[i] Brooke is not the first person to gloss over the agenda behind (or adjacent to) Malthusianism, leaving us to imagine that it was pushed by earnest, caring people. In contrast, here is the reality:
Contraception
Britain’s first family planning clinic (the Mothers’ Clinic, Holloway, March 1921) was founded by Dr Marie Stopes and Humphrey Roe formerly members of the Malthusian League.[ii] Their clinic was the first step in a project to apply eugenic breeding in Britain.[iii] While the Clinic gave contraceptives to the poor women who wanted them, Stopes campaigned for the compulsory sterelisation of those who did not, and she advocated the dangerous “Gold Spring” device for “C3” mothers. Had the woman celebrated for giving women “reproductive choice” had her way, that choice would have been made by a state official.
Britain’s second family planning clinic (the Walworth Womens Welfare Centre, Walworth, October 1921) was a project of the Malthusian League (Motto: “Non quantitas sed qualitas”). The Centre was run by Dr Norman Haire, an advocate for the compulsory sterilisation of the so-called unfit, as well as infanticide for “those who at birth are obviously below a (variable) minimum standard.”[iv]
Compulsory sterelisation
In July 1931, Major Archibald Church MP (Labour) proposed a bill (drafted by the Eugenics Society) in the House of Commons[v] “to enable mental defectives to undergo sterilizing operations or sterilizing treatment upon their own application, or that of their spouses or parents or guardians.” With admirable honesty, Church admitted that the measure was “… in advance of public opinion” and that if it were adopted, it would be “merely a first step… before bringing in a Bill for the compulsory sterilization of the unfit.”[vi] The motion was defeated.
Abortion
Many of the advocates behind the Abortion Law Reform Act 1967 were members of, or were associated with, the Eugenics Society (the Malthusian League had been dissolved in 1927). They used the bogey-man of unsafe “backstreet” abortions to push the measure though. The passing of the Act enabled the comparison of legal and “backstreet” abortions. When the number of women arriving in casualty wards from botched “backstreet” abortions was measured as a proportion of the number alleged to be taking place, the failure rate was found to be significantly lower than those carried out legally in NHS hospitals and clinics.[vii] This meant that either the “backstreet” abortions provided a better standard of care than the NHS, or that the number had been grossly exaggerated to enable the measure to pass.
Homosexuality
In “Life Without Birth” (1970), Stanley Johnson revealed that government support for homosexual unions was motivated by a desire to reduce the birth rate from marriages rather than on the merits of such unions. He also disclosed the existence of a secret inter-departmental committee on population within the civil service.[viii]
These examples explode the myth that, but for earnest, kindly progressives, we would have experienced a Malthusian catastrophe. The grim reality is that the population agenda has been, from the get-go, pushed by those who embody the combination of a “master of the universe” attitude with a disgust for humanity. Their mawkish “I want what’s best for you” is nothing more than a thin veneer for marketing purposes.
And yet, we are encouraged to imagine that the euthanasia laws are somehow different.
Lord Brooke pointed out that those with means could travel to Dignitas in Switzerland to die and framed “assistance with dying for the terminally ill as an act of caring, compassion and love. For those without the funds for that, this Bill, amended as the House sees fit, provides just that: for them to do it at their home.” Brooke concluded: “Who am I to deny that those less able to afford it should not have that choice?”
If you ignore what it is that is being offered, it was a compelling moment for egalitarian dignity.
The population agenda has a long history, going back (at least) to the Reverend T.R. Malthus whose “Essay on the Principle of Population” was published in 1798.
My interest arose from my grandfather, Dr Halliday Sutherland, who fought against the Eugenicists and Malthusians of the 1920s. His 1922 book “Birth Control: A Statement of Christian Doctrine Against the Neo-Malthusians” led Stopes to sue him (unsuccessfully) for libel in 1923.
Dr Sutherland opposed them because he saw where it would end up.Indeed, his 1936 short-story “The Perfect Eugenic State” featured a lethal chamber to kill undesirables.
In “Control of Life” (1944) Dr Sutherland observed:
“When responsible and thoughtful members of Society begin to advocate the prevention and destruction of human life by means of contraceptives, abortion, infanticide, sterilisation and euthanasia, it is an evil omen, and a sign of a civilisation whose creative power is spent.”
And it would seem that this is the point at which we are today.
I would venture that if the Malthusians had their way, we (or rather the persons that had been permitted to live) would still be on top of Old Winchester Hill. It is time to reinvigorate the creative power that led us down the hill and to reject the worn-out, fusty Malthusian ideas.
[i] Malthusians attack Christians for their opposition to contraception, as if the churches solely pushed population growth as an end in itself. They somehow manage to ignore the comprehensive role of the churches in managing and caring for the people: schools, hospitals, the law, and so on.
[ii] It was Binnie Dunlop, Secretary of the Malthusian League, who introduced Stopes to Roe.
[iii] See “Tenets of the CBC” https://hallidaysutherland.com/2018/05/15/the-tenets-of-the-c-b-c/
[iv] In his foreword to “Lysistrata: Woman’s Future and Future Women” A.M. Ludovici (1926), Haire wrote: “There can be no doubt that much of our present-day ‘ humanitarianism “ only results in wasting on the hopelessly unfit money and care which might be spent very profitably on the fit, and in keeping alive those who should never have been born. With the decay of sentimentalism, infanticide must come to be practised on those who at birth are obviously below a (variable) minimum standard, and sterilization (destruction of fertility without interference with sexual potency or pleasure) on those whose deficiency becomes unmistakable only at a more advanced age. Contraception will be used mainly to ensure an optimum interval between births in the interest of both mother and child, and to limit the offspring to a (variable) number most suitable in the individual, financial, and social circumstances of each family.”
[v] See: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2984766 and https://hallidaysutherland.com/2020/09/01/sterilization/
[vi] See: https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1931/jul/21/sterilization
[vii] See: “By Their Fruits. Eugenics, population control and the abortion debate” Ann Farmer (2008).
[viii] In “Life Without Birth” Johnson wrote: “The fourth and last plank in the strategy, if it was felt that within the context of marriage parents would always want “too many” children, would be to discourage marriage itself as we know it. In order to preserve other fundamental freedoms for society as a whole, the government would attempt to limit the opportunities for breeding by limiting the opportunities for marriage. It would use the weapons of the modern state (still, of course, within the “context of voluntarism”) not just in pursuit of antinatalist policies but of antinuptialist policies as well. This might involve promoting - for some proportion of the society - other forms of union (homosexual or heterosexual) which from a demographic standpoint may be more desirable.”