The mirror. (Stillwater, Minn.) 1894-1925, 1909-11-04
UNDER THE LASH.
BY ANGLicuS.
-so.~~o-o-~--,-o-.

2 AOiPldS uduO W IdC0 6uiCIu0 10
claim made recently by writer on
this paper. This assertion is not
borne out by the facts. The coun-
try which has the most unenviable
record for declining birthrate is
France, where women have very
few rights under the law, are not
as class prominent in politics OF
social reform and as rule are con-
fined to the activities of the home
In countries which have adopted
woman suffrage on the other hand,
Sweden, Norway and Finland for
instance, the birthrate continues
to show steady increase. The
true regulator of the birthrate is
civilization. AS people becomes
better educated, it's birthrate at fir
loses it's proportional rate of in
crease and ultimately tends to be-
come stationary and even to de-
cline. Large families are rare in
the upper circles of society and
comparatively SO in large cities.
But that stationary or declining
birthrate necessarily means ruin
to a nation is a proposition that
may be debated. Without giving
undue creditto the talk of worlds
peace, it becomes more and more
evident that in war quality counts
for more than quantity. If a hand
ful Of Beers can tax the resources
of Great Britain by means of their
great adaptability to conditions, if
a comparatively poor aud untried
nation like Japan can, by superior
brainwork, defeatg Russia, it seems
plain that the Lord is not necessar-
lily on the side of the biggest bat.
talions, but on the side of those
which loom:biggest u, the critical
points. The Russian birthrate,
through defeat and anarchy, con-
tinues to increase; yet no vast and
impregnable country has been
nearer ruin and disintegration than
Russia. France, thorough ~
whipped in 1870, has never since the
days of Napoleon occupied SO firm
a footing in the European Concert
as she does at present. The great
est diplomatic triumph of the last
half-century, til Q Anglo-French
Agreement, places her in absolute
security, and is a far more logical
fact then the amazing Triple AL
lance, none of whose members
have any reasonable motive for com.
bining-other than necessity. Italy,
never firstclass Power, has been
brought to the verge of bankruptcy
by the ruinous expenditure on ar
maments which Germany and Aus
tria have forced her to adopt.
There remains for Germany the
ever-present threat of the separa-
ton of the Austro-Hungarian En-
pire into its component parts.
The lines entitled, To Mother,
which appeared in last weeks Mir
ror, are a token of the opportunity
Of the the institutional poet. While
The inside versemaker has but one
Or two strings to his Tyre, he can
play on them at times music worth
nearing. He can scarcely achieve
1 spontaneous description of ma
bu1 . Ill LILO Cl1Ou Ill6CIlO0u WOTlu liz
would find difficulty in construct
ng dramatic poem, depending
;or it's success on it's delineation of
character or motive-but poets on
he outside are not doing these
,hings successfully. What he can
10 is to appeal, more or less covert
y, to the sympathies of those who
nave vague ideas of the conditions
which surround hlm-that is, to
The great macs of the poetryread-
ng public (for it is great mass
On the form of his appeal depends,
n large measure, the success of
lis efforts. Wild protestations of
injustice and tyranny are evidently
useless; SO on the other hand is
,ynicism, which is an unusual de-
'ect in work of this kind. The