Note 135 — Front matter (continued 3)

The higher standard need not be, among the mass of the population, of a very exalted character, although it marks a real progress. Newsholme and Stevenson (op. cit.) term it a higher "standard of comfort." The decline of the birth-rate, they say, "is associated with a general raising of the standard of comfort, and is an expression of the determination of the people to secure this greater comfort."