Recently, Prince Charles gave
a speech at the Sheldonian Theatre, Oxford, to mark the 25th anniversary of the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies. During the course of his address, he called for population control in the developing world. Since he had the gall to quote G K Chesterton (and indeed C S Lewis) in his speech, the
Catholic G K Chesterton Society has posted a couple of pertinent quotations from the great man who was a vehement opponent of population control.
Chesterton Answers Prince Charles
In 1925 Chesterton wrote an introduction to Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol in which he said that “The answer to anyone who talks about the surplus population is to ask him, whether he is part of the surplus population; or if not, how he knows he is not.”
Elsewhere, in an essay titled “Social Reform vs. Birth Control,” Chesterton argued that it is typically the wealthy elite who are interested in promoting population control as a solution to poverty, often simply as a means of avoiding dealing with the more difficult root problems that lead to poverty. "If [the Birth-Controller] can prevent his servants from having families, he need not support those families. Why the devil should he?” wrote Chesterton. “The landlord or the employer says in his hearty and handsome fashion: ‘You really cannot expect me to deprive myself of my money. But I will make a sacrifice. I will deprive myself of your children.’”
