ABSTRACT
The problem of 'population' recurs in all the major discussions of the time, from the 'social question' to the threat of national decline, from issues of unemployment to the threat of war. By the beginning of the twentieth century, the sexual question was inextricably linked with the politics of population. If maternalism was one stream feeding population policy in the early decades of the century, eugenics was another which more coherently attempted to transform national policy and intellectual debate, though its degree of success was limited. At the heart of the debates was the increasing belief that the health, hygiene and composition of the population were the keys to progress and power. The political and theoretical debates over personal morality and national fertility, physical deterioration and a differential birth rate, major topics in the early decades of the twentieth century, all raised the twin questions of the population and the role and significance of sexuality.
