I wonder if anyone can help? I have this quote in my forthcoming Pluto Press book: http://www.plutobooks.com/display.asp?K=9780745334714&st1=mike%2Bcole&sf1=kword%5Findex%2Cpublisher&sort=sort%5Fpluto&m=1&dc=2

As Stuart[O1]  {?} Hall explains, one prominent current subscribed to the belief that the low level of efficiency of the army reflected the degeneration of the ‘race’:

The British were a chosen race, destined for historic achievement: therefore, positive ways must be taken to ‘improve the race’, if necessary by controlling the rights of the more ‘degenerate’ sections of the population to breed, and engineering a stimulus to the birth rate, especially amongst the well-off sections of society. National efficiency thus provided a powerful stimulus to the ‘social Darwinism’ of people such as Benjamin Kidd and Karl Pearson, who advocated theories of the ‘degeneration of certain national types’ (for example the Jews and the Irish).

Does anyone know the source please? It may not even be Stuart Hall

Best wishes

Professor Mike Cole, University of East London