ARTES
1817
SCIENTIA
LIBRARY
VERITAS
OF THE
UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
TUEBOR
RIS PENINSULAM ANKENAM
CIRCUMSPIGE
THIS BOOK
FORMS PART OF THE
ORIGINAL LIBRARY
OF THE
UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
BOUGHT IN EUROPE
1838 TO 1839
BY
ASA GRAY
НВ
863
.G8
сора
10. 88.
Gray versus Malthus.
THE
PRINCIPLES
OF
$446.
POPULATION AND PRODUCTION
INVESTIGATED:
AND
The Questions,
Does Population regulate Subsistence, or Subsistence
Population;
Has the latter, in its Increase, a Tendency to augment or
diminish the average Quantum of Employment
and Wealth;
AND
Should Government encourage or check early Marriage;
DISCUSSED:
BY GEORGE PURVES, L. L. D. VIS
Chanan Gray
"We are aware of the importance of a full discussion of the principles of
population and production in the present conflicting state of the public
opinion on that great practical question."
No. 31, Quarterly Review, October 1816, p. 56.
P
LONDON:
PRINTED FOR LONGMAN, HURST, REES, ORME, AND
BROWN, PATERNOSTER ROW;
AND ARCHIBALD CONSTABLE AND CO. EDINBURGH.
1818.
Сар. 2
5. Gornell, Printer, Little Queen Street, London...
1
TO M. SA Y.
SIR,
I Do myself the honour of inscribing to you
the following discussion concerning the principles of
population and production. My object, in this, is the
same, as in my former. It is to endeavour to clear the
science of statistics from mere theoretical fancies in these
vital points, and to establish their principles on real
causes and actual results.
I am not informed, whether the statisticians of the
continent have gone much into the examination of a doc-
trine certainly among the most appalling, broached in
ancient or modern times. Sir James Steuart seems to
have laid the basis of the subsistence theory, but Mr.
Malthus gave it its present form. The bold assump-
tions of the latter made an extraordinary impression on
the public mind here. For many years our political
writers of every class would frequently go out of their
way to show that they were antipopulationists. The
most ridiculous effects were attributed to the new sub-
sistence principle. In their theoretic fury, they seemed
to consider all the evils of human nature as springing
from the increase of population.
I suspect indeed, that this was less the effect of real
belief derived from strict examination, than of fashion.
A 2
iv
TO M. SAY.
For with us, as well as with you, fashion often enters
into science, and has more influence than either facts or
reason. I certainly have never met with any subsisten-
cian, who seemed to be even aware, that the doctrines
which he held, should be tried by the great law of
nature, the regulating power of the demand; and that
they not merely abrogated, but actually reversed that
law. But be the cause what it may, the subsistence or
antipopulation theory seemed to have triumphed com-
pletely in Britain for several years. Certain attempts
had indeed been made at first to check this popular
delusion; but all gave way.
At length, in the spring of 1815, the author of the
Happiness of States (a work which he meant to have
published in 1804, but was prevented) stood forth to
vindicate what he conceived to be the arrangements of
nature, by an appeal to real causes and actual facts.
This determined populationist, unawed by the epidemi-
cal fury around him, and confident of having facts and
every principle of circulation, as he affirms, on his side,
treated mere bold assertions as of no value, and coolly
told our subsistencians, that, with respect to their
theory," to examine was to refute." From a minute
analysis of causes and effects, connected with population
and subsistence, he drew conclusions, in every leading
point, exactly contrary to those which Mr. Malthus
grounded upon general assumptions.
The populationists are now evidently gaining ground.
Mr. Grahame, Mr. Weyland, and several others, have
since attacked the subsistence theory each in his own
way. But the public mind here is certainly still much
in doubt on this most important practical question.
It is my intention to bring the two theories fully
3
TO M. SAY.
V
into contact with each other on all the points of differ-
ence, in order to enable my readers to decide for them-
selves.
Our feelings, Sir, ought not to influence us in our
decision; but what a very eminent and excellent public
character wrote to the author of the population theory,
just as he was going to enter on an examination of the
subject, will à priori be assented to by all. "If you
have succeeded in establishing your position, that popu-
lation is the regulator of subsistence, not subsistence of
population, you will, I am sure, afford great relief to
every benevolent mind." The consequences of the doc-
trines of the subsistence theory are such, that no friend
to our race, even among those who have admitted them,
but would be glad to find them proved to be unwarranted,
The question, Sir, is no abstract one; no mercly
theoretical one. It affects practically, vitally, essen-
tially, intimately the fortunes of every man, woman and
child of the human race. The populationists are con-
tending for the liberty of mankind against a tyranny of
the most repulsive and insufferable character. Their
object is to assert the rights and power of mind, and to
rescue rational beings from a slavery as miserable as
it is degrading: and, what would give a peculiarly
envenomed sting to all, a slavery, which, were it really
imposed by nature, must be hopeless.
The whole question, Sir, hinges on this, whether
there be any insuperable natural difficulties in the
supplying of subsistence, which prevent the full ope-
ration of the law of the demand with respect to its
supply: and these must evidently be found either in a
natural deficiency of materials, or of suppliers. Should,
therefore, the statisticians of the continent take
up the
A 3
vi
TO M. SAY.
discussion of the very important and deeply interesting
question at issue, I trust, they will at least not commit
the blunder which has been so generally committed on
this side of the water, I trust, they will not try it
without a reference to what alone can decide it cor,
rectly to that great law of nature, the regulating
power of the Demand.
London,
1st May, 1818.
THE AUTHOR,
I
1
CONTENTS.
BOOK L
THE PRINCIPLE OF POPULATION.
Chap. I. Introductory to the Discussion ....
Chap. II. The leading Ideas of the two Theories
stated
Chap. III.-The Principle of Population, ac-
cording to Mr. Gray
Chap. IV. Is there a Tendency in animal Life,
according to the Arrangements of
Nature, to increase beyond the Nou-
rishment prepared for it?
Chap. V.-Mr. Malthus's Principle of Popu-
lation
Chap. VI.-The different natural Ratios of In-
crease, supposed by Mr. Malthus to
belong to Population and Sub-
sistence
Chap. VII.-Has Population any regular natural
Ratio of Increase compared with
Time?
Chap. VIII.—The System of Checks
Chap. IX.-The Case of the United States of
America, which exhibits so high a
Rate of Increuse in a great Mass of
Population, decisive against the
Subsistence Theory
Page
1
6
12
26
32
46
54
59
61
viii
CONTENTS.
Chap. X.-A general View of the Effect of the
Quantum of Subsistence on Popu-
lation, with a Recapitulation
BOOK II.
Pago
65
DOES POPULATION REGULATE SUBSISTENCE, AS MR.
GRAY AFFIRMS, OR SUBSISTENCE POPULATION, AS
IS MAINTAINED BY MR. MALTHUS ?
Chap. I.-The regulating Power attributed to
Population
Chap. II.-The regulating Power attributed to
Subsistence
Chap. III. The natural Tendency to an average
Equality, between the actual
Amount of the Supply of Subsist-
ence, and the actual Demand of
Population
Chap. IV. Population has the Power fully to
regulate the Amount of Subsistence,
till the Earth has reached its full
Complement
Chap. V.-The Influence of Population and
Subsistence on each other.
Chap. VI.-Has Population a Tendency to rise
always fully, or nearly, to the
average Amount of the Means of
Subsistence?
Chap. VII-Will Population continue to increase
till the Earth reaches its full Com-
plement?
Chap. VIII. The Case of the Earth's reaching her
69
89
101
105
111
184
145
full Complement considered..... 162
{
CONTENTS.
ix
Page
BOOK III.
DOES POPULATION TEND TO OVERSTOCK WITH
RESPECT TO EMPLOYMENT?
Chap. I.-Does Population, in its Increase, tend
to augment or diminish the average
Amount of Employment? ......
.... 167
Chap. II.-The Redundancy of European Popu-
lation in 1816, considered
Chap. III-Has any natural Proportion, which
Subsistence bears to Population
when increasing, a Tendency to di-
minish the Quantum of Employ-
ment?
179
190
BOOK IV.
DOES POPULATION, IN ITS INCREASE, TEND TO
AUGMENT OR DIMINISH THE AVERAGE AMOUNT
OF INCOME AND WEALTH?
Chap. I.-The Source of Productiveness in
point of Wealth, as operated upon
by the Increase of Population... 210
Chap. II.-Certain theoretical Objections to the
wealth-augmenting Principle of the
Increase of Population, examined 220
Chap. III.—The Existence of a wealth-producing
Influence in the Increase of Popu-
lation, fully proved by Facts. . 226
Chap. IV.-The Decrease of Population tends to
render Circulators poorer
240
CONTENTS.
Chap. V.-A Tendency to promote Poverty, as-
cribed by some Statisticians to the
Page
Increase of Population, examined 246
Chap. VI.-The Increase of the Poor in England 263
Chap. VII.-Has the natural Proportion, which
Subsistence bears to Population, in
its Increase, a Tendency to check
the Progress of the latter in Wealth? 268
BOOK V.
SOME PRACTICAL TOPICS, INCLUDING THE EFFECTS
OF THE TWO THEORIES.
Chap. I.—The general Result of the Increase of
Population with respect to Health 283
Chap. III.-The Result of early Marriage, as to
Chap. II.-The Result of early Marriage, as to
Virtue
290
Happiness
292
Wealth
296
Chap. IV. The Result of early Marriage, as to
Chap. V. Should a Government encourage or
check early Marriage among its
People?
Chap. VI. The practical Consequences of the
two Theories
Chap. VII-A general Recapitulation
Chap. VIII.-Concluding Observations on the Sub-
sistence Question at Issue between
the Populationists and Antipopu-
lationists ..
307
312
338
351
CONTENTS.
xi
MISCELLANEOUS STATISTICS.
No. I.-Three Letters to M. Say.
Letter 1.—On the Source of Productiveness in
Page
point of Wealth
397
Letter 2.-Utility, not the Principle of Produc-
tiveness
401
Letter 3.-Chargeability, as the Source of Pro-
ductiveness
413
No. II.-On the Poor. By Mr. Gray
420
No. III.--Foundling Establishments, or Hos-
pitals
438
No. IV.-A new, or modern Crusade
No. V.-Table of the comparative Population
and Wealth of the Counties of
England and Wales, in the Year
ending the 5th of April 1801, with
their Rate of Increase in Numbers
from 1801 to 1811
No. VL-Four Essays on the Effects of ace-
rage high and low Prices.
Essay 1-Price represents Employment, In-
come, aud the Style of Living
Essay 2-Peace and War Prices...
Essay 3.-4 Fall in average Prices produces a
Diminution, and a Rise in average
Prices, an Increase of Employ-
443
455
461
466
ment, Income and Wealth ....
Essay 4.-Folly of the Attempt to reduce
average Prices
No. VII.—The Money Question
Index.
469
478
490
:
}
F
1
ERRATA.
Page 52, line 1 from the bottom, for ratio read ratios.
96, line 5 from the bottom, dele formerly.
110, line 8 from the top, dele that.
144, last line, for want read wants.
173, line 6 from the bottom, for them read it.
184, line 5 from the top, for mascs read masses.
203, line 2 from the bottom, for of read or.
1
278, line 2 from ditto, for mountain straths, read mountains, straths.
831, last line, for worse read worst.
401, line 6 from the top, after user add a comma.
405, line 18 from the top, for cotton read cottons.
419, line 2 from the top, for attentions read attention.
↑
THE
PRINCIPLES
OF
POPULATION,
&c.
BOOK 1.
THE PRINCIPLE OF POPULATION.
CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTORY TO THE DISCUSSION.
If we except the grand fundamental question in
statistics, What is the source of productiveness
in point of wealth? there is not another in the
science which involves so many important
practical consequences as that which is meant
for the subject of this essay, Has population a
tendency to over-increase ?
It has long, perhaps always, been a pre-
vailing notion with the multitude, that circu-
lators are too numerous, and that were these
diminished in number, by sending them off as
colonists for example, it would be better for
L
B
+
2
BOOK I.
INTRODUCTION
the remainder. From this naturally springs
another popular notion, that an increase of
circulators tends to render the circumstances of
the former worse, as these new-comers obtain
a greater or less share of the advantages of the
former residents.
These notions appear so plausible, and to
be so fairly derived from facts on a first or
partial view of the subject, it is not much to
be wondered at, that even the great body of
the better-informed classes have admitted
them, or, at least, not positively rejected
them. The professed statistician himself has
generally been rather disposed to take them for
granted; and though, in more enlightened
times, opinions evidently derived from actual
facts and utterly inconsistent with these, have
met with assent from many, there appears, on
the whole, to have been either a general acqui-
escence in those notions, or a leaning towards
them both among the learned and unlearned,
among statesmen and the people.
At length these notions have been embo-
died in a theory; and the maintainers of this
theory seem to consider them rather as axioms,
than as mere opinions. For some
For some years it was
very generally admitted among the statisticians
of Great Britain, that, on the arrangements of
nature, circulators were apt to become more
numerous than was advantageous; or, in other
CHAP. I.
3
TO THE DISCUSSION.
words, that population has a tendency to over-
increase.
Upon a general view of the subject, how-
ever, this certainly does not seem to be con-
sistent either with the laws of nature's arrange-
ments, or with the results of these, when
viewed impartially and in all their extent. And
it is affirmed on the other side, that though,
from a partial view of the facts, it is true the
inquiring statistician himself, who rises above
the influence of name and of popular prejudices,
and will have a reason for every thing, may at
first see something real in this theoretical con-
clusion, yet when he examines these more tho-
roughly, he begins to suspect this first view to
be fallacious. The more he analyses them, he
perceives the contrary opinion to be more pro-
bable, until at length a complete analysis of
them proves the first notion to be utterly un-
warranted, and the other to be strictly founded
on them.
Sir James Stewart, and several other
statisticians of name, have sported more or
less of the theory of an injurious tendency in
population to over-increase, but Mr. Malthus
has the credit of embodying it more completely,
and distinctly introducing it to the notice of
the public. To his ideas, therefore, I shall
pay particular attention in discussing the
question.
B 2
INTRODUCTION
BOOK 1.
This theory has been rather disputed in
some points, than entirely rejected by its oppo-
nents, except by Mr. Gray. It is the leading
object of this author, in the Happiness of States,
to establish the doctrine, that the increase of
population is so far from having any tendency
to overstock, that the more rapid and extensive
it is, it necessarily supplies human wants more
completely, augments more largely the average
amount of employment, income and wealth, ren-
ders civilization more complete, and thus, of
course, tends more effectually to promote the
happiness of all.
In this essay, the object of which is to
ascertain what are the real principles of popu-
lation in regard to the means afforded for a
supply of its wants, or as to its tendency to in-
crease or over-increase, I mean to confine my-
self chiefly to examining these opposite theories
minutely on the fundamental point at issue.
Collateral, or connected topics may be no-
ticed, but principally with a reference to the
grand point. By keeping the attention con-
centrated upon this, we shall get a more clear
and distinct view of it, and be better able to
come to a correct and decisive conclusion upon
it. The fundamental positions may be sound
and part of the superstructure unsound. On
the other hand, the fundamental doctrines may
be merely fanciful, and yet much of the detail
CHAP. I.
5
TO THE DISCUSSION.
used in illustrating them may be real. We
must pay particular attention to discriminating
here.
I have to observe, that there seems a strong
bias in speculative minds towards what I call
subtilizing, and to fancying causes out of the
common line. This affectation of subtilty and
singularity, with a fondness for occult causes,
infects most theorists, whatever be the science
in which they speculate. But in none is this
more strikingly displayed (particularly since
the time of those French visionaries, the Econo
mists) than in statistics, though a science of
familiar every-day facts and causes. Indeed, in
order to reach truth, the inquiring statistician
has little more to do than to clear away the
mass of imaginations and affected subtleties, in
which the subject lies buried, and to look at na-
ture as she is found in real life. This task,
however, is now become a herculean one.
Scarcely in theology itself during the monkish
ages, have we had such a cloud of gross absur-
dities, unintelligible dogmas, and unwarranted
imaginations exhibited to the sober inquirer,
as, during the present enlightened and in-
quiring age, in this science of actual facts.
B 3
6
BOOK I.
THE LEADING IDEAS
CHAPTER II.
THE LEADING IDEAS OF THE TWO THEORIES
STATED.
It will assist in bringing the question at issue
more fully and fairly before us, and enable the
reader to judge more correctly for himself upon
it, to give the leading ideas of each theory.
This will also be useful in point of brevity.
The mode adopted by Mr, Malthus in
treating of population, is extremely defective.
If we allow him to assume and take for granted
every thing which appears to support the no-
tion of a natural tendency in population to
over-increase or overstock, it may have its
merits. But, in a general inquiry concerning
the real causes and actual results connected
with population and subsistence, it is calcu-
lated to bewilder both himself and his readers,
and to render the subject, as actually found in
nature, unintelligible. He commences with
assuming a constant tendency in all animated
life to increase beyond the nourishment pre-
pared for it, and that population naturally in-
creases at a certain rate, provided there be
subsistence sufficient. He then states gene-
CHAP. II. OF THE TWO THEORIES.
7
rally what he considers the checks to popula-
tion; and he proceeds to detail the operation
of these checks among nations both in ancient
and modern times. This is evidently an ex-
parte view of the subject, were it even satis-
factory as far as it goes; and it is by no means
calculated to set it before us distinctly in all
its causes and results, without reference to any
theory.
Mr. Gray's view in his Inquiry is more ge-
neral and complete. His chief object is, he
informs us, to analyse the effects of the increase
of population, in all their extent, which he
tells us is not yet entirely completed*. He is
even more particular than Mr. Malthus with
respect to that portion of the subject, to which
this author confines himself, the tendency to
overstock. He separates the consideration of
employment and wealth from that of subsist-
ence.
In treating of circuland, or the mate-
rials of circulation, he analyses the causes of
the influence which he attributes to the in-
crease of population, or an uniform tendency to
augment employment and income. In the
fourth book he proceeds to treat expressly of
population, without any reference either to a
tendency or non-tendency in it to over-increase.
He considers the grand source of the increase
* See his second Letter to M. Say, All Classes pro-
ductive, p. 297.
B 4
8
BOOK I.
THE LEADING IDEAS
of population to be early marriage. He then
details the stimulative populating causes, or
those which tend to make that source more
prolific, and next the counteracting. The lat-
ter he divides into the defecundating, or those
which render marriage less productive, and the
positively depopulating, or those which pro-
duce mortality. He proceeds to discuss the
important questions, whether population has
always been increasing, and whether it will
always continue to increase, and closes this
branch by comparing the progress of popula-
tion with time. He now analyses subsistence,
and attempts to ascertain what quantity of
subsistence land, on an average, is capable of
being made to produce, and then the amount
of population, which land, cultivated to its full
average extent, is capable of subsisting. He
next proceeds to inquire into the influence of
population and subsistence on each other. The
result of all he finds to be, that population re-
gulates subsistence, and that with respect to
the latter, as well as with respect to employ-
ment, income and wealth, population, far from
having a tendency to over-increase or over-
stock, has an uniform effect directly contrary.
This mode of inquiring is certainly better
calculated to enable us to reach what is really
true. Besides, the reader knows always his
whereabout; and, as he goes on, whether he
CHAP. II. OF THE TWO THEORIES.
9
is satisfied or not, he is always distinctly pre-
sented with the why. Had Mr. Malthus
adopted a plan somewhat similar, we should
have been better able to obtain a clear view of
the subject as seen by him, and of the reasons
that he assigns for the regulating influence
which he attributes to subsistence. As it is,
he leaves us in doubt as to what that regulating
influence consists in, or how it operates in
producing the number which it can feed, and
seldom more or fewer. I have several times
read over his details of checks, and I confess,
I really cannot say, that I comprehend what
he considers this theoretic influence to be, or
how it possesses so uniform and vast a power.
Mr. Gray, in his Inquiry, separates the
influence of the increase of population with re-
spect to subsistence, from that with respect to
employment, income and wealth. Mr. Malthus
inixes these together. The latter method tends
to obscurity and confusion. In this discussion,
therefore, I shall adopt the former, as con-
ducing to a clearer as well as more correct view
of the subject. For population may have a
tendency to over-increase with respect to sub-
sistence, and not with respect to employment,
income and wealth, and vice versa.
The following seem to me to be the leading
ideas of the two theories, and these I shall
10
BOOK 1.
THE LEADING IDEAS
distinctly consider. I give Mr. Gray's first, as
he founds his views on an universal law neces-
sarily arising out of the arrangements of nature,
while Mr. Malthus forms his upon a deviation
from that law in the case of subsistence alone.
To discuss the operation of that law first will
conduce both to brevity and to clearness.
MR. GRAY'S LEADING IDeas.
1. The principle of po-
pulation as connected with
subsistence, climate, go-
vernment, &c. is, that, in
all ordinary circumstances,
population has a tendency
to increase, but not to
over-increase; for this in-
crease carries in itself the
power of fully supplying
its various wants.
2. The natural pro-
gress of population, when
compared with time, is
according to no particular
ratio, but depends upon
the various circumstances
in which it is placed. Com-
pared with subsistence, in
connected districts or coun-
tries, it uniformly renders
the progress of the latter.
MR. MALTHUS'S LEADING
IDEAS.
1. The principle of po-
pulation, as so connected,
is, that population has a
natural tendency to over-
increase, or to increase
faster than subsistence.
2. The natural pro-
gress of population is ac-
cording to the geometrical,
and the natural progress of
subsistence, only accord-
ing to the arithmetical
ratio.
CHAP. II. OF THE TWO THEORIES.
11
nearly the same with its
own.
3. The amount of
po-
pulation thus regulates
the amount of subsistence
as completely as it regu-
lates clothing, housing and
all other species of circu-
land depending on the will.
4. Superabundance, or
an excess of subsistence,
has a defecundating and
depopulating effect.
5. The increase of po-
pulation tends uniformly
to increase the average
amount of employment
divided among the circu-
lators, and, of course, to
create an additional de-
mand for hands.
6. The increase of po-
pulation has, therefore, an
uniform tendency to in-
crease income and wealth;
and not merely according
to the old ratio, but ac-
cording to a new and en-
larged proportion, aug-
menting somewhat as the
number of circulators in-
3. The amount of sub-
sistence regulates the a-
mount of population.
4. Population increases
more rapidly according to
the abundance of sub-
sistence.
5. Population, in its
increase, has a tendency to
overstock, or to produce
more than a proper de-
gree of fulness, and con-
sequently to diminish the
average quantity of em-
ployment among the ex-
isting members.
6. The increase of po-
pulation has a certain na-
tural tendency to promote
poverty.
creases.
12
BOOK T.
MR. GRAY'S PRINCIPLE
7. The diseases and
evils generated by the in-
crease of population, are
chiefly those which spring
from luxury, or an excess
of subsistence, and from
riches.
7. The diseases and
evils generated by the in-
crease of population, are
chiefly, those springing from
a scarcity of food and from
poverty.
In examining these ideas by the test of
facts, I shall first consider the principle of po-
pulation, next the regulating power attributed
to population and to subsistence, then the tend-
ency to increase or diminish employment, in-
come and wealth, and lastly, the practical
results.
CHAPTER III.
THE PRINCIPLE OF POPULATION ACCORDING TO
MR. GRAY.
IN
In all ordinary circumstances, Mr. Gray af-
firms, population, according to the arrangements
of nature, has a tendency to increase, but not to
over-increase; for this increase carries in itself
the power of more effectually supplying its
wants *.
*Happiness of States, B. iv. ch. 6. p. 337. Ch. 5, et
passim.
CHAP. III.
13
OF POPULATION.
This seems thoroughly confirmed by the
fact, that since the commencement of history,
population, on the whole, has been upon the
increase. Occasionally it is probable, so pow-
erful has been the combination of unfavourable
circumstances throughout the inhabited portion
of the globe, that it may have been stationary
and even retrogressive. But the gradual ex-
tension of cultivation, of civilization, of com-
merce and geographical knowledge, and the
progress of intellectual attainments, and of in-
ventions, as well as the information afforded by
history, though this till very lately has been
very scanty and uncertain *, prove a gradual
increase of population to have been the general
result. Indeed, I believe, it will not be dis-
puted that, though there have been occasional
stationary and retrogressive periods, the world
has been gradually filling from the earliest por-
tion of regular history. And in tracing back
the occurrences of the human race, the entire
failure of regular history at length seems fully
to demonstrate, that previous to that period,
the population of the world was extremely rude
and ignorant, and consequently thin.
The rate of increase, however, by the ar-
* A defect, by the way, which indirectly tends to con-
firm the same thing.
† For a more detailed proof of this result see the Hap
piness of States, B. iv. ch. 6.
14
BOOK I.
MR. GRAY'S PRINCIPLE
1
rangements of nature is utterly uncertain and
changeable; for it depends, at all times,
greatly, and sometimes entirely, on the circum-
stances in which the population is placed. There
is, therefore, no fixed or natural ratio of in-
crease with respect to time.
"The progress of
population," says Mr. Gray,
“is
" is both irregular
and uncertain, and no fixed ratio can be ob-
tained concerning it, for there is none. It is
entirely regulated by circumstances. And,
therefore, we may be egregiously out in argu-
ing from what has been with respect to it, to
what may be, and much more from what has
been the fact in very favourable periods to what
may be in all circumstances that may probably
take place hereafter. One thing only is cer-
tain, that the natural progress of population is
found in no particular ratio; but is its progress
regulated by its various circumstances in any
given district. It must, therefore, be ever
varying with those circumstances *."
When we turn to the first ages of men, and
consider the small number of inhabitants on
the globe, we are naturally disposed to inquire,
why did they not increase much faster than
they appear to have done? Indeed this ques-
tion will arise even at present, when many
districts of the world are peopled so consider-
* Happiness of States, B. iv. ch. 8. p. 375. See also
ch. 7 of this Book.
3
CHAP. III.
15
OF POPULATION.
ably. There is an abundance of room in every
direction for man to extend his numbers, and
there are ample means of obtaining subsistence
to any amount that is required. It, however,
more forcibly occurs on contemplating the early
periods of the existence of men. We find an
immense place fitted for human beings, with
only a few wanderers here and there upon its
surface. The plan of building so vast a man-
sion and storehouse capable of containing and
feeding such unnumbered millions, and sup-
plying only a small number of inhabitants at
first, which was to increase till the whole was
either fully peopled, or nearly so, we are to
assume was most suited to the other arrange-
ments of nature, and best upon the whole for a
succession of transitory beings. And there are
unquestionably advantages arising from it.
The statistician, in taking this general view
of the subject, will almost instinctively be set
upon inquiring, why, after a period of at least
four thousand years, there is no country
peopled to its full extent, while most regions
are so thinly peopled, and immense tracts are
scarcely peopled at all? He will scarcely à
priori attribute this tardiness to a want of sub-
sistence; for he sees every where the most
ample means of fresh supplies, whenever the
cultivator chooses to turn his attention to new
lands, or to cultivating more effectually the
16
BOOK I.
MR. GRAY'S PRINCIPLE
old. He will be rather disposed to attribute it
to something in the nature of population itself.
And it is not unlikely but he will fall into a
similar train of thinking with that of the author
of the Happiness of States in his free inquiry for
himself on this subject, with as little regard as
possible either for name, or for the ideas al-
ready broached upon it, except what facts and
reasoning from them warrant.
That writer, in analysing the arrangements
of nature with respect to the increase of popu-
lation, finds the grand source of this increase
in early marriage. "But it is not merely mar-
rying, that will keep up, or increase, popula-
tion. It must be a general or national prac-
tice of early marrying or marrying near twenty.
Late marriage is seldom productive. Two
children are perhaps the full average of all
marriages when the male and female are be-
yond thirty. If the female be younger, the
average will be more. The children of late
marriages are also more puny. They are not
only less likely to reach the marriageable age,
but to be productive in their turn should they
reach it. Early marriages, on the other hand,
are, with the exception of a deficiency of health,
or of premature death in either or both the
parties, almost uniformly productive. Per-
haps the average production of marriages be-
fore or at twenty, is fully five, if not six. These
CHAP. III.
17
OF POPULATION.
children are also stronger, and more likely to
be productive*.”
He proceeds: "It is the average number
of children to a marriage that regulates the
increase of population. Under a national
habit of late marriage, that is, after twenty-
seven on the part of the woman, even sup-
posing only the average mortality, the na-
tional population will decrease: while, under
a national practice of early marriage, that is,
before or not much beyond twenty, particu-
larly on the part of the female, it will increase,
and pretty rapidly, in countries not very popu-
lous, unless counteracted by some uncommon
depopulating circumstances. I am disposed to
think, that if the average period of life at
which females marry in a country were to
reach twenty-five, population would be sta-
tionary, if it did not grow retrogressive."
It may be observed here, that there must
be a restriction as to earliness. Premature co-
habitation tends to defecundate. And this ef-
fect would probably take place before seven-
teen, in temperate climates; but in hot, if we
are to credit the information of travellers, a
still earlier age would be fully prolific.
That early marriage is the grand source
of the increase of population will, it is likely,
X- Happiness of States, B. iv. ch. 1. p. 298.
C
18
BOOK I.
MR. GRAY'S PRINCIPLE
be admitted without a dissenting voice. "What-
ever then," says Mr. Gray, "contributes to
keep up a general spirit of early marrying in a
nation, or to give an additional spur to it, and,
farther, whatever tends to preserve or increase
general health, is a cause that operates towards
augmenting population *.
"The general causes of marriage," he pro-
ceeds, “are the sexual desires, which become so
impulsive at a certain age, the passion of love,
so natural to the heart of man and woman,
particularly when young, and convenience,
or the advantages and comforts which mar-
riage presents in point of housekeeping. The
stimulating causes are various." He then
notices some of the chief stimulative populating
causes or circumstances, as "warm genial
seasons; a happy turn in the state of the na-
tional affairs, for example, a transition from
war to peace; whatever tends to raise the in-
come; or contributes to greater health; the in-
troduction of improved medical systems; the
influence of fashion," &c.
He next analyses the causes or circum-
stances which tend to retard the progress of
population. These he divides into defecunda-
ting, or those which tend to render men and
women less prolific, and positively destroying.
The former" check the progress of population
Happiness of States, B. iv. ch. 2. p. 300.
† Ib.
CHAP. III.
19
OF POPULATION.
by diminishing the number of births: the lat-
ter by destroying those that are born *."
"These counteracting causes are either of a
physical or a moral kind, or a mixture of both.
Some of them arise from the laws of human
nature, and are utterly independent of the
human will; and others are partly produced by
its choice. Some are regular, and some only
occasional."
"The grand defecundating causes are late
marriage, excessive or immoral venery and
luxury." And he says, "It may be affirmed
generally, that labouring with the body has a
fecundating virtue, and labouring with the
mind, an influence of the opposite kind §." He
adds, "It may be observed in general of all
the regular causes which tend to destroy, that
they tend also to defecundate ||
In analysing the positively destroying causes
and circumstances, he notices first the physi-
cal. These are the principles of disease and
death which nature has implanted in the hu-
man constitution (which are exhibited in the
regular disorders of children, in fever, con-
sumption); unhealthy climates; unhealthy sea-
sons, and epidemical diseases produced by
them; occasional famines; convulsions of na-
*
Happiness of States, B. iv. ch. 4. p. 311.
+ Id. B. iv. ch. 3. p. 307.
‡ Ib. p. 309.
$ Ib.
!! Ib.
p.
311.
C 2
20
BOOK I.
MR. GRAY'S PRINCIPLE
ture, such as earthquakes, hurricanes and
storms; and accidents, such as drowning, fall-
ing from heights, being run over by carriages,
and a thousand others to which in common life
men are exposed *. He next analyses the
moral causes of depopulation, or those wholly
or at least chiefly dependent on the will. He
then enumerates luxury or intemperance; war;
political convulsions; crimes; and illicit sexual
connexions and their consequences *
In this minute analysis of the real facts and
causes connected with population, we have the
subject brought fully and distinctly before us,
as it exists in real life, without reference to any
particular theory. The impartial statistician
will perceive, that the stimulating causes, or
circumstances which tend to promote the pro-
gress of population, and the counteracting
causes, or circumstances which have a tend-
ency to retard it, require equal attention.
They are alike impressive; and a full consider-
ation of both is necessary to understand the
subject completely. There is so far from being
any appearance of a natural tendency to over-
increase, that when we consider the mortality
among infants in spite of every care, the num-
berless varieties of disease to which all ages are
subject, as well as accidents to which they are
Happiness of States, E. iv. ch. 4.
CHAP. III.
21
OF POPULATION.
F
liable, which evidently increase as population
becomes more crowded, we shall, on this ge-
neral view, be rather apt to wonder how popu-
lation increases at all. The stimulating causes
will thus, of course, assume a peculiar im-
portance.
If we view man in the savage or hunter's
state, which has been supposed by many to be
his original state, he seems not to be naturally
a very prolific animal. "The savage popula-
tion," says Mr. Gray, "with all its active and
laborious employment out of doors, appears
stationary, if it be not occasionally retrogres-
sive. The causes of this must be sought for
in the peculiar circumstances of these tribes:
the want of constant regular employment, the
sameness in their pursuits which makes them
listless, their general idleness with starts of
excessive rather than healthful labour, while
their desolate and joyless condition produces
an habitual gloom or depression of mind; their
frequent fastings from necessity, and then, on
a supply, their voracious eating, both which
are debilitating; the misery and want to which
they are so often reduced, and which render
their state so unpropitious to love; the late-
ness of marriage on the part of the male, with
the practice among many tribes of allowing
prostitution before marriage; their intermarry-
ing among themselves, without crossing the
c 3
22
BOOK I.
MR. GRAY'S PRINCIPLE
breed, if the expression may be permitted; the
length of time employed by the women in rear-
ing their children, whom they nourish for three
or four years, during which period they do not
cohabit with their husbands; their frequent
and exterminating wars; and perhaps not the
least effective, their unhealthy woods and de-
serts: all these defecundating circumstances
combine to render the savage tribes a sterile
race*.
And in all the barbarous periods of nations,
they certainly seem to have populated very
tardily.
In the mere pastoral state, man does not
seem still to be very prolific, though his pro-
ductiveness is increased. The wandering pas-
toral Tartars make very slow progress in in-
creasing their numbers, no doubt from the in-
fluence of some of the counteracting causes
which operate against population in the hun-
ter's state. Indeed, if their number did in-
crease much, the necessary results of an in-
crease of population would force the great body
of them to become stationary, and build vil-
lages and towns.
In the third, or agricultural state, "man
becomes very productive. Indeed in this state,
from the healthiness of his employment and his
* Happiness of States, B. iv. ch. 3. p. 309.
CHAP. III.
23
OP POPULATION.
temperance in living, he is found the most
productive as well as long lived *." In this
state, the stimulating causes exist in their
greatest strength, while the counteracting are
proportionately weak.
Man is by no means so prolific in the
fourth, or commercial state. "Manufactures
and commerce introduce sedentary employ-
ments; and by means of the riches acquired
from them, voluptuous habits and excessive
eating, which are completely defecundating,
as well as injurious to health, and tending to
shorten life.” In this state, some of the
populating causes are as strong as in the
agricultural, particularly earliness of marriage;
but, on the other hand, the counteracting
causes or circumstances both of the defecun-
dating and positively destroying kind gain an
increasing force, and frequently to a degree
which is extremely destructive.
But it is evident, that in all these states,
whether found pure or mixed, though certain
seemingly regular results prevail, the progress
or retardation differs very materially according
to circumstances. There is, therefore, no
natural regular rate essentially connected with
any of them. The only rate is that which is
produced by the ever-varying circumstances,
A
Happiness of States, B. iv. ch. 3. p. 309. † Id. ib.
c 4
24
BOOK I.
MR. GRAY'S PRINCIPLE
#
in which any portion of it is found. It is the
force of the general and particular stimulating
circumstances, corrected by that of the general
and particular counteracting circumstances in
which any division of population is placed, that
regulates the rate of its increase *.
Mr. Gray, in his analysis, finds no parti-
cular influence in the mere quantity of sub-
sistence. "I know not," says he, "that an
abundance of subsistence is any additional
cause of increasing population, unless the ar-
ticles of necessary use be rendered cheaper by
the abundance. In this case, single people of
the lower ranks are disposed to marry earlier,
because marriage is rendered more a matter of
prudence. As to the influence of mere abun-
dance in increasing the prolific powers of the
great body on the whole, I am in doubt. A
certain quantity of food is necessary to life
and health, but this is much smaller than
most people imagine. Beyond this quantity
of subsistence, which is what a pampered
townsman would call mere starvation, all ad-
ditional food seems to add nothing either to
health or to the prolific powers; but if the ad-
dition be considerable, it diminishes both †."
As to any universal regulating power in sub-
sistence, he finds none: and there is none.
*
Happiness of States, B. iv. ch. 8. p. 374.
† Id. B. iv. ch. 2. p. 306.
4
CHAP. III.
25
OF POPULATION.
Reason is seen in all cases regulating the sup-
ply according to the demand; and population
carries in itself the means of enabling reason
fully to accomplish its intention. But this will
be more particularly considered in a subse-
quent part of the discussion.
An important question arises on a general
view of the subject. If population bè upon the
whole, in all ordinary circumstances, making a
progress, will it continue to do so till the earth
reaches its full complement? Mr. Gray considers
the negative as most probable. This will be
brought more particularly under consideration
afterwards. But whether the principle of in-
crease may be completely overpowered by the
growing influence of the defecundating and
positively destroying circumstances, ere popu-
lation has reached its complement, or whether
that principle may carry it forward to that
complement, till either of these results take
place, Mr. Gray's principle of population, or
that, in all ordinary cases, it has a tendency
to increase on the whole, but none to over-
increase, seems completely borne out by facts.
26 IS THERE A TENDENCY IN ANIMALS
BOOK I.
CHAPTER IV.
IS THERE A TENDENCY IN ANIMAL LIFE, ACCORD-
ING TO THE ARRANGEMENTS OF NATURE, TO IN-
CREASE BEYOND THE NOURISHMENT PREPARED
FOR IT?
MR. Malthus maintains, that there is “a con-
stant tendency in all animated life to increase
beyond the nourishment prepared for it*:"
and applying this to man, he affirms that
"population has this constant tendency to in-
crease beyond the means of subsistence."
The former proposition may be true with
respect to irrational animals, and yet be false
with respect to the rational animal, man. I
shall, therefore, consider the propositions sepa-
rately.
This author has not stated the facts, from
which he has deduced the opinion, that animal
life has a tendency to increase faster than the
nourishment prepared for it. He takes it at
once for granted. The naturalist would ob-
ject to the assumption of so important a prin-
ciple in nature, though it related only to a
mere matter of theoretical arrangement, or
speculation, and he would insist upon having
* Essay on the Principle of Population, B. i. ch. 1. p. 2.
CHAP. IV. TO OVER-INCREASE ?
27
the fact fully laid before him; but, when a
doctrine is built upon it, which involves prac-
tical measures of the last importance to man-
kind, the statistician will instantly reject it, as
far as the animal man is concerned, unless it
is proved incontrovertibly by an ample detail
of the clearest facts. He would not admit an
opinion that leads to such consequences on the
assertion of any man, for a moment.
It is, indeed, an assertion, when extended
to animal life in general, which it would be
difficult, if not impracticable, to prove satis-
factorily by facts. And certainly the contrary
opinion is much more agreeable to the known
spirit and fitness of the arrangements of na-
ture. In giving existence to animals she must
have had in view to feed them; for without
food they could not exist and we know that
she has actually supplied food of every various
kind, required by the animals to whom she
has given existence. The peculiar qualities and
powers, with which she has endowed the dif-
ferent animals to obtain the specific food suited
for them, have ever afforded matter of wonder
and eulogium both to the naturalist and the
theologian. Now, that she should have allowed
them to exist, and have provided them with
food adapted to them, and yet not have pro-
vided a sufficient quantity for them according
to their natural rates of increase, under all their
}
28
BOOK I.
IS THERE A TENDENCY IN ANIMALS
»
circumstances, as well those connected with
themselves as with others, seems à priori nei-
ther probable nor credible.
It is to be particularly attended to in this
question, that animals themselves form a por-
tion of food; and that most animals of the sea,
and many of the land genera, including man,
live either wholly or in part on animals. The
more rapidly then that animals increase, the
more do they increase the quantity of nourish-
ment.
If we were to calculate what would be the
consequence of allowing any genus of animals
to increase, were its own members not de-
stroyed by others, perhaps the genus, upon that
hypothetical supposition, might increase faster
than the food intended for it, at least without
the aid of man for this reason, that nature pro-
vided food for them on a different arrangement.
To this sort of suppositions, or imaginary hy-
potheses, the author of the theory which we
are now discussing, seems very much addicted.
If upon the present subject he entertains any
such ideas, they cannot be allowed. We are
to take facts as they are in nature. We are to
consider animals as they are found in her ar-
rangements, according to which she intended
that they should obtain food themselves, and
also at length afford food to others.
If we turn to the ocean, it is understood
CHAP. IV.
29
TO OVER-INCREASE?
that most of the animals which people its im-
mense regions subsist on one another. The
faster, therefore, they increase, the more food
do they mutually supply. Whether they are
actually on the increase, taken universally, I
apprehend cannot be ascertained; but, in spite
of the increasing destruction committed upon
them by man, they seem at least not to be
decreasing, nor in any want of food.
If next we survey the land, we find no
marks of any deficiency of subsistence. The
tame animals on which man feeds, do not
feed on animals. And far from there being
any excess of these, or more than the food,
supplied either by nature spontaneously, or
the additional exertions of man, can main-
tain, it is a principal object with him to aug-
ment their number as fast as possible: and he
finds plenty of subsistence for all that it suits
him to rear.
If certain animals which are not
eaten and do not labour, increase faster than
he wishes, for example, cats and dogs, they are
killed not because these carnivorous animals
could not find food, but because they yield him
little or no profit. And it is to be considered,
that were man not to interfere, the vast number
of these prolific animals would supply abundance
of food to wild animals, who are now either
destroyed by him, or kept at a distance.
Even in the unpeopled regions of earth,
30 IS THERE A TENDENCY IN ANIMALS
BOOK I.
when animals are left chiefly to themselves, as
in the immense wilds of Siberia, or those vast
and not infertile districts extending for two
or three thousand miles up the Missouri, on
both sides, we do not find that the animals
there reach the number which they are capable
of maintaining. In the latter regions, which
are visited only by a few Indians, the number of
buffaloes, antelopes, beavers, bears, &c. seem
far below the amount for which food is spon-
taneously supplied by nature.
The only proof, which Mr. Malthus pro-
duces for the notion of a tendency in animated
or animal life, to increase beyond the nourish-
ment prepared for it, is an observation of Dr.
Franklin. "It is observed by Dr. Franklin,
that there is no bound to the prolific nature of
plants or animals, but what is made by their
crowding and interfering with each other's
means of subsistence. Were the face of the
earth," he says, "vacant of other plants, it
might be gradually sowed, and overspread with
one kind only, as for instance with fennel: and
were it empty of other inhabitants, it might in
a few ages be replenished from one nation only,
as for instance, with Englishmen *."
"This," says Mr. Malthus, "is incontro-
vertibly true." I should say, incontrovertibly
* Essay on Population, B. i. ch. 1. p. 3.
}
CHAP. IV.
31
TO OVER-INCREASE?
false. It is merely one of those clap-trap
general observations, which men of genius
have always been too apt to hazard, without
duly considering whether they were founded
on facts, or would stand the test of strict exa-
mination; but particularly since the time of
Montesquieu, who gained so much fame by
these bold and dashing observations. And if
even philosophers will give their pens such
license, they must submit, like other men, to
have the truth told them in plain terms. As for
the sapient remark about fennel, we shall leave
it to the consideration and proof of those who
choose to put it in practice; for it does not
affect the present question at all. But the
remark respecting Englishmen does, and must
not be so slightly passed over. It implies what
is evidently not true.
The world, which, according to Mr. Gray,
is scarcely peopled yet to the one-eighth part
of what it is capable of feeding *, has required
at least 4000 years to reach this scanty rate of
population. Yet Dr. Franklin tells us, and
Mr. Malthus agrees with him, that "were it
empty of other inhabitants it might in a few
ages be replenished from one nation only."
This is theory against facts with a vengeance.
If it be so easy a thing to people the world in a
Happiness of States, B. iv. ch. 7. p. 352.
32
BOOK I.
MR. MALTHUS'S
few ages, why was it not peopled long ago?
Its inhabitants had the most ample means of
additional subsistence presented to them in all
directions.
On the whole, the opinion that "there is a
constant tendency in animals to increase
beyond the nourishment prepared for them,"
appears to me to be unwarranted. But I shall
leave it to the naturalist, if he thinks it worth
while, to go more fully into the question; for it
has no deciding force with regard to that under
discussion. Were the supposed tendency the
actual fact with respect to irrational animals,
it would by no means follow that it is so with
respect to the rational animal, man. And in
his case, we can try the question by the clear-
est facts.
CHAPTER V.
MR. MALTHUS'S PRINCIPLE OF POPULATION.
APPLYING the general idea respecting animal
life to man, Mr. Malthus maintains that popu-
lation has a constant tendency to increase beyond
the means of subsistence *. In this he finds
the principle of population.
* Essay on Population, B. i. ch. 1. p. 3.
CHAP. V. PRINCIPLE OF POPULATION,
33
Before I proceed to examine whether this
be a principle established by nature or not, I
have to observe, that we should leave out of our
consideration the consequences ascribed to this
doctrine. However repulsive to our natural
feelings they may be, and certainly they are
very repulsive, this will not alter the fact, if it
be in truth the law of nature. A theorist is not
answerable for the consequences which may be
deduced from his theory. It is sufficient that
he proves his doctrine to be founded on real
causes and actual results. However mournful
the fact be that a great portion of the human
race dies in infancy in the very entrance into
life, it is not the less true because it is mourn-
ful. And however disheartening and repulsive
the doctrine may be, that the increase of popu-
lation, from being by the arrangement of nature
more rapid than that of subsistence, tends to
produce poverty and distress, if not checked,
this result will not alter the fact, or change
the law of nature. It only remains for us to
yield to necessity, and adapt our ideas and
practice to what nature has imposed upon us.
The consequences will be afterwards noticed.
And if the case be doubtful, they will have
their influence in determining the statistician;
but our first object is to ascertain whether this
be clearly the law of nature or not; and a con-
D
34
BOOK I..
MR. MALTHUS's
sideration of the consequences may bias us, but
they will not make the fact other than it is.
The mode which Mr. Malthus has adopted
in his essay, is, as has been already noticed,
calculated rather to bewilder and mislead, than
to ascertain the operating causes in real life.
Instead of examining population and subsist-
ence, as they are actually found with respect to
each other in all the varieties of the circum-
stances of districts and of nations, he at once
boldly assumes the very thing which is in dis-
pute, and then proceeds to adjust every fact to
the view which he was pleased to take of
nature. This may suit the establishment of
his theory, but it will not satisfy the inquiring
statistician. The latter will look at nature as
she is in reality, not as she is exhibited in the
views of the theorist. And he will not allow
any man, however decisive his tone, or bold his
assertions, to assume any thing in a question
of such importance, but will insist upon having
every deduction established fully on plain un
distorted facts, facts as they actually exist in
real life.
Mr. Malthus begins with laying it down as it
were an axiom, that population has a natural
tendency to increase faster than subsistence.
Where is the proof of this? Let us examine
what district of earth we choose, and we find no
such natural tendency existing. There is a
3
CHAP. V. PRINCIPLE OF POPULATION.
35
tendency in the population of a majority of
districts and of countries, in ordinary times and
ordinary circumstances, to increase; and sub-
sistence under the direction of reason and of the
regulation of the demand, is made to increase
along with it, rapidly or slowly according to its
own rate, just as clothing, housing, and other
articles required by it. But there is no appear-
ance in reality, whatever there may be in the
imagination of theorists, of any constant tend-
ency in population to over-increase with respect
to subsistence more than with respect to clothing
or houses, or any other branch of circuland.
Were it even a law of nature, that animal
life increases faster than the nourishment pre-
pared for it in regard to irrational animals, who
must be operated upon irresistibly by that law,
for their want of reason renders them of them-
selves utterly helpless, it would not operate
against man from the moment he became a
cultivator*. Reason frees him completely from
the operation of any such law, except in those
cases in which his will has not the means of
executing its purpose. It constitutes him a
regulator of subsistence, as much as of any
other article. But into this we shall have
2..
occasion to go more fully hereafter.
How does this assumed law operate? Mr.
* Happiness of States, B. vi. ch. 3. p. 435.
D 2
36
BOOK I.
MR. MALTHUS'S
Malthus informs us, not directly by starving
man. "The ultimate check to population,"
says he, "
appears then to be a want of food
arising necessarily from the different ratios
according to which population and food in-
crease.
But this ultimate check is never the
immediate check, except in cases of actual
famine *."
Here Mr. Malthus, in laying down his fun-
damental position, first affirms that a cause
operates perpetually and with such strength as
is sufficient to overpower population in its
natural progress, and to regulate its numbers
against the constant efforts of nature, and then
he affirms in the second place, that it does not
act directly, that is, in reality, it does not act at
all, "except in cases of actual famine." This is,
* Essay on the Principle of Population, B. i. ch. 2.
p. 17.
+ This author, I am called upon to say, though he
makes general observations of the boldest kind, and with
the most decisive tone, contrives for the most part, when
he enters upon the detail, so to limit them or explain them
away, that it is difficult to ascertain what is really his
opinion. Whether this proceeds from unclearness in his
views upon this subject, as well as an imperfect knowledge
of the real principles of circulation, or from his finding
facts on every side so strongly against his general theore-
tical views, when he enters on the consideration of parti-
culars, I know not. But often, after having, as I con-
ceived, made out his opinion, I have presently found some
limitation or explanation that unsettled me again. I thought
CHAP. V. PRINCIPLE OF POPULATION.
37
in fact, a cause and no cause. It is to imagine
a cause in theory, and to uncause it in prac-
tice. It is to suppose a mighty power con-
stantly operating in nature, and yet not acting
at all except on some particular occasions.
To assume for a moment such a principle,
when we turn to actual fact, seems strange.
Had nature, in a fit of malevolence and stupi-
dity, adopted so extraordinary a system of ar-
rangement, equally barbarous and absurd, one of
the two following results must have taken place.
This constant tendency in population to increase
more rapidly than subsistence, would have pro-
duced so strong a reaction in the counteracting
principle, as to prevent all increase of popula-
tion whatever. Indeed the pernicious influence
of so severe a repressing power, would so break
its energy and disturb its operation, as to pro-
duce generally a retrogressive movement. Or
what is more likely, for the increase of popula-
tion tends naturally to augment the average
amount both of employment and wealth, and,
of course, the demand for human hands, it
would place the whole human race in a state of
constantly recurring actual famine, as in the
cases excepted.
I had caught him, but he had slipt out of my hands. More
than once I have closed his book in despair of ascertaining
either what he really meant to affirm, or what he really
meant to deny.
D 3
38
BOOK I.
MR. MALTHUS'S
The result in the excepted cases is granted.
The power supposed by Mr. Malthus to reside
constantly in subsistence, does actually belong
to it, in real famine. It then regulates the
amount of that portion of population, which is
in this dreadful predicament. Here there is no
imagination. The influence is felt to be
terribly real. These famines spring partly out
of the regulating power of the demand. This,
as in other cases, adjusts the amount of the
supply of subsistence so nicely to its own
amount, that if in any year the supply happens
to be very deficient, the result is famine.
But is there any appearance of either of
these results commonly taking place in nature?
No. The directly contrary. Population, far
from being generally decreasing, is upon the
average, and as it has for the most part been
from the commencement of history, on the in-
crease. And there is also, upon the average,
an evident abundance of subsistence.
Indeed Mr. Malthus has said that the as-
sumed law of nature does not act directly by
starving. Had he asserted that it did, he
would have only excited a smile. It is, he
affirms generally, by creating poverty and dis-
tress, but he has not shown us in detail how
this effect is produced. And indeed, as we
shall see afterwards, this is as directly contrary
to facts as constant starvation. The increase
CHAP. V. PRINCIPLE OF POPULATION.
39
of population uniformly produces a greater
average amount of wealth among all ranks, and
equally enables the cultivator more effectually to
supply the demand on him, and all ranks to eat
and drink more luxuriously, that is, in greater
abundance.
But next for what Mr. Malthus calls the
immediate check, or the strictly regulating
power. "The immediate check may be stated
to consist in all those customs and all those
diseases which seem to be generated by a
scarcity of the means of subsistence; and all
those causes, independent of this scarcity, whe-
ther of a moral or physical nature, which tend
prematurely to weaken and destroy the human
frame *.*
The latter causes, whatever be their force or
effect, and they, in reality, include the whole
of the counteracting causes, have evidently
nothing to do in the present question respect-
ing subsistence, for they are stated to be inde-
pendent of the supposed scarcity. These there-
fore, according to his own acknowledgment,
are not under the control of subsistence. And
the former, or those customs and diseases which
seem to be generated by a scarcity of the means
of subsistence, depend, as he himself affirms, on
the real existence of the supposed scarcity of
* Essay on the Principle of Population, B. i. ch. 1. p. 17.
D 4
40
BOOK 1.
MR. MALTHUS'S
the means of subsistence. Where then is the
proof of this universal deficiency? Nothing of
the sort exists. Occasionally indeed there are
deficiencies; but they are merely local.
Where then is that iron wall of necessity,
which inclosed the whole human race, as it
were in a besieged place, or kept them in the
state of a certain number of men and women
cast away upon an island, which only afforded
subsistence for the present number? That
dreadful wall, which alarmed the benevolent
with the incessant fear of famine, as well as cut
off all prospect of a melioration of circum-
stances, in the act of explanation, degenerates
into some equivocal customs, and some dis-
eases, as equivocal, "which seem to be gene-
rated by a scarcity of the means of subsist-
ence." The author of the Happiness of States,
who maintains that men have as unlimited a
control over food, as over houses and clothing,
admits an influence in the first as great as this;
only he derives it chiefly from abundance *.
This horrible circumvallation, which threw so
dark a gloom over human affairs, and which has
frightened so many worthy people, when seen
through the fog of general theoretical assertion,
vanishes in the hands of this theorist himself,
when he comes to a particular exhibition. It is
* Happiness of States, B. vi, ch 4. p. 461.
CHAP. V. PRINCIPLE OF POPULATION.
41
found to be a mere shadow. Mankind may
proceed, as formerly, to obey the voice of
nature and of virtue, and yet flourish and be
happy.
But further, the principles of circulation
afford an unerring standard with regard to the
states of the demand and the supply, compared
with each other; or for measuring their respec-
tive amounts. This is in price.
When the demand exceeds the supply, the
rate of price necessarily rises, and uniformly
to an exorbitant pitch, or beyond the amount
which would reimburse the supplier for the
loss caused by the deficiency of the article. If
the deficiency be even the result of mere spe-
culation, this effect takes place, as long as the
speculator can create this artificial scarcity,
and to a pitch corresponding to its extent.
This, however, is from its nature temporary;
and when the influence of the speculator
ceases, the price falls generally as rapidly as it
rose. When it is real, that is, actually existing
in nature, the result takes place without any
artifice on the part of the supplier; and if it be
constant without any hope of ultimately raising
the supply fully to the demand, the exorbitance
of price will increase and go on with little or no
tendency to abate.
This is particularly true of articles of the
first necessity, because they are necessary, and
42
BOOK I.
MR. MALTHUS'S
must be bought if circulators can procure them.
Within the last twenty years we have several
times seen to what an immoderate pitch the
imagination of scarcity and the arts of specu-
lators raised the price of corn. Facts," says
66
Mr. Gray, "will almost bear out the affirma-
tion, that the cries of scarcity for the last
twenty years have been uniformly fictitious *."
At any rate the deficiency of grain was but
small, as appears from comparing the imports
of those years reckoned abundant and those
considered deficient. The difference even in
the memorable year 1801 was only about
1,200,000 quarters. And the increased con-
sumption of bread, from the exorbitant price of
grain, was greater than that amount: for
a high price of corn increases the consumption.
It forces the lower ranks, who live at all times
principally on bread, to live still more upon it
than in lower priced years, as they cannot af-
ford to buy the usual quantity of meat §.
66 A
few shillings per quarter would have reimbursed
the cultivator." And yet the price of wheat
rose from fifty to ninety shillings above the
fair average price.
Does then the common average price of food
* Happiness of States, B. vii. ch. 9. p. 547, note.
+ Id. ib.
+ Id. B. vii. ch. vii. p. 521.
Id. B. 7. ch. 5. p. 504.
1
CHAP. V. PRINCIPLE OF POPULATION.
43
show any symptom of a perpetual excess in the
demand above the supply? No. The average
profits of the farmer are only such as are made
by other dealers. Occasionally, from a defi-
ciency, real or supposed, his prices have risen
far beyond the fair average rate, or such a rate
as will yield the cultivator a fair profit; and
occasionally from a more than usual abun-
dance, the prices have fallen below the average
rate. But in the greater number of years his
prices have been fair; and including these rises
and falls, the average rate of his prices has
been fair, or in a due proportion to those of the
other classes of circulators, whose articles, like
his, are subject to occasional rises and falls in
price, and for the same reasons. His prices,
on the universal average, have yielded only a
rate of wages for the labourer, and of profit for
the farmer and landowner corresponding with
that of the other classes. Indeed, comparing
similar rank with rank, and allowing for pecu-
liarities of circumstances, we shall find, that
the average rate of the prices of the cultivating
class, is lower than that of some other classes,
for example the manufacturing and the legal.
As far as the imperfect notions in statistics
transmitted to us from former times enable us
to judge, there was no difference between the
average rate of prices of the cultivator and that
of the prices of other circulators. In common
1
44
BOOK I.
MR. MALTHUS'S
1
times the prices were fair: on the occasion of
scarcity they rose to a more or less exorbitant
rate; and when more abundant seasons came,
they fell below the average.
It may be said, that the high price of sub-
sistence, caused by the natural deficiency of
supply, would tend to attract a greater number
of circulators to that line, and, consequently,
by increasing the supply, be the means of keep-
ing the price at a fair rate. This is admitted.
Such an effect, according to the laws of circu-
lation, must be produced. But it proves the
reverse of what is affirmed by our subsistence
theorists. It demonstrates, that the impulse
given by the increasing demand was sufficient
in subsistence, as in every other branch of cir-
culand, to raise the supply to the increased de-
mand, and thus keep the former fully up to
the latter. The fair average price of subsist-
ence is a decisive proof of this result being com-
pletely effected.
Where then exists the tendency in popula-
tion to over-increase, or of subsistence to limit?
Not in real life. Both tendencies are mere
imaginations.
It might be asked here generally, as it will
be afterwards more particularly, on what
ground has food been selected as being the sole
article in human supplies that regulates the
number of the demanders. It is indeed ne-
CHAP. V. PRINCIPLE OF POPULATION,
45
cessary to the life of man: but so is air, and so
is heat, though no regulating or limiting power
is annexed to them. Clothes and houses, in
many regions, are nearly as necessary. And
the abundance of food has little, if any, more
real influence on population (it is meant, of the
augmenting kind) than the abundance of
clothes or houses.
But population has a natural tendency to
double itself in a much shorter term of years,
than it has actually done. Then why has it
not doubled itself more rapidly? Or why has
the earth not reached its full complement long
ago? Whatever be the cause, it is not from
a want of the means of subsistence. As far as
depended on these means it might have in-
creased at any rate of rapidity whatever. It
was only necessary to set apart a larger pro-
portion of population to the work of cultivating
the ground.
There is scarcely a district of any extent
upon the globe, where there is not abundance
of waste, or imperfectly cultivated land, and
where population could not supply the culti-
vator with an additional number of hands to
any amount which he should ask, if he had a
demand. An immense portion of the earth is
scarcely peopled at all. Even Europe itself, at
this day, Mr. Gray informs us, is barely
peopled to the one fifth of the population
46 THE DIFFERENT RATIOS ASCRIBED BOOK I.
which she is capable of subsisting *. What is
there then to have prevented population from
procuring any additional supply of subsistence
from these stores, which it wanted, if it did
really want them? True, it required labour to
get at these stores; but they could have been
got at, had a real demand urged the cultivator.
Population has not applied to them yet; and,
therefore, it has not wanted them. It has
fully obtained without them all that it did
want.
CHAPTER VI.
THE DIFFERENT NATURAL RATIOS OF INCREASE
SUPPOSED BY MR. MALTHUS TO BELONG TO PO-
PULATION AND SUBSISTENCE.
Nor contented with maintaining in general,
that population has a tendency to increase
faster than subsistence, Mr. Malthus has even
ventured to give us a comparative statement of
their respective forces, or natural tendencies to
increase. The former he considers as increas-
ing, when unchecked, in the geometrical ratio:
the latter as increasing, under the greatest ef-
* Happiness of States, B. v. ch. 8. p. 422.
CHAP. VI. TO POPULATION AND SUBSISTENCE. 47
forts of human skill and industry only in the
arithmetical*.
"The
Alluding to this, though, as usual, no
name is mentioned, Mr. Gray says:
natural progress of population has been stated
to be in the geometrical proportion, or as 1, 2,
4, 8, and that of subsistence only in the arith-
metical, or as 1, 2, 3, 4. This is a loose un-
philosophical comparison, even if it were found-
ed in fact it throws no light whatever on the
subject, and is only calculated to mislead. But
it is unfounded and incorrect. The progres-
sion both of population and subsistence, when
* Essay on Population, B. i. ch. 1.
In the Happiness of States, the author seems stu-
diously to avoid attacking any of his numerous opponents
by name. This is neither from an unacquaintance with
them, nor a disregard of them; but rather from the reverse
of the latter. Having occasion to differ so essentially with
so many statisticians of high name, it might be becoming
as well as prudent, in the first instance, to confine himself
to mere opinions. In endeavouring to ascertain the leading
principles, causes and results in statistics, it might also be
more calculated to reach what is true, to attend to argu-
ments alone, whatever be the reputation or the obscurity of
the user. This mode of considering reasons only is cer-
tainly the more philosophical, but it may be queried whe-
ther it be the most popular, at least at first. Those well
acquainted with the subject will soon perceive the authors
from the opinions examined; but the rawer student will be
sometimes at a loss. Besides, the public seems to have a
taste for a little of the acid of personality.
?
48 THE DIFFERENT RATIOS ASCRIBED BOOK I.
compared with the progress of time, may be
either arithmetical or geometrical, or in any
other proportion. It may be either as 1, 2, 3, 4
or 1, 2, 4, 8, or 14, 1½, 14, 2, or 1, 1, 3, 5 :
in short, according to every possible ratio, re-
gular or irregular.
"With respect to subsistence, and the same
thing is true of population, it is not capable of
the arithmetical or any other species of progres-
sion beyond a certain extent, and that extent
pretty ascertainable. You can cultivate any given
quantity of ground to its utmost capability of
producing, both from its natural powers, and
those artificial powers added to these by the
cultivator; and beyond this all progression
stops. No power of man, with all his artificial
stimulants, can make it produce more. And
this progress of capability has very little con-
nexion with the progress of time, except for,
perhaps, two or three seasons. A given spot
of ground may produce the least quantity
which it ever produced, this year, and in three,
or, at most, four years time, I imagine, it may
be made by the exertions of the cultivator to
produce the greatest quantity that it is capable
of producing: while under more sluggish or
unskilful hands, it may require a thousand or
two thousand years to reach the same ne plus
ultra of fertility. To say then, without limit-
ation, that subsistence is capable of increasing
CHAP. VI. TO POPULATION AND SUBSISTENCE.
49
#
in an arithmetical progress, on any given ter-
ritory, is contrary to fact and the laws of
nature. The arithmetical ratio has nothing at
all naturally to do with the progress of soil
in producing from its least to its greatest post
sible quantity. That depends entirely on the
skill and exertions of the cultivator, and may
be in every possible ratio, regular or irregu-
lar, occasionally advancing slowly or rapidly,
and occasionally retrograding rapidly or slowly.
But beyond a certain degree of cultivation, it
cannot be made to advance any further.
"To affirm that population increases in a
geometrical progression, is to say as little to
the purpose. If by this is meant to compare
its progress with respect to time, and to assert
that any given number of men, in a certain
number of years, regularly in a majority of
cases doubles itself, it is utterly unfounded in
fact. Nothing varies more than the progress of
population. Whether it be increasing or de-
creasing, the ratio is perfectly desultory and
irregular, as it depends on a thousand arbi-
trary, accidental and occasional causes. And
a certain given population on a certain given
spot, may, owing to circumstances, be doubled
perhaps in twenty or thirty years, and another
given population of the same number originally
may, owing to other circumstances, not be
doubled or not at all increased, in twenty or
F
50
BOOK I.
THE DIFFERENT RATIOS ASCRIBED
thirty hundred years. Should the causes that
operate to increase population, speaking gene-
rally of mankind, be superior in their influence
to those which tend to counteract them and di-
minish it, and it is probable that this has hi-
therto been the fact, population of course is
making a geometrical progression, but without
ány regularity as to time.
"But if again we compare the progress of
population not with the progress of time, but
the progress of subsistence, then the history of
six thousand years proves the falsehood of the
position, that the progress of the former is na-
turally geometrical, while the latter is only
arithmetical. They are equal or nearly so
in their movements, as must be the case from
the nature of things, and as is proved by uni-
form experience. There are occasional dif-
ferences, but, on a general average, the pro-
gress of subsistence is entirely governed by the
progress of population. Indeed, on the whole, it
has a tendency rather to be quicker, because the
mass of cultivators commonly make a point of
cultivating every year more than the last, as
far as in their power, till they are checked by
some causes either natural or artificial, regu-
lar or accidental. The progress of subsistence
is geometrical or arithmetical, or irregular, as
to given time, according as population is per-
manently so. A permanent increase or de-
CHAP. VI. TO POPULATION AND SUBSISTENCE.
51
crease of the latter produces a permanent in-
crease or decrease of the former *."
As we have already noticed, and as will be
shown more fully in the next chapter, there is
no natural or fixed ratio of increase in popula-
tion, with respect to time: and subsistence has,
of itself no natural ratio of increase whatever.
In a state of nature, its amount depends entirely
upon the character of the season with respect
to geniality; and perhaps, on an average of
situations, that amount is nearly if not com-
pletely stationary.
It is only when man applies his labour and
skill, that it is capable of increase. All its in-
crease is, therefore, artificial. Of itself it is
altogether passive. The rate of increase being
thus entirely impressed, and indeed forced,
upon it, whatever be the rate at which it is
augmented, is the work of man, and is given
to it by him as a regulator, working under the
guidance of reason to supply his demands. It
will, therefore, always be according to the rate
of the increase of the demanders, whatever that
be, rapid or slow, as nearly as he can make it.
In a state of nature the earth seems in ge-
neral to be very infertile. It is only upon the
banks of rivers, or other portions which are oc-
casionally enriched by irrigations or other na-
&
Happiness of States, B. vi. ch. 2. p. 429-431.
5
E 2
52
BOOK I.
THE DIFFERENT RATIOS ASCRIBED
tural manurings, that it approaches at all near
the fertility to which it is capable of being
raised by man. Mr. Gray considers the na-
tural fertility of the soil, on an average, not
equal to the one-thirtieth part of the artificial
fertility, which may be created by the skill and
labour of man*. And the progress in fertili-
zing is caused by, and, therefore, regulated by
the increasing demand arising from an in-
creasing population.
Let then any part of population increase at
the geometrical rate with respect to time, and
what is there in nature to prevent it from raising
subsistence up to its demands, as long as there
are any additional means of subsistence? If
the former, when it increases from 1 to 2, can
raise the subsistence from 1 to 2, why can it
not raise that supply according to the same pro-
portion, from 2 to 4 and from 4 to 8, when it-
self increases from 2 to 4 or from 4 to 8? It
has only to employ the same or a larger pro-
portion of the increased number in the business
of this supply, and the result will be as fully
accomplished.
The clashing of the two principles of in-
crease must cause a constant deficiency of sup-
ply. A difference so vast between the natural
ratio of increase of population and subsistence,
* Happiness of States, B. vi. ch. 3. p. 437.
CHAP. VI. TO POPULATION AND SUBSISTENce.
53
would indeed necessarily produce a perpetual
recurrence of universal and most destructive
famines. True, the destruction of life might
frequently be so great as to make subsistence
get an advance upon population. But the more
rapid movement of the latter would, in the
course of a few years, fill up the deficiency, and
then another universal famine would take place.
Now is there any resemblance of such univer-
sal famines in real life?
But really this is a waste of argument. It
is reasoning against a mere imagination. It is
combating a shadow. These different ratios
ascribed to population and subsistence, though
like some other theoretical notions, they have
attracted a much larger share of attention,
than many solid truths of high importance, are
so unlike any thing in real life; they are, in-
deed, so contrary to facts, and founded upon
such absurd views of subsistence, that if the
author had not still persisted in preserving
them, I should not have considered it worth
while to give them any particular attention.
I should have treated them as rash puerile
imaginations unworthy of notice. It would be
doing injustice to the general doctrine of a tend-
ency in population to increase faster than sub-
sistence, to consider such untenable absurdi-
ties as essential parts of it. They do not ne-
cessarily belong to it, and, therefore, I shall
E 3
1
54
BOOK I,
HAS POPULATION ANY REGULAR
consider them only as particular views of Mr.
Malthus, and not as necessarily connected with
the subsistence theory *.
CHAPTER VII.
HAS POPULATION ANY REGULAR NATURAL RATIO OF
INCREASE COMPARED WITH TIME?
MR. Malthus has derived most of his theoreti
cal deductions from a fundamental assumption
of his, that population has a natural tendency,
when unchecked by a deficiency of subsistence
and the effects of that deficiency, to double it-
self in a somewhat regular time; and he con-
siders this period to be about twenty-five
years.
This assumption is utterly unwarranted.
In a certain state of the stimulative and coun-
teracting circumstances, this will be the natural
rate of progress, but not in any other. If there
were any natural rate of progress for popula-
* This has been called by Mr. Gray also the antipopu
lation theory. The title subsistence theory is more charac-
teristical, for subsistence is almost the sole regulator in it.
Mr. Gray's theory, on the other hand, for the same reason,
may be called the population theory.
Essay on Population, B. i. ch, 1 p. 9.
CHAP. VII. NATURAL RATIO OF INCREASE? 55
น
The
tion, it would be that of man in his original
state of nature, or probably enough, that of
the hunter. The rate of the increase of popu-
lation in that state, however, though it might
be the first, is only the rate of the progress of
population in that state, and not in that of the
herdsman, the cultivator, or the manufacturer
and merchant, or of all more or less combined.
There is, therefore, no such fixed rate.
natural progress of population is its increase
arising out of the whole of its circumstances*.
As has been already observed, it is the force of
the general and particular stimulating circum-
stance, corrected by that of the general and par-
ticular counteracting circumstances, in which
any division of population is placed, that regu-
lates the rate of its increase.
In nothing is there more difference than in
the actual progress of population. Perhaps in
no two states is the same rate found; nor even
in the same state at different periods. To af-
firm then that, according to the natural ratio,
population would double itself in about twenty-
five years, is to affirm what is not merely un
warranted by facts, but directly contrary to
them; except in a particular combination of
* See the 8th chapter of the 4th Book of the Happiness
of States, which treats of the Progress of Population com-
pared with Time.
E 4
1
56
HAS POPULATION ANY REGULAR BOOK I.
the stimulative and counteracting circum-
stances. In all other combinations of these
circumstances, it is untrue.
The ratio adopted is that of a certain por-
tion of population in America. "But the ratio
of increase in the population of the United
States of America, is no more to be taken for
the natural ratio of the increase of population,
because it is the quickest, than that of another
because it is the slowest. The ratio of increase
of the population of those states, is the natural
progress of population for a country in their
circumstances, but not for another; suppose
China, in which the circumstances are in many
cases reversed. It is the natural progress of a
certain portion of American population at pre-
sent, but not of British, Spanish, French,
Swedish, Russian, or German. Population is
essentially connected with territory, climate,
diet, education and other circumstances, and
it is affected, consequently, by their perma-
nent or temporary varieties. The natural ratio
of the increase of population for earth is its
increase, as found promoted or checked by the
various circumstances of all its states. And it
would be most likely to be found in a country,
which is the medium between the most rapidly
increasing and the most slow, because such a
ratio, it is probable, would be the nearest to
CHAP. VII. NATURAL RATIO OF INCREASE? 57
the general ratio of the increase of popula-
tion * "
The limitation is made when unchecked.
What is the meaning of this? What state of
population does or can exist unchecked?
"" If
we must theorize as visionaries on the progress
of population when unchecked, we should take
it as it would have been in a state of paradise,
where men would never have died. In such a
case, supposing marriage to take place at
puberty from the uniform health of all existing,
and from all produced living for ever, and we
may suppose, breeding for ever, we should have
had an example of the progress of population
when unchecked. But in America, population
though less checked for half a century till very
lately, than in most other countries, was
checked by the seeds of mortality sown in the
human constitution, by diseases, by accidents,
by the unfavourable circumstances of some
districts, and latterly by a more common use
of a super-sufficient quantity of subsistence
from the increase of capital, growth of towns,
and the introduction of luxury."
Were we to give loose to the fancy in
creating imaginary states, we might theorize
much of the same sort about the increase of sub-
sistence. On this topic, Mr. Gray says,
"Po-
* Happiness of States, B. iv. ch. 8. p 358.
+ Ib. p. 357.
58 HAS POPULATION ANY REGULAR
BOOK I.
pulation, were it unchecked by the circum-
stances in which Providence has placed men,
would be in its nature infinite, or go on dou-
bling itself for ever. Subsistence is also in its
nature infinite. If this were not checked by
natural circumstances, it would
would continue
doubling itself for ever in a still more rapid
manner. A grain of wheat, if the produce of
it, and the produce of this produce, and so on,
were sown year after year, would in a few cen-
turies supply wheat for the whole of the present
population of earth *.”
We have many practical proofs how rapidly
any species of vegetable may be made to in-
crease. Out of many we may quote the po-
tato-oat, which from a handful in a few years
became the prevailing species of oat in Scot-
land and the north of England. But, as Mr.
Gray asks," what do observations of this kind
tend to ?" On the subject which we are discuss-
ing, they do not lead us to any practical con-
clusion. They only serve to mix mere fancy
and ideal speculation with real causes and facts.
Mr. Malthus's supposition of a certain rate.
of doubling being natural to population is ut-
terly unwarranted. It is grounded on a mere
assumption of something that might be, and not
upon what has been, or can be, generally; and
* Happiness of States, B. iv. ch. 8. p. 357,
CHAP. VIII.
59
NATURAL RATIO OF INCLEASE?
therefore it has no title whatever to be reckoned
a general or natural rate. On the arrangements
of nature, population has no fixed or regular
ratio of increase.
CHAPTER VIII.
THE SYSTEM OF CHECKS.
MR. Malthus, in explaining his theory, and
adjusting facts to his theoretical views, has re-
course to a system of what he calls checks.
This system is evidently derived from a
theoretical ex parte view of the subject, and
not from it as exhibited in all its natural extent
in real life. It is founded upon a comparison
of the increase of population not with its ac-
tual circumstances, but with some imaginary
states. Indeed the grand source of the errors
of the subsistence theory may be traced to the
setting up of this comparison, and deducing
principles from it. This system, therefore,
should be rejected by the inquiring statistician,
as founded upon something not proved, and
which is in fact false.
It would have been just as correct to have
taken the rate of increase of population among
tribes in the savage state as the natural rate of
60
BOOK I.
THE SYSTEM OF CHECKS.
increase, from its being that of a state of na-
ture (and generally the slowest), and to have
measured the rates of other increases up to the
highest from this: to show the force of the sti-
mulating causes in overpowering the counter-
acting.
But farther, it is partial and incomplete.
It tends to mislead, and to turn the attention
of the student from the subject, as it is set be-
fore him by nature, to a partial, distorted and
erroneous view of it. In real life the stimu-
lating circumstances or causes of the progress
of population are of equal prominence, and are
seen as constantly in action, as the counteract-
ing or antipopulating circumstances or causes.
And both in theory and practice they are, con-
sequently, of equal importance. But, on the
subsistence theory, the former are in a manner
sunk to make room for the latter. This mode
of viewing the subject only on one side, and
in fact considering only the half of it, were it
not connected with a radical error, should
therefore be avoided, as calculated to narrow
the views of the student, and injure his pro-
gress in this portion of the science of statistics.
CHAP. IX. THE CASE OF AMERICA.
61
CHAPTER IX.
THE CASE OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
WHICH EXHIBITS SO HIGH A RATE OF INCREASE
IN A GREAT MASS OF POPULATION, DECISIVE
AGAINST THE SUBSISTENCE THEORY.
It is perfectly evident from facts, as we have
seen, that there is no particular ratio of dou-
bling, when measured by time, which can be
considered as the natural or general ratio of
the increase of population. Mr. Malthus has
indeed assumed, that the ratio of doubling in
the United States of America is the natural ra-
tio of the increase of population. But this po-
sition is to be rejected as contrary to facts.
The period of doubling in a large portion of
the population of those states has, I believe,
been really found to be what he states it, about
twenty-five years. The fact, however, proves
the very reverse of what it is brought by him
to prove. If population can double itself in
twenty-five years, and the increase of subsist-
ence can be fully brought up to this rate, and
the history of a certain portion of American
population shows that it can, why then does it
not double itself, in the same time, in all other
62
BOOK I
THE CASE OF THE
districts of the earth, while there is soil suf-
ficient to allow the cultivator to augment the
home subsistence up to that pitch, or else the
importer to procure the difference from other
districts? According to the law of nature in
circulation, the demand regulates the supply as
far as this is dependent on the will. If there
exist the same increasing rate of demand in
other districts, as in the United States, there
will also be the same increasing rate of supply,
provided there be soil sufficient. But there is
scarcely in any other region of great extent, a si-
milar increase of population, and yet in all coun-
tries there is abundance of uncultivated or im-
perfectly cultivated land. It cannot, therefore,
be a deficiency of subsistence, from which this
lower rate of the increase of population is de-
rived. The inferior rate of the demand must
spring from some other cause, than the quan-
tum of subsistence; for the supply of that could
have been increased in them as fast as in the
United States, had the demand been as great.
This argument is decisive. It proves in-
contestably, 1. that this rate of doubling is not
the natural rate of the increase of population,
when the means of subsistence are adequate to
meet that demand; and, 2. that, as population
in general does not rise to any rate of increase
at all approaching that of the United States,
while the supply of subsistence in them shows
4
CHAP. IX. UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.
63
that it can be raised to that rate when the de-
mand requires it, there is so far from being an
universal tendency in population to increase
faster than the means of subsistence admit, that
it seldom or never rises even near to the rate at
which those means would enable the cultivator
to augment his supply.
It may perhaps be affirmed, that other
districts do not afford the means of subsistence
so amply as the back settlements of America.
This is far from being the fact. The soil of those
settlements is not favourable to the cultivator
beyond the average degree of other waste
districts, but the reverse. The lands have
much natural unfitness and present many ob-
structions. The clearing of them and putting
them in a state fit for tilling, are a task of in-
effable labour. And after they are in a state
of cultivation, we have the information of Mr.
Parkinson and other practical observers, that
the average return per acre is very low. The
deficiency of capital and the vast distance from
markets for the sale of the superfluous produce,
are also great disadvantages. In short, nothing
but the enthusiasm of the more restless, active,
and robust adventurers from various countries,
and the necessity of going on after they have
begun, could enable them to execute their pro-
jects of cultivation in districts that present so
many formidable obstacles.
64
BOOK 1.
THE CASE OF AMERICA.
But were it a fact, that these wastes were
naturally more favourable to the cultivator, it
would prove nothing. Subsistence being an
absolute necessary, the demand must be un-
controllable, unless by physical impossibility.
Population must and will raise the supply of
this necessary to its full demand on the average
of years, as long as these means are in its
power. And they are in its power till it
reaches its complement. If these means, there-
fore, be not exhausted to the American rate, it
must surely be from some other reason than an
increase in the demand for the supply of what
they can afford.
It arises from the pursuits of the great mass
being less healthy and more defecundating, and
other circumstances possessing the same tend-
ency. In the back settlements of North Ame-
rica the pursuits of nearly the entire mass are
favourable to health and prolificness. Let the
great mass of people not employed in cultiva-
tion, in any other country equally healthy with
those settlements, be taken from their present
employments, by a change in the demand, and
follow the employments of the new settlers, and
however much slower their present rate of
increase is, it would rise to somewhat like that
of this mass of land-clearers and cultivators.
CHAP. X.
65
A GENERAL VIEW.
CHAPTER X.
A GENERAL VIEW OF THE EFFECT OF THE QUAN-
TUM OF SUBSISTENCE ON POPULATION, WITH A
RECAPITULATION.
IN
N analyzing the stimulating circumstances, it
is doubtful, whether mere abundance of sub-
sistence has any great degree of that influence
which has been attributed to it. But in ana-
lyzing the counteracting circumstances
checks, the influence of subsistence is unequi-
vocal.
or
Indeed, it is not a deficiency of subsistence,
as the subsistence theory imagines, which has
the antipopulating effect. The influence of
that is trifling, except in case of actual famine,
which sometimes happens in hot climates. It
is an abundance of subsistence which has a
strong influence as a check. Luxury, or an
excess of eating and drinking, tends to defe-
cundate, or to diminish the number of births,
as well as to shorten the lives of those who are
born. And this powerful influence seems to
increase in efficacy in proportion as population
grows more numerous.
Thus so far are the ideas of the subsistence
theory, with respect to abundance from corre-
sponding with facts, that they are very much in
F
66
BOOK I.
A GENERAL VIEW.
direct opposition to these. On that theory
abundance of subsistence has a strong tendency
to increase population, while scantiness of sub-
sistence has as strong a tendency to diminish it.
But in real life, while scantiness of subsistence
tends strongly to increase the number of births,
superfluity tends as strongly to diminish that
number, and to render the smaller number
born, short-lived.
To recapitulate: the principle of population,
according to the population theory, is clearly
the doctrine of nature. Population has a
tendency, in all ordinary cases, to increase, but
not to over-increase; for the increase carries in
itself the power of more effectually supplying
the additional wants. The principle of the sub-
sistence theory is so evidently contrary to facts,
that had statisticians fairly examined it by these,
or by the real causes operating in the progress
of population, and the actual results, instead
of assenting of it or acquiescing in it, as so
many of them did, when this was first broached,
they would have unanimously rejected it. The
notion of a constant tendency in even irra-
tional animals to increase faster than the nou-
rishment prepared for them, is an unwarranted
fancy; but when this dogma is extended to
the rational animal man, it is directly con-
trary to the clearest facts. The abundance of
additional means of subsistence, undrawn upon,
CHAP. X.
67
A GENERAL VIEW.
in all old-peopled countries of any extent,
after the lapse of thousands of years, refutes at
once the notion. The average rate of the
price of subsistence, which is fair, and corre
sponds with the average rate of other articles, is
equally decisive against the imagination. As
for the idea of the natural ratio of the increase
of population being geometrical, while the na-
tural ratio of the increase of subsistence is only
arithmetical, it is utterly false. Indeed it is an
absurdity. Population has no regular natural
ratio of increase, when compared with time.
Its rate of increase varies in every country
according to the state of the general and par-
ticular stimulating circumstances, combined
with the state of the general and particular
counteracting circumstances. Subsistence,
again, when the produce is spontaneous, seems
little capable of any increase at all. When the
produce is artificial, it has evidently no ratio
of increase of itself. The ratio is entirely im-
pressed upon it, or given to it by the cultivator.
The rapid doubling of population in the back
settlements of North America proves the direct
contrary to what it has been adduced to prove.
It shows, that if men had found a demand for
subsistence increasing much more rapidly than
it has done, they could have increased the
supply fully up to that amount.
In sum, the notion of a constant tendency in
F 2
68
BOOK F.
A GENERAL VIEW.
subsistence to increase less rapidly than popu-
tation, and consequently to check the latter by
scarcity, is a wild fancy, utterly unknown
矗
​to nature, and in as direct opposition to
the results of her arrangements, as any such
tendency in clothing, building, or any other
division of the supply.
-
{;
}
69
BOOK II.
DOES POPULATION REGULATE SUBSISTENCE, AS MR, GRAY -
AFFIRMS, OR SUBSISTENCE POPULATION, AS IS MAIN-
TAINED BY MR. MALTHUS?
CHAPTER I.
THE REGULATING POWER ATTRIBUTED TO
POPULATION.
Ir is an universal law of nature in circulation,
as has been shown by Mr. Gray, that the de-
mand regulates the supply, as far as this is de-
pendent on the will of man *.
"More of any
article than can be brought into circulation, is
of no use. What cannot be circulated, can
produce no profit: and indeed what cannot be
used, might as well not exist.
"In practice we see the regulating power
of the demand uniformly acting with respect to
every article, from that which is used most, or
by the greatest number, to that which is used
least, or by the smallest number. The quan-
tity of land cultivated for growing corn or feed-
ing cattle, for example, is regulated by the de-
* Happiness of States, B. ii. ch. 5,
* F3
70
BOOK II.
THE REGULATING POWER
inand for corn and cattle; for what would be
the use, or profit, of raising more corn, or feed-
ing more cattle, than can be disposed of in a
proper time, and at a proper price? A culti-
vator might just as well toil and spend his
money in raising weeds, or feeding rats, as in
raising wheat, or feeding sheep and bullocks,
beyond the quantity of the latter, that can be
disposed of to the consumers. And what would
be the use of the ribbon or muslin manufac-
turer's making more ribbons or muslins, than
can be sold at a fair price; or yet of a mason's
building more houses, than the population re-
quires? Instead of making profit, they would
lose both their time and their money. The
superfluous quantity would indeed be worse
than useless. It would diminish the price even
of the quantity really wanted, and render the
whole a losing business *."
The number of suppliers of any species of
article, is also regulated by the same law.
"The demand, therefore, necessarily regulates
the quantity of any particular species of circu-
land, and, of course, the number of hands em-
ployed in producing or preparing it. Were
more hands to labour at producing any species
of article, than the consumption required, for
example, hats, either the whole could not get
*Happiness of States, B. ii. ch. 5. p. 78,
CHAP. I.
OF POPULATION.
full employment, or some of the worse hands
could not get employment at all. Did this
superfluity of workmen exist in the nation at
large, as well as in the countries connected
with it in traffic, with respect to any given ar-
ticle, a languor would take place through the
whole class. Wages would fall, and from its
being found an unthriving class, some hands
would leave it for a more thriving one; and
fewer young people would be bred to it, till the
equilibrium between the producers and con-
sumers were restored again. Indeed, from its
having become an unpopular class, the de-
crease would go on, till there were too few to
supply fully the real demand, and then it might
become a favourite well-employed class again.
But if the superfluity of hands be confined to a
town, parish, or district, the individuals that
cannot find sufficient employment, must emi-
grate to some other place, where additional
hands are wanted in the line.
"The general exact agreement between the
supply and the demand is thus fully accounted
for. The regulating principle is universal, and
of a powerful, steady, unremitting influence,
as it is essentially connected with self-interest,
and often even with necessity *"
Nor is an adjustment of the supply pretty
* Happiness of States, B. ii. ch. 5. p. 79.
F 4
72
BOOK II.
THE REGULATING POWER
accurately to the demand, so uncertain a re-
sult as it may seem at first sight. "If we ana-
lyze the supply of any article, however gene-
rally it may be used, and however great may
be the number employed in producing it, we
shall see clearly how it is done without any
particular combination among the producers.
Each labouring unconnectedly in his own
circle, to promote his own self-interest, is
able to equalize the supply with the demand as
effectually, as if he laboured in consequence
of a combination formed expressly for the pur-
pose. Let us examine the supply of London,
or any other market, with meat, which is so
extensive an article, and depends on so many
hands.
"Were a greater number of bullocks,
sheep, &c. to be brought to market, than the
consumption requires, buyers could not be
found. If they are kept alive, their feed be-
comes expensive; and as meat cannot be pre-
served a long time even at the coldest season of
the year, to kill more than can be immediately
disposed of would expose the butcher to cer-
tain loss. Thus both the feeder and the butcher
must endeavour to render the supply no greater
than the demand, but as nearly as possible
equal to it. Nor is this difficult.
"The quantity of meat consumed by fami-
lies is very regular. These for the most part
CHAP. I.
73.
OF POPULATION.
buy from one butcher: every butcher, there-
fore, can calculate with tolerable accuracy
what he must purchase to supply his regular
customers; and, by means of his usual sale,
he can guess pretty well at the quantity re-
quired for chance or occasional buyers. The
butcher thus knows with much exactness the
number he must buy. The farmer, or feeder,
again, is seldom obliged to sell on a certain day.
He can choose a week, or even a month, sooner
or later, as circumstances require. His object
is a high price. If the prices be low, he knows
the market must be over-supplied; and, there-
fore, he will wait a week or two, and be at the
expense of feeding during this additional time,
rather than run the risk of selling his cattle at
an under value, or sending them again.
"From his own experience, or the practice
of his predecessors, he knows the number
which it is profitable for him to feed, both to
suit the quality of his soil, and answer the pur-
poses of his farm, as well as to supply the mar-
kets to which he usually sends them. The
same regulating power of the price and demand
operates through every district upon each
feeder in his little circle. Self-interest, assisted
by experience, thus makes the whole class of
farmers, though each may be acting pretty un-
- connectedly with respect to the circle around
him, and indeed to all the rest, produce a
74
BOOK II.
THE REGULATING POWER
supply to the national demand for meat, as ac-
curately, as if they acted expressly in conjunc-
tion, and according to a regular calculation*.
It is thus evident, that the quantity of sub-
sistence is as completely under the regulation
of man, as either clothing, housing, or any
other branch of circuland, and will continue so
till (if such a period should ever arrive) the land
and waters cannot be made to supply fully the
amount wanted.
The regulating power of population, under
the influence of the demand, is seen every where,
both with respect to kind and quantity. "The
farmer is guided, as far as the nature of his
soil and climate will permit, by the kind of
subsistence which is in demand in his neigh-
bourhood, or in those districts in which he
finds a market. If his chief demand be for
wheat, he directs his attention chiefly to the
production of wheat. In those districts, where
oats are used for bread, he will apply him-
self principally to the growing of oats. If
barley be eaten for bread, or if there be a great
demand for it in his neighbourhood for making
beer, he will direct his attention particularly
to barley. And when his lands lie near a large
town, or when from the increase of population,
and a consequent increase of wealth and luxury
* Happiness of States, B. ii. ch. 5. p. 81.
CHAP. I.
75
OF POPULATION.
among all ranks, he finds an increasing demand
for meat, he, of course, turns his attention
more to green crops and raising cattle. In this
last case, if his father, or the person who had the
same farm, suppose of a hundred acres, twenty
years ago, applied regularly about sixty aeres
of it to wheat and other grain, and kept only
forty for pasture, or for growing clover and
turnips, he now uses fifty-five or any other
quantity, for the latter purpose, and only
forty-five for the former to meet the ratio of
the demand. Perhaps, however, in many
cases, from additional capital, and particularly
the additional manure which he obtains from
feeding more cattle, he may raise more grain
on the forty-five acres than his predecessors did
on the sixty.
"Thus farmers, from being assisted in
their calculations by the number of acres used
for different purposes by their predecessors,
and from their own experience and observations
with respect to the predominant demands, be-
come extremely accurate in adjusting the sup-
ply to the consumption *.”
Were it necessary to go into particulars on
this important subject, the most striking proofs
and illustration of the absolute regulating
power of population over subsistence might be
* Happiness of States, B.vi. ch. 8. p. 440.
76
BOOK 11.
THE REGULATING POWER
given. Indeed we cannot turn to any portion
of any district, but we see the regulating in-
fluence of man operating as completely in eat-
ables, as in building, clothing, teaching, &c.
Out of numberless examples take one or two.
The district round London is applied to raising
grass and culinary vegetables, and why? To
supply the predominant demand, which is for
milk, hay, aud the wants of the kitchen; while
corn and cattle are easier brought from a dis-
tance. In the western and northern districts
of Scotland they formerly grew chiefly oats,
and in the east lowlands, barley, but seldom
wheat; because the population lived chiefly,
in the one, on oaten, and, in the other, on
barley bread. Now they raise much wheat,
and they are annually extending this crop, be-
cause wheaten bread is more generally eaten,
and the use of it is becoming more common
every year. We now grow little rye in the
island, because it is no longer used except in
certain districts; but it is still the predominant
crop in the northern districts of Germany, be-
cause there the lower ranks still eat chiefly rye
bread. But in every district, without excep-
tion, is distinctly seen the regulating influence
of the demand and the will of man.
And why are cultivators annually taking
waste lands into cultivation, where population
is increasing? Is it not from their voluntary
CHAP. I.
77
OF POPULATION.
"
endeavours to regulate the supply according to
the increased demand? Of course, in this case,
to raise the former to the latter, just as the
bricklayer and muslin manufacturer do, when
there is an increased demand for muslins or for
bricks? Or why does the number of the culti-
vating class increase with the increase of po-
pulation, as that of the clothing and building
classes, while the average amount of their indi-
vidual exertions keeps augmenting also? Is it
not from the enlarged demand operating on
self-interest, and tempting a greater number
of circulators to apply to husbandry, as to
clothing or building?
The analogy is perfect. We see the demand
for subsistence adjusting the number of the
cultivators, and these, directed by reason and
influenced by self-interest, adjusting the sup-
ply to the demand as completely, as in the
case of any other class of circulators or sup-
pliers.
There is an essential characteristic of man,
which distinguishes him from all other animals,
and produces an infinite difference between him
and them, in this point as in most others.
That is reason. It is the faculty which fits
him to be a regulator of the supply of subsist-
ence as of other things, and ultimately consti-
tutes him completely so. Other animals remain
as at first regulated in these points, and never
78
BOOK I.
THE REGULATING POWER
A
can become regulators, though man makes
some of them assistants in regulation. But if
regulated at first himself, he at length by
means of this wonderful faculty becomes a com-
plete regulator.
at
"Food and men must have been at least
coeval. A man cannot exist without food
above a few days. If we suppose that man, aț
his first existence, was placed on earth in a
state, such as we now find it in those spots
which have not been cultivated by the human
hand, and that he was not instinctively urged
to cultivate, to render his supplies more cer-
tain: in other words, that he was in the mere
hunter's state, and existed on what vegetables
and animals he could procure; then, unless the
supplies of nature were fully sufficient for the
existing population, the amount of population
must be regulated by the food. In such a
state of society, man does not take upon him-
self to render the supplies of subsistence fully
equal to his demand. If nature, therefore, hap-
pened to be niggardly, or if, during a long and
severe winter, the usual supplies could not be
obtained, what little stores the people might
have beforehand would soon be consumed; a
great portion of them would die through abso-
lute want, and mortal weakness would be in-
troduced into the frames of most that survived
the famine.
CHAP. I.
79
OF POPULATION.
"But the moment man began to cultivate,
or to give artificial fertility to sails, he took
upon himself the regulation of subsistence accord-
ing to the population. And, if we suppose his
race not to have been originally by the inspira-
tion of the Deity, or the instinct of their nature,
cultivators or regulators of subsistence; what
could urge them to the attempt to cultivate, or
produce subsistence for themselves, but the
pressure of want from an increasing popula-
tion? If they originally subsisted by the
bounty of nature alone, and were occasionally
regulated in their numbers by the quantity of
food with which she presented them, an in-
crease of population took this regulating power
out of her hands, and of hunters made them
regulators, in the character of cultivators and
shepherds. And from the moment of their com-
mencing cultivators, they have continued re-
gulators ever since. They manage the native
fertility of earth, as well as the additional
fertility which they themselves create in it:
and they find ample means supplied them, by
nature and the effects of increasing population,
fully to provide for any increase that takes place,
if they make but a proper use of them *."
This great and essential change in the cha-
racter of man has either not been sufficiently
* Happiness of States, B. vi. ch. 3. p. 434.
80
THE REGULATING POWER BOOK II.
}
$
attended to by our subsistence theorists, or the
full and distinct consideration of it for a very
obvious reason avoided. It is, however, a point
of the greatest importance in the examination
of the subject in discussion. And it completely
overturns that theory to the very basis.
If the hunter's state was the original con-
dition of man, his race would be regulated by
the actual amount of subsistence produced spon-
taneously by nature, or independently of his
exertions, provided the supply was not beyond
the demand. In this state he was no more the
regulator of the supply, than the lion, the
tiger, or the wolf. Like them he was wholly
dependent on the spontaneous supplies of
nature. If he became next a feeder, before he
reached the rank of cultivator, in this inter-
mediate state he became partly a regulator,
but still in an imperfect degree. For, though
he could regulate to a certain extent the num-
ber of the animals which he kept, yet their
feed depended on the spontaneous produce of
nature. But when he became a regular culti-
vator, he became a complete regulator. The
whole of the genial powers of nature, with all
the artificial stimulants, were subjected to his
will. And whether with respect to the sub-
sistence supplied by cattle, and that required
by them, or with respect to those other species
of food suited to his palate and stomach, with
CHAP. I.
81
OF POPULATION.
the exception of fish, he could raise the supply
to the amount of his wants, as completely, as
he could raise the supply of houses, clothing,
and other species of circuland.
It may suit our subsistence theorists to pass
lightly over this great era in the history of man
and this essential change in his character pro-
duced by the application of his characteristical
faculty, reason; but every statistician, who
wishes to learn the real doctrines of nature,
on this important topic, will give it all the
serious attention to which it is entitled. I
mean, here, of course, those portions of popu-
lation, which were originally in the mere
hunter's state and emerged from it. If the
first portion of our race was composed of culti-
vators, then reason and the human will directed
their operations, and consequently, they were
regulators from the beginning. The amount
of the demand would be that by which they
measured the amount of the supply.
But be the condition of the first race of
men what it may, the regulating power of the
demand has been seen as effective with respect
to subsistence in all ages and in all districts,
when men have been cultivators, as with
respect to any other article of supply. It also
operates at present, and will continue to ope-
rate until the earth is peopled to the full
amount which it can subsist. And from the
G
82
BOOK 11.
THE REGULATING POWER
increase in capital and skill, which uniformly
springs from the increase of population, the
more populous a country, the more complete
will be the adjustment of the supply to the
demand, in subsistence as in other articles :
that is, the more complete the regulating power!
of population.
CHAPTER II.,
THE REGULATING POWER ATTRIBUTED TO
SUBSISTENCE.
MR. Malthus evidently attributes a com-
pletely regulating power to subsistence over
population, or, in his own words, a power "to
keep the latter down to the level of the
former." That is, the supply regulates the
demand in the case of subsistence; for sub-
sistence is the supply with respect to popu-
lation, the wants of which form the demand.
Let us examine then on what grounds he
has set aside one of the clearest laws of nature,
in a case, in which it is enforced not merely by
profit, but also by strict necessity; nay, ac-
tually reversed it.
It is surprising, that Mr. Malthus and
others who have discussed the topics which
CHAP. II.
83
ATTRIBUTED TO SUBSISTENCE.
arise out of the relative connexions between
population and subsistence, have not stated the
subject in this point of view. The great ques-
tion at issue lies in this very thing. And I
venture to affirm, that the man who was not
thoroughly aware of that universal law of
nature in all branches of circuland, the regu-
lating power of the demand, was incompetent
fully and fairly to discuss the question withi
respect to population and subsistence according
to the actual causes and results in nature.
if he was fully aware of it, and did not try the
question with an express reference to this law,
he must show more regard for some theoretical
dogmas, than for the progress of sound statis-
tical science.
Or
Mr. Malthus has not put the question on
this issue, though with respect to man, who
is a being endowed with reason, and who ad-
justs the supply to the demand, it cannot be
fully discussed upon any other. Does popula-
tion regulate subsistence? or subsistence popu-
lation? That is, In the case of eatables, does
* We waited for the publication of the Fifth Edition of
his Essay on the Principle of Population, to see whether he
would at length take the bull by the horns, and fairly
discuss the question with a reference to the regulating law
in nature, the law of the demand. But still he has avoided
it. I did, indeed, suspect that he would. But since he has
not done it, I must endeavour to do it for him.
G 2
84
BOOK II.
THE REGULATING POWER
the demand regulate the supply, as in other
things, or the supply regulate the demand?
This is the view which has been expressly
taken of it in the Happiness of States: and
whatever be the answer, it certainly renders the
subject intelligible and easy, and refers the
whole to actual causes and facts. But Mr.
Malthus's mode of discussing the subject arises
from a theoretical assumption, which he had
not proved, and is certainly not true with
respect to man. By this also he avoids the
grand question, Is not population capable of
raising the supply of subsistence, as of other
things, to the amount of the demand? and, on
mere theoretical grounds, takes the opposite for
granted.
Had he viewed the subject with a reference
to the regulating law of the demand, as has
been done by the author of the Happiness of
States, it is not improbable but he would have
come to the same conclusion with that author.
It behoved him at least to show distinctly at
setting out, that the law did not, or could not
operate with respect to the food of man. He
has chosen not to do so, and we, therefore,
ask what is his plea for reversing the law of
nature with respect to subsistence.
The statistician will be apt à priori to think
it strange and very doubtful, that nature should
abrogate her own law solely in a case, in which
CHAP. II. ATTRIBUTED TO SUBSISTENCE.
85
the comfort and even the existence of her sons
required more than in any other, that it should
exist; or that man should not have it in his
power to regulate the supply of the most neces-
sary of all things, subsistence, according to the
demand; though he possessed it amply with
respect to all other things. But if such an
abrogation has in fact taken place, or the
law of nature with respect to demand and
supply be reversed, in the case of subsistence,
where is the proof of this, or how does the
supply manage the regulating power with re-
spect to it, which the demand manages so com-
pletely with respect to other things?
The demand in its regulating operation acts
both directly and indirectly. The direct regu-
lating power is not attributed by Mr. Malthus
to the supply except in a few cases, in which it
unquestionably has a most direct and dreadful
regulating power, or actual famines. The in-
direct regulating power is thus explained gene-
rally: "The immediate check may be stated
to consist in all those customs and all those
diseases, which seem to be generated by a scar-
city of the means of subsistence; and all those
causes, independent of this scarcity, whether of
a moral or physical nature, which tend prema-
turely to weaken and destroy the human
frame *.
""
* Essay on the Principle of Population, B. i. ch. 2. p. 17.
G 3
86
BOOK II.
THE REGULATING POWER
The latter causes being independent of the
supposed scarcity, as has been already observed,
do not affect the question under discussion.
The influence of subsistence in checking and
regulating population is found in certain
customs and diseases, which seem to be gene-
rated by a scarcity of it. This general or uni-
versal scarcity of the means of subsistence amid
such vast tracts of uncultivated and imperfectly
cultivated land every where, certainly appears
to be a thing of very equivocal existence, even
on the first view of the subject. To prove its
existence, however, Mr. Malthus has taken a
survey of the state of most of the leading coun-
tries, both in ancient and modern times, with
respect to population and subsistence.
Of this survey I have no desire to speak
slightingly. Some portions of it are valuable,
particularly the personal report of the state of
Norway. The facts, however, are evidently
culled by a theorist who had only one object in
view; and there is such a perpetual evident
attempting to adjust them to the theory of the
surveyor, that the statistician demurs, and is
in doubt how far he can depend upon them, or
make use of them with safety.
His readers will all allow, that he has been
indefatigable in one point: in hunting for
human misery. In the chase he has been emi-
nently successful, at least, in finding. Most of
CHAP. II.
87
ATTRIBUTED TO SUBSISTENCE.
them, however, will be disposed to think that
he has borrowed both the eye and fancy of the
poet. Determined to find what he wanted, he
has frequently seen it where it did not exist,
and exaggerated it where it did. In short, the
world, through all its nooks, was perhaps never
so successfully rummaged before by any theo-
rist for any purpose.
What then is the result of this statistical
survey, as far as the subject under examination
is concerned? I confine the question here to
subsistence. The question, as it respects em-
ployment and wealth, will be afterwards parti-
cularly discussed. All that we learn from it is,
that population and subsistence keep nearly at
each other's level. There was no need for
making a tour either of ancient or modern
countries to ascertain this fact, more than
there was, to find out, that houses, clothing,
&c. were on a level with population. He might
have remained at home as far as this object is
concerned, and it would have been fully
granted to him. From the great law of nature,
the universally regulating power of the demand,
this equilibrium must necessarily be the ave-
rage result in all countries in the cultivated
state, whether ancient or modern, whether
thinly or thickly peopled.
His own surveys, excepting those of regions
inhabited by men who are not in the state of
G 4
88
BOOK II.
THE REGULATING POWER
cultivators, are, in fact, all decidedly against
his theory. Is there a country peopled by men
who are in that state, in which there is not still
a great abundance of the means of additional
subsistence in store? Why then, in the course
of so many ages, has not population risen fully to
those means of subsistence, or till it exhausted
them? A deficiency of these means, of which
there is a confessed superabundance every
where, cannot surely be the cause.
The result of the survey of earth is this:
Throughout all her regions, for none of any ex-
tent can be excepted, after the lapse not of hun-
dreds, but of thousands of years, there is not
found one, in which population has at all ap-
proached the limits of the subsistence, which it
is capable of producing. How then can it be
possible, that it is a general deficiency of sub-
sistence, which has checked the progress of
population? The argument is brief, but it is
perfectly decisive.
It is said, that though there was an excess
of the means of subsistence beyond the actual
quantum of population, these were not called
forth. What does this prove? Why were they
not called forth? Is it necessary that these
additional means should be brought to the
barn-yard by the farmer, to the mill or to the
shambles by the miller or the butcher, or by
CHAP. II.
89
ATTRIBUTED. TO SUBSISTENCE.
the cook to the table, in order to make men
populate additionally? The additional means
of subsistence in these countries were in store,
ready to meet the demand just as they were in
the back settlements of America. And had
the same demand for food existed, with the
same deficiency of demands for other articles,
as in those settlements and other new colonies,
the same proportion of hands would have been
employed to bring this embryo subsistence into
mature existence; and the same supply would
have been produced till the whole store was
exhausted. But this store has been applied to
much more sparingly in most countries; and,
therefore, no such demand existed.
We shall now be able to appreciate the
justness of the following conclusions as far as
we can understand them.
"Must it not then be acknowledged by an
attentive examiner of the histories of mankind,
that in every age and in every state in which
man has existed, or does now exist,
“The increase of population is necessarily
limited by the means of subsistence:
"Population invariably increases when the
means of subsistence increase, unless prevented
by powerful and obvious checks ?
"These checks, and the checks which keep
the population down to the level of the means
90
BOOK II.
THE REGULATING POWER
+
of subsistence, are moral restraints, vice, and
nisery *."
1. "The increase of population is necessarily
limited by the means of subsistence.”
I have no wish to carp; but I must ob-
serve, that this conclusion, important as it is
intended to be, is, as usual, loosely and indis-
tinctly expressed. What is to be understood
by the means of subsistence? Is it the amount
of food actually produced each season? Or is
it the whole of the subsistence, which man has
the means of drawing from the soil, or both
that actually drawn, and that which he could
draw had he a demand for the whole? Again,
whether are we to understand by the term
limited, merely bounded, or regulated?
If by this conclusion be meant only, that
there must be a sufficient quantity of subsist-
ence to feed population, this sapient doctrine is
a truism, which has only to be stated to be
admitted. But if it be intended to affirm, as is
probable, that the actual quantity of subsistence
limits or regulates the actual amount of popu-
lation, this can only be affirmed of certain
states of population, such as the hunter's state,
before man becomes a cultivator, or the state of
a nation, which is labouring under actual
*
p. 216.
Essay on the Principle of Population, B. ii. ch. 13.
CHAP. II.
91
ATTRIBUTED TO SUBSISTENce.
famine, or of the actual population of earth,
should it reach a pitch, beyond which she
cannot feed any addition. This last, by the
way, may be considered as a state of universal
and constant famine, and would be a state
somewhat similar to that in which the subsist-
ence theory supposes man always to be. But
with respect to those regions in which man is a
cultivator, and which have not reached their
complement, and with some slight exceptions,
this includes all the districts of earth, the de-
duction is false. Population is no more limited
by the means of subsistence, than by the means
of clothing and of lodging. Indeed, the con-
clusion reverses the result of nature, and puts
the effect for the cause. In all those countries
the increase of subsistence is necessarily limited
by the increase of population. The regulating
power is in the hands of the latter. It is guided
by the demand; that demand consists of the
wants of population. And the regulation is,
upon the whole, as complete as the human will,
aided or counteracted by the various circum-
stances, amid which it has to operate, can
make it.
The facts of all countries, when impar-
tially considered, and stript of all theoretical
dress, join to prove that there is a perpetual
tendency to an average adjustment of subsist-
enee to the demand. There is occasionally
92
BOOK II.
THE REGULATING POWER
rather a superabundance, and occasionally
rather a deficiency in the supply of subsistence,
as in the supply of housing and clothing; but
there is on the whole, as accurate an adjust-
ment of the supply of food, as in these other
two leading articles. Indeed, when we consider
the immense number of circulators labouring
in the production of it, and often with very dif-
ferent views, and upon how many contingencies
the quantity of the supply depends, the accu-
racy of this supply appears wonderful. Nothing
could affect it but the regularity of the demand.
No proof whatever on the other hand has
been afforded of an universal tendency on the
average to a limitation from a deficiency or
scarcity of the means of subsistence. It was
indispensably necessary to prove this, or no-
thing was gained in support of the subsistence
theory. Far from this, the reverse is incontest-
ably true. As has been already observed, no
country or district of any extent but contained
additional sources of subsistence: none were
peopled even to near the extent to which they
possess these.
If there were any limitation
from any average scarcity of actual subsistence,
why were more of the uncultivated lands, which
were in all cases in such abundance, not put in
a state of cultivation? There were hands enow
to do this necessary work, and the demand
would have fully repaid them. But these
CHAP. II. ATTRIBUTED TO SUBSISTENCE.
93
abundant resources were left untouched. There
was, therefore, no limitation derived from the
means of subsistence.
This fact, I have to repeat, is decisive
against all limiting power actually existing in
subsistence. And the deduction is clear, that
there is nothing controlling or paramount in
subsistence which takes the regulating power
out of the hands of the cultivator more than
there is in any other article, the supply of which
is dependent on the will.
2. " Population invariably increases when
the means of subsistence increase, unless pre-
vented by powerful and obvious checks."
And so it increases when lodging or cloth-
ing increases. This likewise, in one sense, at
least to a certain extent, is a mere truism.
The greater the number of mouths, the greater
the quantity of food will they consume; and,
of course, the greater will be the quantity pre-
pared for them. The conclusion, in this sense,
amounts to nothing in favour of the subsistence
theory. For how does it follow from this fact,
that the increase of the subsistence is the cause,
and not the effect, of the increase of popula-
tion, more than from the corresponding in-
crease of housing and clothing, that they are
the cause of its increase?
Mr. Malthus has added an explanatory note;
but this, instead of throwing light or certainty
1
94
BOOK II.
THE REGULATING POWER
over his meaning, makes it more dark and
doubtful, and renders additional explanation
still more necessary. 66
By an increase in the
means of subsistence, as the expression is used
here, is always meant such an increase as the
mass of the population can command; other-
wise it can be of no avail in encouraging an in-
crease of people *."
This explanation, in one sense, seems to
fall in with the doctrine maintained by Mr.
Gray, which, by the way, is a coincidence pro-
duced by more than one of Mr. Malthus's ex-
planations and limitations. If by the words
"such an increase in the means of subsistence
as the mass of population can command," be
meant something equivalent to an increase of
employment among circulators, at such a fair
price as will enable a married pair to feed a
family rather better, in other words, an increase
not of subsistence itself, but of the means of
purchasing it, that is, income, such a circum-
stance, as far as it goes, has unquestionably an
influence in promoting marriage. This is, in
fact, a part of the doctrine of Mr. Gray. He,
however, includes the whole of housekeeping
in his view and to confine this influence to
food alone, is incorrect. This article, accord-
* Essay, vol. ii. B. ii. ch. 13. p. 216.
The influence which the increase of population has on
augmenting income, is minutely analyzed in Book iv.
CHAP. II. ATTRIBUTED TO SUBSISTENCE.
95
ing to the Happiness of States *, forms only
about 30 per cent in housekeeping among the
great mass of Britons, in their present circum-
stances; but it may reach forty or fifty among
the lower classes. It will, therefore, have an
influence among these in that proportion. It
is the whole of housekeeping, which those
pairs, who think at all thus prudently, take
into consideration.
But, though what Mr. Gray affirms be true,
that abundance of employment at a fair price
promotes early marriage, mere abundance of
subsistence by no means uniformly operates so
favourably. When accompanied with a fall
of price, and a consequent diminution of em-
ployment, it has a strong contrary influence.
Of this we had a proof too severely felt home
in the year 1815, when the unusual abundance,
by lowering the price of subsistence, and, of
course, lessening the profits of the farmer and
his means of giving employment, as well as the
wages of his people, had perhaps as unfavour-
able an influence against marriage, as the scar-
city of 1801.
Besides, though the increase in profitable
employment, or the means of housekeeping,
tends to promote marriage, yet the produce of
that marriage depends upon the healthiness of
* B. ii. ch. 11. p. 138.
96
BOOK II.
THE REGULATING POWER
*
employment and of climate, on constitutional
temperament, a greater or less degree of
luxury, and so forth. If this were what is
meant by the limitation "unless prevented by
powerful and obvious checks," it would be cor-
rect, but they are stated to be "moral restraint,
vice, and misery." In this description there is
more theoretical arrangement than fact, and
more technical nicety than either real distinct-
ness or accuracy.
But in certain cases, the means of subsist-
ence may be increased, and yet population
decrease. Indeed, this uniformly happens
when population does go back. The means of
subsistence are the same, but the population is
more or less reduced. If we examine those
highly peopled districts of ancient times now
in the unfortunate state of a diminished popu-
lation, or the remains, or the mere site of those
populous towns, which have either sunk to a
very inferior amount of people, or have disap-
peared altogether, we find the means of sub-
sistence as abundant as perhaps ever they were,
and yet the actual population is reduced
in some places to the one tenth of what it was
formerly. Population in a few years could make
these means as actually productive again, as
formerly. And yet population has no tendency
whatever from this circumstance to rise to the
former amount. Indeed, probably in most in-
CHAP. II. ATTRIBUTED TO SUBSISTENCE.
97
stances, amid their present circumstances, there
is no tendency to increase whatever.
3. "These checks and the checks which
keep the population down to the level of sub-
sistence are moral restraint, vice, and misery."
This is mere theoretical imagination and
technicality. The principle which it implies,
as has been fully shown, is not merely not
proved, but is contrary to the principle actually
operating in nature. Subsistence has no level
of its own. Its amount depends entirely upon
the amount of population. And population is
constantly employed in raising the former
amount to the amount of its wants or of the
demand: that is, in raising subsistence to its own
level. In the attempt to accomplish this great
object, with some occasional and local excep-
tions arising from actual famine, caused by cir-
cumstances which it has not the skill or means
of controlling, it is uniformly successful.
Thus the general conclusions which Mr.
Malthus draws from his statistical survey of the
world, are either incorrect, or do not at all
prove the regulating power of subsistence. If
it were necessary, it could be shown that his
particular details in many cases are far from
being secure against animadversion; but it is
sufficient, in the present discussion, to have
rèfuted his general conclusions.
He has completely failed in establishing an
H
98
BOOK II.
THE REGULATING POWER
universal deficiency of subsistence, or actual
limitation created by it. Nor has he either
shown how such a deficiency can possibly exist
under the regulating power of the demand, or
the manner in which it operates to regulate the
amount of population.
In the following preliminary passage, he
has put a case by way of illustration. "We
will suppose the means of subsistence in any
country just equal to the easy support of its in-
habitants. The constant effort towards popula-
tion, which is found to act even in the most
vicious societies, increases the number of people
before the means of subsistence are increased.
The food, therefore, which before supported
eleven millions, must now be divided among
eleven millions and a half. The poor conse-
quently must live much worse, and many of
them be reduced to severe distress *."
This is, as usual, a very loose statement of
a case very unlike any thing in real life. How
has this half million in eleven got the start of
subsistence except in circumstances of actual
famine? "A large additional quantity of
population," says Mr. Gray, "is not brought
into existence in a day. Even when the rate of
increase is the most rapid, it keeps gradually
advancing, and allows time for the cultivator
by greater exertions, either in extending the
width of cultivation, by taking in new lands, or
* Essay, vol. i. B. i. ch. 2. p. 27.
CHAP. II. ATTRIBUTED TO SUBSISTENCE.
99
fertilizing more effectively the old, to supply its
increasing wants *.
This is evidently the uniform fact, always
excluding famine: and famine, by the way,
would soon have destroyed the half million, and
reduced the population to the subsistence.
How could population in its increase so far
outstrip the increase of the supply of subsist-
ence, in any country, while there existed addi-
tional means of supply, either in its own terri-
tory, or in others with which it was connected?
There is, on the whole, always an advance in
the supply of a year or two beyond the actual
demand of population.
"The latter is, for
the most part, on an average of all the dis-
tricts connected nationally or commercially,
somewhere between a year and a quarter and
two years before the former. But, on that ave-
rage, subsistence seems seldom to reach above
a year beyond population: and perhaps never,
since the improved system of agriculture was
introduced into Europe and that part of Ame-
rica which speaks the British language, has it
fallen back, nearer to population, than a
quarter of a year's advance, in this range of
districts."
Happiness of States, B. vi. ch. 3. p. 437. See what
follows with respect to the rate of doubling even in fifteen
years, the highest possible in extensive masses of population.
† Id. B. vi. ch. 2. p. 433.
A
H 2
· 1
&c. BOOK II.
THE REGULATING POWER, 100
·
·
1
Out of this advance, therefore, any increase
of population during the season can draw its
subsistence. The palpable increase in the de-
mand would operate upon the farmer and im-
porter to supply more liberally. And this we
know is the general fact.
On quitting this branch of the discussion I
have to observe, that had Mr. Malthus, or any
other writer, chosen to maintain, that popula-
tion was regulated by, or kept down to the level
of clothing, of lodging, or any other species of
circuland, he might have made the same tour,
and found the same result in all countries and
districts of countries, with respect to clothes,
houses, or the rest, as with respect to subsist-
ence, or the amount of these agreeing with the
amount of population: and for the same reason.
All depend alike on the human will, and the
adjustment of population. These supplies are
all found, on the average, nearly equal to the
amount of the demand: occasionally a little
higher or a little lower than this; but on the
whole as accurately adjusted to it, as is practi-
cable. Indeed the subsistence theorist has only
to substitute housing or clothing for the limit-
ation, and he will find the argument equally
good and conclusive.
1
CHAP. III. POPULATION AND SUBSISTENCE. 101
CHAPTER IIL
THE NATURAL TENDENCY TO AN AVERAGE EQUA-
LITY BETWEEN THE ACTUAL AMOUNT OF THE
SUPPLY OF SUBSISTENCE AND THE ACTUAL
DEMAND OF POPULATION.
So much has been deduced of late from the
uniform tendency towards an average equality
between the supply of subsistence and the de-
mand of population, that it will be useful to exa-
mine with attention what really arises out of it.
If a statistician well acquainted with the real
principles of circulation, but who had not direct-
ed his attention particularly to the subject of
subsistence as connected with population, had
been asked what would be his opinion à priori as
to the state of the supply of subsistence compared
with the amount of population, he would have
replied at once, that the supply on an average
of years would naturally be as near the actual
demand of population as the cultivators could
make it. "Self-interest will prompt a number
of persons sufficient, at least, to supply the
demand for any species of article, to join the
class which labours at it; and when this class
becomes too numerous, or when its hands pro-
H 3
102
BOOK N.
THE EQUILIBRIUM BETWEEN
}
duce more of the article than can be disposed
of, the same self-interest will urge them to
leave the class, or to produce less*." The
demand thus regulates the number of suppliers
and the amount of the supply, as far as this is
dependent upon the will. And facts uniformly
show, that this is the case with respect to sub-
sistence.
There is nothing peculiar in this equality
between the supply and the demand in the
case of subsistence. The same equilibrium
between the supply and the demand is found in
all other divisions of circuland, as of houses,
clothes, government, teaching, amusement,
physic and service: and for the same reasons.
No one thinks of attributing a limiting or regu-
lating power to houses or clothes, for example,
on account of this equality. Why then should
this limiting power be imagined to exist in the
supply of subsistence?
"But it has been urged," says Mr. Gray,
"the equilibrium maintained between subsist-
ence and population, shows that the quantity of
the former regulates the amount of the latter.
There is as much force in this, as if it were ar-
gued from the equilibrium between the quantity.
of corduroy made at Manchester, and of muslin
made at Glasgow, and the number of those who
* Happiness of States, B. ii, ch. 3. p. 79.
1
CHAP. III. POPULATION AND SUBSISTENCE. 103
use these articles, that the quantity of cor-
duroy and muslin regulated the existence of the
number of their users: or, that the quantity of
shoes made in Great Britain, from its corre-
sponding with the amount of its population, regu-
lated the number of Britons born, marrying and
dying, and not the latter number the quantity
of shoes made. There is a similar equilibrium
between the hats manufactured by the hat-
maker, and the heads that wear them, as be-
tween the eatables produced by the cultivator,
and the mouths that eat them. But is it the
number of hats that regulates the number of
heads, or the number of heads the hats? This
equilibrium between subsistence and population
is, as has been already noticed, and will be
shown presently more in detail, a decisive proof,
that the latter regulates the former. It shows,
that the quantity of subsistence is measured
and produced by the will of man, governed by
his own interest: and that, on an average of
seasons good and bad, if there were a greater
demand for subsistence, the cultivator would
produce more, and, if the demand diminished,
so, at length, would the production of corn and
cattle, as in the case of shoes and other articles
used by man*.
What seems to have led to an idea of a
*Happiness of States, B. vi. ch. 3. p. 436.
1
H 4
104
THE EQUILIBRIUM BETWEEN BOOK II,
limiting power in the supply of subsistence, is
the absolute necessity of a sufficient supply of
this article. Houses and clothes are in certain
districts, or at certain seasons, almost abso-
lutely necessary; though not strictly so. But
subsistence is strictly necessary. Without a
certain quantity of food, population could not
exist at all.
This natural absolute necessity, however,
gives it no limiting or regulating power, except
in such cases as where it is actually brought
into action; as in famines. In all other cases
the will of population deprives it of this limit-
ing power by the regulating influence which it
possesses over the supply. Thus the supply of
food is a mere matter of arrangement, as the
supply of clothes, houses, amusement, and so
forth.
$
The indistinct manner, in which the equa-
lity has been stated, has also contributed to
erroneous views on the subject. The expres-
sion means of subsistence, used by Mr. Malthus
and other writers, is indistinct, vague and im-
proper. In its full sense it points out the whole
of the resources of subsistence either actually
drawn upon by the cultivator, hunter and
fisher, or which the earth would possess if they
drew to the utmost in the power of all these
respectively: that is, the whole of the produc-
tive powers, which she either possessed of her-
CHAP. III.
105
POPULATION AND SUBSISTENCE.
self, or which could be given to her by the
skill and labour of the cultivator, till she could
not be made to feed one human being more.
In this sense, therefore, it is a mere truism to
say, that population is limited by the means of
subsistence. But the limiting power possessed
by it under this view will never be brought
into full action, until population can by its will
create no farther supply.
The expression, therefore, is improper, or, at
least, vague and indistinct, when applied to any
other state of population, and should be avoided.
In discussing the question, to which, popula-
tion or subsistence, the regulating power
belongs, we should speak of the supply of sub-
sistence, as of clothes, and houses: or the ave-
rage actual amount of the supply compared with
the actual amount of the population drawing
upon it.
CHAPTER IV.
POPULATION HAS THE POWER FULLY TO REGULATE
THE AMOUNT OF SUBSISTENCE, TILL THE EARTH
HAS REACHED ITS FULL COMPLEMENT.
THERE is evidently a restriction in the regu-
lating power of the demand over the supply.
106 POPULATION HAS FULLY THE POWER BOOK II.
This power can extend only to what is practi-
cable. Mr. Gray expresses this by the limita-
tion, as far as dependent on the will of man, or
the cultivator.
Is there any thing then in the supply of sub-
sistence, connected with the increase of popu-
lation, which deprives the will of man of its
regulating power?
1
It has been calculated by Mr. Gray, as the
result of a minute analysis*, that two acres
cultivated to such a pitch of fertility as to pro-
duce four quarters of wheat each, or what is
equivalent to that, are necessary, on the
average, to maintain an individual, according
to the luxurious allowance required by popu-
lation, when it has nearly reached its comple-
ment. The average quantity required by a
country thinner peopled, and, therefore, poorer
and less luxurious, will not be so large; but
then, on the other hand, it is only in so high a
state of population that land can be in general
cultivated to such a pitch. The one deficiency
will balance the other. If we assume this to
be the requisite quantity of cultivated land per
individual, then for every unit added to popu-
f
*Happiness of States, B. v. ch. 7. p. 420.
This is certainly a high average: and Mr. Gray,
after having seen more of the Continent, expresses himself
with less confidence as to the practicability of such an uni-
versal average, even for the temperate regions.
4
CHAP. IV. TO REGULATE SUBSISTENCE.
107
lation, there must be two well-cultivated acres
added to the extent already cultivated for the
supply of subsistence, or a larger quantity in
proportion as the cultivation is inferior. Of
course, every such addition will bring the cul-
tivable portion of earth two acres nearer to its
being completely stocked.
It has been shown by Mr. Gray *, that
population has fully in its power to supply
itself with a sufficiency of subsistence, what-
ever be its rate of increase. I shall content
myself here with quoting the following passage
only.
"C
Population, whatever be the ratio of its
increase, carries in itself the means of finding
sufficient food. Its increase supplies it with an
additional number of hands. Only about one
out of six or seven of the new persons on the
average of life, as with respect to the old, is
wanted to cultivate, in order to feed himself
and the rest. The other five or six become
effective members of the community in other
modes of employment, and while they increase
the consumption, tend to increase the supply
also. An increase of population not only in-
creases the demand for subsistence, and conse-
quently, for an additional number of cultivators,
but by rendering the number of those who wish
to be farmers, greater, urges them to attempt
Happiness of States, B. vi. ch. 3, &c.
-X
108
POPULATION HAS FULLY THE POWER BOOK II.
cultivating lands, which in a stagnant or de-
creasing state of population, they would never
have thought of doing. This increase also,
by augmenting capital, skill and manure,
enables the old and the new cultivators to
produce additional supplies adequate to the
additional demand. And thus an increase of
population regularly forces up the quantity of
subsistence at least to a level with itself, but in
most cases higher *."
Until, therefore, the earth is peopled to the
highest amount which it is capable of feeding,
or while there is any uncultivated, or imper-
fectly cultivated soil, population has the regu-
lating power over subsistence in its own hands.
As far as depends on subsistence, it may in-
crease at any rate, however rapid. It has only
to apply more of its members to the work of
cultivation, and it can obtain what it wants.
In thinly peopled districts there is generally
an abundant choice of uncultivated soil of
various qualities: but in those which are'
thickly peopled, the uncultivated lands are of
the more barren and obstinate kinds, as the
better are first chosen If, however, the
lands of the latter class be more difficult to
cultivate, the population, from its greater
wealth and capital as well as its consequent
* Happiness of States, B. vi. ch. 3. p. 439.
†. Id. B. vi. ch. 8. p. 476.
CHAP. IV. TO REGULATE SUBSISTENCE.
109
higher improvement, and a more abundant
regular supply of manure arising from these, is
more capable of taking in and fertilizing waste
and barren soil. It may be considered as an
axiom in statistics, from subsistence being a
strict necessary, that if there be a real demand
for the cultivation of more soil, the state of
population must be such with respect to fresh
lands, as long as there are any which can be
cultivated, that they may be cultivated to profit.
We have had a great deal of fancy sported
on the subject of barren lands, but the real
practical state of the case is, that it is a mere
question of profit, whether to cultivate or not.
The cultivator is always willing to cultivate,
and he is always able to cultivate to his own
advantage, such additional lands as are neces-
sary to raise the requisite supply, unless sub-
sistence can be procured at a cheaper rate, and
with ease, from another country. If, therefore,
this foreign supply cannot be obtained conve-
niently, and at a lower price, he will go on cul-
tivating at home additionally up to the extent
that is really required. However obstinate and
unfavourably situated, when his land is below a
certain height above the level of the sea, the
return he will receive, will repay him for his
exertions. Mr. Gray considered, even in 1814,
fifteen pounds an acre "as the maximum of
expense of cultivating waste lands (with the
}
$
110
BOOK II.
POPULATION, &c.
15'
exception of some very impracticable districts),
and, perhaps, by far the greatest part for about
the one half, after deducting, as is fair, the
common expense of cultivating *. And what
sort of return would there be, which with wheat
about 80 shillings, barley about 40, and oats
about 27 per quarter, with the alternate crops of
turnips, clover, and potatoes, that would not
yield the improver or land-owner a profit of at
least six or seven per cent, or a rent about 20
shillings per acre?
Judicious arrangements, economy and care
are undoubtedly necessary. But with these
how small a portion of lands below a certain
height, is there that cannot be cultivated to
profit, if the demands of an increasing popula-
tion urge the cultivator?
* Happiness of States, B. iv. ch. 8. p. 477.
† In the hilly boundary between Berwickshire and East
Lothian, two of the best cultivated districts in Europe, there
is a law or hill, about 1300 feet high, up which cultivation
has been carried in some places, I think, to within a hun-
dred yards of the top. As I rode through this wild district,
accompanied by the farmer, an intelligent and active man,
he pointed out a patch on the side of the hill, then in grass.
"There," said he, "is the spot where I made my first
money." This information from a practician, respecting
land so unfavourable in every point of view, and in a
county where there was so much fine land to come in com-
petition with it, gave me great pleasure.
CHAP. V. INFLUENCE OF POPULATION.
111
CHAPTER V.
THE INFLUENCE OF POPULATION AND SUBSISTENCE
ON EACH OTHER.
A MINUTE analysis of the influence of popula-
tion and subsistence upon each other has been
given by Mr. Gray *. This has not been done
on the other side, though such an analysis is
indispensably necessary to enable us to come to
a just conclusion.
When an unusual or extraordinary, not to
say apparently unaccountable, influence is
attributed to any cause, the public is entitled
to expect a clear and minute analysis of the
operation of this cause, and the modes by which
it creates the influence. Mr. Malthus has by
no means complied with this requisition in
regard to the extraordinary influence which he
ascribes to subsistence. He confines himself to
general assertions respecting it; and the reader
is left in the dark as to the exact means by
which the regulating influence of subsistence
achieves the supposed effect.
The inquiring statistician, however, before
he gives his assent, must have a clear and dis-
*Happiness of States, B. vi.
112
RECIPROCAL INFLUENCE OF BOOK If
}
tinct answer to the questions, In what does the
regulating influence attributed to subsistenee
consist? And how does it operate?
Population increases according to the earli-
ness of the prevailing plan of marriage, and the
healthiness of the great mass of the people *.
This may be considered as an axiom.
What influence subsistence has on popula→
tion must, therefore, be by a tendency in it to
regulate the period of marriage and the general
state of health. If it be the regulator of the
increase of population, it must be naturally
possessed of the whole, or nearly the whole of
the regulating power of marriage, health, and
fecundation. Let us examine in what degree
it possesses the regulating power in fact.
Sir James Steuart seems to have been the
original author of the principle of the subsist-
ence theory, or that the quantity of the food
regulates the quantity of population, though he
did not succeed in bringing this singular prin-
ciple into public notice or discussion. He is
more particular in his analysis than Mr. Mal-
thus; but even his is very imperfect, and we
gain nothing satisfactory from it.
"Were the earth therefore uncultivated,"
says he, "the numbers of mankind would not
exceed the proportion of the spontaneous fruits
Happiness of States, B. vi. ch. 4. p. 461.
CHAP. V. POPULATION AND SUBSISTence. 113
་
which she offers for their immediate use, or
for that of the animals which might be the
proper nourishment of man*."
Here man is considered in the mere animal
state. And in this state the result is admitted
by Mr. Gray.
Again, with respect to this animal state
Sir James says, "Put two or three pairs of
rabbits into a field proper for them, the multi-
plication will be rapid; and in a few years the
warren will be stocked: you may take yearly
from it a hundred pairs, I shall suppose, and
keep your warren in good order. Give over
taking any for some years, you will perhaps
find your original stock rather diminished than
increased for the reasons above mentioned.
Africa yearly furnishes many thousands for the
cultivation of America; in this she resembles
the warren. I have little doubt but that if
all her sons were returned to her at once, by far
the greater part would die of hunger.'
I shall admit that, on the whole, the sup-
posed would be the real results with respect to
the rabbits; but when he brings in the negroes,
there is something farther of essential import-
ance to be taken into consideration: unless
* An Inquiry into the Principles of Political Economy,
vol. i. B. i. ch. 3. p. 24.
+ Happiness of States, B. vi. ch. 3. p. 434.
Political Economy, vol. i. B. i. ch. 3. p. 26.
[
114
BOOK IT.
RECIPROCAL INFLUENCE OF
1
we suppose the negroes to be utterly unpos-
sessed of the reasoning faculty, and utterly un-
acquainted with cultivation. On this supposi-
tion, they are to all intents mere animals, or as
rabbits, horses, or what you please. But if
they enjoy the reasoning faculty, as we know
they do, they enjoy what no other animal but
man does possess; and this is the very regu-
lating faculty. If they are also acquainted
with the practices of cultivation, and we know
they are from their employments in America and
the West Indies, they can exert their regulating
power effectively.
In a country so il cultivated as that of
Africa, it would indeed be extremely difficult to
find the additional food, required by so vast
and sudden an influx of additional mouths.
Unless, therefore, the subsistence which was
raised expressly for them in the districts in
which they lately resided were sent after them,
the direct influence of famine would operate
upon them. In the districts which they had
left, there would be an excess of food, and in
the districts into which they had come, there
would be a corresponding deficiency. This
result, therefore, does not affect the real ques-
tion at issue.
Mr. Gray has noticed a similar case. "But
suppose two or three hundred thousand persons
were suddenly to come into a country in addi-
CHAP. V. POPULATION AND SUBSISTENCE.
115
tion to its common population: would not the
quantity of food, though fully equal to the
consumption before, now become dangerously
scanty, and produce a powerful effect on the
general population? But where is this nume-
rous body of immigrants to come from? Men
do not drop from the clouds, or spring, like
mushrooms, from the ground. They must come
from one country or another, and unless they
have been driven from it by absolute famine,
they have left behind them a quantity of sub-
sistence similar to what they will need in their
new residence. But the case is extraordinary.
And nothing can be deduced from it as to the
general influence of subsistence on population*."
These cases are indeed quite irrelevant in
the present question, and have no influence at
all in determining it.
Sir James proceeds from men as mere ani-
mals to men as rational beings. And here he
treats the subject as unsatisfactorily as possible.
Like the rest of the supporters of the subsistence
theory, he never goes directly into a considera-
tion of the real questions at issue, whether rea-
son is not as sufficient to regulate the quantity
of subsistence, as of clothes and houses; and
whether it does not effect this completely in fact.
I shall first notice what he says of man in
Happiness of States, B. vi. ch. 4. p. 459.
1 2
116
BOOK II
RECIPROCAL INFLUENCE OF
the former state: "There is, therefore, a cer-
tain number of mankind which the earth would
be able to maintain without any labour: allow
me to call this quantity A. Does it not, from
this exposition of the matter, appear plain, that
without labour A never can increase any more
than animals which do not work for them-
selves, can increase beyond the proportion of
food provided for them by nature * ?”
Granted. But man, by means of his fa-
culty of reason, with labour, can do what mere
animals cannot do. He can increase the
quantity of subsistence according to any ratio,
and to any amount which an increase of his
numbers renders necessary, as long as there is
any soil not cultivated, or not sufficiently cul-
tivated.
He adds, "Having resolved one question
with regard to multiplication, and shown that
numbers must become greater or smaller, ac-
cording to the productions of nature-"
Indeed! How? He has not shown any
such thing, or if he has, it is only with respect
to men in a state of mere animal nature: and
even this he has rather assumed than proved.
"I now suppose man," says he, "to add
his labour and industry to the natural activity
of the soil: so far, as by this he produces an
* Principles of Political Economy, vol. i. B. i. ch. 3.
p. 24.
† Id. Ib.
CHAP. V. POPULATION AND SUBSISTENCE.
117
additional quantity of food, so far he lays a
foundation for the maintenance of an addi-
tional number. This number I shall call B.
From this I conclude, that as A is supposed to
be in a constant proportion to the spontaneous
fruits, so B must be in proportion to agricul-
ture (by this term I understand at present
every method of augmenting food by labour),
consequently the number maintained by the
labour of mankind must be to the whole
number of mankind, as B is to A + B, or as B
is to A and B jointly *.*
There is nothing gained by this on the side
of the subsistence theory. Indeed it leads di-
rectly to Mr. Gray's, that man "can lay the
foundation for the maintaining any additional
mumber by producing any additional quantity
of food."
After several remarks, in his inconclusive
wire-drawing manner, and which tend to prove
neither one thing nor another definitely, he
comes to this conclusion. "From what has
been said we may conclude, that the numbers
of mankind must depend upon the quantity of
food produced by the earth for their nourish-
ment;-" No conclusion of the sort follows
from the premises. For, though men subsist on
food, how does this fact show or prove that the
Principles of Political Economy, vol. i. B. 3. ch. 4.
Po 27.
13
118
BOOK 11.
RECIPROCAL INFLUENCE OF
reason of man cannot or does not apportion
the quantity of food to the mouths?
"From
which," proceeds he, " as a corollary, may be
drawn, that mankind have been, as to numbers,
and must ever be in proportion to the food
produced; and that the food produced will be
in the compound proportion of the fertility of
the climate and the industry of the inha-
bitants *."
In the first conclusion I have only here to
observe, as it has been already amply demon-
strated, he commits the radical error which
has been either adopted from him, or com-
mitted after him, by Mr. Malthus, of reversing
the law of nature, and substituting the effect
for the cause. For according to her arrange-
ments the food produced by men in a culti-
vating state ever has been and ever must be,
on the average, in proportion to the numbers of
mouths. Indeed the second conclusion leads to
this, and rather unsays what had been said in
the first. According to the former the quan-
tity of food depends upon the industry, that is,
the skill and labour of the eaters. Their will,
of course, must have an essential regulating
influence.
Again he says, "These principles seem to
be confirmed by experience; whether we com-
པ
Principles of Political Economy, vol. i. B. i, ch. 3, p. 31,
HAP. V. POPULATION AND SUBSISTENCE.
119
pare them with the manner of living among
the free American savages, or among the free,
industrious, and laborious Europeans. We
find the productions of all countries, generally
speaking, in proportion to the number of their
inhabitants; and on the other hand, the inha-
bitants are most commonly in proportion to the
food*." He adds, "I beg this may not be
looked upon as a quibble, or what is called
a vicious circle." And by what sober statisti-
cian will it not? As much would be gained
by saying, subsistence is equal to population,
and, therefore, population is equal to subsist-
ence.
Mr. Malthus asserts the subsistence prin-
ciple in much more decisive terms, but he has
not analyzed the mode by which subsistence
puts in operation the complete regulating
power which he attributes to it. He confines
himself to general observations, and is not
more satisfactory in the proof of the real exist-
ence of this regulating influence, than his pre-
decessor. It would be only to re-examine
what has been already examined, to go again
into these general observations. He states
what he calls the ultimate check to be a want
of food, arising necessarily from the different
ratios according to which population and food
* Principles of Political Economy, vol. i. B. i. ch. 5. p. 39.
1 4
120
BOOK II.
RECIPROCAL INFLUENCE OF
increase.
to be mere visionary suppositions, that have no
existence in real life. And where is there an
appearance of this universal want, or deficiency
of food? Only in the fancies of our subsistence
theorists. The cultivator smiles at such a
chimerical idea, and his average prices tell
him that it is utterly untrue. Mr. Malthus
indeed adds, "but this ultimate check is never
the immediate check, except in cases of actual
famine." This is certainly a most accom-
modating universal check, which only in some
instances acts directly. Such a definition looks
very like making it almost an universal and
omnipotent cause, and at the same time no
cause at all.
These different ratios we have seen
He tells us next, that the immediate check,
as he calls it, "may be stated to consist in all
those customs, and all those diseases, which
seem to be generated by a scarcity of the means
of subsistence."
The existence of customs actually derived
from a scarcity of mere subsistence, in any consi-
derable extent, among nations that have reach-
ed the state of cultivators, is very equivocal.
He probably alludes to the custom of exposing
infants and old people. Such practices may
arise among savages from a deficiency of food;
but I conceive, that, except in cases of actual
famine, they are never had recourse to among
CHAP. V.
121
POPULATION AND SUBSISTENCE.
:
nations at all populous from that cause. Indeed
the extent to which they are adopted in any
nation, even exaggerated though it be, is very
trifling. They are the result of individual cri-
minality, not of national choice. The whole
proves nothing. Even in Britain such aber-
rations, at least with respect to infants, fre-
quently occur; but where is the deficiency of
food in our island? Of late we have had many
aberrations of an opposite kind: instances of
stealing children. The argument of our sub-
sistence theorists would deduce from these,
that the crime springs from a superabundance
of food. But, in truth, the practice of steal-
ing children no more proves an excess of sub-
sistence, than that of exposing them proves a
deficiency.
Some of these occasional cases may indeed
arise from a scarcity of food experienced by
certain unfortunate persons and families; but
do they spring from a real deficiency of sub-
sistence in the country and its connexions?
Certainly not, but from a deficiency of income.
Had these persons possessed the means of pur-
chasing subsistence, they, like others, would
have found abundance of it forthcoming. Their
case, therefore, resolves into that of poverty,
which will be afterwards distinctly considered.
With respect, again, to diseases generated
by the scarcity of subsistence, as I shall have
122
BOOK II..
RECIPROCAL INFLUENCE OF
occasion to go more minutely into the subject,
I shall at present only observe, that this idea
of the subsistence theory seems to be, like most
of the others, in direct contradiction to facts.
We uniformly find, that in proportion as a
country becomes more populous, it is not only
better able to adjust the supply accurately to
the demand, but consumes a greater average
quantity of subsistence; the diseases caused by
an excess of eating become more common, and
those caused by a deficiency more rare.
Mr. Malthus also notices a tendency to
check population, arising out of a deficiency of
subsistence, through the medium of overstock-
ing as to employment and creating poverty.
These effects will be treated of distinctly in the
third and fourth Books.
Mr. Gray has devoted an entire book to
analyzing the mutual effects of population and
subsistence upon each other. And the follow-
ing are the deductions. "From the analysis of
circumstances, the fact in nature is clearly esta-
blished, that population regulates subsistence, not
subsistence population: that the progress of sub-
sistence, with the exception of occasional irre-
gularities, is caused by the progress of popula-
tion, and by the skill and industry of that popu-
lation: in other words, that it is the ratio of
the increase of population, rapid or slow, which
regulates the ratio of the increase of subsistence.
CHAP. V. POPULATION AND SUBSISTENCE.
123
To suppose the reverse, with the antipopula-
tionists, is completely to misconceive things.
It is to make the effect regulate the cause, not
the cause the effect. An increase of popula-
tion is the cause: the increase of subsistence,
the effect produced by that cause. Population
will force subsistence on at a rate, at least
equal, but generally higher than its own: but
subsistence, if, owing to certain circumstances,
it usually exceeds the common ratio of the
population, will gradually sink to the latter *"
Again, with respect to subsistence: "In
sum, to recapitulate, subsistence can operate
on the progress of population only by rendering
marriage earlier or later, or by making it more
or less productive. But its influence in quick-
ening or retarding marriage is merely acci-
dental or local, like that of other species of
circuland, when its price is higher or lower
than usual, compared with the price of labour.
In other cases it has no particular influence on
marriage at all. And so far from greater
abundance tending, on an average, to render
marriage more productive, it has, on the whole,
a contrary or a defecundating and antipopu-
lating effect. If we suppose a bare sufficiency
of necessaries, the more scantily fed families,
* Happiness of States, B. vi. ch. 4. p. 445.
124
RECIPROCAL INFLUENCE OF BOOK II.
classes and districts are, on an average, both
more prolific and longer lived *."
I cannot here help repeating, that it seems
very extraordinary, that the authors of the sub-
sistence theory, in treating of the mutual in-
fluence of population and subsistence on each
other, should not have gone distinctly into the
question, Is not population the regulator of
subsistence, as of all other articles depending
on the will; and if not, why?
I shall now state generally the effects of the
influence of population and subsistence on
each other, as found in actual nature, in
order to ascertain which of the theories corre-
sponds with these.
Population increases more rapidly, cæteris
paribus, the earlier the general plan of marry-
ing is in a district. What influence then has
subsistence in promoting early marriage?
It is not the mere abundance of subsistence
which promotes marriage among the lower
ranks. Sometimes this very abundance will
operate against marriage; as when it reduces
the rate of wages, and diminishes the quantum
of employment. In such a case it disinclines
young people to venture the expenses of keep-
ing house. Of this we had an impressive
example in 1815, and the first half of 1816 †.
* Happiness of States, B. vi. ch. 5. p. 462.
This latter year was singular and memorable in
3
CHAP. V. POPULATION AND SUBSISTENCE.
125
It is, therefore, by the rate of price, that
food has an influence in quickening or retard-
ing marriage. And, in this point, it has no
influence whatever different from that which
clothes, housing, education, &c. possess. What
difference exists is merely in degree. For it is
the total expense of housekeeping, compared
with wages, that has an influence upon the
prudent of both sexes. It is true, that food
forms so principal an item of the expenses of
the lowest ranks, that it has probably a predo-
minant influence with them. But it is always
viewed by those who think at all in the case,
with a reference to income. It is, therefore,
not so much the price of food, clothing, &c. as
many points; and among others, for its operation on popu-
lation from the contrary impulses to which it gave rise. It
was the first year of peace; and the return to peace
usually creates a strong incitement to marriage. (Happi-
ness of States, B. iv. ch. 2. p. 300.) That effect, however,
was opposed by the unfavourable influence of a great defi-
ciency of employment caused by the cessation of the war
business, as well as by the low price of subsistence. The
latter reduced a great number of the farmers to distress,
and many to bankruptcy, and through the farmer, dis-
tressed also the land-owner, the clergyman and others. By
forcing, again, the great body of the middle and lower
ranks to live more frugally, it had a tendency to fecundate,
or to render marriage more prolific. On the other hand, that
was probably more than fully counteracted by the general
gloom among those ranks, produced by distress, as well as
by the peculiar ungeniality of this wet and wintry year.
126
BOOK II.
RECIPROCAL INFLUENCE OF
the rate of income, or the certainty of employ-
ment and its lucrativeness, which determine
the thinking couples to hasten or postpone the
connubial connexion.
"But has not a great abundance of sub-
sistence, as in an uncommonly plentiful year, an
effect on marriage, and consequently on popu-
lation? This occasional effect it certainly has,
as has been already noticed, but in no other
way, than the occasional cheapness of other
articles in general use, to the amount which
any of them forms in the general expenditure.
Population increases according to the earliness
of the prevailing plan of marriage, and the
healthiness of the great mass of the people. If
the price of the necessaries of life should of a
sudden fall, and labour should continue at the
former rate, this will put the younger folks of the
lower ranks more in the humour of marrying
than they even usually are. But the price of
the peculiar sorts of labour of those ranks, on
which the mere price of necessaries has any in-
fluence with respect to marrying, will always
bear a permanent proportion to the permanent
price of those necessaries, whether they be high
or low. These form, as I have conjectured, at
least thirty per cent. in the amount of living,
or the price of things. And, therefore, the
average quantity of subsistence, in consequence
of regulating the average price of labour, will
CHAP. V. POPULATION AND SUBSISTence.
127
not urge them to marry more generally than
their other circumstances permit or require.
As for the middle and higher ranks, the price
of necessaries has very little influence in either
preventing or retarding marriage among them.
They are governed by the circumstances in
which they are with respect to employment, the
style of living which their particular situation
and their class require to keep up, the price of
the education and clothing of their children,
and the expenses of servants, and by their own
feelings and opinions *."
Subsistence has thus no peculiar, and
seldom any material, influence in hastening or
retarding marriage. What influence then has
it' upon health, and by means of health to
render marriage prolific, and the offspring long-
lived and productive in their turn?
According to Sir James Steuart and Mr.
Malthus, subsistence has a fecundating power
according to its abundance. Mr. Gray, on
the other hand, maintains that in proportion as
subsistence is consumed beyond a very frugal
average, it has a defecundating effect, or a tend-
ency to render marriage less productive.
Sir James compares the generative faculty
to a "spring loaded with a weight, which
always exerts itself in proportion to the dimi
* Happiness of States, B. vi. ch. 4. p. 461.
128
BOOK II.
RECIPROCAL INFLUENCE OF
nution of resistance: when food has remained
some time without augmentation or diminution,
generation will carry numbers as high as pos-
sible; if then food come to be diminished, the
spring is overpowered; the force of it becomes
less than nothing. Inhabitants will diminish, at
least, in proportion to the overcharge. If, upon
the other hand, food be increased, the spring
which stood at 0, will begin to exert itself in
proportion as the resistance diminishes; people
will begin to be better fed; they will multiply,
and in proportion as they increase in numbers,
the food will become scarce again *."
Mr. Malthus is highly pleased with this
comparison of the generative faculty to a spring
loaded with a variable weight. I confess,
the use of such comparisons and of metapho-
rical illustration, in questions which depend
entirely on actual facts, seems to me very
doubtful. It is, perhaps, more calculated to
lead the student astray, than to give him a
clear comprehension of the subject as it really
is. Nor is the fact as Sir James has stated it.
He assumes, that because people are better
fed, they will multiply faster. This is so far
from being the truth, that the reverse, to a
certain extent, is almost uniformly true.
A
*Political Economy, vol. i. B. i. ch. 3. p. 25.
Essay on the Principle of Population, vol. i. B. i.
ch. 2. p. 33.
CHAP. V. POPULATION AND SUBSISTENCE.
129
2
1
superfluity of food has the same defecundating
effect upon man, as it has upon irrational
animals. "From universal experience," says
Mr. Gray, "the fact in nature is, that the
increase of population is much in the inverse
ratio of the quantity of subsistence used, to the
point of a bare sufficiency of mere necessaries.
The less a given number of people consume, on
the average, the faster, on the average, they
increase and vice versa, the more any given
number consume, they increase the slower *.”
Were it necessary here to go into a detail
of particulars, that establish this doctrine,
we might quote every class, district and coun-
try around us. "Those districts in a country
likewise, which may be called populating, are
inhabited chiefly by the poor, who fare hardly.
Their population overflows, and the surplus
goes to supply the depopulating districts, which
consist of the high-fed and wealthy. Cumber-
land, Westmorland, parts of Yorkshire, and
other districts of England, that are poor and
ill-fed, send off their surplus population to
other parts which are rich and well-fed. The
Highlands and other poor districts of Scotland
overflow, and send off their superfluous people
to the richer and more manufacturing districts
*
Happiness of States, B. vi. ch. 4. p. 454.
† For this detail consult the 4th chapter of the 6th
Book of the Happiness of States.
K
130
RECIPROCAL INFLUENCE OF BOOK II.
I
of the Lowlands, and of England. Indeed, it
is generally true all over the globe, that the
poor and ill-fed districts are the nurseries for
the populous, rich and well-fed. The surplus
of the former goes to supply the demand arising
from the deficiency of the latter.
"The same thing holds true with respect.
to whole countries as with respect to districts.
The new or back settlements of America, have
doubled their population, we are told, in fifteen
years. Now these new settlers, from the cir-
cumstance of their having a country to clear
and bring into a state of cultivation, must be
the worst fed in America, or live upon the
merest necessaries. The Scots and the Irish
have, at an average, more children than the
English, because not so high fed. The rate of
the increase of population in Ireland is much
more rapid, than in England, or even in Scot-
land: What is the reason of this? The mass
of her population is not so well fed, as the mass
of that of the former, or even as that of the
lowlands of the latter. The great body of her
people live almost entirely on potatoes. And
yet, with this poor fare, her population is ad-
vancing at an astonishing rate *."
In sum, on comparing classes, towns, dis-
tricts, countries, we find, that those which use
* Happiness of States, B. vi. ch. 4. p. 450.
CHAP. V. POPULATION AND SUBSISTENCE.
131
the greatest quantity of food people slowest.
According to the doctrine of the subsistence
theorist, the luxurious maritime towns of Ame-
rica should people faster than the new settle-
ments, in which the cultivators work so hard,
have such keen appetites and fare frugally.
London also should be augmenting her indi-
genous population at an amazing rate, while the
districts of England, Scotland and Ireland that
fare scantily should barely reproduce their
numbers. But what is the fact?
The effects of scanty and luxurious living
are seen verified in the history of most coun-
tries in their different periods. "This is one of
the chief causes of old and populous states in-
creasing slower in population, cæteris paribus,
than those which are young and less populous.
It is not that the average quantity of subsist-
ence is less abundant in the former, but the
reverse. A greater proportion of the old and
populous states lives luxuriously, that is, uses a
quantity of the various articles of subsistence
beyond the moderate degree that is salubrious.
The mass, therefore, is comparatively more un-
healthy and less prolific *."
Mr. Gray adds, "The predominant style of
the employment in the two states tends to the
same effect." The general fact throughout the
* Happiness of States, B. vi. ch. 4. p. 455.
K 2
132
RECIPROCAL INFLUENCE OF BOOK II.
poorer and richer classes of districts is, that
the quantity of food consumed is somewhat in
the inverse ratio of the quantity of exercise out
of doors. The greater the exercise, the more
frugal the fare; and the more luxurious the
eating, the less the exercise. The former com-
bination tends as much to health and prolific-
ness, as the latter to disease and sterility.
And yet our subsistence theorists tell us,
that men increase faster according to the
greater abundance of subsistence. This is indeed
to make the rational animal depend more on
food than the irrational tribes. It is well
known, that, among these, high feeding is un-
favourable to prolificness. Man is thus put not
on the same footing with animals but with vege-
tables. For grain, turnips, cabbages, potatoes,
are rendered more abundant from the greater
quantity of artificial food supplied to them.
The other observation of Sir James, that
"in proportion as men increase in numbers, the
food will become scarce again," is equally un-
true. It is uniformly found that in proportion
as a country is better peopled, its various classes
feed more luxuriously. They must, therefore,
have more ample means of obtaining food.
The more effective modes of labouring, the
accumulation of capital, and the advancement
in science, which are the uniform results of
the increase of population, enable the cultivator
CHAP. V. POPULATION AND SUBSISTENCË.
133
more completely to adjust the supply of sub-
sistence to the demand. And it will be shown
afterwards that this increase also necessarily
augments employment and wealth, and conse-
quently puts it in the power of a larger portion
of all ranks to procure a greater quantity of
the luxurious or less thrifty kinds of eatables
and drinkables.
A deficiency and a superabundance of food
have each an injurious influence on the health.
The former is a much more rare case than the
latter in the history of population, after man
becomes a cultivator, that is, a regulator of
the quantity and kind of subsistence used. In
proportion as population increases, the inju-
rious influence of deficiency grows less exten-
sive, while that arising from superabundance
becomes more general.
The influence of population and subsistence
on each other is thus, in all its extent, against
the subsistence theory of Sir James Steuart
and Mr. Malthus, and in favour of the doctrine
of Mr. Gray.
}
K 3
134
BOOK II.
DOES POPULATION RISE TO THE
CHAPTER VI.
HAS POPULATION A TENDENCY TO RISE ALWAYS
FULLY, OR NEARLY, TO THE AVERAGE AMOUNT
OF THE MEANS OF SUBSISTENCE ?
THE subsistence theory is principally built on
the notion, that population has an uniform
tendency to rise fully or nearly to the average
amount of the means of subsistence. No such
tendency, however, does exist in nature. This
is proved by the actual fact, that to this day
after the exertion of the influence of the popu-
lating causes for several thousand years, there
are abundant additional means of subsistence
even in the thickest peopled countries.
If the position be restricted to the quantity
of subsistence actually produced, its force in
favour of the subsistence theory is destroyed.
For the decisive question then recurs, If popu-
lation has never yet shown any universal or
necessary tendency to rise fully or nearly to
the means of subsistence in its power, how can
the quantum of those means regulate the
quantum of population?
Let us, however, restrict the position to the
quantity of subsistence actually produced,
though this be in effect to abandon the prin-
I
?
CHAP. VI.
SUBSISTENCE IN A DISTRICT ? 135
ciple. It is clear, that if the quantity of sub-
sistence raised in a district or country, entirely,
or even chiefly, regulate the amount of the
population in that district or country, there
will be, on the average, an uniform tendency in
the latter to rise or fall back to the former.
What then is the actual fact? Far from such
an equilibrium being uniformly maintained in
real life, we find in many countries and in
most districts, that the reverse is the fact. In-
deed, did such an equilibrium exist, there would
be scarcely any exportation or importation of
subsistence. Districts and countries would just
feed themselves; and there would be little or
no surplus on the one hand, and little or no
deficiency on the other. Yet few articles can
boast so much exporting and importing as
subsistence, or display so much fluctuation in
the annual amount.
L
Some districts and countries have for ages
exported, and others for ages imported grain.
The former, therefore, enjoyed a surplus, and
the latter laboured under a deficiency. Among
the countries possessing a constant superabun-
dance, may be reckoned Poland, with some
other large districts on the south side of the
Baltic, Scotland, Ireland, the United States of
America, &c. Among the latter England has
occupied a permanent place for above half a
century; and Spain, Portugal, France, Italy,
*
K 4
136
DOES POPULATION RISE TO THE BOOK II.
Holland, and indeed most of the states of
Europe have either generally or occasionally
been importers of subsistence, in one form or
another, to a greater or less amount.
If then the quantum of subsistence, ac-
tually produced, entirely, or even chiefly, regu-
lates the quantum of population, why has not
the population of Poland and other exporting
states or districts risen to the amount of sub-
sistence? Or how has the population of Great
Britain and other importing states continued to
increase with a constant deficiency of native
subsistence? With respect to England in par-
ticular, her population has increased much
faster since her native subsistence became defi-
cient, than ever it did, while she had a surplus.
In proof of this I have only to refer to the
history of her population and subsistence for
the last twenty-five years, during which her
population has increased with such unusual
rapidity, while her deficiency of native sub-
sistence has been so considerable as occasion-
ally to spread a general alarm among all ranks
of her people.
Let us next examine smaller districts, and
we have the same truth uniformly confirmed in
the clearest manner. We find that the quan-
tum of native subsistence in these districts has
no necessary or regulating connexion with the
quantum of their population: for the quantum
CHAP. VI. · SUBSISTENCE IN A DISTRICT? 137
of both is combined in all possible ratios. In
one district population is increasing rapidly
with a growing deficiency of native subsistence.
In another, native subsistence has a vast and
increasing surplus above the demands of the
population. In a third the quantums are found
to be fully equal, and so forth.
It is scarcely necessary to quote particular
examples, when all might be quoted. I shall
notice one or two merely for the sake of illus-
tration.
The district of Berwickshire affords us an
instructive proof of a surplus produce of sub-
sistence having no necessary influence in for-
cing up the native population to its amount.
This county is well known for its high attain-
ments in agriculture. Indeed it
Indeed it may, in some
respects, be considered as the original or central
school of the improved or modern Scottish con-
vertible system. It was in this county where
old principles were first generally abandoned,
and science and capital applied to agriculture
on a grand scale. Without meaning to injure
the claims of other counties, in their own lines,
I may venture to affirm, that most of our im-
proved districts have directly or indirectly pro-
fited by its illustrious example. The lucrative
and advantageous results of capital, when di-
rected by sound theory and correct practice,
have been as fully verified here, with respect to
t
138 DOES POPULATION RISE TO THE
BOOK II.
agriculture, as they have been in other districts
with respect to other branches of circuland.
For half a century its produce has been regu-
larly increasing. New lands have been annu-
ally taken into cultivation, and in a greater or
less degree the old cultivated more effectively.
For the last twenty years, it is probable, that its
subsistence, in corn and cattle, &c. has been at
least thrice the amount consumed by its people.
What then has been the fact with respect to
its population?
Its climate is mild and healthy. It has no
large towns: Dunse, the most populous, con-
tains little more than 3000 inhabitants. It is
almost entirely an agricultural district; for,
with the exception of a manufactory of paper
or two, it can scarcely be said to have any
manufactures. Its people, therefore, are not
only employed chiefly in the healthful exercises
of agriculture, or those more necessarily con-
nected with these, but they, of course, live less
luxuriously than the inhabitants of manufac-
turing districts. And yet, with all these cir-
cumstances so favourable to population, during
the ten years from 1801 to 1811, it stood nearly
the lowest in Great Britain with respect to in-
Rutland, Orkney and Shetland only
were lower; for, I believe, the cases of Banff
and Nairn are doubtful. Its population rose
crease.
។
CHAP. VI.
139
SUBSISTENCE IN A DISTRICT?
from 30,621 to 30,779, or 1 only in 194
during ten years *.
Let us next notice the two counties, which
if we except the metropolitan, Middlesex and
Midlothian, imported the greatest quantity of
subsistence, in proportion to their population,
or Clydesdale and Lancashire. These counties,
though they had the greatest deficiency of
native subsistence, increased the most rapidly
in point of population. The former was actually
the first in point of increase of population in
Great Britain, and the latter the fourth. Thus,
while Berwickshire, with all its surplus pro-
duce, increased during ten years only 1 in 194,
Lanarkshire increased, during the same period,
1 in 3% and Lancashire 1 in 4%.
The cause of this difference has evidently
nothing to do with the quantum of subsistence,
It is found in the quantum of employment.
Dr. Adam Smith has observed in a rather
irreverent tone, that "the demand for men,
like that for any other commodity, necessarily
regulates the production of men, quickens it
when it goes on too slowly, and stops it when
it advances too fast." This is too generally
* The celebrated agricultural county of East Lothian is
in a similar state with respect to superfluous subsistence as
Berwickshire; and yet the increase of its population in the
same period, though not so slow, has been only 1 in 25.
+ Wealth of Nations, vol. i. B. i. ch. 8. p. 108,
140' DOES POPULATION RISE TO THE BOOK II.
expressed, though, with proper limitations and
explanations, it may be admitted to be true:
The demand for men, if we must express it in
this formal theoretic manner, springs from an
increase of employment, or circuland, or the
means of circulation, and this increase again
arises from the great source of all, the increase
of population. A demand for circulators in a
district tends to promote early marriage in it,
as well as attracts adult circulators from other
districts. Mr. Gray has expressed his idea on
this subject somewhat more decorously as well
as distinctly than Dr. Smith. After having
shown that the increase of population neces-
sarily increases circuland, or the materials of
circulation or employment, he adds: "The
effect of increasing circuland on population,
again, is a tendency to increase it also. Hold-
ing out better prospects of providing for a
family, it promotes early marriage: at the
same time, it encourages immigration, by caus-
ing a greater demand for fresh hands to supply
the new and additional wants. Thus in both
ways it tends to quicken the rate of indigenous
increase *."
Let us now apply these observations to the
districts which have been noticed, and we per-
* Happiness of States, B. ii. ch. 2. p. 44.
4
CHAP. VI.
141
SUBSISTENCE IN A DISTRICT?
ceive at once the real cause of the extraordi-
nary difference between them.
Agriculture is the chief medium of employ-
ment in Berwickshire. Now this will only af-
ford business to the one fourth of population in
the least improved districts, but the highly im-
proved state of cultivation in that county
renders only about one sixth necessary. A
much larger proportion than that, indeed, is
required to supply the demand of other dis-
tricts for subsistence, yet still this additional
demand is not sufficient to employ the number
born in the county.
From the deficiency of employment mar-
riage is not in general very early in it; yet the
agricultural temperance in the style of living
and the health arising from agricultural exer-
cises render it productive, and its offspring
healthy. There is, therefore, constantly a
considerable number of superfluous hands pro-
duced, and these leave it to find employment
where other branches of circuland are more.
extensively cultivated. Thus a deficiency of
employment, and the emigration arising from
it, render population stationary in a county,
which produces such an immense surplus quan-
tity of subsistence.
On the other hand Lanarkshire and Lan-
cashire have such a vast quantity of employ-
ment, from their supplying other districts with
142
DOES POPULATION RISE TO THE
BOOK II,
}
1
various articles of clothing, &c. that, though
this promotes early marriage, the births are
not sufficient to furnish a due supply of hands.
These counties, therefore, not only retain almost
all the native population, but attract immi-
grants from less employed districts. What
subsistence it does not suit them to raise, they
purchase from others that raise a superfluity, as
others purchase from them the surplus cloth-
ing which they manufacture.
These facts demonstrate, that there is no
necessary connexion between the actual quan-
tum of subsistence raised in a district, and its
actual population, according to the theory of
Mr. Malthus, while they establish the theory of
Mr. Gray.
According to this author, the
quantity of subsistence in a district has little
or no regulating force. It is the effect, not the
cause of population.
Whatever in a district creates an additional
amount of employment, has a tendency to pro-
mote early marriage, as well as to retain the
offspring on the spot. These circulators, of
course, must obtain a sufficient quantity of
food; and if it does not suit them to raise
that themselves, they will purchase it from
those, whose circumstances render it more
suitable to apply a greater proportion of hands
to raising subsistence and which have a sur-
plus. But, if there were no surplus procur-
3
CHAP. VI. SUBSISTENCE IN A DISTRICT?
143
¦
t
able, the former would be obliged to set more
hands to work at agriculture, and thus force
their own soil to yield them what they want.
The rise in the price of food, from the circum-
stances of the case, would both tempt and
enable circulators to do this, till the soil of the
given district could be made to produce no
more.
On the other hand, were there no district
deficient in subsistence, no district would con-
tinue to grow a larger amount than it could
dispose of to its own population. For the cul-
tivator, in such a case, could not sell his sur-
plus produce, and if he continued to raise a
superfluous quantity, he would at length be
ruined *.
Thus, on the whole, the quantity of subsist-
ence annually raised under the regulation of
the will of population, in a chain of districts
connected nationally or commercially, will
correspond as accurately as is practicable with
the amount wanted by the total population of
those districts. More than the whole re-
quires, instead of producing a stimulating
effect on marriage, would have a contrary in-
fluence. It would tend to lower the profits,
and consequently diminish the amount of em-
ployment. And less than the whole requires
* Happiness of States, B. vi. ch. 3. p. 444.
Id. B. vi. ch. 2. p. 432.
144
BOOK II.
DOES POPULATION RISE TO THE
4
would be remedied as soon as possible by the
stimulation created by necessity and the in-
creased means arising from a higher price.
But the quantity of subsistence raised in
certain districts or portions of the supposed
chain, may differ very materially from that re-
quired by these portions. With respect to the
lodging branch of circuland, the amount of
this will in every district correspond very accu-
rately with the amount of population. Circu-
lators must find lodging on or near the spot
where they generally are employed. But it is
not at all necessary that either food or clothing
should be raised or manufactured on or near
the spot where the circulators reside. These
can be purchased and brought from a distance,
and sometimes to a greater advantage.
The circumstances of the population of a
district, therefore, determine the quantity of
subsistence raised in it, just as that of cloth-
ing. It is the proportion which the circulators,
who labour at cultivation, bears to the whole
population of a given district, that regulates the
quantity of subsistence produced in it; and it
is the circumstances of these circulators, which
regulate that proportion. For example, it
suits the circumstances of the United States of
North America, and of Poland, to apply a larger
portion of their hands to cultivation than is
necessary to supply their own want. On the
CHAP. VII. SUBSISTENCE IN A DISTRICT?
145
other hand, it suits Great Britain and other
states to apply a smaller proportion of hands
than is necessary to supply a sufficient quan-
tity. The latter find it more profitable and
easy to purchase a certain portion of subsist-
ence from the former, and to employ the addi-
tional hands that would be requisite to raise this
portion in more lucrative branches of business.
1
CHAPTER VII.
WILL POPULATION CONTINUE TO INCREASE TILL
THE EARTH REACHES ITS FULL COMPLEMENT?
HAVING now ascertained, that in real life
population regulates the quantity of subsist-
ence, we come to a question of much interest:
Will it continue to increase till it is checked by
a deficiency of subsistence ?
Whether this be answered in the affirm-
ative or not, the regulating power of population
cannot be affected. This power will be pos-
sessed by the human will till the earth reaches
its full complement, if that period should ever
arrive.
Mr. Malthus's notion respects the increase
L
146 WILL POPULATION KEEP INCREASING BOOK IL
of population at present, and at all times, and
the evils arising out of it. This we have shown
to be unwarranted. But Wallace, Condorcet
and others, without recognising a present inju-
rious influence of this kind in the increase of
population, have speculated on what would
befal the human race, were it to reach a nume-
rousness beyond which the earth could feed no
more, and yet continue to increase. There is
no occasion to have recourse to Utopian
schemes, or to dream of states of perfect hap-
piness arising from perfectly good governments,
though, alas! by the way, the power which the
very best possible government could possess to
make the great mass of men moral and happy,
is very limited indeed. This period will at
length come, however wretched our govern-
ments may be, even according to the popula
tion theory, unless there be an essential change
in the forces of the stimulating and counter-
acting causes. We have seen, that with a
great majority of very wretched governments,
population, on the whole, has hitherto con-
tinued to increase. If then it be not checked
by an entire new train of circumstances, of
something in the nature of the increase of
population itself, it must at length, though
thousands of years may intervene (should the
present system of things continue so long),
reach a pitch beyond which the earth, with
CHAP. VII.´ TO ITS FULL COMPLEMENT ? 147
all the assistance of men, cannot produce suffi-
cient subsistence to feed it.
According to Mr. Gray, the increase of
population does carry in itself the seeds of
counteraction, which, he thinks it probable,
will be ultimately powerful enough to check its
progress entirely. The principle of counter-
action he finds in the uniform tendency of the
increase of population to increase wealth and
enlarge towns, and consequently to promote
luxury and modes of business injurious to
health. The use of superfluous foods, indul-
gence in sedentary and effeminate habits, and
unhealthful employments amid the impure air
generated by narrow streets and crowded
masses of population, tend strongly to defecun-
date, as well as to shorten life. They not only
render marriage less productive, but the less
numerous offspring more unhealthy. To the
decrease of productiveness, and the increase of
diseases, are also to be added the destructive
effects of accidents both by sea and land, which
seem to keep augmenting in proportion as popu-
lation grows more crowded. Now all these
influences must become more effective every
year, as population draws nearer to its com-
plement, at least, after it has passed a certain
rate of thickness. The counteracting causes
will grow constantly stronger, while the stimu-
lating will grow rather weaker. The former,
L 2
148 WILL POPULATION KEEP INCREASING BOOK II.
therefore, may at length completely overpower
the latter; and the result will then be, that
population will become on the whole stationary,
if not retrogressive.
裙
​"Not only all the regular but all the occa-
sional depopulating causes," says Mr. Gray,
"have hitherto been overpowered by the re-
gular populating ones, assisted by the occa-
sional. The various states of society, existing
over the extent of the globe, admitted this.
Population has been able not only to oppose
the effects of peace in one portion against those
of war in another, and healthy climates and
seasons against unhealthy; but, what is of
such vast influence, new and vigorous coloni-
zations against old states. And after balan-
cing all, we find it has, on the whole, kept ad-
vancing. By some additional cause of increase
in one district, it has gained more than it has
lost in another. And so it would certainly
continue to do, were the populating and depo-
pulating causes to continue of a somewhat
similar force. But in proportion as the earth
becomes more generally well peopled, there
must be a gradual failure of the populating
and an increase of the depopulating forces: and
whether the last may not, ere the world is fully
peopled, overpower in their turn the former, is
the question *.'
*Happiness of States, B. iv. ch. 7. p. 350.
''
|
CHAP. VII. TO ITS FULL COMPLEMENT?
149
66
Dr. Jarrold reckons the exertions of the
mind to possess a counteracting influence. "As
the faculties of the mind are unemployed," says
he, as the man sinks down towards the
animal, he is prolific; as he ascends above
them, his fruitfulness decreases *."
And cer-
tainly much thinking has both a defecundating
and destructive effect. This, however, is only
a part of a whole; and considered singly would
have but a trifling influence in opposing the
stimulating causes. It is enumerated by Mr.
Gray among his counteracting circumstances.
"It may be affirmed generally, that labouring
with the body has a fecundating virtue, and
labouring with the mind an influence of the
opposite kind. Deep, abstruse and unpleasant
thinking, indeed much thinking of any of the
grave sorts seems to have a strong defecun-
dating effect. Close study, care, anxiety,
uneasiness, fear of poverty, distress arising from
bankruptcy, the diminution of property, or
from disappointments with respect to favourite
projects, sorrow for the loss of relations or
friends, remorse for crimes, habitual gloom of
mind, or depression of spirits, despondence and
despair, all tend to defecundate, or to render
the human animal less prolific."
Civilization, it is true, however, to a certain
* Dissertations on Man, p. 250, 272, &c.
Happiness of States, B. iv. ch. 3. p. 309.
Ļ 3
150 WILL POPULATION KEEP INCREASING BOOK II.
rate of population, has a populating influence.
Man in the savage state, in which he is not
very much elevated above the mere animal
condition, is by no means prolific. But the
civilizing influence of the increase of popula-
tion gradually corrects the rude, defecundating
and unhealthy habits of men up to the rate
noticed. Beyond this rate civilization assumes
a luxurious cast, and operates, in an advanced
state of population, very strongly with seden-
tary habits and other circumstances to injure
productiveness.
A statistical critic has hinted at this effect
of civilization. He says, "Be it observed also,
that there is an extreme point in the progress
of civilization towards its highest stage, in
which the population of a country cannot in-
crease its numbers any further *." But whe-
ther the critic entertains this opinion concern-
ing civilization from the views arising out of
Mr. Gray's theory, or from some other views of
his own, does not appear, as he has neither
quoted that author nor explained in what he
conceives this counteracting influence to con-
sist.
That the defecundating and unheathful in-
fluence of luxury, sedentary habits and em-
ployment is very powerful in a crowded state
1
* Quarterly Review, October 1816, p. 56. Review of
Mr. Sumner's Prize Essay.
'
CHAP. VII. TO ITS FULL COMPLEMENT:
151
of population, and that it still continues to in-
crease in proportion as the latter grows more
crowded, cannot be disputed. In the best
peopled states of the East, Hindostan and
China, which have been in a high state of
population for above two thousand years at
least, the progress of population has been very
slow, if not stationary, for ages. It is true,
that in several European states population has
continued to increase rapidly, in spite of a
general use of superfluous food and luxurious
habits and sedentary employments 'prevailing
every where.
where. But none of them have reached
the half of their complement. And though our
improved medical systems have done a great
deal, the usual antipopulating effects of luxury
and sedentariness of employment are displayed
in their large towns. Many of these, indeed, are
rapidly increasing, but it is not from their indi-
genous population: it is from constant immi-
gration from more healthy districts, produced
by the temptation of more lucrative employ-
It is extremely probable, that in all
these towns above a certain size, and particu-
larly if they are much employed in manu-
facture, the native population is decreasing.
The increase of sterility among so many
classes, on the one hand, and on the other, of
the diseases of luxurious states, palsy, apo-
plexy, &c. but above all, of consumption, afford
ment.
1
L. 4
152 WILL POPULATION KEEP INCREASING BOOK II.
reason to conjecture, that, even with so many
advantages in point of their climate, govern-
ment, &c. the antipopulation causes may over-
power the populating ere they have reached
their full complement.
1
I
"To state a period," says Mr. Gray, "for
the equalizing of the populating and depopu-
lating causes, must be mere conjecture.
should conceive, however, were universal popu-
lation to reach such a crowded state, that
the large-town population* was equal to that
of the country, it would scarcely be able to
make any farther progress, if, indeed, it did
not grow retrograde. In such a state, the
country population itself, from its crowded-
ness, and the wealth and luxury flowing from
this, as well as its connexion with the town
population, would have lost much of its pro-
ductive vigour. It would be barely able to
keep up its own numbers, instead of supplying
by its overplus, as at present, the destruction
caused in towns. Where, then, is the depo-
pulation of the large towns, which is felt even
in the present lax state of population, and which
must then be greatly increased to be supplied?
There is no longer any room for new recruiting
"A population of about 5000 in a town may be taken
as the commencement of the class of large towns, as that
´amount of a town mass begins to produce the usual effects
of large town masses on population." Ch. 8,
CHAP. VII. TO ITS FULL COMPLEMENT?
153
states; and if the loss cannot be supplied,
population, of course, must annually de-
crease *."
The rate of increase in the population of
Britain, since the commencement of the French
revolution war, the rapidity of which is pro-
bably unprecedented in her history, has been
quoted by Mr. Gray in his second letter to M.
Say, as the grand cause of her extraordinary
increase in wealth during that period.
6 Al-
lowing for the greater completeness of the enu-
meration of 1811," writes he, "I am inclined
to think, that the population of Britain alone
had increased between 1792 and 1815 full one
fourth, or about 2,500,000 souls. In this pro-
digious increase of her circulators combined
with the unprecedented increase of really pro-
ductive, that is, profitable employment, we have
the actual sources of the astonishing increase
in her income and capital, or her wealth, during
these twenty-three years."
This rapid increase has since been quoted
by Mr. Malthus, against Mr. Weyland, to
show that the enlargement of towns is not suf-
ficient to check population. It is, however, to
be considered that the population of Britain is
considerably under half its complement. Scot-
* Happiness of States, B. iv. ch. 7. p. 353.
+ All Classes productive of national Wealth, p. 289,
Essay. Appendix, vol. iii. p. 409.
154 WILL POPULATION Keep increaSING BOOK II.
!
4
G
land is not one fifth peopled, Wales only one
fourth; and England has many agricultural
districts, where the people fare frugally, and
are very prolific. In 1811, the population of
the island in towns containing 5000 souls and
upwards was about 3,250,000, or only a
little more than one fourth of the whole popu-
lation *. And there were only sixty-one towns.
in it containing above 10,000 souls.
The yast
increase of employment and wealth in England
had attracted an immense number, of healthy
immigrants from Scotland, Ireland, Germany,
and other countries, to the metropolis, and her
manufacturing and trading towns. Britain,
therefore, is no criterion of a state, which has
pearly reached its complement, and is sur-
rounded by nations that are fully as populous.
་
Some of the old peopled states of Asia are
more likely to afford us examples of what may
be expected from a mass of population, that
has approached its practicable complement.
China seems to be the most complete of all.
Mr. Malthus says the town population of England is
to the country as 1 to 2 (vol. iii. Appendix, p. 410); but
he has not stated at what number he commences his towns.
Unless engaged generally in sedentary or otherwise un-
healthy manufactures, the population of villages and even
of small towns, perhaps up to the rate of 2000 souls, will
be as healthy and prolific as the population of cottages,
farm-houses and hamlets, (Happiness of States, B, iv.
ch. 8. p. 366.)
CHAP. VII. TO ITS FULL COMPLEMENT?
155
1
It has been thickly peopled for at least two
thousand years.
The luxurious habits of a
crowded population and their effects must
necessarily have been accumulating. A vast
number of its towns also must, during so long
a period, have become very large; and from
the notices of those who have visited that sin-
gular country, imperfect and local as these are,
we have reason to think that its towns are very
numerous and unusually large. This country
also suffers little from emigration, and it scarce-
ly admits of immigration. What then is the
state of this old and well-peopled country as to
increase in its numbers? It has reached little
more than three fourths of its natural comple-
ment according to the most extravagant state-
ments, but it is more probable that it has barely
reached the half; and yet its population is sup-
posed to be stationary. At any rate its increase,
if it be increasing, is very slow. Mr. Ellis saw
marks of decay in some of its towns *.
+
In many cases, up to a certain rate of
town-population, the stimulating causes may
be sufficiently strong, to overpower the coun-
teractive, increasing in depopulating influence
though these may be: But it by no means
follows from this, that the latter may not at
length acquire such force, as completely to
check the former.
* Journal of an Embassy to China, 4to. p. 218, 300, 338, &c.
1
156 WILL POPULATION KEEP INCREASING BOOK II.
$
In comparing districts, in which the stimu-
lating and counteracting causes are not very
differently combined, we may mistake, but we
cannot well be deceived as to districts in the
extremes of difference. For example, is there
any man who believes, that in the new and
thinly peopled state of Kentucky the defecun-
dating, and positively destroying circumstances
approach near to the force which they have
reached in the old and crowded county of Mid-
dlesex? What then must be the result, were
it even granted, that the stimulating were as
strong in the latter? Could the indigenous
population of Middlesex double itself in the
same period? Nay, but for the influence of
healthy immigrants, could that population
keep up its numbers?
What then is the cause of the slower in-
crease of population, cæteris paribus, in older
and more populous countries? Is it, as Mr.
Malthus seems to imagine, because food is
more scanty in the latter? Or is it, as Mr.
Gray maintains, because it is consumed in a
more excessive and luxurious degree by the
great body, and because this body is engaged
in less healthy pursuits?
"It has been asked,
Why does not an equal number produce an
'equal increase in Britain as in America? And
it has been answered, The obvious reason to be
assigned is a deficiency of food, This is to pay
1
CHAP. VII. TO ITS FULL COMPLEMENT?
157
an attention to theory and a disregard to facts
with a vengeance. The real answer is just the
reverse; or chiefly because the great mass of
Britons eat more luxuriously or superfluously
than the Americans. The average quantity of
subsistence consumed, and therefore procured
in Britain, is greater than that consumed in
America, and particularly in those districts
which multiply more rapidly. This superabun-
dance of subsistence in Britain, joined to the
less healthy exercises in which so large a por-
tion of her population is employed, tends both
to defecundate, and to injure life *.”
The latter is the real reason. The popula-
tion of London, for example, consumes perhaps
three or four times the quantity of superfluous
food that is used by the new settlements of
America; and yet its population, were it not for
a constant supply of recruits from all parts of
the empire, instead of doubling itself in twenty-
five years, would go rapidly back.
For several centuries population has cer-
tainly accelerated the rate of its increase
throughout Europe and that new-peopled divi-
sion, America; but perhaps, it may be con-
jectured on good grounds, that its progress
has been slow throughout Africa and that old
and thick peopled division, Asia, if indeed,
* Happiness of States, B. iv. ch. 8. p. 359.
158 WILL POPULATION KEEP INCREASING BOOK II.
}
upon the whole, it has not been stationary in
these portions of the globe. The increase in
the two former has evidently been much more
rapid since the memorable era of the Reforma-
tion, and particularly during the last century.
That great event in the history of the human
race in Europe, which, it is probable, will
ultimately affect the destinies of the whole
race, was partly itself produced by the civili-
zation necessarily arising out of the increase
of population. The unusual stimulus created
by the attainment of mental freedom, or the
right of private judgment, which has produced
so wonderful a change among the Protestant
nations of Europe, and even through their ex-
ample, among the Romish, by making men
depend more on themselves and their own
exertions, has contributed materially towards
the rapidity of the increase. And should the
whole world ultimately become Christian, this
change, with its necessary consequences in
favour of liberty and virtue, would certainly
also operate with wonderful power in favour of
population.
T
7
Nor is this event so improbable, as some
seem to imagine. Nearly all Europe and Ame-
rica are already Christian. Part of Egypt and
Abyssinia professes a nominal Christianity,
such as it is; and the British establishments
in Africa, particularly at the Cape of Good
you
CHAP. VII. TO ITS FULL COMPLEMENT ? 159
Hope, will in time Christianize a considerable
portion of that ill-peopled division of the globe.
Australasia will be all Christian. The im-
mense portion of Asia held by Russia, though
as yet so thinly peopled, will be Christian also.
And should certain not improbable events take
place in Turkey *, Christianity under the aus→
pices of Britain and aided by British civiliza-
tion will find it a less difficult task to extend
her benevolent sway among the unreasoning
bigots of the East, in whose minds mystic
fancy and savage prejudices usurp too gene-
rally the place of sober sense and manly feeling.
*
Christianity is fitted to be the religion of
the world; and of the world in the highest
state of civilization. With the peculiar tenets
of her sects I do not intermeddle. I leave
these sects to adjust their peculiar creeds, each
for itself, as well as they can. I speak of
the doctrines held in common by all her sects:
the grand catholic doctrines of men being all
the sons of one God, all brethren, and all ac-
countable to their divine Father. Such a reli-
gion is suited for being the religion equally of
the philosopher and of the peasant: the reli-
gion of mankind.
It is alike favourable to the progress of
reason and of liberty. The Christian spirit
* See A New Crusade Suggested. Miscellaneons Statistics.
f
160 WILL POPULATION KEEP INCREASING BOOK II.
and Christian morality are calculated to make
men what they should be. Even the statis-
tician, who may view Christianity merely as a
system tending powerfully to promote the hap-
piness of mankind, without any reference to
authority, will ardently wish to see it univer-
sally adopted.
In these observations I may seem rather to
have trespassed on the territory of the theolo-
gian. They arise, however, out of the subject;
and in proportion as Christianity prevails, popu-
lation, from the happy effects produced by the
change, will certainly increase more generally
and rapidly. But though with Christianity for
an universal religion, its general rate will be
accelerated, yet still the increase will carry in
itself, a counteracting influence. The increase,
from whatever cause arising, whether from ordi-
nary circumstances, the spread of Christianity,
or from the perfect governments, or yet the new
arrangements which some enthusiasts dream of,
must enlarge towns, augment wealth, and
render sedentary employments more general.
And the result must necessarily be an increase
of defecundation and of disease.
If, however, the stimulating causes should
be still found sufficient to overpower the coun-
teracting, the earth must at length reach an
amount of population, beyond which it cannot
feed more. Mr. Gray throws out here a con-
3
CHAP. VII. TO ITS FULL COMPLEMENT ?
161
jecture for certain speculatists. "As the com-
mencement of the progress of population must
have been the commencement of the present
system of things, those who choose to indulge
in such speculations, may imagine that this
ne plus ultra of population will be the end of
that system, when a new and happier order will
take place, in which there will be neither mar-
rying nor giving in marriage, but all will be
full-grown beings formed for immortality *
Were we to give way to such kind of
speculations, it might be asked, since popula-
tion had evidently a beginning †, why should
it not have an end? And we have Christian
authority for a period to the present system of
things. The full complement, or that to which
population naturally tends, seems a natural
period for this close of the system.
* Id. B. iv. ch. 7. p. 354.
+ From this fact Mr. Gray draws a new argument for
the being of a God; and, if it be the real fact, and it seems
to be incontestably so, the argument is decisive.
" In
tracing back a gradually increasing population," says he,
we must at length reach its commencement.
There must
(C
then have been a time, when either this world did not
exist, or no human beings on it. In either case, it is im-
possible to avoid the admission of a Being possessed of
power and intelligence, capable of creating." Happiness of
States, B. iv. ch. 6. p. 336.
M
-162
#
THE CASE OF THE EARTH'S BOOK II.
CHAPTER VIII.
THE CASE OF THE EARTH'S REACHING HER FULL
<
COMPLEMENT CONSIDERED.
SHOULD the world at length reach its comple-
ment and the system continue, then, what Mr.
Malthus groundlessly imagines to exist at pre-
sent, will take place. Population will be
checked by the amount of subsistence: for
the will of man would be deprived of its regu-
lating power. The natural law, therefore, of
the demand regulating the supply will be over-
turned in this case. And unless recourse is had
to some wise restraints, the consequences must
be horrible: universal misery in all its worst
forms.
To quiet our apprehensions of a state so
dreadful, though placed at the distance of many
thousand years at least, I have to observe,
that by enacting a law, dictated by necessity,
that no man or woman should marry under the
age of thirty, all these miseries might be pre-
vented. This measure alone, I conceive, would
check population in any state of progress; and
certainly, when it had reached such a pitch of
general luxury, as its complement necessarily
supposes. Indeed in this state of defecunda-
CHAP. VIII. REACHING HER FULL COMPLEMENT. 163
tion and diseases springing from immense
towns, luxurious habits and sedentary employ-
ments, a much earlier period of marriage,
perhaps at twenty-five, would render population
at least stationary.
Such a measure, it is true, would certainly
diminish the comforts of young people; but
what would be the loss of these, when com-
pared with the measures which it would pre-
vent, and the happiness which it would conse-
quently ensure? A conviction of the horrors,
that would follow from an opposite practice,
would make it be cheerfully and conscien-
tiously complied with by the great mass. And
to counterbalance the loss of matrimonial en-
joyments, there would be the pleasures of
longer courtship and those derived from look-
ing forward to the period, when they might
come together with safety to themselves, their
offspring and the rest of the human race. It
is not, however, meant to be affirmed, that
morality in the intercourse of the sexes would
not suffer an injury from this necessary mea-
sure.
The general wealth, created among all
ranks by so high a rate of population, would
render such a regulation much less hurtful than
in a lower rate. The result of a constant short
supply of subsistence compared with the de-
mand, far from being, as Mr. Malthus imagines,
M 2
164.
BOOK II.
THE CASE OF THE EARTH'S
an increase of poverty, would be, according to
the real principles of circulation, a vast aug-
mentation of wealth *.
Certain portions of a country, and even
certain countries, may reach a rate of popula-
tion beyond their complement by drawing re-
cruits of people and supplies of subsistence
from underpeopled districts and countries. This
is consistent with facts already. existing. But
on the whole, I confess, the opinion of the
author of the Happiness of States seems pro-
bable, that the increase of population carries
within itself a completely corrective influence
against a general excess, and that consequently
population will never universally reach its full
complement. The tendency, which "nature has
given to the defecundating and other counter-
acting influences to increase, as population in-
creases, seems to warrant this conjecture. Such
a mode of preventing an excess tending to
misery, is more agreeable to her usual modes.
Upon her arrangements she delights to correct
one tendency to excess by another. Youth, for
one example out of many, has a natural tend-
ency to extravagance, and this she corrects by
giving to age a tendency to saving. The middle
age is nearer the moderate degree than either.
But whether nature will herself ultimately
* See B. iv. ch. 7.
CHAP. VIII. REACHING HER FULL COMPLÉMENT. 165
correct the tendency in population to increase,
so highly advantageous to its present rates,
when it shall become injurious, or whether she
will leave it to the wisdom of her children to
correct this by positive restraints, will only
be fully known after the lapse of a vast nuinber
of ages.
Till then the question cannot be
answered but upon probabilities.
i
}
To recapitulate generally: It is clear, that
the regulating power is as completely in the
possession of man with respect to subsistence,
as with respect to any other supply provided
by him that subsistence has no influence in
regulating the number of marriages peculiar to
itself, or which is not common to it with the
other kinds of circuland: that there will be,
on the whole, an equilibrium between the
amount of population and subsistence, as be-
tween population and housing, population and
clothing, &c. that the quantity of subsistence
is entirely regulated by the number of hands
employed in cultivation, and this number of
hands, as in all other cases, is adjusted by the
demand of population; and, therefore, that
subsistence can be supplied to any amount de-
manded that population, far from increasing
rapidly according to the abundance of subsist-
ence, is checked by a superabundance of food,
and increases faster in proportion as the style
of living is more frugal and rather approaching
:
M 3
166 THE CASE OF THE EARTH, &c. BOOK II.
to scanty: that the amount of population in
a district is by no means regulated by the
amount of subsistence raised in it: that popu-
lation most probaby carries in itself a correct-
ing influence, which becoming stronger as
population grows thicker, will prevent it from
ever reaching its full complement but lastly,
that, until it reaches this complement, if ever
it shall, the regulating power must be in the
population, as Mr. Gray maintains, and not, ás
Mr. Malthus imagines, in subsistence,
f
1
}
M
167
BOOK III.
DOES POPULATION TEND TO OVERSTOCK ·
WITH RESPECT TO EMPLOYMENT?
2
CHAPTER I.
DOES POPULATION, IN ITS INCREASE, TEND TO
AUGMENT OR DIMINISH THE AVERAGE AMOUNT
OF EMPLOYMENT ?
HAVING ascertained, that population has no
tendency whatever to overstock with respect
to subsistence, I proceed to inquire whether it
has any tendency to overstock in respect to
employment and wealth. The regulating power
of subsistence has been ascribed both to the
former direct, and to the latter indirect in-
fluence, by Mr. Malthus and other subsistence
theorists. And these influences have been
mixed by them improperly; for, as has been
already noticed, they do not necessarily infer
each other. I have, therefore, separated them.
Employment is the medium of charging,
and, consequently, the source of income and of
wealth. If then population in its increase has
M 4
168
BOOK III.
INCREASE OF POPULATION
a tendency to diminish the average amount of
employment, it must necessarily have a tend-
ency to increase poverty.
Employment and wealth are essentially
connected. It will, however, tend to greater
clearness, and enable us to come with more
certainty to a correct decision on the subject,
to examine the influence of the increase of
population on each of them separately.
That the increase of population does tend
to diminish the average amount of employ-
ment, has always been a favourite idea with
the multitude. It has been of late seriously
adopted by our antipopulationists, and particu-
larly by Mr. Malthus. They contend, that
population, in its increase, has a tendency to over-
stock, or to produce more than a proper degree
of fulness, and consequently to diminish the
average quantity of employment.
On the other hand Mr. Gray maintains,
that the increase of population tends uniformly
to increase the average amount of employment
divided among circulators, by multiplying their
wants and introducing new sorts of circuland;
and, of course, to create an additional demand
for hands.
If the increase of population tend to over-
stock, or to diminish the average quantum of
employment, it is evident, that the following
results will be found uniformly to take place
CHAP. I. AND AMOUNT OF EMPLOYMENT.
169
in real life. The thinner the population, the
greater will be the average quantum of em-
ployment, or the more constantly will the
various members be employed. There will
also, of course, be a greater demand for hands,
and, consequently, a tendency to attract addi-
tional hands from the places more populous
and less employed. If, again, the increase of
population tend to create an additional average
quantum of employment, the reverse will
necessarily take place. The more crowded the
population, or the more rapid the increase, the
greater will be the demand for fresh hands;
and there will be a perpetual tendency to im-
migration to the district from thinner peopled
places. What then are the results in real life?
In proportion as population is thin, or
increases slow, the members are uniformly,
cæteris paribus, less generally or constantly em-
ployed, This holds true of all states of popu-
lation, from the thinnest, or that of the savage,
through all the intermediate states up to the
most crowded, that has yet existed upon earth.
The same principle is seen in constant
operation, equally in small districts and in
countries. In very thinly peopled regions, the
great mass spend most of their time in idleness,
or in half-employment. The average amount
of the demand is smaller, while the average
quantity of business done by individuals is less,
3
170
BOOK III.
INCREASE OF POPULATION
This is exemplified even amid masses of popu-
lation in the same district or state, in hamlets,
villages, towns and cities. In proportion as
any of these are large, or increase more rapidly,
cæteris paribus, the individuals, on the average,
while they do more in a given time, are also
more constantly employed.
To quote examples would be endless. Every
district or country, every village and town,
whatever be the rate of population, are examples
and proofs of the principle. Indeed, in all
common circumstances, it is so equable in its
influence, that if we know the rate of popula-
tion per mile, or the amount of the population
of the village or town, we can with great accu-
racy infer the average amount of employment
throughout the mass of individuals.
An increase of population, says Mr. Gray,
"is just so many new customers who add
to the income of the great body of the old
dealers much more than they take away, sti-
mulate the circulandary powers, and operate
towards rendering the whole national mass
more extensive circulators.
لم
7
"It is chiefly by these means, that an in-
crease of population produces an increased
ratio of the quantity of circuland divided
among the whole. The process is uniform, and
quite perceptible to the attentive observer,
The new population makes the old circulators
$
CHAP. I. AND AMOUNT OF EMPLOYMENT.
171
to a greater extent. It presents a larger mass
of customers, or a wider market to fortunate
sellers. These acquire a greater quantity of
circuland or of capital; and this gives exist
ence to additional wants, while it affords them
the means of supplying them. Thus they are
enabled to be more extensive buyers of the
various articles, both of the old and newly
introduced sorts, from the neighbouring or
distant sellers. To the butcher, the carpenter,
the shopkeeper, the tailor, and the rest, they
prove equivalent to a number, greater or less,
of the common mass of customers. These
sellers, again, by the increased demand for their
articles from those fortunate circulators, are, in
their turn, rendered better customers to them,
as well as to the other dealers. Thus the ope
ration goes on through all the connexions of
buyer and seller, and uniformly tends to ins
crease the capability of the circulators*."
•
It is indeed impossible from the nature of
things, that the result of the increase of popu
lation can be any other than an increase of em÷
ployment and of wealth. When the subject is
viewed in the light in which the author of the
Happiness of States has placed it before his
* Happiness of States, B. ii, ch. 2. p. 29, 4 minute
analysis of the process by which the increase of population
necessarily produces an increase of employment and wealth,
is found in the chapter quoted,
172
BOOK III.
INCREASE OF POPULATION
readers, this seems self-evident. It is a strict
mathematical truth.
The source of the error of the multitude
and of our antipopulationists lies in considering
a new member as a seller only, not as a buyer
also, which he is. They, therefore, consider
him as dispossessing the old dealers of part of
their employment, whereas he in reality adds
to the old amount *. Every child, as soon as
born, creates employment which did not exist
before, and would not have existed without it;
for it must be fed, clothed, lodged, nursed, &c.
according to the rank of its parents. It thus
gives additional employment to the farmer, the
manufacturer, and the rest. And every year it
will continue to give more, at least till about
middle age.
For some years, it is to be ob-
served, it is a buyer and not a seller: it directly
increases the demand, but not the supply...
_
According to Mr. Gray's calculation, every
additional person will require, on an average,
two acres additional to feed him. He must
necessarily, therefore, create to the farmer
alone all the employment required to bring two
additional acres into cultivation, or to render a
certain number of them already in cultivation
additionally productive to that amount. He
will also employ the manufacturer, builder, me-
تم
*Happiness of States, B. ii. ch. 2. p. 27.
J
$
CHAP. I. AND AMOUNT OF EMPLOYMENT.
173
f
chanic, &c. in a corresponding proportion
according to his rank. Between the years
1801 and 1811 the British population appears
to have increased about 160,000 a year. This
addition to our population would thus afford to
our agricultural class alone employment equal
to that necessary to cultivate 320,000 addi-
tional acres annually (or to fertilize lands
under culture to what is equivalent to the pro-
duce of these); and to the builder, manufac-
turer, educator, &c. all the employment
created by lodging, clothing, educating these
persons. In fact, at the present rate of British
income, every additional circulator adds about
twenty pounds worth of employment annually
to the sum total.
It is thus a self-evident mathematical
truth, that every addition to population must
necessarily create a corresponding addition to
employment.
But though no person will for a moment
dispute this truism, that the direct influence of
an increase of population must necessarily be
an increase of employment, to feed, clothe,
lodge and educate them; yet it may be ima-
gined, that there may arise an indirect influence,
sufficient to counterbalance the direct. It is
true, the new members are, of course, sellers
or suppliers, as well as buyers or demanders.
May then the additional supply, which they
174
BOOK III.
INCREASE OF POPULATION
will yield in their different lines, not injure the
ald suppliers, by depriving them of more or
less of the usual amount of their supply? And
further, by an excess of produce, may it not
cause an injurious fall in the price of the various
articles? Thus, though the total amount of
employment in a district or country must be
increased, may not the average quantum shared
by the greater number of suppliers, be less
than before?
This indirect influence does certainly exist;
and occasionally and locally, it may have a
palpable effect. But it is opposed by contrary
influences both direct and indirect, arising out
of the increase of population, which are much
more powerful. And the uniform result of
these contending influences, on the average, is
an addition to the average quantum of employ-
ment.
It is only necessary here to notice generally
these influences *.
Every new member increases the demand
as well as the supply; and by both he creates
* For a minute analysis of the process of creating addi-
tional employment and wealth arising from the increase of
population, the reader is referred to the 2d, 8th, 9th, and
10th chapters of the 2d Book of the Happiness of States:
and also to the Essays on the Effects of average high and
low Prices in Miscellaneous Statistics, at the end of this
volume.
CHAP. I. AND AMOUNT ON EMPLOYMENT.
∙175
}
an additional stimulus on the circulandary
powers.
In proportion as population becomes more
crowded, the universal desire to obtain as great
a quantity of the means of happiness as is
practicable, operates more effectively. The
circulators stimulate each other. Their wants
become more varied, and every additional want
is a source of additional employment. While
new wants are created by this mutual stimula-
tion and the higher degree of civilization arising
out of it, the various eirculators are also ren-
dered more capable of supplying them, from
the influence of the increasing demand, and its
result, a greater amount of capital and wealth.
If an additional window, table, or chair, or any
article of clothing, or mere ornament, however
trifling, or any thing not used by circulators
before, be introduced, a new source of employ-
ment is created. The employment derived
from the introduction of a single article, such
as the umbrella, or of any little ornament in
furniture of the value of a few shillings only,
becomes in a crowded population immense.
The persons employed in supplying these new
articles become circulators by means of them,
and thus sellers of what does not interfere with
the sale of the old dealers, while they still
remain customers to these, and indeed generally
become better customers. This influence alone
مجھے
176
BOOK III.
INCREASE OF POPULATION
infinitely more than counterbalances the effect
of an additional average amount of supply.
The influence of the increase of price, of
income and capital arising out of this, and
which is also vast, will be afterwards noticed.
There is also an influence of great and uni-
versal force operating in favour of the increase of
employment, which springs from the nature of
man. The stimulus, which is created by any
addition of employment and of wealth, operates
along with the wishes of all circulators, to
obtain as much of the means of happiness as
possible *. This forward stimulus, therefore,
produces a greater effect than from its mere
amount. The circulators ascend. But all
tendencies to depression operate directly
against their wishes. The circulators in selling,
of course, labour to their utmost to counter-
act it.
The tendency in the increase of population
to augment employment is seen even in the dif-
ference of movement of persons in thinly-
peopled and populous districts.
"The perpe-
tual mutual stimulation arising from crowded
masses of population has a perceptible influence
on both the mental and corporeal movements.
The mind, as well as the body, assumes an in-
creased activity. The men in large towns
A
* Happiness of States, B. ii. ch. 8. p. 113,
CHAP. I. AND AMOUNT OF EMPLOYMENT.
177
1
}
think, speak, move and act more rapidly than
those of the country or in villages. In pro-
portion as a town is more populous, the rapidity
increases, till the difference between the ex-
tremes appears quite extraordinary *."
This increase of employment arising from
the increase of population is proved also by the
gradual extension of the use of machinery, in
proportion as population grows thicker per acre.
The grand object of machines is to shorten
labour and enlarge the supply. If then the
increase of human hands, or of population,
tended to diminish the average amount of em-
ployment, instead of there being greater need
of such a powerful substitute in more populous
countries, there would be less and yet we
unformly find, that the more crowded popu-
lation is, the more general is the use of ma-
chines.
This is in fact the result of necessity. In
populous and rich countries the demand for
labour arising from the variety of wants which
increase every year, is such, that human hands
alone could not supply a sufficiency of it. In
very thinly peopled countries, there is little or
no need for any machines. Human labour is
perfectly sufficient. But in a country peopled
so thickly as Britain, it is utterly inadequate.
Happiness of States, B. ii. ch. 6. p. 98.
N
}
1
178
INCREASE OF POPULATION, &c. BOOK III.
Even with the assistance of the common ma-
chines, such as the plough, the harrow, the
cart, and the weaver's loom, &c. our population
could not nearly supply its own wants. In-
deed, it is probable, that mere human labour
with all its exertions, if unassisted by machines,
could not supply one third of the present
demand of our island.
The difference in the average amount of
employment keeps constantly increasing from
the thinnest rate per square mile to the thickest.
Between the extremes, as between Sutherland
and Clydesdale, Radnor and Lancashire, the
Highlands and Middlesex, Siberia and Eng
land, the difference of this average is immense.
In farther proof of the increase in the ave-
rage employment arising from the increase of
population (and this alone were decisive), there
is an unremitting tendency to emigrate from the
less to the more populous districts in search of
employment: for example, from the Highlands
to the populous shires of Edinburgh, Lanark and
Renfrew; from Scotland and Ireland in general
to London; and from Switzerland to France
and other well-peopled countries.
On the other hand, the more populous a
district or country, the smaller is the emigration
from either. England, France, Hindostan,
China suffer very little from emigration. They
can not only employ all the hands which they
+
CHAP. II. REDUNDANCY OF POPULATION.
179
themselves produce, but they require an addi-
tional number from other countries which can
supply them *. This is strikingly true of Eng-
land, probably the most populous for its extent
of all. Hindostan and particularly China, two
of the oldest and best peopled countries on the
globe, have so full an amount of employment
at home, that they have scarcely any emigra-
tion. Indeed they have had very little in pro-
portion to their population for many ages.
And they rather avoid than seek for foreign
trade. What they possess has been in a
manner forced upon them.
1
CHAPTER II.
THE REDUNDANCY OF EUROPEAN POPULATION
IN 1816, CONSidered.
THE deficiency of employment in the memo-
rable year 1816, has been used by some as an
argument for a redundancy of population, not
only in this country but throughout Europe.
}
A redundancy there certainly was. But
was it for the time only, or will it be perma-
nent? Was it the effect of occasional circum-
→ Happiness of States, B. vi. ch. 4. p. 452.
N 2
180
BOOK III
THE REDUN DANCY OF
stances; or did it arise out of the general
results of nature's arrangements?
War, which fortunately is only an occa-
sional state of affairs (though certainly a state
in which many nations are but too often found),
commonly yields an additional amount of em-
ployment. It also attracts a considerable
number of hands to its peculiar modes of
business. When these temporary modes cease
to exist with their cause, the circulators who
were employed in them, are thrown back upon
the other classes. The demanders, with respect
to the other lines, are thus suddenly dimi-
nished, while the suppliers in them are as sud-
denly augmented. There must, therefore, in-
stantly follow a retrogressive movement, both
in point of business and of wealth, until the
increase of population is able to find employ-
ment in the other lines for these supernumerary
hands. This result, however, does not arise
out of the natural effects of the increase of
population, but of certain temporary circum-
stances, with which it happens to be connected:
just as if any nation which used to deal exten-
sively with another had chosen to give up all
dealings with the latter, or if a people, from
some sudden ebullition of folly, or perhaps
from an enlightened view of things, had aban-
doned the use of some very extensive article
which afforded a great amount of employment.
CHAP. II.
181
POPULATION IN 1816.
It has been said, that to send off these
supernumeraries, by way of colonizing, for ex-
ample, would relieve the others. This measure
has even been suggested as a remedy for the
deficiency of employment. Let us examine
how far such a remedy would prove effectual, or
whether the result of such a measure would be
what is expected. Perhaps fully 500,000 per-
sons were thrown wholly or partially out of
employ, in Britain alone, by the sudden anni-
hilation of the war-circuland. We shall assume
that 300,000 were wholly deprived of their
usual employment by that event, and that these
300,000 persons had immediately left our
island.
What would follow from this with re-
spect to those who remained?
If the demand, which included the amount
created by these 300,000 supernumeraries, had
continued as large as before, the other suppliers
would have been benefited by this colonizing:
While the demand would have been as before,
the suppliers were fewer than before. But
how could this possibly be? Our old suppliers,
it is true, were now again just what they were
before the close of the war; but then the
demand had decreased to the whole amount of
the articles used by these 300,000 supernu-
meraries. The cultivators would have found
a depression in the demand upon them equi-
valent to the produce of 600,000 acres, and
^
N 3
182
BOOK III.
THE REDUNDANCY OF
the other classes of suppliers would have suf-
fered from a corresponding deficiency. Cal-
culating the amount of the demand of these
supernumeraries at the rate only to which it
appears to have sunk in 1816, or twenty pounds
per individual (but were not many of these
persons in very pinched circumstances, this
amount would be much too low, as the general
average includes children and ineffective per-
sons), there would have been a further defi-
ciency of six millions worth of employment,
added to the amount already lost by the ceas-
ing of the war-requisitions. The loss of this
employment, and the still farther diminution of
circulandary stimulus arising from it, would
have considerably increased the war-deficiency
and greatly added to the distress of our cir-
culators.
瞥
​So much for the remedy seen in the ima-
ginations of so many in colonizing or sending
off what they call redundant population. This,
according to the principles of sound statistics,
or of circulation as found in real life, is to
attempt to increase employment and wealth by
diminishing the very means of both. It is to
endeavour to augment the stream by cutting
off a part of its sources. Such notions, and
they are too common on the topic of popula-
tion, arise from looking at only a portion of the
subject.
CHAP. II.
183
POPULATION IN 1816.
But as I have had occasion elsewhere to
observe, “The circulators, whom peace has
thrown out of employment for a time, are not
entirely lost to circulation, as if they had fallen
in war. Most of them have more or less income
arising either from some capital, which they
had realized, or from pensions. Those who
have not, must find the means of obtaining by
their relations, friends, or by working, food,
clothing and lodging at least, though in a
degree inferior to what they enjoyed before.
Thus they all still employ the cultivator, manu-
facturer, builder, baker, butcher, tailor, &c.
And the employment which they afford the
latter, enables these to give some additional
employment in return, till at length such of
them as are disposed to become circulators in
the peace lines, obtain a fair portion of employ-
ment and income *."
The distress of some of the Swiss cantons
in 1816 from a deficiency of employment, which
prompted so many to emigrate, requires a par-
ticular consideration from the peculiar circum-
stances of their country. So large a portion of
it consists of lofty mountains, which can never
rbe made very productive of subsistence, that it
cannot well reach a high rate of population
when compared with territory; and few of its
争
​** All Classes productive of national Wealth, B. ii.
ch. 9. p. 202.
N 4
184
BOOK III.
THE REDUNDANCY OF
towns will become very large. It will, there-
fore, always remain rather poor; and the
amount of employment will be very limited,
unless when it can succeed in supplying certain
articles to the larger mases of better peopled
countries. The natural progress of population,
employment and wealth is thus checked by
the circumstances of the territory. On the one
hand, being poor and, consequently, frugal, its
people will increase fast, but, on the other,
from the country being unfavourable to the
accumulation of population, and, of course, to
the increase of internal employment, a spirit of
emigration will be constantly cherished. Many
of its people will seek abroad for what they
cannot obtain at home. But when any change
of foreign circumstances deprives these emi-
grants of employment, they are sent back to a
country, where employment is at all times
rather scanty. All the distress which took place
in 1816 will necessarily be the result. And
many of them will turn again to emigration as
the only remedy.
From the principles of population and cir-
culation, all colonizations must necessarily
tend to diminish the employment and wealth
of the mother country, unless in cases in which
the new colonists draw the greatest part of thefr
supplies from the latter. If, indeed, the emi-
grations be very extensive, scarcely any return
CHAP. II.
185
POPULATION IN 1816.
will counterbalance the deficiency caused in
the home employment, by the diminution of
the number of circulators. Our East India
connexions add much to our internal employ-
ment and wealth; for the return is very great
and the emigration but small. Besides, many
of the emigrants return bringing back much
wealth, and the accumulations of others who
die in the East, are transmitted to add to the
accumulations at home.
Our West India islands drain us of more
emigrants, but they send us very large returns;
and though many die in them, many also come
back to spend their acquired wealth in the
mother country.
A portion of the wealth, which has flowed
in so copious a stream to this island from the
United States of North America, since they
became independent, may be fairly traced to the
check given to the excessive emigration from
it by the political separation of the two coun-
tries. This affords a most useful lesson to Spain.
Were her governors acquainted with the real
principles of population and of the production
of wealth, and had they the courage to act
upon them, they would at once declare their
South American colonies independent, and
cultivate a new connexion with them as com-
mercial allies, The drainage of emigration
186
BOOK III.
THE REDUNDANCY OF
from the mother country has kept her popula-
tion thin, and of course, poor. All the gold and
silver of South America cannot counteract the
influence of a decrease of population, or make
even a stationary population rich. Spain
would have been infinitely wealthier, if she
had never possessed a single colony, or sent a
single man across the Atlantic, than she has
been with all the mines of Potosi and the rest.
To lose men in order to gain gold and silver,
is a miserable exchange. Should the South
American states be lost to her, she will in a
short time find these principles fully confirmed.
་
This is scarcely a digression. For the last
three centuries, that is, since the discovery of
America, Spain has exhibited a most melan-
choly and a most impressive lesson against the
antipopulation theory. Let any statistician
read this with attention, and believe if he can,
in the advantages of checking population. This
fine country, possessing such a vast variety of
natural advantages, and drawing direct sup-
plies of gold and silver to an amount much
greater than that of all Europe beside, is at
this moment among the poorest countries in
Europe and from one cause and its effects: a
drainage of her people. Let her check this
drainage, and keep her people at home, as
generally residents, I mean, and she will find
CHAP. II.
187
POPULATION IN 1816.
the population theory as pleasingly verified, as
the antipopulation theory has been unpleasingly
exemplified for the last three hundred years.
She will own with rapture, that the grand
source of the increase of wealth to a state is not
the increase of territory or of the precious
metals, but of population.
To return: The improvement, which has
for some time been palpably taking place
every where in this island, and also on the con-
tinent, is another proof of the constant tend-
ency existing in the increase of population to
augment employment. What I calculated on
from this principle in the winter of 1816 is
now taking place. "That great impelling
power," the increase of population, "having re-
covered its sway, there is every ground to hope
that the demand will weekly increase, though
it must be for a long time yet at a slow rate.
We have chiefly to fear lest the price of wheat,
which is certainly above the fair average at
present, should at length fall below eighty
shillings, which seems to be about the rate of
subsistence on which our present average prices
of other articles have been formed. If, however,
those of the cultivator keep at a fair price, by
the end of 1817, there will be a very palpable
and pleasing improvement in the circunstances
of British circulators, and the national income
will have risen considerably. Foreign circu-
188
BOOK III.
THE REDUNDANCY OF
lators will also benefit by this change and in
time return it *."
And to what cause can we chiefly impute
this favourable change, except the increase of
numbers? What is there in the circumstances
of the circulators this year to produce such a
difference in the amount of employment? How
has the additional stimulus been created by the
same number of men in the same circum-
stances?
The usual increase of wealth and
capital would do much, it is true. But unfor-
tunately last year there was not the usual in-
crease. Indeed, it is probable, that, in many
districts, there was a real diminution of both.
The more abundant crop of 1817 has been
quoted, as a cause of the change. But the
change took place before this fact could be
ascertained; and the improvement went on,
while the prospects respecting that crop were
of the darkest kind. The higher prices and
smaller quantity of 1816 would probably coun-
terbalance the larger quantity and lower prices
of 1817. Besides the improvement proceeded,
though the prices of the cultivator gradually
fell, and, of course, diminished the amount of
employment which he was capable of giving.
There has been much less than the usual quan-
tity of speculation, in almost all lines, during
* All Classes productive of national Wealth, p. 215,
{
CHAP. II.
189
POPULATION IN 1816.
the year 1817. Indeed, in most lines, there has
The increase of employ-
been little or none.
ment is, therefore, chiefly to be attributed to
the average increase in the demand, necessarily
created by the increase of population.
The slowness, the equability and gradual
manner of the improving movement, show
clearly, that it is owing to a general and re-
gular cause. The improvement taking place
on the continent is of the same equable and
regular kind; and we are, therefore, to con-
clude, that as the same effect is produced, the
same cause is operating there.
The new
houses which are appearing in so many of our
districts, prove the fact of the increase of our
population. Indeed several districts are build-
ing as extensively as in the most flourishing
years during the war. But in most there is
evidently an extension of buildings; and in
some districts where this has not taken place,
I have been informed, that empty houses are
gradually filling.
►
This may partly be owing to so many
persons, who were called abroad by the war,
.returning to settle at home. Such a result, by
the way, confirms our reasoning as to this por-
tion of population, which has been called re-
dundant. But the return of those persons is by
no means sufficient to account for the extent of
additional buildings; and these in opposition
190
DOES THE PROPORTION OF BOOK III.
1
to the strongly counteracting circumstances
which have arisen from the great deficiency of
employment in 1816. Nothing short of a very
considerable real addition to our numbers in
this country can be an adequate cause for so
extensive an effect.
E
CHAPTER III.
HAS ANY NATURAL PROPORTION WHICH SUBSIST-
ENCE BEARS TO POPULATION WHEN INCREAS-
ING, A TENDENCY TO DIMINISH THE QUANTUM
OF EMPLOYMENT ?
THE statisticians, who maintain that the in-
crease of population tends to overstock with
respect to employment, ground their opinion on
the notion, that such an increase creates a
greater increase of sellers than of buyers.
We have found this to be not merely unwar-
ranted, but directly contrary to facts in real
life; and that there results from such an in-
crease a tendency of an opposite kind.
on the subject.
Mr. Malthus entertains a peculiar notion
He considers the supposed
tendency in the increase of population to over-
stock, as arising from a natural tendency in
3
CHAP. III. SUBSISTENCE LESSEN EMPLOYMENT? 191
that increase to be more rapid than the in-
crease of subsistence. As usual, indeed, he
has not analyzed the operation of this peculiar
influence, or explained the process, by which
such a result is produced. It is only by hints,
indirect insinuations and general affirmations,
that he has broached the opinion.
"The constant effort towards population,"
says he *,
"which is found to act even in the
most vicious societies, increases the number of
people before the means of subsistence are
increased. The food, therefore, which before
supported eleven millions, must now be divided
among eleven millions and a half." This, as
we have seen, is to suppose a case, which can-
not possibly in ordinary circumstances exist, or
unless during a period of absolute famine.
"The poor consequently must live much worse,
and many of them be reduced to severe dis-
tress. The number of labourers also being
above the proportion of work in the market,
the price of labour must tend to fall, while the
price of provisions would at the same time tend
to rise." Here, as is usual in the defence of
this theory, the author assumes the very thing
which is to be proved: and what he does
assume, is contrary to the uniform tenour of
facts in circulation.
Essay on the Principle of Population, vol. i. B.i.
ch. 2. p. 25.
1
192
DOES THE PROPORTION OF BOOK III..
In addition to this, it has been urged in
proof of a redundancy of population, or a popu
lation exceeding the supply of food, that, whe-
ther we survey agricultural or manufacturing
districts, we find always some supernumerary
labourers, or circulators either out of employ,
or only employed for a part of the usual work-
ing time in short, that, in all lines, there are
generally more candidates for employment,
than can obtain a full share.
:
In this we find another instance of that
ardour in our subsistence theorists for pressing
every evil or inconvenience among mankind,
arising out of the inequalities of human agents,
and the irregularities of human affairs, into their
cause, by ascribing them to the increase of
population and its imaginary consequence, a
scarcity of food. This is sometimes carried to
a pitch approaching so nearly the burlesque,
that the sober statistician either doubts whether
the theorist is serious, or smiles at his theoretic
credulity. These sophisms, for they cannot be
called deductions from real causes connected
with their results, impose upon many, who
either will not take the pains to discriminate,
or who are not sufficiently acquainted with the
subject to detect the fallacy. But let us leave
personal observations, which a due regard for
truth and science will not allow us in cases so
glaring to refrain from altogether, for a consi-
CHAP. III. SUBSISTENCE LESSEN EMPLOYMENT? 193
deration of real causes and their results, which
alone can enable us to reach truth.
That even in the largest town masses of
population, and during the busiest times,
there are partial slacknesses in certain lines,
and that, while some circulators have more
than the average quantum of employment,
others have less, is admitted. From the in-
equalities, natural or acquired, of human
agents, and a thousand accidental stimulating
and counteracting circumstances, this ever has
been and ever will be the fact among masses
of population, however populous the district or
the country. But what has this fact to do with
deciding the question at issue? or what
possible proof can it bring in favour of the sub-
sistence theory?
The question is not, whether populousness
and the increase of population will give all
circulators full employment; but, whether,
cæteris paribus, they do not tend to create
a greater average quantity among individuals,
than the reverse.
According to Mr. Gray, the more populous
a district or country, and the more rapidly its
population increases, from the savage state,
through all the intermediate states, up to the
most crowded, whatever be its condition with
respect to subsistence, or whether it be of the
exporting or importing class, the greater is the
194
DOES THE PROPORTION OF BOOK III.
average amount of employment in it, and vice
versa. This seems still to be what it appears
ever to have been, clearly the fact with respect
to every district on earth, whatever its rate of
population. It is then for the partizans of the
subsistence theory to show by facts and strict
reasoning from them, that the deficiencies of
employment, which are partially taking place
even in the most crowded and rapidly increas-
ing population, would be proportionately fewer,
were it to increase less rapidly, grow stationary
and still more retrogressive. This is the point
at issue here.
The increase of population, which, accord-
ing to Mr. Gray, is the grand source of all per-
manent increase in employment and wealth, ac-
cording to the subsistence theory, from its caus-
ing what is called a pressure on the limits of
subsistence, and consequently a too great fulness,
creates a diminution in the average amount of
employment and a tendency to poverty. On
the latter, therefore, the thinner the population,
the better must it be employed and the richer
must its members on the average be. From
the thickest state of population through all the
intermediate thinner states to the thinnest, the
process of the population theory must neces-
sarily be reversed. Cæteris paribus, the thin-
ner will be better employed and richer, till we
reach the hunter's state which will be the best
CHAP. III. SUBSISTENCE LESSEN EMPLOYMENT? 195
employed, and richest of all except when sub-
sistence happens to be more than usually short.
On this theory, check population and augment
subsistence (were this indeed at all practicablé
for any number of years), and you increase em-
ployment and wealth.
This must be the result of the subsistence
principle, if it have any real existence, or if
there be any real meaning in the reasonings
of its partizans at all. Now look at actual
facts. And can any sober statistician give his
serious belief to so wild a system for a moment?
It may be said, this is pressing the sub-
sistence principle of Mr. Malthus too far. But
in all rates, according to his views, population,
instead of regulating the amount of subsist-
ence as of other supplies, uniformly presses
against the limits of subsistence: or, to state
the fact as it is in real life, the amount of the
supply of subsistence throughout the circle of
districts connected nationally or commercially,
will be always adjusted to the demand as
nearly as is practicable, whatever be the rate
of population. Where then, or at what rate of
populousness or increase, for the same principle
operates in all, is the stop to be made? The
increase of population must either tend to aug-
ment employment and wealth, or to diminish
it. And to check it must do the reverse.
the increase produces more employment and
If
0 2
196
DOES THE PROPORTION OF BOOK III.
wealth, the checking must injure the process
and diminish both. If the increase again
tends to lessen them, the checking must tend
to enlarge them. The more it is checked
then, on the latter supposition, and the thinner
it becomes, the greater must be the increase of
employment and of wealth. Sophistry, as usual,
may attempt to evade this deduction from
the principle of the subsistence theory, but it is
plain straight forward reasoning; and I do not
see how the partizans of that principle can get
rid of the conclusion, even with all their ac-
knowledged ingenuity in making the most
stubborn facts quite pliable, and in limiting and
explaining away.
But let us even refrain from pushing them
so far on their general principles; and let us
come to particulars. According to Mr. Gray's
ideas, England should be more employed and
richer than Scotland, but according to Mr.
Malthus she should be less employed and
poorer.
She is much more populous: her
resident population assisted by immigration
is increasing rather faster, and she does not
supply herself with a sufficient quantity of sub-
sistence. Scotland, again, much thinner peo-
pled, with a resident population increasing
slower, raises a vast quantity of food more than
she consumes. Poland, on the subsistence
theory, should be better employed and richer
1
4
CHAP. III. SUBSISTENCE LESSEN EMPLOYMENT? 197
in proportion to its population than either
France or Austria. Or if we descend to dis-
tricts, the Highlands with their thin and slowly
increasing resident population, while they raise
such an immense quantity of surplus subsist-
ence in the shape of black cattle and sheep,
that for some months every year this surplus
produce disturbs travellers on many of the
principal roads of Scotland and England, must
be much better employed and proportionately
to their population richer than Lanarkshire,
where population is increasing so fast, while it
is forced to draw supplies of food from all its
neighbours. Westmorland, for the same rea-
sons, must be better employed and richer per
individual, than either Warwickshire or Lanca-
shire. Now what is the real fact with respect to
these compared countries and districts, which
are only examples taken from the great mass?
On this important part of the discussion,
as with respect to all the others, I am forced
to observe of Mr. Malthus and the partizans of
his theory, that one of two things must be
true. Either they are very imperfectly ac-
quainted with the real principles of circulation,
or they have been very inattentive to these in
forming their opinions.
According to those unalterable principles,
every new comer is a buyer as well as a seller,
and every tendency to a scarcity, when this can
03
198
DOES THE PROPORTION OF BOOK III.
be remedied, must operate towards augmenting
employment. Now he and they seem generally
to overlook the former part of a new comer's
character altogether, and they consider a tend-
ency to scarcity, as creating a diminution of
employment among circulators. The latter
notion requires some consideration.
A scarcity of provisions, whether real, or,
as is much more frequently the case in civi-
lized and populous countries, imaginary, uni-
formly raises their price much above what the
real deficiency would warrant. This tends to
enrich the cultivating class and those classes
which deal in provisions; and prompts as well
as enables them to give an increased amount of
employment, by carrying on improvements
and extending cultivation, and also by a more
liberal domestic expenditure. The consequence
is an increased demand for labourers in the
various lines. The price of labour necessarily
rises partly to meet the higher charges of the
cultivator and partly from the enlarged de-
mand for hands. In the course of the last
twenty-five years we have seen what immense
capitals have been realized by the cultivators in
consequence of scarcities real or imagined, and
we have seen the great increase in the demand
for hands, as well as the wages of labourers
more than doubled. The scarcity years, as
they have been called by the people, 1796, 1801,
!
CHAP. III. SUBSISTENCE LESSEN EMPLOYMENT? 199
1812 and 1813, were particularly prominent
for the spirited exertions in improvements that
followed, and for a demand for agricultural
labourers. There was an universal complaint
among the farmers of a want of hands.
Scarcity, it is true, may in some cases of
supply be so excessive as to diminish the wealth
of the suppliers. This happens when there is
such a failure of produce, that no price pro-
cured for the small quantity actually supplied
will reimburse the supplier for his loss. But
all scarcities of necessary articles at least tend
to prompt greater exertions, and of course to
increase employment.
The year 1815 put the theory of Mr. Mal-
thus with respect to employment and wealth,
to a new trial of an opposite kind. And abun-
dance was found equally decisive against it as
scarcity. During that eminently fertile year,
we saw wages fall and employment decrease,
and all for a reason, which according to his
imaginations would produce quite the contrary
effect; that is, from a superabundance of food.
Such was the abundance of the supply com-
pared with the demand, that prices fell far
below what would pay the farmer, or enable
him to reproduce employment even to the usual
amount. Thus a vast diminution of employ-
ment and an unusual degree of poverty were
caused by what on the subsistence theory
0 4
200
DOES THE PROPORTION OF BOOK III.
should have created wealth and a more than
usual quantity of employment.
The influence, which Mr. Malthus sup-
poses in the increase of population compared
with the state of food, in diminishing employ-
ment, is thus as imaginary as the rest of the
peculiar influences supposed to exist on the
subsistence theory. In fact, if a tendency in
population to increase faster than subsistence
operated among circulators, the result would
be directly the reverse of what Mr. Malthus
imagines. The excess in the demand would give
both the farmer and his people better prices,
and render an additional number of hands
necessary.
The increase of population also uniformly
tends to promote luxury or the use of super-
fluous food. The necessary result of this must
be to increase the proportion of circulators re-
quisite to raise subsistence. If people in
general use a larger quantity of food than
before, surely the production of this additional
quantity, must produce a corresponding in-
crease in the amount of employment.
Besides, in cultivating a country, the lands
which are by nature the most fertile, or which
are best circumstanced, in point of climate,
situation, or population, are first chosen for
the plough*. In proportion as it fills, the
lands more unfavourably situated, are had re-
* Happiness of States, B. vi, ch. 8. p. 476.
CHAP. III. SUBSISTENCE LESSEN EMPLOYMENT? 201
course to by the cultivator. Now these lands
require more labouring. The constant and
large supply of manure necessary to give them
an artificial fertility to a profitable degree, and
to keep them up to that pitch, contribute also
greatly to increase the cultivator's business.
Let us make some exceptions for good lands
too far at first from the principal seats of the
population, and we may lay it down as a correct
position with respect to cultivating a country,
that the thicker its population, the land uncul-
tivated, or imperfectly cultivated, will in ferti-
lizing them to the profitable degree, create more
employment per acre.
It is admitted, that from the superior
modes of execution, and the machinery gra-
dually introduced by population in its increase,
the cultivation of land will at a higher rate
of population per square mile, require fewer
hands than at a lower. The difference from
this cause may at length be so great between
a very thin and a very thick rate of population,
as more than to counterbalance the employ-
ment created by the greater obstinacy and in-
fertility of the soils. It is probable, for example,
that such a difference has arisen with respect to
cultivation throughout Britain, as well in Eng-
land as in Scotland, from her rate of population
in the tenth century and her rate at present,
that barely half the number of cultivators per
square mile is now employed directly in culti-
202
BOOK III.
DOES THE PROPORTION OF
vation. But it has been shown, that, though
the number directly required for the same
quantity of work may be decreasing, if we
include all the indirect employment created
by this change, in the construction of the ma-
chines, and preparing the materials of wood,
iron, brass, &c. the demand for human hands
is increased, and will keep increasing *.
Besides, were it even true, that the em-
ployment created by the same business, in-
cluding both the direct and indirect sorts, is
diminished in a thicker rate of population, this
result by no means springs from any limiting
influence arising out of a more rapid increase in
population than subsistence. It flows from the
superior skill and capital, which are uniformly
produced by the increase of population.
Mr. Malthus, as far as I understand him,
appears to entertain the notion of the multitude,
that population in its increase interferes with
places already full, and is checked by this
fulness. A vacancy must take place, or a new
comer must either displace one of the old circu-
lators, and thus throw a supernumerary on his
own class or other classes of society, or must
himself remain a supernumerary. A diminu-
tion in the average amount of employment
*
Happiness of States, B. ii. ch. 7. p. 106. Third
Letter to M. Say, All Classes productive of national Wealth,
p. 301.
CHAP. III, SUBSISTENCE LESSEN EMPLOYMENT? 203
must, therefore, necessarily ensue, with its in-
separable concomitant, a fall in price.
1
That the multitude, who are uniformly
led away by first appearances, should entertain
such a notion is not to be wondered at; but
such a tendency in the increase of population
to create supernumeraries, or such a re-action
tending to counteract the influence of its own
progress, is so contrary to the uniform tenour of
the general results actually arising from that
increase in real life, it seems strange, that it
should be admitted by any statistician. But
there is no occasion here for going into the
subject again, as it has been already fully
shown, that the increase of population creates
new species of circuland, and in its progress, is
continually enlarging the old and opening up
fresh sources of employment.
Mr. Malthus seems rather to have a fond-
ness for inverting the arrangements of nature
in the case of population, and for turning the
effect into the cause. It may be queried, whe-
ther he has not done this with respect to the
twenty-two Dutch villages mentioned by him,
according to the registers of which the mar-
riages were annually one in sixty-four. This
is a very unusual proportion. But he finds
the mortality also to be correspondingly great,
of one in twenty-three. He thence concludes
that the former extraordinary proportion was
204
DOES THE PROPORTION OF BOOK III.
"merely occasioned by the rapid dissolution
of the old marriages by death, and the conse-
quent vacancy of some employment by which a
family might be supported *.'
But is it not more likely, that this great
mortality was caused by the unusual propor-
tion of marriages, than that this unusual pro-
portion of marriages was caused by the great
mortality? Such a proportion of the former
shows, that marrying in those villages must
have been particularly early, and, of course,
particularly productive. Now, it is well known
how large a portion of infants dies in all coun-
tries. The mortality among these added to
that produced by the very unhealthy climate
of Holland, accounts naturally and fully for the
great number of deaths. And I am much
more inclined to be of Sussmilch's opinion
respecting the cause of the flourishing of mar-
riage, or, that it springs from the great variety
of means of obtaining a livelihood in Holland.
A friend of mine, who has lately travelled
through that very populous and, of course, very
rich country, says "they are all populationists
there."
That certain successors do marry in conse-
quence of the death of their predecessors and
taking the place of the latter, is true. This,
* Essay, &c. vol. i. B. ii. ch. 4. p. 445.
CHAP. III. SUBSISTENCE LESSEN EMPLOYMENT? 205
however, is a kind of mere transfer event with
respect to circulation at least, unless the suc-
cessor should by his personal character be a
more active circulator than the deceased per-
son, or the reverse. But by the death of one,
the stimulus created by one is evidently lost.
And farther I fear, that the death of a circu-
lator, if he be a married man and a father, by
the injury generally done to the incomes and
prospects of the widow and children, is, on the
average of cases, rather calculated to retard
than promote marriage. We may constantly
see instances, where the death of a father both
injures the means of procuring income among
his sons, and ruins the prospects of obtaining
an early settlement among his daughters.
But to return to the particular topic in
discussion: it seems perfectly clear, from the
principles of circulation, that, were there any
real tendency in population to increase faster
than subsistence, such a tendency, far from
diminishing, as Mr. Malthus imagines, would
necessarily increase employment. It would
create an additional demand for cultivators,
and besides, by raising their prices or incomes,
enable them to expend more largely, which is
equivalent to giving more employınent and
income to the other classes.
"The great cause which fills towns and
manufactories," says Mr. Malthus, "is an in-
C
206
DOES THE PROPORTION OF BOOK III,
}
sufficiency of employment, and consequently
of the means of support, in the country *."
This is a movement which is constantly going
on in every district and country, and most
extensively in those, which are increasing most
rapidly in numbers, and are, of course, most
flourishing.
It is surprising, that a statistician of such
acuteness as Mr. Malthus, in writing such a
passage, did not perceive that this universal
movement completely overturns the leading
ideas of the subsistence theory and of his
Essay, and completely establishes those of the
population theory and the Happiness of States,
as the laws of nature. Circulators are con-
stantly going from the agricultural to other
lines, and from a thinner state of population
to a thicker. And why? Confessedly from a
constant deficiency of employment in the
former. Does not this prove, that the supply
of the cultivator's articles, or subsistence, in-
stead of being generally deficient, is, on the
average, rather the reverse, or above the
demand of population; and, therefore, these
circulators are constantly forced to withdraw
from the cultivating to other lines, where the
demand is greater in proportion to the supply?
Had there been a general deficiency of the sup-
* Essay, vol. iii. B. iii. ch. 14. p. 59.
CHAP. III. SUBSISTENCE LESSEN EMPLOYMENT? 207
ply of food, there would have been a perpetual
tendency to detain the whole of the circulators
already engaged in cultivation or in those
branches of employ immediately connected
with it, as well as those young additional cir-
culators produced by the increase of popu-
lation. Yet, according to Mr. Malthus's no-
tions, there is a constant deficiency in the
supply of food, and, of course, in the number of
suppliers.
Again, if a thicker rate of population did
not create a greater average amount of em-
ployment and wealth, why should circulators
keep constantly going from a thinner? How
could they be absorbed there? But there is an
incessant absorption of them in those thicker
and more rapidly increasing masses. A greater
rate of populousness and increase of popula-
tion, therefore, produces a greater average
quantum of employment and wealth *.
And yet, according to the antipopulation
theory, from the population of towns feeling a
too great fulness in all or most lines, there
must necessarily be a constant tendency to
emigrate to the less full or thinner peopled
portions of a district or country: a tendency
directly the reverse of that in nature; for, with
certain peculiar or local exceptions, this is con-
* Happiness of States, B. ii. ch. 2. p. 45.
1
208
DOES THE PROPORTION OF BOOK III.
fessedly from the thinner to the thicker peo-
pled portions.
It is a pity but our statisticians would ac-
custom themselves to reason patiently from
facts.
I shall conclude this interesting portion of
the discussion, respecting the influence of the
increase of population on the quantum of em-
ployment, by summing up in the words of Mr.
Gray.
Every man requires a number of persons,
of various descriptions, to labour for him, on an
average proportioned to the amount of circu-
land which he possesses. The circulator worth
ten thousand a year will give full employment
to several persons, perhaps from twenty to
thirty, and partial employment to a very great
number, probably, in the whole, equivalent to
about two hundred fully employed. But a cir-
culator of the great mass could not give full
employment to one: and this deficiency on the
part of that body allows the employers or cir-
culators to a greater amount to obtain the
extra hands they want. An increase of popu-
lation, with its necessary attendant, an increase
of circuland, enables the great circulators or
employers to become still greater, and it ope-
rates the same way with respect to the rest.
It increases the demand of all ranks, by still
creating additional wants, and affording the
CHAP. III. SUBSISTENCE LESSEN EMPLOYMENT? 209
t
means of supplying them. New and more ex-
tensive buyers or consumers, of course, re-
quire new and more extensive sellers, or manu-
facturers. Instead, therefore, of tending to over-
stock, an increase of population tends to enlarge
the demand for hands in general rather faster
than the supply. This supply is furnished not only
from the more rapid increase of population
from earlier marriage and immigration, but
from the greater quantity of work performed in
the same time by the circulators in their
various lines. In a district crowded with
population, the average quantity of work pro-
duced by the individuals is double and often
three or four times the amount of that of a
thinly peopled district. With all the increase
in the number of hands and in the average
quantity of their work, the more crowded the
district, the more general is the complaint of
a scarcity of hands, except on some failure in
business arising from temporary circumstances;
while in districts with a thin population, there
is almost uniformly a complaint of an over-
abundance of hands and a want of work, and
the consequence is a constant emigration to
more populous places. Thus reciprocally an
increase of population tends to increase cir-
culand, and the increase of circuland to in-
crease population*."
* Happiness of States, B. ii. ch. 2. p. 44.
P
210
BOOK IV.
DOES POPULATION IN ITS INCREASE TEND
TO AUGMENT OR DIMINISH THE AVERAGE
AMOUNT OF INCOME AND WEALTH?
CHAPTER I.
THE SOURCE OF PRODUCTIVENESS IN POINT OF
WEALTH, AS OPERATED UPON BY THE INCREASE
OF POPULATION.
HAVING already gone so fully into the ques-
tion of the source of productiveness as to
wealth*, which is essentially connected in
some points with that which we are now dis-
cussing, I shall content myself here with a
few general observations.
M. Quesnay finds the source of produc-
tiveness, or wealth-producing quality of things,
in the labour alone connected with the cultiva-
tion of the soil. Dr. Adam Smith has ex-
tended this quality, and admitted within the
productive circle some other kinds of labour.
He considers the wealth-producing quality to
* All Classes productive of national Wealth.
CHẤP. 1. THE SOURCE OF WEALTH, &c. 211
reside in something solid, which can be ex-
changed or disposed of for a price.
M. Say *,
who ranks himself in the unproductive school
of the latter, finds this quality in utility.
Of M. Quesnay's theory, I have to repeat,
that its limitations are directly contrary to
facts. His productive employment is rendered
really productive by means of other species of
employment, and from a fall in the price is
sometimes unproductive; while other forms of
employment are productive for the very same
reasons, as that of cultivation. Dr. Smith's
limitation is also contrary to facts. The soli-
dity of the form of circuland has, of itself, no
productive quality. It creates wealth only
when it is united with what renders all other
species of circuland productive or profitable,
chargeability. M. Say's quality of utility
seems liable to the same invincible objections.
It is productive only when found in the same
state of combination. Unless an article can
be disposed of for a profit, its utility is unpro-
The very ingenious author of the Traité d'Economie
Politique. Of his letter to Mr. Gray, in consequence of Mr.
Gray's four letters to him in the Appendix to All Classes
productive, it is but justice to say, that it carries the marks
of the candid statistician, the philosopher, and the gentle-
man.
+ See Mr. Gray's Letters to M. Say on the source of
productiveness, in Miscellaneous Statistics.
p 2
212 SOURCE OF WEALTH, AS AFFECTED BOOK IV.
ductive, and will create no income or wealth to
the circulator; while articles, that do not
possess the quality which we understand by the
term utility, if combined with profitable charge-
ability, produce both.
It is, therefore the chargeability of an
article, or of employment, in a word, of cir-
culand, or its power to procure a price and a
profit, which is the value producing quality, or
what yields income and wealth. Whatever
possesses that is the means of reproduction, or
of producing new employment, income and
wealth all round the circle; and whatever does
not possess that quality at all, is utterly unpro-
ductive of all three. This seems to me to have
been so strictly demonstrated, that, till the
demonstration is shown to be faulty, I shall
assume the thing as completely proved.
It is, however, to be observed, that the
existence of a tendency in the increase of
population to promote the progress of wealth,
or to check it, cannot be inferred from
the principles either of the productive or of
the unproductive theory. All classes may be
productive of national wealth, and yet the
increase of population may have a tendency to
check the progress of wealth. On the other
hand, there may be certain classes unproduc-
tive, and yet the increase of the number of our
:
CHAP.I. BY THE INCREASE OF POPULATION. 213
circulators may accelerate their progress with
respect to income and capital.
If the increase of population have an in-
fluence towards augmenting their wealth, this
must arise from its tendency to increase the
average demand, and, consequently, to enable
the great mass both to obtain a larger quantum
of employment, and also, what follows from
this, a better average price for it. On the
other hand, if the increase of population has
any influence that operates against the progress
of wealth in a country, or to keep its amount
stationary, it must be by rendering the average
quantum of employment among the circulators
smaller, and of course, producing a depression
in the average price. In the former case, the
demand has a tendency rather to keep before
the supply, and consequently the sellers will
have a predominant influence in fixing the
price. In the latter, the supply will have a
general tendency to exceed the demand, and
the buyers will possess that influence.
Now we have already seen, that the in-
crease of population uniformly tends to aug-
ment the average amount of employment.
And, what follows clearly from this in theory,
a tendency in price to rise, is equally verified
by facts. An increase in the demand and an
increase in price are, in fact, reciprocally
cause and effect to each other. The former
P 3
214
SOURCE OF WEALTH, AS AFFECTED BOOK IV.
tends to raise the rate of the latter, and a rise
in the rate of price, by enlarging the expen-
diture, tends to augment the demand. Thus
the average demand and the average rate of
price keep gradually advancing according to
the rate of the increase in population: and the
result is a general increase of wealth in a
country from its thinnest peopled state up to
its most crowded,
The general fact of circulation is, that
“circulators in using circuland add to a heap **
The multitude and statisticians in general,
however, entertain an opinion quite contrary,
or that circulators take from a heap, and thus
are constantly diminishing it. This is indeed
the source of all their errors on this subject, and
what renders their conjectures concerning re-
sults so incorrect, that are they commonly con-
tradicted by facts.
They overlook an essential link in the chain,
In paying for what they buy, it is true, they
take away more or less of their own income,
for the time; and, in obtaining a price for what
they sell, they take away, for the time, more
or less from the income of others. This taking
away, or diminishing, they perceive; but they
do not attend to a necessary part of the fact,
that in both cases, they are creating fresh em-
* Happiness of States, B. ii. ch. 2. p. 25.
CHAP. I. BY THE INCREASE OF POPULATION. 215
ployment, and thus actually supplying and in
general adding to the real source of wealth,
the means of charging. What they pay away
becomes income; consequently the source of
expenditure and employment to others, and to
themselves again in the circle: and what they
receive, becomes income and the source of ex-
penditure to themselves. Thus all, by giving
away, are creating fresh employment, or, as
Mr. Gray has familiarly expressed it, adding to
a heap.
I
If we analyze the process of nature in the
increase of employment and wealth, we shall
see that the increase of population must neces-
sarily add to the average quantum of employ-
ment and wealth.
The wants of men are the source of all
employment and charging. The intervention
of that artificial medium of charging, money,
which is, in reality, merely " a set of counters,
does not alter the nature of the transactions
between circulators. It tends greatly to con-
veniency and to rendering exchanging easier;
but the same result would take place, if men
still continued to give one article for another,
as was the case before the invention of money.
John wants something which James produces,
and James wants something which John pro-
duces: John is willing to give so much of what
he has to James for so much of what he has,
P 4
216
SOURCE OF WEALTH, as afFECTED BOOK IV,
and James is willing to gratify him.
This is
the cause of all circulation, and the source of
all exchangeable wealth. When money is
used in the transaction, it is to measure the
quantity of one thing to be given for a quantity
of another, or to enable each to exchange or
charge more accurately and conveniently, as
well as to obtain what a circulator wants, from
those who do not themselves want what he
makes in order to be able to charge. Either
by the quantity of things mutually wanted, or
by money which can procure these, charge is
met by charge. This is the mine, from which
all wealth is drawn. And as there is no limit-
ation to the amount of charging, this mine,
or the source of wealth, is evidently inexhaust-
ible. The more circulators draw from it, or
the higher the rate they charge, the more ex-
tensive it becomes.
In the earlier periods of society, when men
are either in a savage state, or just emerging
from it, and consequently very thin with re-
spect to territory, their wants are few, because
they are ignorant. Most of these wants they
are forced to supply, each circulator for him-
self, as far as they are supplied. But in
But in pro-
portion as they grow more numerous, their
wants increase with their knowledge and with
the means of procuring what they want. The
supply of the various kinds also becomes more
CHAP. I. BY THE INCREASE OF POPULATION, 217
and more confined to certain classes, till in a
very crowded community, for example in
London, the division of it is carried to an ex-
traordinary degree of minuteness, as well as
distinctness *. Thus from the thinnest to the
most crowded state of population, the wants of
circulators keep constantly increasing in variety,
and the means of supplying them enlarging,
till the difference in point of variety and quan-
tity becomes astonishing.
These additional wants necessarily create
additional employment. And as the new wants
of the circulators and the new articles used by
them, are generally not a substitution for the
old wants and articles, but a real addition to
them, and as most of the increased numbers
use an average portion of both the old and
newer kinds, the result must be a constant in-
crease of the means of wealth,
How then, with such results necessarily
springing from an increase of population, can
this increase produce what Mr. Malthus and
some others have imagined, any tendency to
poverty; that is, to a lower average amount
of employment, and a lower average rate of
price? Such a tendency seems utterly impos-
sible.
Let us begin with the more necessary spe-
*Happiness of States, B. ii. ch. 6.
218 SOURCE OF WEALTH, AS AFFECTED BOOK IV.
cies of circuland, for these were used earliest,
because they were necessary, and proceed to
the more luxurious, and we shall find the
wealth-augmenting process going on with the
increase of number. In the very thin periods
of population the seeds of the elementization
of labour are sown; but the produce is very
incomplete. Most circulators perform many
sorts of work. But whether the labour be per-
formed promiscuously by individuals in general,
or by distinct classes, the result will be the
same.
The cultivator deals in the most necessary
of
all sorts of circuland; and he is the first prin-
cipal exchanger. But does the builder of houses
or maker of clothing render him poorer, because
they draw from his income more or less of
their income? They are taken from the great
mass, to labour at other kinds of supply than
his. They become buyers from him, and obtain
the means of paying him by selling articles of a
different sort. Thus, while they diminish the
number of suppliers of subsistence, which there
would be, were there no other mode of labour
but cultivation, they continue demanders of it.
And surely the average tendency of withdraw-
ing superfluous suppliers from any line must
be to advance the rate of price of the articles
which they supply.
Let us now proceed to the various classes,
CHAP. I. BY THE INCREASE oF POPULATION. 219
}
;
created by the business of governing a people,
or those of soldiers, lawyers, public office per-
sons, &c. the same result takes place. These
classes are taken from the mass of circulators
to sell other sets of articles, and continue
buyers from the cultivating, the clothing and
building classes. If we go on to the classes
employed in the business of education, of medi-
cine, of service, of amusement, still we find the
same result: portions of population are with-
drawn from the old lines, to become sellers in
certain additional lines, while they continue
demanders with respect to the former.
Population, as it increases, elementizes
business more and more, and separates the
various modes of employment more completely.
At the same time that it tends to reduce the
proportionate number of the various classes of
suppliers, it operates towards quickening the
demand.
Along with this is constantly operating that
universal principle among all classes of circu-
lators, the desire to obtain as large a quantity
of the means of happiness as possible. The in-
crease of numbers, by enlarging the market,
enables them to gratify more and more their
wishes. The result, therefore, must necessa-
rily be an average increase in the quantum of
wealth.
220
BOOK IV.
CERTAIN THEORETICAL
CHAPTER II.
CERTAIN THEORETICAL
OBJECTIONS TO THE
WEALTH-AUGMENTING PRINCIPLE OF THE IN-
CREASE OF POPULATION EXAMINEd.
Ir may be said, that the universal wish of
sellers to obtain as large a quantity of the
means of happiness as possible, is counteracted
by an universal wish of a contrary kind among
buyers. It is so,
It is so. But the general increase in
the demand on the whole, and the forward im-
pulse given to circulation by the improving
style of living, enables the various classes as
sellers ultimately to carry their point against
the buyers *.
The operation of the increasing drafts on
the general fund of paying, some may suppose,
must also tend strongly to check a rise in this
amount. This fund, however, is of an inex-
haustible nature. It consists of charging upon
those, who in their turn countercharge to reim-
burse themselves. The higher the various
classes are charged upon, the higher they coun-
tercharge all round the circle. Thus the fund,
instead of being diminished, keeps constantly
Happiness of States, B. ii, ch. 8. p. 114.
CHAP. II.
221
OBJECTIONS ANSWERED.
increasing with the increase in the drafts upon
it *.
But it may be urged farther, that though
the average demand may be necessarily aug-
mented by the increase of numbers on the
same extent of territory, yet the greater adroit-
ness of the suppliers, and their growing capa-
bility of doing more work in the same time,
with the aid of machines, may be more than
sufficient to raise the average supply up to the
enlarged average demand. The consequence
must be a tendency to an injurious depression
in price.
It is admitted, that the price of the supply
forms an important point of consideration.
Both the amount of the supply of an article,
and the price of it, must be combined toge-
ther: for a larger amount, with a smaller
price, may not produce so much income to the
circulator as a smaller amount with a better
price. And it is certain, that, in general,
circulators do become more adroit and produce
a larger quantity of articles in a more crowded
than in a thinner state of population. But it is
very evident, that all this increased adroitness,
even with the extensive and increasing aid of
machinery, is barely able to keep up the supply
* Happiness of States, B. ii. ch. 12. p. 147.
+ See Essays on the Effects of average high and low
Prices, at the end of this volume.
222
BOOK IV.
CERTAIN THORETICAL
to the growing demand. And though in some
instances, the rate of wages for doing the same
quantity of work may become lower, yet the
difference in the quantity performed is so con-
siderable, as greatly to counterbalance this.
The price of many articles in crowded societies
is cheaper; and yet the profit accruing to the
maker from his adroitness, and doing more work
in the same time, is much larger.
The rise in the price of things, it may be
urged, does not always enrich the circulator in
a more crowded society. If he gets more for
what he sells, he has to pay more for what he
buys; and thus he is only where he was before.
But why are these higher prices asked and ob-
tained? Is it not chiefly to enable the various
sellers to pay for a better style of living, or to
answer the demands of government, which are
necessarily connected with giving additional
employment? And each in countercharging
to meet the increased charges of the rest, in
order to obtain the means of living better,
charges something additional. The increased
rate represents equally the better style of
living of each circulator himself and of his
neighbours. Thus this average rise in price
ultimately places all but fixed annuitants in a
better state than before.
It is true, in the progress of a nation,
whose population is increasing, towards greater
CHAP. II.
223
OBJECTIONS ANSWERED.
66
wealth, there are many transfer cases both
with respect to classes and to individuals.
Every rise in any species of circuland," says
Mr. Gray, "is more or less injurious to many
at first; for, while it adds to the profits of the
sellers of the article, it diminishes those of the
buyers. It is, however, gradually met by an
additional charge on the part of the latter,
and also tends to increase the amount of sale.
It thus ultimately proves advantageous to the
whole community, with the exception of annui-
tants with fixed incomes. Sellers are fre-
quently losers for a considerable time, till they
obtain a necessary rise: on the other hand,
they as frequently gain by anticipation, or by
being enabled to charge higher than the case
strictly requires *." To the great mass the
average result of the rise in price, caused by
an increase of population, on comparing any
two terms, say of ten years, is a greater average
quantity of wealth.
The author of the Happiness of States is,
therefore, completely warranted in the conclu-
sion which he draws. "It is thus universally
true," says he, "that every increase of popu-
lation tends to increase the average amount of
income shared by the whole. But it is not
meant to be affirmed, that every equal increase
Happiness of States, B. ii. ch. 11. p. 145.
[
224
BOOK IV:
CERTAIN THEORETICAL
of population produces an equal increase in
circuland, or wealth. The ratio of the in-
crease of the latter depends so much on the
character and peculiar circumstances of the
population, and the quantum of stimulus,
which these reciprocally give to each other,
that this ratio admits of innumerable va
rieties *."
"There are some nations that amount in
population, to the half, or the one third, of
some others, and yet from their greater natural
or acquired advantages, and the superior acti-
vity and diligence of the people, they have a
larger portion of the rich than the latter. But
suppose two nations in similar circumstances,
and of a similar character, differing only in
population. In the more numerous, there will
uniformly be a greater proportion of the rich;
and the more rapid the increase of the popu-
lation, the more rapid will be the increase of
these wealthy individuals. The same thing
holds with respect to the same nation at the
different periods of its population. When it
contains but four millions, it will have more
than proportionately fewer rich, than when it
amounts to six. And when it reaches eight
the rich will bear a still greater proportion than
when it had six, according to an increased
Happiness of States, B. ii. ch. 2. p. 32.
4
}
CHAP. II.
225
OBJECTIONS ANSWERED.
ratio. To quote one example out of many, by
way of illustration: when the nation contained
but four millions, the annual income of its
more respectable merchants, or bankers, would
not exceed, say, twelve hundred a year; and
consequently they could not give their chief
clerks above one hundred and fifty pounds a
year. At eight millions, not only will these
classes be more numerous than according to
the former proportion, but the average annual
incomes of the individuals will have risen to
three or four thousand a year, and they will
give four or five hundred a year to their chief
clerks, and so on in an increasing proportion,
according to the increase of population. In
the latter period we see there is a new rich
class consisting of the principal clerks of mer-
chants and bankers. Other new rich classes
might also be mentioned. These, instead of
confining themselves, like their predecessors,
to the cheaper comforts, are enabled to in-
dulge a little in luxuries; and thus they assist
in augmenting the quantum of circuland or
the means of additional income. In sum, the
increase of population, though its influence on
the production of wealth has been but too
much overlooked, is the great, indeed the sole
original cause of the permanent increase of
wealth*."
Happiness of States, B. ii. ch. 10. p. 124.
226
BOOK IV.
DETAIL OF FACTS.
CHAPTER III.
THE EXISTENCE OF A WEALTH-PRODUCING IN-
FLUENCE IN THE INCREASE OF POPULATION,
FULLY PROVED BY FACTS.
FACTS
ACTS uniformly join to confirm the theoretic
conclusion of the Happiness of States, that
the increase of population is the grand, indeed
the sole original cause of the permanent increase
of wealth.
Whether we examine towns, districts or
countries, we find that in proportion as any of
them is more populous or increases more rapidly
in number of inhabitants, cæteris paribus, it is
more wealthy or increases more rapidly in wealth.
It would have been sufficient to have shown
that the increase of population augments the
income of a country according to the old ave-
rage rate, to prove that this increase continues
to keep the whole mass (including the new
members) in at least as good circumstances as
before the addition.
But Mr. Gray proves
much more. His doctrine is, that "from the
very nature of circuland, every increase in the
number of circulators necessarily tends to in-
crease it, and not merely according to the ave-
rage quantity of the former dividend, but also
CHAP. ITÍ.
227
DETAIL OF FACTS.
according to a new average quantity, which is
augmented in proportion to the new members.
Thus to adopt a number for an example: sup-
pose there are in a small island 400 circulators,
who, at an average, divide annually 20,000, or
share 50 each: if the circulators be increased
from 400 to 500, they will divide annually,
instead of 25,000 according to the old ave-
rage, say, 30,000, or share at the new average
of 60. The latter numbers are used merely
for illustration. The increase depends upon
so many circumstances, that it may be with
respect to all numbers, in all possible propor-
tions: increasing proportions are meant *."
The very increase in individual wealth
proves this. If the new numbers shared only
at the old rate, though the nation would be
possessed of more wealth as a body, yet the
individuals would be no better off, as they
would share only as before. But facts uni-
versally show, that individuals, by all additions
to their number, are enabled to divide a higher
average amount.
The uniform result of the increase of popu-
lation is an influence constantly operating
towards enabling the various classes of society
to obtain a greater average amount of the good
things of life. This influence operates alike
* Happiness of States, B. ii. ch. 2. p. 26.
Q 2
228
BOOK IV.
DETAIL OF FACTS.
in favour of all ranks, from the lowest to the
highest and it keeps increasing in power and
efficacy from the thinnest rate of population,
when a few families or tribes are scattered over
a vast territory, up to the most crowded. The
more rapid the increase of numbers also, the
more effective does the influence prove.
Mr. Gray has given us various examples
which completely establish the active existence
of this principle of population, or the wealth-
augmenting influence of its increase.
This influence derives much of its efficacy
from bringing men more together.
"The more
compact, or crowded the population," says Mr.
Gray, "cæteris paribus, the more wealthy will
it be. A population of a million, at the rate of
four acres to a man, for example, will possess
a larger quantity of circuland, than the same
population at the rate of five acres to a man,
and so of any other differing proportion. The
reason is, that the more close the population, the
more do the individuals stimulate one another,
and the greater their artificial wants, as well
as the means of supplying them. It is to be
understood, however, that in the district of
four acres to a man, the towns are in their due
proportion larger than those in the district of
five. If the towns of the former were much
smaller, the latter district might possess a
greater quantity of circuland, and share a
1
F
CHAP. III.
229
DETAIL OF FACTS.
higher average of income. Large masses in
towns, from the strong reciprocal stimulus
roused by them, and the taste for luxury which
they produce, have a powerful influence on cir-
euland. A town containing 600,000 inhabit-
ants would possess and divide many times the
quantity, that would be possessed and divided
by an extensive territory over which the same
number was loosely scattered. London, includ-
ing Westminster and Southwark, divides more
than two thirds of the Russian empire in point
of mere extent; and probably not much less
than the United States of America, with all
their thousands of square miles. The income
of the county of Middlesex, including the cities
of London and Westminster, amounts to more
than one half of the rest of Great Britain. In
these remarks, the classes above the poor are
meant *.
Mr. Gray has given a table of the compa-
rative wealth of England, Scotland and Wales,
which shows clearly the operation of this prin-
ciple of population among those large masses,
varying so greatly in their circumstances as
they do. England, allowing for her difference
in size and numbers, is to Scotland, in point of
wealth, as about three to one, and to Wales as
about four to one.
* Happiness of States, B. ii. ch. 2. p. 33.
+ Id. B. ii. ch. 2. p. 37.
Q 3
230
BOOK IV.
DETAIL OF FACTS.
He has exhibited the actual result of popu-
lation with regard to wealth in twelve of the
counties of England, agricultural, manufac-
turing, commercial and mixed, and differing
most widely in their circumstances and their
rate of population *. These results clearly
establish the powerful influence of his principle
of population as to wealth. The more populous
and the more rapidly increasing each is, the
greater is its wealth.
The same result we find, if possible, still
more strikingly confirmed, if we examine the
same nation in its different periods as to popu-
lation. In its very thin state, when population
is, as it were, beginning to operate, it is wretch-
edly poor. When it reaches a very crowded
state, it has become very rich. As its popula-
tion increases fast or slow, we find it, on com-
paring any average term of years, growing more
or less rapidly wealthy. Let the statistician
consult the history of any state he pleases, and
he will learn, that however greatly nations may
differ in other circumstances, in this point they
uniformly agree, When again the population
of a state goes back, we find it sink with the
decrease gradually into greater poverty. Let
the Roman empire and all other states, which
* Happiness of States, B. ii. ch. 2. p. 40. See the
Table completed for all the counties of England and Wales,
in Miscellaneous Statistics, at the close of this Inquiry.
CHAP. III.
231
DETAIL OF FACTS.
had become very populous, and afterward
retrograded with respect to population, be con-
sulted for examples and proofs of this obser-
vation. Italy has for some centuries been in-
creasing in population a second time, though
slowly; and allowing for so many unfavourable
circumstances, there is a corresponding increase
in her wealth again.
Indeed the wealth-augmenting influence of
the increase of population is so clearly seen in
reading the history of population in all states,
that the reader must be completely blinded by
theoretical imaginations, who can entertain the
least doubt about it.
The uniform result of the increase of popu-
lation is thus an increase in the average quan-
tum shared by the great mass of individuals.
A town of 100,000 souls, for example, ac-
cording to the old proportion should divide
only twenty-five times the amount of what it
divided, when it contained only 4000. But
what is the uniform result in real life? Com-
pare the present income of Liverpool, which
has sprung so rapidly up from a little town,
with what this was, when it contained about
4000 souls and is the former only twenty-five
times the amount of the latter income? It is
probably much more than two hundred and
fifty times that amount.
If we compare towns, that are not trading
+
Q4
232
BOOK IV.
DETAIL OF FACTS,
or manufacturing, in their different states, we
shall find a similar result, or an increasing pro-
portion of wealth. But the increase will be, in
general, by no means so great; for manufac-
tures and trade connect places with an external
population; and this connexion, by giving
them a greater share of the wealth-augmenting
influence, tends to increase the indigenous
wealth more rapidly.
Let us next compare towns of different
rates of population, and precisely the same
results are presented to us. Kelso in 1811
contained 4408 souls; York 19,099, and
Edinburgh, exclusive of its sea-port Leith,
82,244. But is the comparative wealth of
these towns, which are not manufacturing, at
all in the mere proportion of their numbers?
The manufacturing town of Kilmarnock, which
contained 10,148 souls, should share about the
one tenth of the income and wealth of the
manufacturing city Glasgow, which contained
100,749, But does this bear any resemblance
to the real proportion of their wealth? Glas-
gow again, now the second city in Britain in
point of population, enriched by manufacturing
employment as well as extensive foreign con-
nexions, should divide according to its own
rate, about the one tenth of London, But such
is the increased rate of London, enriched as it
is also by extensive manufactures and foreigu
CHAP. III.
233
DETAIL OF FACTS.
connexions, that, excluding the income derived
from the national funds except what its own
people draws, this first city of Britain divides
more than fifty times the amount of the second.
Is it said, that towns or districts which
are more populous, or which are increasing in
population, have a greater amount of capital
and employment, than when they were less
populous, or than other towns which happen
still to be inferior in population; and that this
tends to produce greater wealth? Granted.
But what has created this greater amount of
capital and employment? Is it not their addi-
tional population? When towns or districts
grow less populous does any such increase of
capital or employment take place? Uni-
formly the reverse. Even the same amount of
population spread loosely over an extensive
district, will not, cæteris paribus, divide any
thing like the same quantum of income as
when brought closely together in a town. And
the same amount of population spread over a
large territory at the rate of fifty persons at a
square mile, will never till doomsday at all
approach the same average amount of employ-
ment income and capital, as when it is spread
over a district in precisely the same circum-
stances, excepting that it is at the rate of 100
persons per square mile.
The average quantity of capital found
234
BOOK IV.
DETAIL OF FACTS.
4
1
t
among different rates of population proves also
the wealth-augmenting influence of the increase
of population. "Capital," says the author of
the Happiness of States, "depends very much,
or rather entirely, on the rate of population.
In proportion as population is thin, capital is
small. And the more crowded and extensive
the population, the greater and more numerous
are the capitalists in every line *." We uni-
formly find, cæteris paribus, that the more
populous a state is, the greater is its amount of
capital; and that, from the thinnest to the most
crowded state of population, capital, on the
average, keeps growing uniformly more abun-
dant.
7
The improvements in the style of living
among all classes, in necessaries, comforts and
luxuries, through the various divisions of circu-
land, food, lodging, clothing, education and the
rest, correspond with the increase of wealth,
according to the populousness of a district or
its rapidity of increase in population. This
indeed must necessarily be the fact, for an
increase of wealth and improvements in living
mutually represent each other. They are also
to each other reciprocally cause and effect.
The higher rate of price, and of wealth among
all classes springs from the higher charges of
these classes in consequence of the greater
*Happiness of States, B. ii. ch. 9. p. 117, 118.
CHẠP. HI.
235
DETAIL OF TACTS.
abundance or greater varieties, of articles used:
and the more extensive or varied use of these
articles, again, creates a higher rate of price
and wealth, and so on. The improvement
among all classes, in these points, agrees, like
the increase of wealth, with the increase and
crowdedness of population. As a country grows
more populous, or towns grow more crowded,
cæteris paribus, the style of living grows uni-
formly better, that is, contains in it a greater
abundance or variety of necessaries, comforts
and luxuries.
X
The progress is visible frequently on an
average of twenty, or even ten years. But
between the style of living in the thinnest
states of population, as the savage, or the state
beyond it the pastoral, and that of the more
crowded countries, as when it reaches one indi-
vidual for five or fewer acres, the difference is
infinite. The difference between the style of
living in a hamlet or little village and a town
of 100,000 souls or more, in the same country,
is also vast.
1
In towns which have increased rapidly we
can trace the wealth-augmenting influence of
the increase of numbers even in the appearance
of the old and new parts. The ugliness and
inferiority in point of comfort in the former are
quite perceptible. Indeed they generally form
a striking contrast till in the progress of the
236
BOOK IV.
DETAIL OF FACTS.
1
increase they are pulled down, and rebuilt
upon the new style of convenience, comfort
and elegance. The ugliness and inconvenience
of our old towns, and of the older parts of
our more flourishing towns are standing proofs
to the observing statistician against the anti-
population theory.
Another uniform result in these towns
proves the same thing. The increased popu-
lation occupies a much larger space of lodging,
than according to the old rate. The smaller
extent of space occupied by a given number
of inhabitants in towns in their less populous
state, may sometimes indeed be partly ac-
counted for by certain local circumstances; but
the great cause of the average enlargement
is found in the increase of wealth among
all classes. When the town was small, the
population was poor; and for cheapness the
people crowded together, as the inhabitants
of small towns do at present. But as the
various classes grew richer, and could afford
more for lodging, they chose to have a more
ample and comfortable space. A greater pro-
portion of the families would have a whole
house, or a larger portion of a house to them-
selves. Thus the extension of towns, as Mr.
Gray observes, points out the increase of popu-
lation and its increase in wealth combined *.
*
Happiness of States, B. iii. ch. 11. p. 291.
CHAP. III.
237
DETAIL OF FACTS.
All these actual causes and real results join
to establish in the most clear and satisfactory
manner the doctrine of the Happiness of States,
that the increase of population tends uniformly
to increase the wealth of a people according to
a new and enlarged proportion. Of this Mr.
Gray quotes a recent and very striking example
in his fourth Letter to M. Say. In the course
of the late war the population of Britain in-
creased with a rapidity which perhaps it never
before reached; and what was the result in
point of wealth ?
"The 300 millions sterling
(of income) it is true, was shared in 1814,
probably by about 13 millions of people; and
the 140 millions sterling, among 101 millions
of people only. Still the latter shared only
137. 6s. 8d. each, while the former shared 231.
or about 70 per cent. more. In this most
interesting and pleasing statistical result, by
the way, we have a decisive confirmation of
the doctrine of the Happiness of States (which
involves so many important consequences and
overturns the foundation of the theory of Mr.
Malthus), that in proportion as circulators in-
crease, the average quantity which they share is
increased also in a new and additional proportion.
(B. ii. ch. 2. p. 25.) Had the 13 millions of
circulators in Britain shared according to the
old proportion of the 10, the income of Bri-
tain would have been augmented only to 173
238
BOOK IV.
DETAIL OF FACTS.
millions, whereas it actually rose to 300*."
And of this addition to the national income
only" 38 per cent. were for government and 62
per cent. for ourselves."
A more complete confirmation of the actual
operation of the wealth-augmenting principle
of the increase of population as well as of the
doctrine that all species of circuland, possessing
the quality of profitable chargeability, whatever
their character, are productive of national
wealth, cannot be conceived than this. The
increase of population was perhaps beyond all
example with us. Many of the years, from
their ungeniality, were unfavourable to the pro-
duction of subsistence. And never was there
in Britain such an augmentation in the species
of circuland which have been reckoned unpro-
ductive by Smith and others. And what was
the result? There is every reason to think,
that there never was so rapid an increase in the
average amount of wealth in the same period
of time.
In sum, no principle in science, no cause in
nature, seems more clearly established, than
that the increase of population is the grand
original source of all permanent increase in
wealth. We uniformly find that, cæteris paribus,
a country is poor in proportion as it is thinly
* All Classes productive of national Wealth. Appendix,
p. 312.
CHAP. III.
239
DETAIL OF FACTS.
peopled and rich in proportion as it is more
populous: that in proportion as its people
increase slow or fast, its progress in wealth is
slow or rapid. What is the irresistible conclu-
sion from all this? To quote extremes, what
has made the difference between Finland and
Holland, Norway and Britain, or yet between
Britain and France in the time of Julius Cæsar,
and Britain and France under George the Third
and Louis the Eighteenth, in point of wealth?
That man must be wretchedly ignorant, or
blinded by the grossest prejudice, who can see
poverty uniformly combined with a thin popu-
lation and wealth with populousness, and a
progress in wealth with an increasing popula-
tion, and a retrogression in wealth.with a popu-
lation that is decreasing or even stationary, and
yet refuse to admit the wealth-augmenting in-
fluence of the increase of population.
Froin the great practical importance of
this principle, which some statisticians of name
have lately opposed, I have been thus parti-
cular in my detail of causes and facts. But
indeed to quote particular examples seems un-
necessary except for illustration. Every ham-
let, village, town, district, country, has in all
ages been, as it is at present, a proof and
example either directly or indirectly of the
irresistible tendency of the increase of popula-
tion to increase wealth.
240
BOOK IV.
THE DECREASE OF POPULATION
In reality, to say a town, a district, a
country is, cæteris paribus, more populous, is
equivalent to saying that it is more wealthy':
and to say that, cæteris paribus, it is less
populous, is synonimous with saying that it is
less rich. To tell us that any town, or district,
or country is increasing more slowly or rapidly
in its numbers, is to inform us, that it is ad-
vancing more slowly or rapidly in wealth. On
the other hand, if we learn that either town,
district or country is decreasing in people
slowly or rapidly, we have no occasion to be
informed of the melancholy result, that it is
descending slower or faster into idleness and
poverty, and suffering more or less severely
from all their miserable concomitants. Even
stationariness of population has a depressing
influence. The torpor produced by it checks
the natural progress of circulators in point
of wealth.
CHAPTER IV.
THE DECREASE OF POPULATION TENDS TO RENDER
CIRCULATORS POORer.
It is presumable from the result of a prin-
ciple operating so vitally in circulation, in the
CHAP. IV. RENDERS CIRCULATORS POORER. 241
case of an increase, that the converse will be
true of a decrease of population. As the stimulus
created by the increase, augments wealth in a
new increased proportion, the withdrawing of
that stimulus by a decrease, and the conse-
quent torpor and depression, must certainly
have a tendency to produce a greater diminu-
tion of average wealth than the amount of the
decrease of numbers according to the old ave-
rage supposes.
It is true, the influence of the increase of
capital, of a higher rate of price and a better
style of living, introduced by the increased
population, which have all something fixed in
their character, and which, in the increasing
of population, co-operate with its influence,
acts against the influence of a decrease, and
must tend in a greater or less degree to check
it. The stagnation and general diminution of
stimulus, necessarily springing from a decrease
of population, most probably, however, are on
the whole sufficient to overpower these com-
pletely, and to produce a tendency of the di-
rectly opposite kind to that of the increase,
though it may not be quite so strong.
Fortunately in Europe, it would be diffi-
cult at present to find any example of this
on an extensive scale. Population seems to be
on the increase in most of her nations and
districts. In India the following statement of
R
242 THE DECREASE OF POPULATION
BOOK IV.
}
the country held by George Thomas to the
north-west of Delhi *, and which is presented
to us by a writer who in laying it before his
readers had nothing theoretic in his view with
respect to population, we find a proof of the
existence of the opposite principle in its de-
crease.
Former
Pergunnahs. Number of Present ditto.
Villages.
Former
Revenue.
Present ditto.
14
950
253
as 1 to 3,7%
14.30,000 2.86,000
1 to 5
F
Held by Mr.
George Tho-
mas of the
Mahrattas.
5
374
151
1 to 2%
5.80,000
1.44,000
1 to 4
Total 19
1324
404
1 to 33%
20.10,000 4.30,000
1 to 4
Here, (assuming an average loss of popu-
lation in the villages destroyed) we see the
diminution of the villages in the 14 Pergunnahs
was as from about 3% to 1, but the revenue
fell to the one-fifth of what it was before.
the five Pergunnahs held of the Mahrattas, the
former had fallen as from 2% to 1, while the
latter had sunk to the one-fourth. Taking all
the Pergunnahs together, the population had de-
In
* Memoirs of George Thomas, by Captain Francklin,
p. 92.
CHAP. IV. RENDERS CIRCULATORS POORER. 243
creased as from 3% only to 1, while the wealth
had decreased as from 47% to 1, or in the pro-
portion of 42 per cent. more. The reduction
of the revenue, however, in the Mahratta Per-
gunnahs was in a greater proportion to the
diminution of people than in the others.
The whole forms a striking proof and illus-
tration of the reality of the wealth-reducing
influence attributed to the decrease of popu-
lation in the Happiness of States, and, of
course, to the contrary influence ascribed to its
increase.
But whether this augmenting rate in the
decrease of wealth, arising out of a decrease of
population, be general or uniform, it would re-
quire a much more extensive and correct mass
of information respecting such cases than we
possess, to establish completely. But there is
every probability on this side, and none on the
other. With respect, however, to the general
tendency of the decrease of population to pro-
duce poverty, facts and reasoning are alike
decisive on the subject. Not a town, a district,
a country that has decreased in population, in
ancient or modern times, but affords an ex
ample and proof of it. And the increase of
poverty certainly never falls behind the decrease
of people, but in most cases seems plainly, ac-
cording to the principle of Mr. Gray, to out-
step it.
R 2
244
THE DECREASE OF POPULATION BOOK
It is worthy of particular notice in analyz-
ing this part of the subject, that in those cases,
in which checks are evidently imposed on the
growth of population, whether these be natural,
or artificial, a deficiency of wealth is the uni-
form result.
Of the former or natural checks, we have
examples in mountainous districts, such as the
Highlands of Scotland, Switzerland, the regions
of the Pyrenees, of Caucasus, and numerous
other portions of the globe, whether of larger
or less extent. These districts have a tendency
to prevent the accumulation of population, and
they are uniformly found to be much poorer
than the neighbouring lowlands, where popula-
tion reaches a thicker rate. A mountaineer
and a poor person, seem almost synonimous
terms in this point.
Borough towns again, afford examples of
population artificially checked. The source of
the policy of these is indeed found in the very
notion which is the basis of the anti-population
theory. The fewer the circulators the more
will they share. But how do facts agree with
this imagination? These places are uniformly
poor in proportion as they are restrictive; and
as eminent for sloth and idle habits, as for
want of spirit. The residents, whom the regu-
lations allow to settle and whom these are in-
tended to protect and encourage, far from
CHAP. IV. RENDERS CIRCULATORS POORER. 245
being enriched by the restrictions in their
favour, are impoverished by them. These
boroughmen are not even so rich as those cir-
culators of a similar rank in towns of the same
number of souls; but which are free to all
comers. They are also inferior both in industry
and spirit. The boroughs, with few exceptions,
advance equally slow in population and in
wealth. Indeed for the most part, they are in
a stationary condition amid all the wretched
results that spring from this torpid predi-
cament. It is only when circumstances enable
them to overpower the influence of restriction
that they ever attain to eminence. Of this
Glasgow is an illustrious example. But with
respect to the great mass of close boroughs,
want of spirit, sloth, slovenliness and poverty
are uniformly as much their characteristics, as
activity, industry, energy, and wealth are of
open towns, which permit an unrestrained in-
crease of population.
These boroughs, or restricted communities,
are examples of what would follow from the
checking or restrictive regulations recommend-
ed by Mr. Malthus and other antipopulationists.
And they afford an impressive warning to the
statistician.
4
६ ।
R3
246
THE IMPOVERISHING TENDENCY BOOK IV.
CHAPTER V.
A TENDENCY TO PROMOTE POVERTY, ASCRIBED BY
SOME STATISTICIANS TO THE INCREASE OF PO-
PULATION, EXAMINED.
THE multitude, as has been already noticed,
seems always to have cherished the notion that
an addition to circulators tends rather to make
the former poorer. It is very obvious from
whence this opinion takes its origin*, Even
statisticians themselves in general, appear to
have been disposed to entertain the same
notion, and on the same grounds, from a partial
view of the subject, They looked on the new
or additional circulators only as additional
sellers or suppliers, who consequently dimi-
nished the quantum of the sale of the former
residents, and not as they were also, addi-
tional buyers, who, therefore, must necessarily
increase the demand. Had they attended to
facts they would have uniformly found that
these showed their first views to be erroneous,
and that the result of this increase in sellers
and buyers was an increase in the average
amount divided by all; that is, in wealth,
* Happiness of States, B. i, ch. 2. p. 26,
CHAP. V. ASCRIBED TO POPULATION.
247
This impoverishing tendency in the increase
of population has been rather insinuated, in-
directly assumed, or loosely maintained, than
clearly and distinctly taught as a doctrine. To
affirm, that the more populous a town, a dis-
trict or a country grows, each rather grows
poorer, is so diametrically opposite to what is
within the view of every person, that to have
maintained such a doctrine in plain terms,
would have startled even those who entertain
an opinion of this sort, but in an indefinite
shape. It has, therefore, been taught by insinua-
tion, or in a roundabout manner, or only with
reference to portions of population in certain
circumstances.
Mr. Hume has deformed his Essay on the
Populousness of ancient Nations *, with a notion
of this sort. "Where each man had his little
house and field to himself, and each county had
its capital free and independent; what a happy
situation of mankind! How favourable to in-
dustry and agriculture; to marriage and pro-
pagation! The prolific virtue of men, were it
* In this Essay he has given us much sound reasoning
on the stimulating as well as counteracting circumstances,
and has satisfactorily established, that the amount of the
population of those nations has been greatly exaggerated.
It is in an unusually excellent spirit, and indeed, in some
points, what I should not have expected from this writer.
It does as much credit to his heart, as to his head………
R 4
248 THE IMPOVERISHING TENDENCY
BOOK IV.
to act to its full extent, without that restraint,
which poverty and necessity impose on it, would
double the number every generation *."
It is not meant here at present to inquire
whether the results of such a situation of affairs
would have been just what he imagines. And
it is very evident even from this passage itself,
that he is a populationist both in spirit and in
theory. But he seems to insinuate that the
poverty necessarily caused by the rapid in-
crease of population tends to check its rate of
increase. And that is clearly unwarranted by
facts.
This writer had such an imperfect know-
ledge of the constituent parts of price, as well
as of some of the leading principles of circula-
tion, and of the real source of productiveness,
that upon these topics he very frequently
blunders. Of this we have a strong proof in
the paragraph, from which the quotation given
above is made. "Enormous cities are, besides,
destructive to society, beget vice and disorder of
all kinds, starve the remoter provinces, and even
starve themselves by the prices to which they
raise all provisions †."
Such a passage shows how little the prin-
ciples of statistics, that seem now so obvious,
* Hume's Essays. Essay XI. Populousness of an
cient Nations, p. 418.
+ Id. ib. p. 417.
CHAP. V. ASCRIBED TO POPULATION.
249
were known or attended to, when this statis-
tician wrote. This mode of cities starving
themselves might pass in the mouth of the
rabble as nothing out of the way, but it seems
strange enough from a statistical writer. The
high price is a mean of attracting more than
the necessary quantity of subsistence, as the
cultivator and corn-factor will always be dis-
posed to send their articles to the market
which affords the higher price. And if pro-
visions be higher in large towns, wages are at
a higher rate in order to meet theirs.
And next, how do these drafts tend to
starve the remoter provinces? This is as sound
statistics as to affirm, that from the immense
quantity of cotton goods required for the con-
sumption of London, and drawn from Glasgow
and Manchester and the neighbouring districts,
London was a mean of robbing Lanarkshire
and Lancashire of clothing. The market of
London, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Manchester,
Liverpool and other large towns not only
enables the cultivator of the most distant and
worst cultivated districts to attempt with suc-
cess land which he could not have meddled
with without its demand, but by creating
additional employment, puts it in the power of
more of the residents to obtain a better share
both of necessaries and comforts. Indeed, large
250
THE IMPOVERISHING TENDENCY BOOK IV.
•
towns uniformly tend to render the most remote
and thinly peopled districts of the country
richer than they could be without such a con-
nexion, by transferring to them a portion of the
supply of their own extra demand.
The year 1816, which will long be memo-
rable in the history of statistics, as affording
such impressive examples of the operation of
all sorts of causes, gave a decisive answer to
this starvation of the remoter provinces caused
by great cities, though in the converse way.
From the inferior quality of the wheat of the
north of England and of Scotland in general,
that year, London and other great cities would
not buy. But were these provinces fed more
abundantly by having their corn kept within
themselves? A very considerable portion of
the farmers were reduced to the greatest dis-
tress, and many actually ruined, while the
lower ranks, from the deficiency of employment
arising out of this, were in a general state of
distress. Indeed, they would have been in a
state of actual starvation amid plenty, had it
not been for the benevolence of the other
classes of society.
If by the poverty and necessity, which Mr.
Hume speaks of, as preventive of the increase
of population at a rate equal to its natural one,
he means poverty and scarcity arising out of
CHAP. V. ASCRIBED TO POPULATION.
251
}
that increase, this is the leading imagination
of the subsistence theory, and we have only
to repeat the question, how is this effect pro-
duced? The result of the increase of popula-
tion in real life is uniformly, as we have seen,
quite the reverse. That increase tends to pro-
mote both wealth and abundance.
This obscure passage, however, admits of a
different interpretation. He may mean to say
only, that were it not for the artificial poverty
and necessity, created by other situations of
affairs less favourable to the increase of popu-
lation than those found in these small common-
wealths, population would double itself every
generation; and all the beneficial effects arising
from so rapid an increase would follow. I do
not believe an increase so rapid would result
from this cause; but, if it did take place, there
would unquestionably be a corresponding in-
crease in the means of obtaining necessaries
and comforts among all ranks of the augmented
numbers.
But if we interpret this passage in the
former sense, it amounts to nothing. It is a
mere opinion. And we have seen how clearly
and uniformly facts are upon the other side.
Let then the abettors of a contrary principle in
population, or a tendency in its increase to
arrest the progress of circulators in wealth, and
to render them poorer, bring forth in opposi-
252
THE IMPOVERISHING TENDENCY
BOOK IV.
tion to the host of facts in favour of the wealth-
augmenting principle, not to say an equal
number, but a single solitary fact either to
prove or illustrate their principle. Let them
show us a single town, district or country,
which, cæteris paribus, has grown richer than
each was before, from a decrease of population.
All ancient and all modern times cannot afford
them one.
It has been attempted to adduce Ireland, as
a proof that the population of a country may
increase rapidly without a corresponding in-
crease in wealth. In that country there are
undoubtedly some circumstances extremely
adverse to the increase of income and of capital.
Yet even there, in spite of the counteraction of
these, the wealth-augmenting principle of the
increase of population has been seen in general
operation, as every where else: and especially
within the last thirty or forty years, during
which the increase of numbers has been the
most rapid. The rental alone is said within
the last twenty-five years to have risen from
six to fifteen millions. But this rise is so extra-
ordinary, that some exaggeration may be sus-
pected. The wealth of the other classes has
increased very considerably, though it can
scarcely be conjectured to be at a similar rate
with that ascribed to the cultivator.
We have noticed an obscure opinion of Mr.
1
Г
CHAP. V. ASCRIBED TO POPULATION.
253
Hume. This statistician seems evidently par-
tial to the system of small farms. Another
statistician, of the opposite side with respect to
the size of farms, expresses the impoverishing
influence arising from the increase of population
in clearer terms, and Mr. Malthus has quoted
him with great satisfaction.
"France itself," says Mr. Arthur Young,
"affords an irrefragable proof of the truth of
these sentiments; for I am clearly of opinion,
from the observations I made in every province
of the kingdom, that her population is so much
beyond the proportion of her industry and
labour, that she would be much more powerful
and infinitely more flourishing if she had five or
six millions less of inhabitants *."
Here we have an irrefragable proof, and
why? Mr. Arthur Young is clearly of opinion,
and Mr. Malthus agrees with him. This indeed
may be reckoned a decisive proof by some par-
tizans. But there are statisticians, who, on the
other hand, are clearly of opinion, that it is
utterly impossible in the very nature of things,
that the population of France or of any other
country can be "beyond the proportion of its
industry and labour," or that the proportion
of the latter can be increased by diminishing
the number of circulators, that is, in fact, the
* Young's Travels in France, vol. i. ch. 17. p. 469.
Malthus's Essay, vol. iii. B. iv. ch. 11. p. 235.
254 THE IMPOVERISHING TENDENCY BOOK IV.
amount of the demand; and that every unit
added to its population, from being a buyer as
well as a seller, creates an additional demand,
and increases the stimulus on the circulandary
powers. In all the countries which have de-
creased in population since the commencement
of history they find irrefragable proofs, that
France would neither have been so powerful not
yet so flourishing, had her population at the
close of the eighteenth century been reduced to
what it was at the beginning, or rendered at
least five or six millions less. Does Mr. Arthur
Young really believe that the population of
France was as well employed and as rich when
it consisted of eighteen or twenty millions as at
present? Or how far does he mean to go back, or
what is the rate of population per square mile,
which he in his imagination fixes upon as rous-
ing most industry, producing most employment,
and, of course, creating most wealth? As he
and Mr. Malthus seem so fond of reducing
population, perhaps, they may not choose to
stop, till they reach the period some two or
three thousand years ago, when all Gaul did
not contain a million of souls. Then indeed
they may be clearly of opinion, that her popu-
lation bore so correct a proportion to her in-
dustry and labour, that she was better em-
ployed and more wealthy, or, in the words of
our statistical tourist, much more powerful
}
3
>
7
CHAP. V. ASCRIBED TO POPULATION.
255
1
and infinitely more flourishing, than now when
she is so distressed and so unfortunate, as to
possess on a similar extent of territory, it is
said, nearer thirty than twenty millions. To
such absurdities do these visionary dogmas
reduce our antipopulationists.
"If you would see," says Mr. Arthur
Young, "a district with as little distress in it
as is consistent with the political system of the
old government of France, you must assuredly
go where there are no little proprietors at all.
You must visit the great farms in Beauce,
Picardy, part of Normandy and Artois, and
there you will find no more population than
what is regularly employed and regularly paid;
and if in such districts you should, contrary to
this rule, meet with much distress, it is twenty
to one but that it is in a parish, which has some
commons which tempt the poor to have cattle
-to have property-and in consequence misery.
When you are engaged in this political tour,
finish it by seeing England, and I will show
you a set of peasants well clothed, well nou-
rished, tolerably drunken from superfluity, well
lodged and at their ease; and yet amongst
them, not one in a thousand has either land
or cattle *.'
I quote this passage only to point out the
appearance of the cloven foot, and to show,
*Travels in France, vol. i. ch. 17. p. 471.
256
THE IMPOVERISHING TENDENCY
BOOK IV.
that our tourist in this rhapsody against popula-
tion, was probably only giving vent to his fond-
ness for large farms. That the system of small
farms tends to keep more hands in the busi-
ness of cultivation than is necessary, and rather
to promote idleness among the peasants, is
true. It is also true, that while this system
retains more hands than are required, these
hands cultivate the soil less effectually. And
this is the fact, I believe, with respect to a con-
siderable portion of France. But why should
population be reduced, that farms may become
large? Large farms and increasing population
are perfectly compatible with each other. In-
deed were this the place, it could be shown, that
one of the effects of an increasing population,
is a tendency to enlarge farms. In his fury for
great farms he has run full against one of the
clearest laws of nature, and, as ever must be the
result of such attacks, dashed at once his theory
to pieces.
France, far from "presenting spectacles
of wretchedness in every quarter from her
too great population" to all, as this agricul-
tural tourist affirms she did to him, has exhi-
bited every where scenes of so different
a description to some other tourists,, who
have visited her since she had reached a still
higher degree of populousness, that they have
not hesitated to give the preference to her
CHAP. V.
257
ASCRIBED TO POPULATION.
against England. Mr. Gray also, like thou-
sands of our countrymen, has been a tourist
through a portion of this well-peopled country,
and he agrees neither with Mr. Arthur Young,
nor these later tourists. He neither saw spec-
tacles of wretchedness in every quarter, nor did
he every where see such substantial marks of
wealth as in England. It is true, he saw her
at a time of general stagnation through her
domains, as throughout all Europe. But he
found the real principles of population in as
complete operation, and beheld their usual
results as distinctly in her territory, as they are
seen every where else. Her people, allowing
for the diminution of employment, produced
by the annihilation of the war circuland, were
every where tolerably busy. The marks of the
wealth inseparable from such a high rate of
population were also very distinctly perceptible
every where, but certainly, he affirms, not in a
degree equal to that generally found on this
side of the water. This population tourist, it
is true, is a most decided populationist, and
his opinion, like that of our antipopulationists,
is not above suspicion of a little theoretical
biass like theirs; but he confesses, he is clearly
of opinion, there were irrefragable proofs every
where that her people in general were much
more constantly employed and wealthier, than
S
258 THE IMPOVERISHING INFLUENCE
BOOK ff.
when they amounted to only two thirds the
number on the same territory.
Mr. Arthur Young, however, is, or at least
was, of a very different opinion. The great
population of France is her chief misfortune
and misery. "The predominant evil of the
kingdom (France) is the having so great a
population, that she can neither employ nor
feed it; why then encourage marriage? Would
you breed more people, because you have
more already than you know what to do with?
You have so great a competition for food, that
your people are starving, or in misery, and you
would encourage the production of more, to
increase that competition *."
But where is the proof that France can
neither employ nor feed her population? It is
one of the clearest results in nature, that the
increase of population carries in itself the
means of employing and feeding itself not
inerely according to the old proportion, but a
new and increased one. And what is there in
the history of French statistics, that contradicts
this, or does not positively support it? Look
to the wonderful exertions which the popula-
tion of France has been able to make against
all Europe for above twenty years. There we
see the resources of such a mass of population,
* Young's Travels in France, vol. i. ch. 17. p. 471.
CHAP. V. ASCRIBED TO POPULATION.
259
and what they are capable of producing.
Much was drawn from the countries which her
armies overran, it is true, but did it not lead
us away from the subject of our discussion, and
tend rather to embroil us in party-politics, it
could be shown that more was drawn from
herself, that by far the larger part of what her
armies drew from other countries was spent in
these, and did her but little good, and that her
own home resources formed the great funda-
mental moving power of those wonderful exer-
tions.
As to feeding herself, we have seen, that,
though her population has increased since Mr.
Arthur Young wrote, she has been several
times in an exporting condition with respect to
subsistence. The lowness of her average price
of food is a decisive proof, that her supply is
equal to the demand. Under the manoeuvrings
of the Duke of Orleans and other revolutionary
chiefs, artificial famines took place about the
time of Mr. Young's visit. And occasionally
since, as in our own country, prices have risen
from the circuinstances of the season, and from
speculation; but the price on the whole has
been fair, and, perhaps, rather too low. One
of the leading arguments of our agriculturists
(whether Mr. Young himself was among them,
I know not) against the corn bill was drawn
1
$ 2
260
BOOK IV;
THE IMPOVERISHING INFLUENCE
from the abundance of subsistence in France,
and the low rate of its price.
And what Mr. Gray saw when he visited
her, confirmed the fulness of the supply. The
slothful ineffective manner, in which the great-
est portion of her lands over which he tra-
velled was cultivated, far from showing any
strong stimulus operating on the cultivators
from a very brisk demand, proved quite the
contrary. The perseverance in so slovenly and
imperfect a system must have arisen from a su-
perfluity of the supply, and a consequent slack-
ness in the demand.
As to "a competition for food," I should
have thought Mr. Arthur Young was too good
an agriculturist, not to know experimentally,
if not to perceive it theoretically, that this must
tend to produce an effect quite the reverse of
what he states, or to enrich the cultivators and
the country instead of impoverishing them.
We have had most striking examples of the
immense addition to agricultural capital as
well as of the increase of employment among
the other classes through their expenditure,
within the last twenty years, from the compe-
tition for food. This competition must neces-
sarily, according to the law of statistics, raise
the price and afford more income.
The demands of town population," which
Mr. Young alludes to, will always increase in
CHAP. V.
261
ASCRIBED TO POPULATION.
L
every country with the increase of population,
and certainly not less, if not more in France,
than in most other kingdoms. In those dis-
tricts of that country, which Mr. Gray tra-
velled through, he found little or none of our
kind of country population, or the population
of cottages, farm-houses or hamlets. With a
few local exceptions, the population seemed to
be all in large villages and towns. The stimulus
created by any increase in their population,
must evidently, therefore, partake of the large
village or town character.
Mr. Arthur Young, in supposing that the
reduction of five or six millions of people out of
five and twenty, would increase the average
quantum of wealth, falls into the error, which
is radical in the subsistence theory. He looks
only at one side of the subject. He imagines
that by reducing five or six millions of sellers,
we shall enable the sellers that remain to sell
more than before. But if he were to take into
consideration, that by this reduction he re-
duces at once five or six millions of buyers also,
he would be somewhat startled. And he might
be disposed to query how it is possible, that
the same stimulus can be created among the
cultivators of the same extent of territory by
cighteen millions of buyers as by twenty-four,
were he even not to trace the effects of this sti-
s 3
262
IMPOVERISHING INFLUENCE, &C. BOOK IV.
mulus round among the other classes of circu-
lators.
Assertions of general distress are just as
easily made as those of general comfort. A
theorist, when travelling, is very apt to look only
at those facts which seem to confirm his opi-
nions, and to overlook those which have a con-
trary aspect. The distress and misery which
our subsistence and antipopulation theorists see
in such a state of exuberance every where, may
very easily be traced, for the most part, to their
own imaginations. What distress does actually
exist, arises from the condition of human nature,
and not from the operation of their principles.
We want not assertions, but proofs. Let
them prove to us, that the history of all districts
and countries increasing in population, with
few if any exceptions, shows that the increase
tends to diminish the average quantum of em-
ployment and wealth among the various circu-
lators; and that, on the other hand, the history
of all districts and countries in which popula-
tion has decreased, shows that this decrease
produces a larger average proportion of employ-
ment and of wealth. Till they can do that, all
their assertions about exuberant distress and
misery from the increase of population will pass
with the statistician only for the result of ima-
gination, or else for facts, the causes of which
they quite misconceive.
1
CHAP. VI. THE INCREASE OF THE POOR, 263-
CHAPTER VL
THE INCREASE OF THE POOR IN ENGLAND.
Ir is objected, that there has been a rapid in-
crease of the poor in England, along with the
increase of her population. This is true. And
so has there been, along with the increase of
her wealth.
Mighty stress has been laid on the fact of
the increase of paupers among us, by the sub-
sistence theorists; but without reason. It has
as much force to prove that the great body of
the people of England is growing poorer, as the
fact of many of our noblemen spending on
eating, drinking, clothing, building, &c. more
than twice the amount of what they spent forty
years ago, or that they pay more than double
to the farming, clothing, building and teaching
classes, has to prove that they are grown
poorer than they were at that period. Such a
fact, according to the principles of circulation,
proves quite the reverse of what it has been
brought to prove. It shows, that the great
body of the people of England is grown much
richer, as it is able to pay, at a higher average
rate, to a larger mass of paupers.
The taking of a large sum at once from a
8 4
264
BOOK IV.:
THE INCREASE OF
nation, for an unusual purpose, as for example
by an invading foe, will produce a temporary
poverty. Such a charge is not provided against,
and cannot, on the sudden, be countercharged
for on the common fund. But if a people
continue to pay a greater sum year after year
for the maintenance of any class within the
country, the fact shows, that the great body
has the means of charging for it, or how else
could they pay it? Persons may grumble, but
mere grumbling will not enable them to pay.
If instead of two pounds formerly paid annu-
ally, three, four, or five pounds are claimed
from a circulator who has only the means of
charging at the old rate of two pounds, the
demander will find, that though he may call,
he will call in vain. Let any person consider
the sixth axiom of Statistics as given in All
Classes productive of national Wealth*, and
he will instantly perceive, that if a nation con-
tinue to pay an increasing sum for any pur-
pose, it must have greater means of paying for
it: that is, it must be able to countercharge for
it amply and this is a proof of its growing
richer. Were England not increasing in wealth,
* B. i. ch. 2. p. 10.
"Whatever circulators continue
to use, they must have the means of charging for upon what
they deal in. Were it not so, they must of necessity give
up the use of it, from not being able to pay for it."
CHAP. VI.
205
THE POOR IN ENGLAND.
she would soon pay fewer paupers, and these at
a lower rate.
Were it even granted that the increase of
pauperism springs wholly from the increase of
our circulators, this would not prove that the
increase of population has any tendency to
increase poverty in a district or a country;
for if it makes a portion poorer, it makes the
great body richer. "The amount paid by
England to maintain her poor in the year 1776
was under two millions, and in the year 1817
it was above eight; but was the average wealth
of the various classes of the people of England
in 1776 equal to the average wealth in 1817 * ?”
The increase of pauperism is unquestion-
ably a great evil, and every one will admit,
that it would be a most desirable thing to be
able to check it. But the question connected
with the population and subsistence theories is,
Does this increase of pauperism show a general
increase of poverty, or is it combined with a
general increase of wealth?
In fact it springs chiefly from the latter.
The real cause of the increase of paupers in
England, and in the average rate of charge for
them, is found, as far as this is beyond the
usual proportion, in her growing richer. Were
she less wealthy, her lower ranks would have,
* See Mr. Gray on the Poor, in Miscellaneous Statistics.
266
BOOK IV.
THE INCREASE OF
"Such
in general, stronger habits of frugality.
is the nature of man, that the wealthier a
country, the greater will be the proportion of
vicious poor in it. For the richer a nation, on
the one hand, the easier is it for its circulators
to find employment in early years; and the less
likely, therefore, are the various classes to learn
prudent and saving habits; and on the other,
it is better able and more ready to attend to
the claims of the needy. The lower classes of
England are, I fear, scarcely so frugal and pru-
dent as those of other countries; and the Eng-
lish pay more to them when in want, because
they are more able to pay: that is, because they
are richer. The plea of distress is set up: they
grumble, and demur, and then admit it *."
As the increase of population necessarily
tends to create new species of circuland, and, of
course, to add to the sources of wealth, the ave-
rage result, upon the whole, will be greater
wealth. But the greater variety of situations in
which these new species of circuland place men,
will expose more circulators to failure. There
will be a greater variety of mere transfer cases
even in spite of prudence in the dealer. When
we consider the natural dissimilitude of character
among circulators, which springs from the dif-
ferent innate predispositions and original in-
* Mr. Gray's Third Letter to M. Say. All Classes
productive, p. 305.
CHAP. VI. THE POOR IN ENGLAND.
267
equalities in human minds, and which cannot
be essentially altered, we must expect impru-
dence among many, and, of course, all its con-
sequences. These innate dispositions and ori-
ginal inequalities unquestionably tend greatly,
on the whole, to promote the happiness of
society; but they produce also occasional evils.
If England continue to increase in population
and wealth, she must expect that her charges
to support both the unfortunate and vicious
poor will increase. We may partially check
this evil, but we shall never do it away.
It is only by means of friendly societies, and
saving banks, and other institutions of that
kind, that any thing really palliative can be
accomplished. All other plans to oppose the
natural consequence of greater wealth, or the
relaxation of frugal notions and habits in the
great mass, while they would not make the
middle and higher classes more wealthy and
happy, would only tend to promote poverty and
unhappiness among the lower ranks of society.
268
BOOK IV.
NOTION OF AN INJURIOUS
CHAPTER VII.
HAS THE NATURAL PROPORTION, WHICH SUBSIST-
ENCE BEARS TO POPULATION IN ITS INCREASE,
A TENDENCY TO CHECK THE PROGRESS OF THE
LATTER IN WEALTH?
E
We have seen that the increase of population
has naturally a wealth-increasing influence.
This is found to be universally true. And yet
it has been denied by some, at least, partially.
Mr. Malthus has broached a peculiar notion
on the increase of population. "The constant
effort in the population to increase beyond the
means of subsistence," says he, "as constantly
tends to subject the lower classes of society to
distress, and to prevent any great permanent
melioration of their condition *:
This is perhaps the boldest specimen of
theorising in direct opposition to facts, that I
recollect to have met with in the whole extent
of my inquiries. That such an opinion should
be broached in the nineteenth century, and
persisted in by any statistician after the inass of
statistical facts in all branches of the science,
which has been laid before us, in full deve-
Essay, vol. i. B. i. ch. 2. p. 25.
CHAP. VII. INFLUENCE IN POPULATION.
269
lopement, during the last thirty years, seems
extraordinary. It shows either an extreme un-
acquaintance with the principles of circulation,
its causes and effects, or an utter disregard of
them. On subjects connected with enthu-
siasm, it is true, that such a defiance of
facts should be hazarded, would not be matter
for much astonishment. We are constantly
finding something new of this sort to amuse
us; and enthusiasm or fanaticism will fully
account for all. But for a writer on the cool
science of statistics to venture so boldly, was
less to be expected. It is indeed only another,
but it is a most striking example of the power
of theory over the mind of a theorist which
can so invert causes and so distort facts, as to
make him see proofs of his theoretical imagi-
nations in causes and facts that give them a
direct negation.
It would be only to repeat what has been
already stated so minutely, to go into these
causes and results. The history of the increase
of population in all ages and in all countries,
proves the direct contrary. Not an example
of its increase but joins to prove, that there is
a constant effort in that increase to place all
ranks of population in a better state, with re-
spect to both the necessaries and superfluities of
life, than before. The improvement among
all classes is distinctly visible on comparing
270
BOOK IV.
NOTION OF AN INJURIOUS
different rates of population, or taking any ave-
rage of twenty or thirty years, or sometimes
even ten. And the more rapid the increase,
the more striking is the progress in the general
improvement. The difference in this point
between a very thin and very crowded rate, is
infinite for example, between the state of the
various ranks in Britain about the time of
Julius Cæsar, or even at the Conquest, and
that in the reign of George the Third. Indeed
the difference in the melioration of condition
among the lower ranks of Britons, in all
respects, except the effects arising not from
want or poverty, but from abundance and
wealth, since the close of the American war, is
surprising. The progress is so notorious, that
it is now a trite saying in the mouths of many
persons of the lower classes, that a peasant now-
a-days enjoys more comforts and is better edu-
cated, than the squire and other rich men some
hundreds of years ago.
The history of Europe during the last three
centuries, in which, with some exceptions (the
state of which, by the way, confirms the obser-
vation), its population has made so rapid a pro-
gress, proves and exemplifies this in the most
pleasing manner. The progress of improve-
ment in the condition of all ranks, has fully
kept pace with the increase of the numbers.
Those nations which have peopled slowest,
5
CHAP. VH.
271
INFLUENCE IN POPULATION.
have made the least progress in improvement,
and in those that have increased fastest, the con-
dition of the lower ranks, cæteris paribus, has
been most improved. Indeed, the condition
of all classes has shared in the beneficial effect,
and of none more than that of cultivators,
farmers as well as labourers. The increase of
population will at length, and probably ere
long, explode even the serf system in Russia.
The various ranks, it is true, have kept pretty
much their respective distances, but all have
risen.
The histories of districts or countries, that
have either remained stationary or decreased
in population, prove the same thing in another
way. In the former, the circumstances of
the lower ranks have experienced little or no
improvement in the latter, their conditions
have grown worse.
In sum, it is to the increase of population, and
to the augmentation of employment and wealth,
the superior cultivation of mind, the exten-
sion of liberty and a more comfortable style of
living, which this increase necessarily produces,
that the amelioration in the condition of the
lower classes generally throughout Europe, is
chiefly, if not wholly, either directly or indi-
rectly, to be attributed. And it is only to this
increase, that they have to look forward for
272
BOOK IV.
NOTION OF AN INJURIOUS
a farther progress in ameliorating their con-
dition.
Let us now examine what is adduced by
Mr. Malthus to set aside all this mass of uni-
form facts.
He reckons that the tendency, which he
assumes in population, to increase faster than
subsistence, operates by means of a diminution
of employment and wealth, arising from this
circumstance in nature *, to check the progress
of improvement. Is there any such result
actually produced in nature? And if there be,
what is the process by which it is effected?
The necessary tendency of a scantiness of
subsistence, as of any other article, according
to the natural laws of circulation, is to increase
the price of it. And this rise is generally
much higher than the real deficiency would
warrant. Nothing but the strictest maximum
imposed by government can prevent its taking
place. Indeed, this effect is produced so
strongly by a deficiency, or a supposed defi-
ciency, of corn, that perhaps, in few other
articles, except some trifling ones of luxury, is
this law of circulation seen so strikingly ope-
rating. This arises from the greater necessity
of the article. And in all cases of a deficiency
of grain, for example, whether real or imagined,
the cry among the lower ranks is for govern-
Essay, vol. i. B. i. ch. 2. p. 26. and passim.
*
CHAP. VII.
273
INFLUENCE IN POPULATION.
1
ment to interfere with its positive maximum
against the operation of this natural law.
The average result then of this supposed
natural deficiency in subsistence would be to
keep this species of article at a rate of price
much higher than a fair average one. No such
result does take place generally; but, as in the
case of all other articles, it does occasionally
and partially occur. Of this we have had
several strong proofs within the last twenty
years.
Were it, however, to take place generally,
the result would be what it is found to be when
it does actually happen, or the reverse of what
Mr. Malthus supposes. The stimulus which it
created through the medium of the rise in the
price of the various articles of food, (which
would be extremely high,) would greatly en-
large the income and capital of the cultivator,
and enable his class to give more than the
fair quantum of employment to others. There
would be a palpable tendency in agriculture to
attract fresh hands to it. This would increase
the proportion of circulators withdrawn from
the other classes, and by augmenting the
buyers from them, render them, of course,
more extensive suppliers. The influence of the
cultivator's prices would also be communicated
as usual to the prices of other classes. These
would more than reimburse themselves.
T
A
274
BOOK IV.
NOTION OF AN INJURIOUS
general increase in employment and wealth
would thus necessarily be the result.
Were it possible, according to the laws of
circulation, that a permanent rise in the prices
of the cultivator could take place without
producing a somewhat corresponding rise in
those of other classes (fixed annuitants, it is
scarcely necessary to observe, are always ex-
cepted here), still an increase of national poverty
would not be the result to a district or a
country. It would be at the worst a mere
transfer case with respect to classes. What
the other circulators had lost in wealth and the
means of giving employment, the cultivating
would have gained. The quantity of employ-
ment and wealth would have been at least, as
before. But no such result can possibly take
place naturally for any length of time. It could
only be the effect of some absurd restrictions of
a despotic government.
But if from the abundance of subsistence
the price were to fall, would not the lower
price tend to induce more members, of the
working classes at least, to marry? Yes, it
would have this effect, provided the fall in the
price of this necessary be not attended with a
diminution of employment, or a fall in the
price of labour. In the latter case the fall in
the price of subsistence might even operate
against marriage, as in the extremely produc-
,
1
1
CHAP. VII.
275
INFLUENCE IN POPULATION.
í
7
tive year 1815. The very abundance of this
year proved a source of distress and ruin to the
farmer, and of starvation to labourers and
others. This is the uniform language of those
who reported concerning the results of the
abundance of that year. "The labouring
classes are also much distressed," says the
Reporter for Fifeshire," in a great measure
owing to the farmer being unable to carry on
any improvement whatever: neither does it
appear, that the manufacturers were at all bene-
fited by the unnatural depression of the price
of grain, crops 1814 and 1815, but the very
reverse *." And the Reporter for the manufac-
turing county of Forfar expresses himself still
more strongly. "The mechanics, in our towns,
again, say, that the demand for their labour is
so very much reduced, that they must make
the most they can of what is left, to keep them
alive. They have been buying meal by pounds
and ounces, which never happened when it was
three shillings or even four shillings a peck,
and are literally starving amidst abundance +
A fine lecture by the way from facts on a low
price.
According to the real principles of circula-
tion, it is a superabundance in the supply of
{
27
Farmer's Magazine, November 1816, p. 491.
* Id. May 1816, p. 259.
-
T 2
276
BOOK IV,
NOTION OF AN INJURIOUS
1
1
food as of other articles, that diminishes the
stimulus on industry and the other circulandary
powers, and produces depression, and not a tend-
ency to deficiency, as Mr. Malthus imagines.
This, on the contrary, always creates addi-
tional stimulus, and except in some temporary
excessive cases, uniformly increases income
and wealth. A constant superabundance of
food, or an average ainount of subsistence ex-
ceeding that required by the actual population,
or what is equivalent, a proportion of culti-
vators beyond what the number of demanders
renders sufficient to adjust the supply to the
demand, were such a thing possible, would,
like a superabundance of manufactures, houses,
&c. injure both the suppliers and demanders,
produce a perpetual depression, and operate
uniformly against marriage.
In all these cases, with respect to subsist-
ence as well as other articles, the price is to be
combined with the quantity produced. A larger
quantity with a lower price, may diminish the
income of the farmer, and consequently his
means of reproducing employment; and thus
as far as depends upon him, wages will fall.
On the other hand, a smaller quantity with a
higher price may enable him to obtain a larger
income. He will thus be able to create "more
employment, and give better prices.. The
greater quantity of subsistence, in the former
I
វ
CHAP. VII. INFLUENCE IN POPULATION.
277
case, will operate against income and marriage,
and the smaller quantity, in the latter, will
operate in favour of both.
It is thus also clear, that whatever influence
subsistence has, it has only in common with other
species of circuland. There is nothing in the
least peculiar in it, or essentially regulative,
distinct from that of those other species, or
drawn from any natural tendency in it to in-
crease slower than population. It operates in
producing wealth merely like them, as being
a medium of employment and price, and its in-
fluence must be, speaking generally, in the
proportion which it bears to other articles in
price, or according to Mr. Gray's scale, on the
average of British consumption to the amount
of about thirty per cent.*
Mr. Malthus's general principles have been
shown to be so contrary to those operating
universally in real life, that it seems unneces-
sary to go into the application of them to par-
ticular districts. I may quote one by way of
illustration.
"Other circumstances being the same, it
may be affirmed that countries are populous
according to the quantity of human food which
they produce or can acquire. But their hap-
piness does not depend either upon their being
K
* Happiness of States, B. vi. ch. 4. p. 461.
•
T 3
278
BOOK IV.
NOTION OF AN INJURIOUS
thinly or fully inhabited, upon their poverty or
their riches, their youth or their age; but on
the proportion which the population and the food
bear to each other. This proportion is generally
the most favourable in new colonies where the
knowledge and industry of an old state operate
on the fertile unappropriated land of a new one.
And it has appeared, that the poor and thinly
inhabited tracts of the Scotch Highlands are
more distressed by a redundant population than
the most populous parts of Europe *.”
Now what is the real fact with respect to
the proportion between the food and the popu-
lation in the distressed Highlands, the district
selected out of all Europe to show the distress
arising from a redundancy of population in pro-
portion to food? If we except some of our highly
improved mere agricultural districts of no great
extent, there is not a portion of the British
empire, and I will venture to say, there is not a
district of such extent in Europe, that produces
a greater quantity of surplus food, in proportion
to its population than this very district selected
for a contrary proportion. I know not that any
new colony, not even among those in the newly
cleared districts of North America, produce so
much in proportion to their population as the
Highlands of Scotland. The mountain straths,
lochs and narrow seas of our high-famed
* Essay, vol. ii. B, ii, ch. 13. p. 215.
T
CHAP. VII.
279.
INFLUENCE IN POPULATION.
mountaineers of the North, who have done and
suffered so much for the establishment of the
liberty of the continent, as well as for the
security and glory of their native island, send
annually to other more populous districts and
countries as much surplus subsistence in the
form of cattle, sheep and fish, as would feed at
least an amount of population, I think I am
warranted in asserting, fully equal to the resi-
dent. Some portions of this mountainous
region, it is true, draw on their neighbours
for corn; but the universal appropriation of
grain, through all its nooks, to the production
of the favourite but injurious spirit whisky,
show a surplus quantity even of that species of
subsistence, as to demand for mere food.
If then these Highlanders be distressed, or
suffer from a redundancy of population, it is
from some other cause, than the deficiency of
the proportion of the food, which they annually
receive from the hands of nature and of in-
dustry.
Their population is indeed redundant; but
why? Not from the proportion of the food
supplied. That, by the way, population can
always regulate whether in the Highlands or
out of them. But because, from natural and
artificial circumstances, their population is so
thin, and therefore poor and ill-employed. It
is prolific, but it does not accumulate. A
匪
​T 4
280
BOOK IV
NOTION OF AN INJURIOUS
great portion of its new members annually
emigrate, but not from a want of subsistence
supplied by nature and industry. The feeders
and fishers among them procure such a super-
abundance of that, they are forced to send it
to other districts to be consumed, Our kilted
mountaineers emigrate because, from the thin-
ness of their population, they have not employ-
ment or the means of income sufficient, or at
least, because they see better prospects of at-
taining to full employment and a larger income
in more populous districts and countries, par-
ticularly England, though the proportion of
the food of these to the population be much
smaller than in their own,
As this immense tract of mountains and
straths becomes more populous, and their
towns, of course, increase, the Highlanders find,
(and they will continue to find) the resident
mouths approaching nearer to the amount of
eatables which they produce; but while this
disproportion decreases they perceive that, in a
ratio quite the inverse of what is imagined by
Mr. Malthus, their proportion is becoming less
redundant. And the thicker it does grow, the
less redundant will it be found to be. They
can employ more hands at home. And the
more they employ at home, the richer and
more luxurious will their various classes be-
come, till at length, in spite of their improve-
L
CHAP. VII.
281
INFLUENCE IN POPULATION.
ments in pasturing sheep, their mountains and
straths will have such an increasing demand on
them from the resident mouths, that they will
have much less, if any, surplus subsistence to
send to those of the lowlands.
Mr. Malthus, in selecting the Highlands of
Scotland for an eminent proof of his favourite
but fanciful notion respecting the proportion of
food to population, is thus as unfortunate as
usual in his appeal to facts. Their history is
decisive against the subsistence theory and for
the population.
Г
To recapitulate: The increase of population
extends the old sources of wealth, and creates
new, by augmenting and multiplying the wants
of the great mass, and enabling this body
more amply to obtain what they want. It
produces new classes, and thus continues to
enlarge the average demand. It raises gra-
dually the general rate of price, that is, in fact,
the incomes of the various classes. Nor is the
increase of wealth, arising from the increase of
population, according to the old proportion per
individual, but keeps augmenting according to
a proportion which seems to grow larger, as
the population becomes more crowded, and the
increase of numbers is more rapid. On the
other hand, the decrease of population inva-
riably causes a depression by lessening the
stimulus on the circulandary powers, and pro-
282 NOTION ON AN INJURIOUS, &c. BOOK IV.
duces poverty. Every circumstance, whether
natural or artificial, which tends to check the
accumulation of population, uniformly tends,
as far as it proves effective, to check the pro-
gress of wealth. All districts and countries
that labour under a natural or artificial check-
ing of population, exemplify this. In sum,
though the increase of population, by means of
the increased facility which it gives in obtain-
ing larger incomes at an earlier age, renders
circulators less provident and frugal in their
habits, and has a tendency rather to augment
the number of the vicious poor, it uniformly
makes the great body richer.
The two leading doctrines of the Happiness
of States on this subject, seem thus clearly
established: 1, that "the increase of population
is the great, indeed the sole, original cause of the
permanent increase of wealth*." And 2, that
CC
every increase in the number of circulators
necessarily tends to increase it, and not merely
according to the average quantity of the former
dividend, but also according to a new average
quantity, which is augmented in proportion to
the new numbers." The latter is evidently the
real result of the former in actual circulation.
A wealth-augmenting influence in the increase
of population is thus a clear principle of nature.
B. ii. ch. 10. p. 125.
+ Ib. ch. 2. p. 26.
3
283
5
BOOK V.
ዳና
SOME PRACTICAL TOPICS, INCLUDING THE
EFFECTS OF THE TWO THEORIES. SE
CHAPTER I.
THE GENERAL RESULT OF THE INCREASE OF POPU—
LATION WITH RESPECT TO HEALTH.
WE E have examined the results of the increase
of population with regard to those eminent
portions of the means of happiness, subsistence,
employment and wealth. There is another
most important division of those means, and
not less interesting than any of these. It is
health.
According to Mr. Gray, the diseases and
evils generated by the increase of population,
are chiefly those which spring from luxury, or
an excess of subsistence, and from riches. On
the other hand, Mr. Malthus seems to main-
tain, that the predominant diseases and evils
generated by the increase of population are
chiefly those springing from a scarcity of food
and from poverty.
A
284
BOOK V.
INCREASE OF POPULATION
As to general health, it probaby may admit
of a doubt whether this be materially improved
by an increase of population. A thick popu-
lation has unquestionably many advantages, in
regard to medical treatment and to comforts in
sickness, over population in a thin scattered
state. The condition of persons labouring
under disease, or injured by accidents, in the
thinner states, is truly deplorable: while even
the poorest persons in a highly populous coun-
try, as in Britain, have in their power means of
comfort and attention, as well as of cure, in
infirmaries and hospitals, which the richest
and highest persons in the thinner states
cannot obtain. On the other hand, the various
employments of the sedentary cast and of
other descriptions injurious to health, intro-
duced, indeed created by the wealth and
luxury which spring from the increase of popu
lation, perhaps make disease more extensive.
At the same time, by enervating the human
body as well as mind, they render both less
capable of withstanding the attacks of disease.
There are certain maladies, which are com-
mon to all states of population. Such are the
regular diseases of children, and fever, con-
sumption, &c. Some of these are more de-
structive in the thinner, and some in the more.
crowded states. The small pock, for example,
in the thinly peopled and less civilized districts
CHAP. I.
285
AS TO HEALTH.
is frequently as destructive as the plague itself.
In the more populous and civilized, it is, or may
be, rendered comparatively harmless. Fevers
and consumption, I apprehend, are more pre-
valent in the more populous and better fed dis-
tricts. The plague, which is so dreadful in
thinly peopled or imperfectly civilized regions,
seems capable of being completely prevented
by the civilization, cleanliness, and prudent
conduct, which are uniformly found to attend
the increase of population, when the natural
influence of this is not counteracted by the
effects of despotism, or the notions of a false
religion.
It seems very evident, however, that the
diseases most predominant in the thinner states
of population, are those which arise from po-
verty and a deficiency of comforts; and, in the
more crowded states of population, those which
spring from a superfluity of the good things of
life, or from luxury.
If we read history, or attend to the traveller,
or if we survey the world for ourselves, we find
that it is in thinly-peopled districts, where the
people are wretchedly poor, and where they
suffer frequently from a scarcity of subsistence.
To quote examples is superfluous. We cannot
mention any thinly-inhabited district, where
population is either stationary or slow in its
increase, which is not a proof of it. Even our
286
BOOK V.
INCREASE OF POPULATION
own island affords striking examples. Which
are the districts that have suffered principally
from a deficiency of food? Are they the most
or the least populous? Are they not the ex-
tensive counties of the Highlands
Nor did
this arise from a real scarcity of subsistence;
for even in those years, when provisions were
most scanty among the residents, these counties
exported abundance of cattle and fish. But
from the thinness of the population there was
such a deficiency of employment, and such a
consequent general poverty, that when provi-
sions came to be dearer than usual, the people
had not the means of purchasing them in due
quantity, particularly in the more expensive
form of cattle. These were, therefore, sent away
to feed those who were able to pay for them,
or better employed and richer circulators.
The observations of Dr. Adam Smith on
the mortality of children in the Highlands*,
are by no means warranted by the registers.
The fact, that the resident population of the
Highland counties is increasing considerably,
while there is an excessive emigration annu-
ally taking place, is a clear proof of the con-
trary. And I do not think, that I have
found, in any of my tours, a finer, more
robust, healthy-looking, and numerous stock
* Wealth of Nations, vol. i. ch. 8. p. 107.
+ Happiness of States, B. vi. ch. 4. p. 450.
CHAP. I.
287
AS TO HEALTH.
1
1
of children, of all ages up to puberty, than I
have met with in the Highlands.
The effects of luxury or an excessive use of
food and liquors, co-operating with unhealthy
employments, in very populous districts, are
seen in the size of the people, and their cast
and colour of countenance. In those districts
where manufactures have been introduced and
towns have greatly increased in the memory of
persons living, I have been informed, that old
people perceive a striking reduction both in
height and breadth. In some districts these
persons say, the average height of the residents
of certain towns have been reduced two or
three inches. And it is certain that in manu-
facturing districts and very large towns, the
native inhabitants are in general by no means
so tall or stout as in the agricultural, or in
small towns and villages. Compare for ex-
ample, the native residents of the city of Lon→
don with the inhabitants of Berwickshire and
Northumberland, and they scarcely seem
people of the same tribe or nation. I should
conceive there must be a difference of at least
four inches in height between the general stand-
ard of the two.
A similar difference exists in the robustness
of the make. There are many large men in
our populous towns, but they are fat rather
than robust. They give us the idea of size
288
BOOK V.
INCREASE OF POPULATION
without strength, or rather of mere bulk with
positive imbecility.
1
The colour and form of the face agree in
pointing out the same difference resulting from
luxury and frugal fare. The sallow paleness
and hectic cast of face, so common among the
native residents of our large towns, both male
and female, and the brown or florid com-
plexions and coarser make of face that abound
in our thinly peopled districts, are most strik-
ingly characteristical of the general styles of
living. The former exhibit the hue and cast
of settled disease: the latter, of fixed health.
There are many rosy countenances in towns,
but far from showing active vitality, this rud-
diness appears to be rather the diagnostic of
gout, fever, and apoplexy.
་
Occasionally, it is true, from a deficiency of
employment caused by certain circumstances,
the diseases prevailing for the time in populous
and rich countries, indicate a lower style of
living than usual. In these cases the greatness
of the change, from a too high style to one too
low, produces injurious effects. But the gene-
rally predominant diseases in thinly-peopled
and populous districts point out a too scanty
style of living as a leading cause in the former,
and luxury and a superfluous use of food and
liquors, a leading cause in the latter. The
terrible host of nervous disorders, as they are
CHAP. I.
289
AS TO HEALTH.
called in the mass, some of which were scarcely
known to our ancestors in the thinly-peopled
times, and which keeps increasing in our more
populous towns, and districts, is both proof
and example of the vast and universal influence
of an intemperate use of foods. They may be
called the diseases of luxury.
Mr. Gray's general observations on this
subject seem fully warranted. "Much has
been said by theorists of the depopulating
effects of an insufficiency of subsistence. But
what is the real fact? If we exclude famines,
either produced by the seasons, or the villany
of men, the number that dies from an insuffi-
cient quantity of food is but trifling. Perhaps
in the whole extent of Great Britain not two
hundred die of actual starvation in a year,
and perhaps not two thousand have their lives
shortened by an insufficiency of food. What
is this effect on population to what is produced
on it by a superfluity? Besides the thousands,
that are annually prevented from coming into
existence by the defecundating influence of
abundance, how many thousands actually die
every year from it, and how many tens of
thousands have the natural extent of their lives
shortened by its slow poison *!"
Happiness of States, B. vi. ch. 4. p. 460;
IJ
290 THE RESULT OF EARLY MARRIAGE, BOOK V.
A
CHAPTER II.
THE RESULT OF EARLY MARRIAGE, AS TO
VIRTUE.
THE maintainers of the antipopulation theory
have of late contended, that government
ought to check, instead of encouraging a na-
tional practice of early marriage. This doc-
trine has met with abettors among our country
gentlemen, justices and magistrates. It has,
therefore, become a matter of serious practical
importance to ascertain how far it is well
founded; and to settle the question, whether
government should encourage, or check, early
marriage among the lower ranks.
It will be necessary, in the discussion of this
question, to institute a comparison between
early and late marriage, as to their general
results to a nation, with respect to the three
grand points, virtue, happiness and wealth. It
is true, that wealth is the point, on which the
opponents of early marriage rest their cause;
but the other points are of inore vital import-
ance. The sound statistician will admit, that
though early marriage promoted the increase
of wealth, if it tended to injure morality, it
ought to be checked.
CHAP. II.
291
AS TO VIRTUE.
But with respect to virtue there can scarcely
be a question as to the influence of early mar-
riage. It is as favourable to the progress of
every sort of virtue, as late marriage is unfa-
vourable to it.
The habits naturally, if not necessarily,
arising from marriage, and the prospect and
cares of a family, particularly among young
people, are all in favour of morality. It begets
prudence, (which alone is the source of almost
every virtue,) temperance, correctness of man-
ners, and a due attention towards promoting
our future progress by industry, diligence,
steadiness and frugality. It cherishes friend-
liness, sympathy for others, benevolence and
even generosity.
On the other hand, the habits naturally
arising from bachelordom are very much the
reverse of all these. It gives rise to licentious-
ness in love, with all the vices which spring
from this fertile source of dissipation and im-
morality; to irregularity, unsteadiness, incor-
rect manners; and unless when the bachelor's
mind has a predisposition to a narrow selfish-
ness, to imprudence in all its forms and with
all its bad concomitants.
It may be fairly affirmed, that the earlier
the common period of marrying is in a nation,
the more likely is that nation to be virtuous,
and prudent, and to be correct in its manners:
U 2
292
BOOK V
EARLY MARRIAGE,
and the later the period, the more generally will
vice, licentiousness, extravagance and impure
manners prevail.
CHAPTER HII.
2
THE RESULT OF EARLY MARRIAGE, AS TO
HAPPINESS.
THE increase of population may be the great;
indeed the sole original cause of the permanent
increase of wealth; and yet the question whe-
ther government should encourage early mar-
riage may not be immediately answered in the
affirmative. For it may be favourable to a
nation's wealth, and yet injurious to a nation's
happiness.
If, for example, the result of early marriage,
a rapid increase of population, should deprive
the great body of the people of a due quantity
of food and comforts, the greater wealth arising
from it would not be sufficient to justify the
encouraging such a national practice. Hap-
piness, and not wealth, is the genuine object of
a wise nation's measures.
A greater amount of wealth cannot always
create a greater amount even of the super-
fluities of life, and we can conceive circum-
1
CHAP. III.
293
AS TO HAPPINESS.
stances, when wealth cannot procure a due
quantity of food. The former may be dis-
pensed with occasionally without much injury
to the happiness of individuals; but the latter
are as indispensably necessary to happiness, as
to existence. Wealth can procure corn, meat,
and water, when the means of producing these
are supplied by nature, but no amount of wealth
can create the least additional particle of these,
unless those means are in its power.
But while the
This is fully admitted.
means of additional subsistence are supplied
by nature, and this will be the fact until those
means in store are fully exhausted by popula-
tion, if ever such a period shall arrive, the
greater the average amount of wealth, as it has
been amply shown, the more will circulators of
all ranks be enabled to obtain a full and steady
supply of the various kinds of food, whether
necessary or luxurious.
In comparing matrimony with the single
state as to happiness, a family forms the most
prominent object of consideration.
A family is one of the leading means of
human happiness. In this point of view chil-
dren are certainly regarded by the great mass
of mankind.
The expense created by them to a circu-
lator is not a drawback upon his happiness,
but the medium of a solid addition to it, like
U 3
294
BOOK V.
EARLY MARRIAGE,
any of the other real sources of enjoyment.
What the bachelor expends on himself, we
shall suppose in superfluities of eating and
clothing, and perhaps on some impure con-
nexion, the husband expends in feeding and
clothing his children. But is the latter more
unhappy because he shares his income with a
wife and family? The very act of sharing with
them produces enjoyment, which no selfish
gratification could afford him. When he looks
round his table and sees his wife and little folks
eating the earnings of his labours, what though
his fare should be a little homelier, but even
this is not always the case? Does he not
receive infinitely more pleasure from beholding
the enjoyment of the party, and considering
himself the author of it, than he could from
some superfluities, which, in most cases, would
only tend to vitiate his stomach, and render
him less capable of enjoying the pleasures of the
table? Does he not, to use the expression, eat
with so many mouths? What has the solitary
bachelor to bring into comparison with this?
Or does not the husband receive much more.
real pleasure from seeing his wife and children
dressed tidily from his labours, than he could
from having a superfluity of fine clothes him-
self? A family is, in fact, in a great majority
of cases, a mean of multiplying a man's hap-
piness.
CHAP. III.
295
AS TO HAPPINESS.
True, a family is also a source of anxiety
and many cares; but these are all of such a
nature, as, by creating an intense interest, to
give a keener poignancy to existence. It has
been observed, that if matrimony has many
cares, bachelordom has few pleasures. At any
rate, if we take in all the peculiar advantages
and disadvantages of the married and single
state, is the latter, even on the whole, prefer-
able? Let us look round among the various
classes, and do we find that the single either
seem happier than the married, or have a
fonder regard for life? It has been remarked,
that the greater number of suicides are ba-
chelor's. And it is stated, that during the
revolutionary times instances of suicide multi-
plied in France, as marriage became less
common.
But I forbear at present from going into a
more minute comparison of the married and
single states in point of happiness, as our
opponents of early marriage do not object to it
on this ground. I believe, such is the instinct
of our nature, and such the general prospects
held out by the single and married states, that
no person ever remains single, but either from a
peculiarity of temper, a bad condition of health,
or some impediment that prevents him or her
from choosing what seems the best and most
natural choice.
U 4
296
BOOK V.
EARLY MARRIAGE,
CHAPTER IV.
THE RESULT OF EARLY MARRIAGE, AS TO
WEALTH.
FROM the points, virtue and happiness, we now
proceed to the comparison between early and
late marriage, with respect to what I fear too
many reckon the most important consideration
of all, or wealth. It is this on which our
subsistence theorists lay so much stress.
It has been argued by Sir James Steuart,
Mr. Arthur Young, Mr. Malthus and others,
who seem unfriendly to the increase of popula-
tion, that early marriage tends to render the
individual poorer, and to increase the evils aris-
ing from want among families.
Were it even the fact, that individuals were
rendered poorer, while the community was ren-
dered richer by the results of early marriage,
for the latter proposition has been so completely
demonstrated, that I consider it in the light of
an axiom in statistics, still it would be wise in
government, which acts rather for the com-
munity than the individual, to encourage early
marriage as tending to enrich the great body
of the people..
It should be attended to here, that with
CHAP. IV.
297
AS TO WEALTH.
i
respect to particular results, we are all very
liable to be deceived from viewing them par-
tially, or from not being aware of, or taking
into consideration the whole of the influences
producing them and springing from them. But
with respect to general results, the candid sta-
tistician cannot well mistake. The various
effects arising from the stimulating influences,
corrected by the counteracting, in all their
extent, are here seen upon so large a scale
and in so distinct a manner, that he has only
to look about honestly, and decide impartially,
to be right. If therefore he find any particular
result that seems to be at variance with the
general, he will be disposed to look on it as a
doubtful case, and to endeavour to reconcile
the former to the latter.
exception to come in the
rule.
He will not allow the
place of the general
Now how is it possible, according to the
arrangements of nature, and the laws of sta-
tistics arising out of them, that early mar-
riage, which, by increasing population, tends
necessarily to render the great mass of the
community richer, should render the individuals
uniformly, or even generally poorer ? The
opinion of these enemies to early marriage
springs, like all the other notions of the sub-
sistence theory, from taking only a partial, ast
well as a very superficial, view of the subject.
298
BOOK V.
EARLY MARRIAGE,
Their reasoning is indeed arithmetically exact
on their partial view.
If a man receive the same wages as a ba-
chelor, which another receives as the father of
five young children, or if, again, a man and
woman marry at an age when six or eight chil-
dren will very likely be the produce of their
union, while another pair comes together at a
period when that produce will amount to only
three or four, while both pairs receive the
same wages, I admit the result will be generally
as they say. I agree with Mr. Malthus, and
all the other declaimers against early marriage
at present, whether among our political econo-
mists or our country justices, that there is
nothing more certain in Euclid, or clearer in
Cocker, than that, cæteris paribus, the ba-
chelor will be richer than the father with five
children; and that the early marrying pair,
with a family of eight, will be poorer than the
late marrying pair with four. But the statis-
tician will perceive, that this is a very imper-
fect statement of the case, and that a much
more comprehensive view is to be taken of the
subject than either these economists or justices
appear to dream of, before he can decide upon
the question. He will à priori be disposed to
conjecture, that however much the results of the
doctrines of theorists may be at variance with
themselves, the various results of nature will
1
CHAP. IV.
299
AS TO WEALTH.
be found not contradictory, but perfectly har-
monious.
In this view is left out the essential circum-
stance, the wealth-producing influence of the
increase of population. The uniform result of
this is to place the great body of circulators in
a better condition than before. But how can
this result take place except from a general
practice of early marriage? Were population
to decrease, or even to remain stationary, by
the general adoption of a later period of mar-
rying, the married pairs would have fewer chil-
dren, on the average, but they would have
a more than proportionately smaller amount
of exchangeable wealth to maintain them.
The means of employment, and consequently of
income, would be less extensive. Besides, the
rate of wages would be inferior; for this rate
depends on the wants of the great mass of the
circulators in the various classes. And these
wants will be increased by an average larger
number of children among the circulators.
The expenses of a family form a necessary part
in the charges of a class. And the more nume-
rous the family, the higher on the average will
be the charge.
It is true, that if a circulator has a number
of children beyond the average, he will, cæteris
paribus, be worse off from this circumstance.
He will receive only the average rate of wages
300
BOOK V.
EARLY MARRIAGE,
or profits, and he has more than an average
demand on him for housekeeping. Many cases
of this kind must occur constantly in all classes.
But with respect to the community it is at
worst only a transfer case. The father may be
pinched or have less in his power to save, but
the other circulators are not the worse for this.
The farmer, clothier, &c. have at least the same
amount of employment from him, as from
others, or as from himself when his family was
smaller, though the amount is divided among
a larger number in his house.
There is, however, also to be added to this,
that these extra additional circulators neces-
sarily at length create additional stimulus, and
thus ultimately augment the average amount of
employment.
But besides, the more rapidly population
increases, the greater is the average demand
for hands. In all districts that are populous,
or in which population increases, the means of
employing young persons are more extensive,
than in thinner peopled districts, or those
whose population is stationary, and still more
where it is decreasing. In very thin districts
children can scarcely be employed at all. In
very crowded districts there is a demand for
them in one mode or another, as soon as they
can do any thing. In the former, large fami-
lies of children are a burden to the circulators;
5
CHAP. IV.
301
AS TO WEALTH:
in the latter, they increase the income of the
family. In these populous districts prudent
parents consider children as a source of wealth.
Indeed one of the evils of a crowded popula-
tion is its tendency to employ children too early
either for health or for virtue. In great towns
and crowded districts, we find children of the
lower ranks regularly employed at five or six
years of
age.
On a survey of all classes, are the married
members, on the whole, poorer ? I conceive the
reverse will be found to be the average result.
Indeed the prudent habits, which marriage and
a family are calculated so strongly to create,
render this result almost certain.
A lady who lives in the suburbs of London,
noticed to me the case of two jobbing gardeners;
whom she occasionally employed. They were
both married, but the one had, I think, five
children, and the other none. The father was
at all times decently clothed: his cottage was;
to use her expression; quite a picture of clean-
liness, comfort and plenty. His wife and chil-
dren came to church dressed as tidily as any
of their rank in the parish. All about this
man bore the marks of a degree of affluence.
The other seemed to be alike industrious, and
received the same wages for his labour; yet
himself, his wife and his house presented a
picture quite the reverse of the former. He
302
BOOK V.
EARLY MARRIAGE,
was always in rags himself: his wife and his
house were equally untidy, dirty, and shabby-
looking. Nor was there any appearance of
good living to account for this. All about him
seemed poverty-struck, and exhibited the
marks of starvation and distress. This con-
trast will bring many similar ones to the recol-
lection of us all.
If early marriage were calculated to pro-
duce poverty among individuals, how is the
greater average wealth of a community, which
uniformly, without an exception, springs from
the increase of population and a thicker rate
of it, produced? Suppose a district containing
one million of individuals, that divided say six
millions sterling, or on an average six pounds
each, should have its population increased at
length to two millions, and that it now divided
fourteen millions, or seven pounds each: how is
it possible that this could happen, unless the
great mass of families on an average shared
more than in the former case? Exceptions in
all classes would exist in the latter state of
population as in the former case; but the great
mass of all classes would be better off in the
latter. Their incomes must of necessity be on
the average larger.
"If in the Highlands of Scotland," says
Mr. Malthus, "for the next ten or twelve
years, the marriages were to be either more
CHAP. IV.
303
AS TO WEALTH.
1
frequent or more prolific, and no emigration
were to take place, instead of five to a cottage,
there might be seven; and this, added to the
necessity of worse living, would evidently have
a most unfavourable effect on the health of the
common people *."
Here, as usual, he leaves out of his consi-
deration the increase of employment and of
wealth, which is uniformly derived from an
accumulation of population. In these very
Highlands I have seen of late, in my tours, the
most pleasing answer given to such theoretical
fancies by actual facts. In proportion as popu-
lation is accumulating there, that poverty, which
is the result of the deficiency of employment
springing from thinness of population, is giving
way.
The tidy cottages of the Highland peasants
and the better clothing of their children, which
are contrasted with the wretched hovels of
other days, out of which I have seen ten or a
dozen sturdy but idle children swarm, in those
straths where population is increasing, show
what population can do even amid heathy
mountains! It is emigration, that keeps these
brave mountaineers unemployed and poor. In
those districts, where population is making any
accumulation, the residents, far from being ren-
* Essay, vol. ii. B. ii. ch. 12. p. 188.
1
304
BOOK V.
EARLY MARRIAGE,
dered poorer or more idle by it, are getting
more employment and reaching a better in-
come, and the cottage is gradually expelling
the hovel.
The Highland children have been charged
with an inveterate disposition to idleness, but
on what ground? They are idle, because, from
the thinness of the population and the consè-
quent smallness of its wants, they have not the
means of employment. When they descend to
the Lowlands, they are found to be active, in-
dustrious and enterprising. But brought up in
the filth and sloth of a wretched hovel, with
no profitable mode of employment to tempt
them to exert themselves, or employed chiefly
in the very idle trade of tending sheep or
cattle, and trusting to their dogs, it is no won
der they become in a manner torpid, in spite
of all their native fire. But as population ac-
cumulates, and employment is varied, these
indolent habits are shaken off even amid their
own stràths and glens; and as it continues to
accumulate throughout these, emigration will
abate, and their activity and comforts will in-
crease in a corresponding proportion.
The notions of the opponents of early mar-
riage are founded on similar partial views, as
the imaginations of the multitude respecting
low prices. Ask any individual of that mass,
and he will tell you, that the prices of his own
CHAP. IV.
305
AS TO WEALTH.
T
class are rather too low, but he will insinuate
that the prices of other classes are too high.
He does not take into his view that he is
speaking here as a buyer only. It would no
doubt be better for him and his class to have
their rate of prices high, and the rate of all
other classes low; but in such a case how is he
to get paid? How can the other classes con-
tinue to employ his, unless they charge at a
corresponding rate? In fact, unless their ave-
rage prices be high, his cannot be high. The
price of every class must rise or sink ultimately
to the level of the rates of other classes.
Our antipopulationists argue in a similar
partial manner with respect to married pairs,
and the circulators who live single. They do
not consider the subject completely round its
circle. They claim the advantage of the
effect; but they reject, or seem disposed to
weaken the cause. Cæteris paribus, no doubt
the single person would be richer than the mar-
ried man with a family. But families are the
grand source of employment and wealth; and
the larger the average of their numbers indivi-
dually, the more copious is this source. How
then could even single persons obtain the same
quantity of employment, or enjoy the same means
of accumulating wealth, from a diminished
source of both; that is, from a smaller average
rate of number per family?
¿
X
306
EARLY MARRIAGE, AS TO WEALTH. BOOK V.
Such a result is impossible; and the con-
trary is uniformly the real one. Though indi-
vidual married pairs, from having families be-
yond the average generally charged for, may be
occasionally made poorer, yet the actual result
of the larger average of the number of a family,
is a greater average amount of employment and
wealth to the mass of individual families, as to
the community at large.
In this case, when the subject is properly
analyzed, we see, as usual, the benevolence of
nature's arrangements. In proportion as the
classes are poorer and more populous, the
community depends more upon the increase of
their numbers. They produce more children
per family on the average, but, of themselves,
they are less able to maintain them. And to
these classes, children, from the abundance
and variety of employment presented to them
by populousness and the increase of population,
prove a source of additional income. As, again,
the classes grow less populous and richer, from
the temper of the classes, their children,
though less numerous per family, become more
of the transfer description of circulators, par-
ticularly the females. They are drawbacks on
their parents' income, and very generally take
from it, but seldom choose to put themselves in
the way of adding to it, like those of the lower
ranks. Whatever our subsistence theorists, or
CHAP. V.
307
EARLY MARRIAGE.
the enemies of early marriage may imagine, the
more populous the society and the more rapid
the increase of population, the more generally
will the old English saying be still, and ever,
found to be just; that, if children be the rich
man's poverty, they are the poor man's wealth.
CHAPTER V.
SHOULD A GOVERNMENT ENCOURAGE OR CHECK
EARLY MARRIAGE AMONG ITS PEOPLE?
CERTAIN objects have more weight with go-
vernment, than with individuals. In consider-
ing the question, whether it should encourage
early marriage or not, it will reckon the addi-
tional strength gained by a country, to main-
tain its rights against its neighbours, as well as
the addition to its respectability and influence
by the increase of its people, as very strong argu-
ments on the side of cherishing the grand source
of that increase. The influence, which the in-
crease of population has in rendering the whole
mass more civilized and, of course, more friend-
ly to internal tranquillity, and more submissive
to the authority of law, will afford it another
powerful argument on the same side. If to all
this be added, that the increase of population
x 2
308
BOOK V.
SHOULD GOVERNMENT
is the original source of the permanent increase
of wealth, that it is continually creating a
larger average amount of employment and
income among all classes, that it renders the
various supplies required by society more steady,
regular and certain, and by all these effects puts
a greater amount of the means of happiness in
the power of all ranks, (whether they improve
or neglect these,) the answer to the question
proposed must be instantly given in the affirm-
ative. To check early marriage, or diminish
the source of so many of the nears of happi-
ness, as some have proposed, would show the
height of folly, as to promote it is a measure of
the soundest practical wisdom.
To encourage early marriage is useful in a
farther point of view. It weakens the injurious
competition on the part of the single. The
practice of it among the working and middle
classes thus operates in favour of these classes,
as well as of itself. It tends to raise the price
of employment, for married circulators require
more than those who are single. By diminish-
ing the proportion of the latter, it succeeds in
obtaining for all a better income. The increase
in the demand, created by the increase of cir-
culators, co-operates along with it. The result,
which is a higher rate of wages, while it renders
marriage more comfortable to those who have
entered into it, at the same time tempts ba-
CHAP. V. ENCOURAGE EARLY MARRIAGE? 309
chelors to think seriously about that natural
choice, by making it more a choice of prudence.
What then is the species of encouragement
which an enlightened government should give
to the practice of early marriage? Certain
occasional circumstances, or certain local pecu-
liarities will dictate the propriety of special
modes of encouragement. But I do not con-
ceive that in common circumstances or cases,
there is much occasion for government inter-
fering, as it were, to bribe the young to marry.
The natural impulse towards marriage among
all ranks, but especially the lower, on whom
the increase of population so essentially de-
pends, is in general of itself strong enough at a
certain period of life, to bring the great body
together in the connubial connexion, as soon
as they can with prudence. All, therefore,
that seems required from government and the
inferior magistrates is, upon every occasion, to
give early marriage their countenance. Cæteris
paribus, preference should always be awarded
to married men who have children. And in
cases, where from misfortune or the circum-
stances of the time, families have fallen into
distress, every measure that is practicable
should be adopted to administer relief. On
the other hand, all connected with authority,
should be enjoined in no case to discountenance
marriage, or throw any impediment in its way.
x 3
310
BOOK V.
SHOULD GOVERNMENT
This, though of itself indirect, will frequently
have a positive influence.
Farther than this I do not conceive, speak-
ing generally, that encouragement is necessary.
The circumstances of the year, or district, will
do all the rest. When these are favourable,
early marriage will flourish: when they are not,
it will rather languish till times become more
auspicious.
Man is a rational being, and he should act
as such, as well as be treated as such. No
constraint is intended. It is sufficient to have
swept away the objections to early marriage,
from a supposed tendency in population to
overstock with respect to subsistence, employ-
ment and wealth; and to have shown, that,
according to the arrangements of nature, it
tends to create a more abundant supply, to
increase employment and wealth, and to pro-
mote virtue and happiness. All this has been
established, as the system of nature, on the
clearest facts. The individual is thus at full
liberty to obey the dictates of nature and of
reason; and, by choosing to marry early, he
necessarily benefits his country and mankind.
In general also, early marriage will equally
tend to the advantage of the individual. The
earlier the honourable connexion takes place,
when prudence assents, the better will it be for
health, for virtue, for success in life, for hap-
CHAP. V. ENCOURAGE EARLY MARRIAGE? 311
piness. But the circumstances of the individual
require individual consideration. The general
result to society is not, of itself, a sufficient
motive in this case for him, or her. All should
consult their own feelings, consider their own
temper and circumstances, look forward like
thinking beings and act to the best of their
judgment. Their happiness is of more value to
them than the wealth of the community. To
marry as early as is consistent with prudence,
will be the choice of the wise man.
What is required of the community, is as
far as it is in its power, to correct those evils
which may and will arise out of the choice of
early marriage, in certain cases. This choice
is always in favour of the community; but
from imprudence, or even from misfortunes
which perhaps prudence could neither foresee
nor prevent, it in various cases proves a source
of disadvantage to the individual. The com-
munity, therefore, which uniformly derives ad-
vantage from the increase of population, should
draw upon that wealth which springs from it,
to relieve the sufferers.
To check early marriage, as some recom-
mend, because many individuals from impru-
dence or misfortune may be reduced to distress
by it, is of that description of measures, which
would sacrifice the whole to save the part. It
is to destroy the source of general wealth, be-
་
x 4
312
BOOK V.
THE PRACTICAL CONSEQUENCES
cause it occasionally leads to individual po-
verty. The proportion of unfortunate cases
would not be diminished by it, while all would
be rendered less prosperous. It would be to
labour to make all poor, in order to prevent a
small portion from falling into misfortune.
In a few words, what government has
chiefly to take care of is the progress of popu-
lation. Let population increase, and all the
rest that a good government wishes, will follow.
CHAPTER VI.
THE PRACTICAL CONSEQUENCES OF THE TWO
THEORIES.
HAVING now found, that the doctrines of the
population theory, are completely supported in
all their extent by the causes operating in real
life and the results of these, while those of the
subsistence are as completely contradicted by
both; in other words, that the former is the
theory of nature, it will be useful to take a
general view of the practical consequences of
the two theories.
The great object of all sound statistical
measures, it has been maintained by Mr. Gray,
1
CHAP. VI.
313
OF THE TWO THEORIES.
is happiness. This I conceive to be an axiom
in statistics.
It is true, that wealth, or some other sup-
posed advantage, has been generally considered
the object of statistical measures. This is,
however, to substitute a portion of the means
for the end. All such secondary objects, un-
less when viewed in connexion with the grand
object of all statistical measures, must be un-
certain, and may occasionally mislead. Such,
indeed, is the force of erroneous views, that an
attempt to return to what is natural and cor-
rect, will be considered as something out of the
way and as unpromising, by many. The more,
however, the question is considered in all its
extent, the more will statisticians be disposed
to admit this leading principle of the Hap-
piness of States; or that it is the promo-
tion of happiness, which is the grand object
of good statistical measures, and of all sound
politics.
Wealth is unquestionably a most extensive
mean of happiness, yet still it is only a mean;
and to account it the grand object, as most sta-
tisticians do, is to exalt it to an unwarranted
and dangerous height. It tends to narrow and
debase the mind, and to produce a mercenary
spirit as well as a petty mode of viewing
things, which has frequently been injurious to
the happiness of states.
314 THE PRACTICAL CONSEQUENCES
BOOK V.
}
This mere five per cent. principle, in spite
of the applause and attention, which it has met
with at all times, but particularly of late from
our statisticians, if uncorrected, is even too
mean for the counting-house. It is granted,
that the leading object of the manufacturer,
merchant, and other circulators, must be profit :
for without profit they cannot go on, or produce
the happiness which is the proper object of all.
But our private circulators are too apt to make
this their principle exclusively, while, in many
cases, they would do better both for themselves
and those whom they employ, were they to
mix a little attention to principles of a nobler
sort.
Private circulators, however, from their cir-
cumstances may be justified in cherishing the
principle of gain as their main one, if they keep
within moral bounds. But it should be a very
secondary principle with legislators and govern-
ment, who act for a nation. Their grand ob-
jects should be to encourage population, and
make that population virtuous, manly and happy.
Very different views will actuate wise ministers,
than merely to promote only the employments
which will produce so much per cent.
The per centage principle, if admitted
would indeed justify much that is base and
abominable. According to it, for example, the
slave-trade was an excellent one and well worth
CHAP. VI.
315
OF THE TWO THEORIES.
the encouragement of government, because a
lucrative one.
This counting-house principle and spirit,
have always had but too strong an influence
with our senators and ministers. Indeed an
enlightened senator or minister, in recom-
mending a measure to parliament and the
country, however noble and worthy of choice in
other points, finds himself constrained to labour
to show, that it comes with the assent of the
five per cent. principle. All must be tried by
the standard of loss and gain. This the people,
if they thought justly, would perceive to be
very mean and very contemptible. It is for-
cing liberal men to treat them in reality as a
parliament and nation of mere chandlers, with
whom wealth is every thing, and five per cent.
or better the glory and happiness of man. It
is degrading to a legislature: it is degrading to
a country.
It has also prevented statesmen and legis-
lators from carrying into execution many mea-
sures, which would tend to exalt the country
and improve the people in it, because these, in
the first instance, did not come recommended
by the sanction of the five per cent. principle.
Our statistical chandlers and others, therefore,
would not approve, and most likely would have
opposed. Real improvement with respect to
happiness, in one form or another, is the stand-
5
316
BOOK V.
THE PRACTICAL CONSEQUENCES
ard of public measures. An enlightened sta-
tistician might well query, though he should set
our country gentlemen and the money grubs of
the Stock Exchange a-staring, whether it would
not have been as well, if not better, for Great
Britain, had an annual million been set apart
for adorning the country and adding to its
comforts, instead of for the purpose of raising
the stocks, and thus by diminishing the profit
on that great branch of capital, the monied,
lessen the incomes of circulators, and the em-
ployment which they are capable of giving.
Indeed it could easily be shown that many
measures in the power of government, which
might produce no per centage at first, but
rather a loss, may ultimately yield directly
or indirectly much more than five per cent.
We may quote for one example, building fish-
ing villages in the Highlands, and supplying
the villagers with all the implements for fish-
ing. This might prove a doubtful speculation
to private merchants, but to government it
cannot fail to succeed, if persisted in. It will
increase the hardy population of those remote
districts, as well as the supply of food. Thus,
though government might receive no direct
return at all for the capital invested, the indi-
rect returns would tend greatly to strengthen
and enrich the country.
But I mean not to go farther into this inte-
CHAP. VI.
317
OF THE TWO THEORIES.
resting subject at present. To employ merely
with a view to obtain profit, is an object for
private circulators; but the great object of
government, as the agent for a nation, is to
endeavour as far as in its power, to employ
with a view to improve the mind, by encou-
raging manly and noble exertions, to adorn the
country and exalt its character, and not so
much to enable the people to guzzle more lux-
uriously, as to render them civilized, virtuous,
healthy and happy.
We have frequently, however, seen our
statesmen and legislators, inspired with views
and feelings more becoming the dealers of
chandler's shops, than the agents of an exten-
sive community or a great country. We have
seen them under the influence of this petty
chander's shop spirit quarrelling about con-
temptible trifles, and overlooking the grand
sources of happiness. It is only by having the
happiness of a state or mankind distinctly in
view as the grand ultimate object, that this base
mercenary spirit of the political pettifogger can
be degraded from its influence, and the generous
liberal spirit of the high-minded and sound
politician substituted in its room. To make
wealth the grand object, as it is of the present
fashionable theories, as naturally tends to
render the mind grovelling, its views narrow
and its spirit petty, as to make happiness the
}
318
BOOK V.
THE PRACTICAL CONSEQUENCES
grand object, tends to elevate the mind, expand
its views and ennoble its spirit.
The population theory co-operates fully
with this great principle. It restores man to
his real place, from which the subsistence
theory would degrade him. It views him as
what nature has made him, by endowing him
with reason: the director and regulator of all
that depends upon the will. Mind and reason,
upon it, resume their proper rank and influence.
In obeying the dictates of nature and virtue
a man promotes equally his own individual
happiness and the happiness of society. The
increase of population, which springs from the
virtuous union between the sexes, tends to in-
crease employment and diversify the modes
of it, and so suit it more to the genius and
capacity of the various individuals. It uni-
formly augments wealth, and, consequently,
promotes all the advantages which spring from
that extensive medium of happiness. And it
operates also as the great promoter of civili-
zation. In sum, upon this theory, early mar-
riage, which is the natural choice of man, is not
more favourable to virtue, than it is to the pro-
gress of civilization and of wealth.
It has an influence on the mind of the sta-
tistician equally tending to cherish benevolence
with that of the productive theory. Each
individual, in pursuing his own true happiness,
CHAP. VI. OF THE TWO THEORIES.
319
is seen to be promoting that of others. Ac-
cording to it, there are no checks in nature,
which render what is really advantageous, on
the whole, to an individual, a class or a coun-
try, disadvantageous to other individuals, classes
or countries. In proportion as the grand prin-
ciple of happiness is admitted as the proper
object, and the productive and population
theories are more fully understood in all their
bearings, those interdicts, prohibitory imposts,
and other narrow measures, which spring from
the petty jealousies and narrow spirit fostered
by other theories, will gradually disappear, or,
at least, be greatly diminished, and those that
remain will be considerably relaxed.
The productive theory leads to an universal
free commercial intercourse; and the more
generally it is received, the greater will be the
approach to such an unshackled state of com-
merce. The population theory has the same
bearing. There is no occasion for mincing
this, though it would be vain, in the present
state of statistical science, to expect the general
reception of such a doctrine. As the world
grows more full, there will in all probability be
a gradual exploding of the old narrow ideas,
and a tendency to a more generous and liberal
system of commercial connexion.
A critic, as successful in ignorantly mis-
conceiving, or willingly misrepresenting his
}
320 THE PRACTICAL CONSEQUENCES
BOOK V.
But how does it
author, as ever played the part of a Reviewer,
has charged Mr. Gray with considering the full
complement of population as necessary to take
place before a state can be pronounced happy.
This is not the doctrine of the Happiness of
States. According to that work, the increase
of population uniformly extends the means of
happiness, by increasing wealth and promoting
civilization; and, consequently, the nearer a
country reaches its full complement, these
means will be put more extensively in the
power of the great mass.
follow from this, that the means of happiness
are not in the power of population, till it reaches
or nearly approaches such a state? Indeed
Mr. Gray has more than insinuated, that,
though the means of happiness are increased
by an increase of population, it depended on
the choice of population, whether it made the
right or virtuous use of those means and was
really happy. And according to his theory,
there is a counter-tendency in the increase of
population, arising out of the extension of lux-
ury and sedentary employments, unfavourable
to that eminent portion of the means of hap-
piness, health.
་
The effects of the subsistence theory, on the
other hand, are as injurious to society as those
of the population are beneficial. It tends to
promote vice, poverty, and misery, and is
essentially injurious to benevolence, charity
}
CHAP. VI.
321
OF THE TWO THEORIES.
and genuine philanthropy. Having shown it
to be utterly unfounded in nature, and in all
its results directly contrary to those of her
actual arrangements, we may now, with honest
freedom, speak the plain truth of it.
It is directly hostile to early marriage. The
consequences of a national practice of late mar-
riage would be dreadful in a moral point of
view. The most dangerous period for a man
and woman's virtue is between sixteen and
thirty. During this period the sexual passions
are at their height, while prudence has com-
monly but a feeble influence to counteract
them.. A general retardation of marriage
would, therefore, lead to the most abandoned
and dissolute conduct in love, with all the bad
consequences of illicit amours. Things are
deplorable enough at present with us, in spite
of the corrective influence of a pretty generał
practice of early marriage. What then have
we to expect were this corrective influence
destroyed? The result cannot be contemplated
without a virtuous horror.
Such a retardation of marriage is as un-
favourable to prudence and decent conduct, as
to virtue in love. Society would at length
become perfectly abandoned under a consi-
derable postponement of that honourable junc-
tion among the great mass. The single state,
even in its present limited extent, is injurious
Y
322
BOOK V.
THE PRACTICAL CONSEQUENCES
量
​to virtue and correct manners, though many
of those who remain bachelors and spinsters
are so from choice, and from not feeling the
influence of the sexual passions very strong.
But were such a system enforced on the great
body of young people, it would prove equally
destructive to decent manners, prudence and
prudential habits, as to morals.
He
It is curious enough, that our subsistence
theorist calls upon men to do the more for
nature, the less she has done for them.
calls upon them to cherish a spirit of pure
virtue and sublimely disinterested philanthropy,
in spite of all the urgings of natural passion,
because she has been inspired with a spirit of
a grossly immoral as well as malevolent kind.
He urges them to act with a degree of wisdom
which the great body will never reach, because
she has been particularly foolish. She, accord-
ing to him, is a malignant, ungenerous, starving
stepmother, and they must, therefore, be bene-
volent children. She has proved an arrant
bungler: they must, of course, correct her
errors. She has bestowed life upon them, it is
true, but then she has taken care to put every
man and woman of them in danger of being
deprived of it by starvation. She has given
them certain desires at a certain period of life,
when the natural result of these will be more
effective in accomplishing their purpose, or the
CHAP. VI. OF THE TWO THEORIES.
323
increase of the race. This is very well, and
looks like wisdom. But according to her bun-
gling arrangements, unless the sexes postpone
their intercourse till this natural period is
nearly past, they will only promote poverty,
disease and misery. If they act as she and
virtue prompt, they must perish. Who that
believes in the existence of a supreme Being,
wise, benevolent and good, could à priori, for
a moment, entertain the idea of the existence
of so wild, so immoral and so foolish a scheme
being possible under his direction ?
Attempts have been made to throw a kind
of wise and moral covering over this chaos of
folly and iniquity *. But it is washing the
blackamore. The results of the government
* Mr. Sumner, I believe with the best intentions in the
world, has attempted the blackamore. Would he not have
acted more consistently with the sacred cause, in which he
volunteered, to have queried first, whether it was possible,
that a benevolent, wise and good Governor of the universe
could be the author of so monstrous, so absurd, so im-
moral, so cruel an arrangement of nature? To succeed in
making us imagine a system, so hostile to virtue and to
happiness, could emanate from an all-good Being, would
only tend to bring such kind of argumentations into dis-
repute. That species of reasoning, which could make it
appear possible, that such a Being could be the author of
such a system, must be sophistry that would reconcile any
contradictions: and, in fact, prove equally one thing as
another.
Y 2
324
THE PRACTICAL CONSEQUENCES
BOOK V.
of the moral world, as drawn by Mr. Malthus,
exhibit the reign of a malignant demon, not of
a benevolent Deity. It is a mass of misery and
vice in all their varied forms; and all spring-
ing from one cause, the more rapid increase of
population, than of subsistence, which that
malignant Being has constituted the law of
nature.
This theory has a tendency completely to
paralyze human exertion and industry. It
spreads a thick gloom over all our prospects:
but particularly, if we yield to the dictates of
nature and reason, and exert ourselves to com-
ply with their laws. The more virtuous and
diligent the members of society are, the faster
will they increase, and by obtaining larger in-
comes also, they will consume more, and thus
more certainly run their heads against the wall
set up, as Mr. Malthus dreams, by nature in
the middle of their way, as if for the purpose
of the diligent and good running their heads
inore severely against it; and being driven
back into want, distress, misery. This wall,
indeed, which he calls the limits of subsistence,
and which seems as immoveable on his theory as
the walls of ancient Babylon, is found, by our
cultivators, as moveable a one in nature as the
modern fence of hurdles.
He has indirectly admitted something like
this effect himself, and been at the pains to
CHAP. VI. OF THE TWO THEORIES:
325
put the foolish diligent on their guard. "Even
industry itself," says he, " is in this respect, not
very different from money. A man who pos-
sesses a certain portion of it, above what is
usually possessed by his neighbours, will, in the
actual state of things, be almost sure of a com-
petent livelihood; but if all his neighbours
were to become at once as industrious as him-
self, the absolute portion of industry which he
before possessed would no longer be a security
against want." We have here as rank a spe-
cimen of arrant economism, as I have met with
even in this economist; and what an unac-
quaintance with the actual source of produc-
tiveness in point of wealth and the real prin-
ciples of circulation does it betray!
He goes on.
"Hume fell into a great error
when he asserted that almost all the moral as
well as natural evils of human life arise from
idleness;"-This is rather affirming too much,
but, to a very considerable extent, it is true.
"--and for the cure of these ills required only,
that the whole species should possess naturally
an equal diligence with that, which many indi-
viduals are able to attain by habit and reflec-
tion *."
As far as these evils depended on
idleness, most readers will consider the sup-
posed diligence a complete cure. Mr. Malthus
* Dialogues on Natural Religion, part xi. p. 212,
Y 3
326
THE PRACTICAL CONSEQUENCES BOOK V.
thinks or rather imagines very differently. "It
is evident," affirms he, "that this given degree
of industry possessed by the whole species, if
not combined with another virtue of which he
takes no notice" this mighty saving virtue,
which he has not chosen to name, I presume,
is celibacy-"would totally fail of rescuing
society from want and misery, and would
scarcely remove a single moral or physical evil
of all those to which he alludes *." This may
be all very fiue and correct according to the
fancies of the subsistence theory, but according
to the arrangements of nature, it is sheer ab-
surdity.
That fantastical theory tends to degrade
man to a level with the beasts. In vain has he
had reason given him to regulate the amount
of the supply of nature's blessings to the
amount of his wants. He is operated upon as
irresistibly by subsistence, as any animal that
in the wilds of America must take what nature
spontaneously bestows, or even as the vege-
tables by the juices of the soil. He is as pas-
sive and as helpless, it seems, as either. Ab-
surd! This reasoned booby, forsooth must
stand still, and deliberately wait to see himself
starved, unless it shall please omnipotent sub-
sistence to take pity on him, and of her own
accord, send him a tolerable supply.
t
Essay, vol, iii. B, iv. ch. 13. p. 290,
CHAP. VI.
327
OF THE TWO THEORIES.
In nature the impartial statistician sees
ample provision made for the subsistence of our
race, and he finds abundance, wealth, civiliza-
tion and every thing that is good flowing from
the increase of its numbers. But not so the
subsistence theorist: not so Mr. Malthus. He
sees starvation every where, and he finds every
thing that is bad and miserable springing almost
exclusively from one cause, to wit, the increase,
or what is synonimous with him, the redun-
dance of population. This is mighty ridiculous.
Not our country justices themselves, since
it became all the rage to abuse the poor laws,
see half the evils springing from that abomi-
nable, stupid and savage code, as they are now-
a-days styled by every coffee and other house
politician, which Mr. Malthus spies pouring in
an irresistible torrent from that source of all
mischief, early marriage. In the dark weeks
before Christmas, it is true, the imaginations
of the aforesaid justices are filled with pecu-
liarly black and awful ideas of the ruin clouds
hanging over that impoverished, emaciated,
starving wretch, England, for daring to feed
her poor according to the above-mentioned de-
structive regulations. From them every spe-
cies of misery, possible and actual, is derived,
not excepting the rheumatism pains of the
widowed cottager during the east winds of
November. And even amid the famous cheer
y 4
328 THE PRACTICAL CONSEQUENCES
BOOK V.
which the good days of December bring, those
unfortunate magistrates can scarcely get up
their spirits for thinking of those abominable
laws. Yet not more hypochondriacally ner-
vous even then are our justices, than our sub-
sistence worshippers are at all seasons from
thinking of the all-ruining practice of marriage
before thirty or thereabout, and that bane of
every thing prosperous, the increase of our
race. But to resume our gravity, our subsist-
ence theorists and our justices should learn a
little moderation.
This wretched theory is particularly hostile
to those unfortunate persons among our race,
the poor. Indeed it tends to paralyze huma-
nity and extirpate charity.
The notion entertained by our subsistence
theorists, though contradicted by every real
cause and every actual result, that the increase
of population tends to redundance, or to over-
stock with respect to employment, and conse-
quently to produce poverty, naturally urges
them to check marriage. With the higher and
middle ranks they dare not positively interfere,
in order to prevent the early choice of that
moral plan, so favourable to virtue and good
manners, and equally advantageous to the
individual and to the country. Their measures
are, therefore, directed against the poorer
classes, on which, by the way, the increase of
CHAP. VI.
329
OF THE TWO THEORIES.
population in all states depends infinitely more,
than on the rich.
Sir James Steuart, the original author of the
subsistence theory, proposes pretty plainly the
measure against the poor, which has been since
recommended by our antipopulationists with
such hardihood. "Several modern writers upon
this subject, recommend marriage in the strong-
est manner to all classes of inhabitants; yet a
parish priest might, properly enough, be war-
ranted not to join a couple, unless they could
make it appear that their children were not
likely to become a burden to the parish. Could
any fault be found, reasonably, with such a
regulation? Those who are gratuitously fed by
others are a load upon the state, and no acqui-
sition certainly, so long as they continue so *.
Mr. Malthus has followed up this proposi-
tion in a manner to which I shall leave the
honest reader to give the epithet.
"As a pre-
vious step even to any considerable alteration
in the present system, which would contract or
stop the increase of the relief to be given, it
appears to me, that we are bound in justice
and honour formally to disclaim the right of
the poor to support. To this end, I should
propose a regulation to be made, declaring,
that no child born from any marriage, taking
# Principles of Political Economy, vol. i. B. i. ch. 12. p. 93.
1
330 THE PRACTICAL CONSEQUENCES
BOOK V.
1
place after the expiration of a year from the
date of the law, and no illegitimate child born
two years from the same date, should ever be
entitled to parish assistance."
"If this system were pursued, we need be
under no apprehensions that the number of
persons in extreme want would be beyond the
power and the will of the benevolent to supply.
The sphere for the exercise of private charity
would probably not be greater than it is at
present; and the principal difficulty would be,
to restrain the hand of benevolence from assist-
ing those in distress in so indiscriminate a
manner as to encourage indolence and want of
foresight in others.
*
"With regard to illegitimate children, after
the proper notice had been given, they should
not be allowed to have any claim to parish
assistance, but be left entirely to the support of
private charity. If the parents desert their
child, they ought to be made answerable for the
crime." But should the unfortunate child, be-
cause it has been deserted? The punishment,
according to these subsistence-theory ideas, is
to fall upon this helpless miserable creature, be-
cause others have committed a crime, that has
made it helpless and miserable.
"The infant
is, comparatively speaking, of little value to
society, as others will immediately supply its
place." Surely something like getting rid of
CHAP. VI.
331
OF THE TWO THEORIES.
it cannot be suggested here.
"Its principal
value is on account of its being the object of
one of the most delightful passions in human
nature-parental affection. But if this value
be disregarded by those who are alone in a
capacity to feel it, the society cannot be called
upon to put itself in their place; and has no
farther business in its protection than to punish
the crime of desertion or intentional ill-treat-
ment in the persons whose duty is to provide
for it *." But enough of this.
It is not my intention here to go into the
claim of right of the poor, as that is done by
Mr. Gray . I quote these passages only to
†.
show the spirit of the antipopulation or subsist-
ence theory, and that I have not done it injus-
tice. The spirit is, I dare say, honest, or in-
spired by the views which the holders of it en-
tertain. But it is such a spirit, that no person
of humanity or good sense, no friend to man-
kind or human nature, whose notions and feel-
ings have not been perverted or depraved by the
sophistry of theorists, but must instinctively
feel it to be unnatural, abominable and savage.
Some parts of the passages quoted even from
this softened edition, and these are perhaps not
the worse specimens, I believe few persons can
* Essay, vol. iii. B. iv. ch. 8. p. 178-183.
† On the Poor. See Miscellaneous Statistics.
332 THE PRACTICAL CONSEQUENCES
BOOK V.
read without emotions of horror and disgust *.
The reasoning, such as it may be, is particu-
larly intended for Englishmen; and upon Eng-
lishmen it will certainly make a strong impres-
sion, but that impression will be decidedly
against itself: it will plead with them the oppo-
site cause. Whatever faults they may have, no-
body ever charged them with a deficiency of
humanity, or with inattention to the unfortunate.
This theory has a tendency to depreciate
the value of human life. Were it generally
believed by the lower ranks, it would produce
the most horrible effects. If we are taught to
think, that men uniformly increase too fast,
and that their increase tends to promote po-
verty, and to render our share of the good
things of life smaller than it would be with an
inferior number, what poor person will be at
the trouble of taking care of his children? or
of his parents, or relations in distress? Unless
he have an uncommon goodness of heart, he
will be disposed to leave them to chance and
their fate, under the plea that both himself
and society, instead of being worse, will be
better off for their perishing. If nature by its
* A statistician of reputation said to me, in allusion to
such ideas, "I cannot think of the authors with common
patience; nor can I conceive but that the persons who have
broached them, must have bad hearts." I smiled and said
I thought he knew more about theorists and theories.
!
1
1
4
CHAP. VI.
333
OF THE TWO THEORIES.
laws has not made provision for them, why
should he?
Wars, epidemics, insurrections, rebellions,
crimes, and all the other moral and physical
evils, will be seen by the believers in such a
theory, rather with a secret approval, than with
horror or regret. A medical man who little
knew the doctrines which I held, said to me
about the time of the broaching of the subsist-
ence theory, by Mr. Malthus, rather uncau-
tiously: Inoculation and vaccination and other
improved modes of medical practice, however
useful for preserving life, have their inconve-
niences. They make us populate too fast. And
these wars, scarcities and epidemics have their
use. They destroy the redundant population.
Is it reasonable to expect from medical men,
who entertain such theoretical notions, much
attention and activity in practice in the case of
the poor who cannot pay well? Would they
not be apt to consider very great exertions
rather officious, and to justify their indolence
from their non-interference being more agree-
able to nature's laws?
Consider next the case of persons who have
commands in distant countries, removed from
the inspection of government; of military
officers, who have certain objects to accomplish
against the foe; of manufacturers, owners of
mines, &c. who employ great numbers of men
334 THE PRACTICAL CONSEQUENCES BOOK V.
in their projects of wealth will these people
reckon the health or even the life of those
under them, of equal care and concern, if they
have imbibed these antipopulation ideas, as if
they viewed the increase of human life as what
it really is, the great source of the increase of
employment, wealth and happiness?
This theory, to which, after having, as I
conceive, fully shown it to be directly repug-
nant to the real arrangements of nature, I am
warranted in applying the just epithet mon-
strous, when speaking of the dreadful effects
that very naturally flow from a belief of it,
tends to render human life insecure. I will not
mince the matter, when the happiness of so-
ciety has so much at stake. It is evidently
favourable not only to the abandoning or ex-
posing of children, and of aged persons, but, in
plain terms, to murder. It prompts to procure
abortions or commit infanticide in illicit cases;
and it has a tendency to promote assassination.
Even in minds of but moderate sensibility it
has a certain effect in diminishing the horror
of deeds of blood, and in those of a dark
malignant cast, it is calculated to cherish
a murderous spirit. That murder, and the
species of it denominated assassination, in the
most coldly deliberate and horrible forms, has
been more common with us since the broaching
of the subsistence theory, and particularly of
CHAP. VI.
335
OF THE TWO THEORIES.
late, is generally admitted. I am not indeed
prepared to say, that it is from a growing de-
preciation in the value of life caused by the
antipopulation theory; for I will not affirm
that of which I cannot clearly ascertain the
truth. It is at least certain, that the assassin-
ating spirit is on the increase with us; and it
cannot be doubted that a belief of the antipo-
pulation doctrines among persons of bad hearts,
would make them less regardful of the lives of
those whom they hate or mean to plunder.
Such a doctrine, if received among the less
educated ranks, would render them disposed to
attend to the suggestions of passion and re-
venge in their enterprises with very little
compunction. I repeat distinctly, were it
generally believed, it would render human life
utterly insecure.
I mean not, by this detail of consequences,
indirectly to impute to Sir James Steuart, Mr.
Malthus or any of the maintainers of antipo-
pulation doctrines, whether from fancies about
subsistence or about wealth, a design unfa-
vourable to mankind. Far from this, I dare
say they mean well to society. Indeed had I
been, like Mr. Malthus, as thoroughly con-
vinced of the truth of those antipopulation
doctrines, as I am that they are the mere falsi-
ties of imagination, instead of confining myself,
like him, to attempting to correct the errors of
336
THE PRACTICAL CONSEQUENCES BOOK V:
nature indirectly by interfering with the unfor-
tunate part of our race, the very poor, I should
have felt it my duty distinctly to recommend
to the legislature, to retard by a positive law
the period of marriage. This is not merely
warranted on the subsistence theory, but
strictly demanded, in order to check that in-
crease of population which tends to produce
poverty and famine, and to deteriorate the
condition of the great mass of the lower classes.
Such a law would operate towards preventing
the existence of the supposed evils, by weaken-
ing the cause. It would also be fair towards
the various classes, as it would affect all alike.
But the good intention of the broacher of
an erroneous opinion goes for nothing as to
consequences. It will not render injurious
results less injurious. I dare say Ignatius de
Loyola, Hobbes, Hume, Rousseau, Brissot,
Thomas Paine, and a long list of broachers of
pernicious notions, meant all very well. But
have their good intentions prevented the bad
consequences of their doctrines, or rendered
these harmless?
Nor are we to judge of the real effects of
opinions and theories, from the effects which
they have on the broachers themselves. The
views of educated and well-disposed minds
may disarm the most atrocious doctrine. We
CHAP. VI. OF THE TWO THEORIES.
337
must judge of opinions, from the effects which
they will naturally have upon the great mass of
men, that is, of iH-informed, narrow-minded
indiscriminating beings, more swayed by their
prejudices and wishes, than either by reasoning
or truth. And upon this mass, I hesitate not
to affirm, that, with the exception of atheism,
the fancies of the subsistence theory are natu-
rally calculated to have an influence more
variously and extensively injurious and immoral,
than any theory broached in ancient or modern
times.
In sum, the population theory, on the one
hand, is not more consonant to the actual ar-
rangements of nature, than it is calculated, as
a theory, to inspire cheerfulness, industry, a
love of virtue and a warm regard for our neigh-
bours and all mankind. On the other hand,
the subsistence theory is completely in contra-
diction to those arrangements, and at the same
time, as a theory, tends to dispirit, to promote
vice and dissoluteness of manners, and to de-
grade man, as well as depreciate the value of
his life.
Z
338
A GENERAL RECAPITULATION. BOOK V.
CHAPTER VII.
A GENERAL RECAPITULATION.
THE Consequences of the subsistence theory
have been stated strongly, but fairly. It is, I
trust, unnecessary to repeat, that nothing per-
sonal is meant against the maintainers of that
theory, who, I dare say, intend as honestly, as
those on the side of the population theory.
The animadversions, already made, or about
to be made, are confined to the theory itself
and the modes of supporting it, as matter sub-
ject to statistical criticism. Offensive to a
theorist the free remarks of an opponent will
generally prove.
But when the combined
cause of mankind and of virtue has so much
at stake, truth must be spoken plainly and
honestly, though it may sound harshly to
many. To mince matters, in a case of such
vital importance, is to betray the sacred
cause.
The subsistence theory, in all its leading pe-
culiar ideas, seems to have been formed with a
singular ignorance of the real principles of cir-
culation, or else with an utter inattention to
?
CHAP. VII. A GENERAL RECAPITULATION.
339
them*. The reception which it at first met
with, reflects no credit on the statistical criti-
cism of the country. It shows how imperfectly
* It would tend greatly to the advancement of statis-
tical science, were all who study it, to endeavour to obtain
a complete knowledge of the real principles of circulation,
without reference to any theory, before they venture to
examine or deliver an opinion on any branch of this most
important science. Unacquaintance with them, or an in-
distinct knowledge of them, betrays our statisticians into
the grossest errors and even inconsistencies. Of this we
have all sorts of examples.
I have a curious specimen before me at present, (Sep-
tember 1817). Some of our newspaper statisticians are
congratulating the country on the increase of employment.
In one paper this is considered as springing from two com-
bining immediate causes, co-operating with an original or
predisposing cause. 1, A fall in the price of the culti
vator's articles, and 2, a rise in the price of the manufac-
turer's. And the original cause is found in some late far-
ther curtailments among the persons employed by Govern-
ment. Now what is the fact in real life? The first cir-
cumstance tends to diminish the power of the cultivator to
give employment, and still more, when combined with the
higher prices of the second. This second is a proof of
the increase of employment among the manufacturers, and
is also a source of additional employment, combined with
the lower prices of the first. These two circumstances,
therefore, instead of combining, operate against each other,
and tend to make the case a mere transfer one as to the
nation, or to leave the amount of the national employment
as before. The third circumstance, again, which is rec-
koned the original or predisposing cause of the increase,
tended, to the full amount of the curtailment, directly to
diminish employment and increase stagnation.
2 2
340
BOOK V.
A GENERAL RECAPITULATION.
the science of statistics was known among us,
in spite of all our learned talking about it. Had
our critics examined that theory by the actual
law of nature, or the regulating power of the
demand, alone, it must have been exploded as
soon as it was broached. It could not have
been received by a statistician, thoroughly ac-
quainted with the results of that all-powerful
law, for an hour.
The fundamental principle of this theory of
Mr. Malthus, or a natural tendency in popula-
tion to increase faster than subsistence, has
been styled by a French populationist un so-
phisme très habilement soutenu. I entirely
agree with him that it is a sophism. I agree
also with him, that it has been very ably sup-
ported, when I confine the latter observation to
supporting it with ingenious sophistry, and an
imposing consistency in the deductions from
the original sophism. But when I try the
manner, in which Mr. Malthus has maintained
it, by the principles of circulation and of
genuine statistical science, I must withdraw my
approbation. I must affirm, that it is a sophism,
which has been supported by much acute so-
phistry, but in a manner which shows a surpris-
ing unacquaintance with, or else disregard of,
the real causes operating in nature and their
actual results.
If there be a clear unquestionable law in
CHAP. VII. A GENERAL RECAPITULATION.
341
nature, or if there be one which essentially
affects statistics, it is that of the regulating
power of the demand over the supply, as far as
this is dependent on the will of man. And with
respect to no branch of the supply is its regu-
lating influence seen more evidently operating,
at the first view of the subject, than that of
subsistence. If, however, in this branch, the
law of nature is set aside by the counteraction
of certain circumstances, this should have been
distinctly gone into, and it should have been
shown by a minute analysis of the operation of
these, that they were sufficient constantly to
overpower the law of nature in this instance.
But has Mr. Malthus done this? Far from
it, I do not find any notice taken of that law of
nature, as if he had not been aware that any
such law existed.
Nor has he done any thing like this in a
collateral way.
It is clear, that if the supply
of subsistence regulates the demand, it must
arise from certain natural invincible obstacles
operating against the demand, either a want of
additional soil, or something that prevents a
sufficient number of suppliers being employed
to meet this portion of the demand. But there
is confessedly an abundance of uncultivated
and imperfectly cultivated soil every where.
It must then be a deficiency of suppliers, which
the demand was not in this case able to pro-
z 3
342
BOOK V.
A GENERAL RECAPITULATION.
cure. Has he then taken care to show us,
that there was a constant demand for more
suppliers than could be obtained, by proving
that though there was a perpetual flow of cir-
culators from the operations of town to the
operations of the country, yet the cultivator
could not procure the full number of hands he
wanted? Neither has he gone into this at all.
He has indeed accidentally noticed a well-
known fact which proves the contrary, or that
there is a constant flow of population from the
country into towns, or of suppliers of subsist-
ence, owing to a want of employment, that is,
a deficiency of the demand, from that branch
to other branches of the supply in which the
demand was greater. Neither has he at all
attempted to show, that the average price of
subsistence was exorbitant in comparison with
the prices of other articles, as it must neces-
sarily have been, if the demand kept beyond
the supply. Nor has he shown, that the in-
crease of population tends uniformly to dimi-
nish the amount of employment and of wealth
by overstocking.
All this was indispensably necessary to be
done, in order to examine the question com-
pletely, and to establish this new principle,
which sets aside one of the most powerful and
universal laws of nature connected with man.
But he has done nothing of the kind. He has
CHAP. VII. A GENERAL RECAPITULATION.
343
only been at great, and indeed unnecessary,
pains to show what was well known to every
peasant of observation, that there is an equili-
brium between the amounts of subsistence and
population. This adjustment of the supply to
the demand no person, at all acquainted with
the subject, could either be ignorant of, or dis-
pute. But what proof does it bring of the
existence of the principle of the subsistence
theory? It proves the contrary.
It proves
that the law of nature operates as completely
with respect to subsistence, as with respect to
every other branch of the supply, by regulating
the number of the suppliers, and the amount of
the supply, to the wants of the population, that
is, to the amount of the demand.
He has not even noticed the same equili-
brium, which exists between the amount of
population, and the supply of houses, clothing,
service and the rest; much less shown, why
this state of equilibrium, that belongs to these
portions of the supply which form about 70 per
cent. of the whole, as the effect, constitutes the
subsistence portion, though equal to 30 per
cent. only of the same whole, the cause.
He has thus never gone into the question
actually at issue, with respect to the real
principles and results of nature that must
decide it. Instead of minutely analyzing facts,
and reasoning back from them to real prin-
z 4
344
A GENERAL RECAPITULATION. BOOK V.
ciples, he has given us only assumptions, and
theoretical imaginations. He sets out with
assuming the very thing that was to be proved,
and which we have shown to be directly con-
trary to the laws and results of nature, or that
population has a natural tendency to increase
faster than subsistence. To support this, he
assumes another absurdity, or at least another
principle which is false, or that population, ac-
cording to its natural rate of increase, would
double itself in about twenty-five years, because,
in certain combinations of circumstances, as in
those of the new settlements of America, it has
been found to increase at about that rate, though
in all other combinations of circumstances, the
natural rate of increase differs. All his rea-
sonings are mere fancyings drawn from these
fundamental absurdities, or false principles.
Indeed with equal correctness might he
have assumed, that, as the natural qualities and
conditions of population are to be sought for in
the savage state, or the original and natural
state of man, population has scarcely any na-
tural tendency to increase. What tendency of
this sort it acquires is evidently artificial, or the
result of the artificial stimulants of civilization.
Subsistence, therefore, the amount of which can
be increased so rapidly, that it can be made to feed
a population which is doubled in twenty-five
years, has a natural tendency to increase much
CHAP. VII. A GENERAL RECAPITULATION.
345
faster than population, were it not checked, in
its natural progress, by the want of a sufficient
demand for it; that is, from the general slow-
ness of the increase of population. The same
assumptions, and the same reasonings from them,
which are used in attempting to establish his
species of subsistence theory, would equally
serve to establish this species of it. But both
are alike founded on fallacies. In the latter,
however, the principle that the increase of popu-
lation is derived from the artificial stimulants
of civilization, seems warranted by facts.
His theory is not merely unsupported by
the results in real life, but is in every leading
point in direct contradiction to these. "Its
results are in the inverse ratio of those of
nature." It is in fact a theory of mere as-
sumptions. And these assumptions are de-
fended not by strict reasoning, but ingenious
sophisms by arguing perpetually in a circle,
the circle of his own theoretical imaginations,
with how little regard to real causes and results,
we have seen. He looks at nature and her
operations entirely through the medium of his
singular theory.
All its principles are in full opposition to
the real principles of circulation. Indeed no
statistician thoroughly acquainted with these,
but would at once reject the former as a sys-
tem of mere fancy.
346
BOOK V.
A GENERAL RECAPITULATION.
To show, that this decision is fully war-
ranted, I shall recapitulate, and compare the
causes and results of his theory with the causes
and results in nature or real life.
The subsistence theory is founded on an
assumption that population has a natural tend-
ency to increase infinitely faster than subsist-
ence. Yet, after the lapse of thousands of
years, we find population still existing every
where amid an abundance of additional means
of subsistence, not yet drawn upon, and which
probably will not be fully drawn upon for thou-
sands of years to come.
It assumes, that man, amid all this abun-
dance of means, is still in a state approaching
to universal scarcity, producing among the great
body want and disease.
It assumes, that the amount of the demand
for subsistence is always larger than the supply.
The price, of course, must be exorbitant. In
real life, the price of subsistence ever has been,
and still is, upon the average of years, at a fair
rate compared with that of other articles.
It assumes, that there is a constant defi-
ciency of suppliers. The fact in nature is, -
that a considerable portion of the people, born
and bred up in the country, is annually forced
to abandon the business of cultivation, from
the want of employment, and emigrate to town,
}
t
CHAP. VII. A GENERAL RECAPITULATION.
347
where they become more wasteful or luxurious
consumers.
It assumes, that the natural rates of the in-
crease of population and subsistence compared
with each other are, the former according to the
geometrical, and the latter according to the
arithmetical ratio. But subsistence has no rate
of increase of its own whatever. What it has,
is given to it by population; and, of course, its
ratio of increase uniformly corresponds with
that of the latter.
It assumes, that population has a certain
regular natural ratio of increase. In real life
its natural ratio of increase, when it does in-
crease, is perfectly irregular, varying in every
country, and in the same country at different
times, according to the actual state of the sti-
mulating and counteracting circumstances.
On the combination of these for the time being
its increase, decrease or stationariness neces-
sarily depends.
It assumes, that according to the natural
ratio of increase, it will double its amount every
twenty-five years. The period of doubling
assumed is only found in a few districts in very
particular circumstances. But the average
period of doubling for the whole earth, cannot
have been less than 420 years *.
*Happiness of States, B. iv. ch. 8. p. 356.
348
BOOK V.
A GENERAL RECAPITULATION.
It assumes, that the quantity of subsistence
regulates population, that is, the amount of the
demand for it. The universal law of nature is,
that the demand regulates the supply, as far
as this is dependent upon the will of man. And
every fact, without an exception, shows that
this law operates as completely with respect to
subsistence, as with respect to the other
branches of supply.
It assumes, that it is according to the abun-
dance of subsistence, that the population of a
district or country increases. In real life we
find, that certain districts produce annually
several times the amount of the food, which
their own people require, and yet their resident
population is almost stationary; and that cer-
tain countries have continued for ages to be
exporters of subsistence to a considerable
extent, and others to be importers: that some
thinly peopled and slow populating districts.
import food, while some thickly peopled and
rapidly populating countries export it: that, in
proportion as the people in general live tem-
perately and rather scantily, they have a greater
number of children, and, on the other hand, in
proportion as they use a superfluity of food,
they are less prolific.
It assumes, that the increase of population
has a tendency to overstock, as to the means of
employment. In real life, the thinner the
CHAP. VII. A GENERAL RECAPITULATION.
349
population, the smaller is the average amount
of employment, and the more idle are the
various classes found to be; while the thicker
the population, and the faster it increases, the
greater the demand for hands, and the more
constantly employed is the whole mass.
It assumes, that the increase of population
has a certain tendency to promote poverty,
while in real life the increase of population is
the sole original source of all permanent in-
crease in wealth. The faster a community in-
creases, the more rapidly rich it becomes; on
the other hand, when population is at a stand,
its advancement in wealth, if it advance at all,
is very slow; and when it decreases, the great
mass uniformly becomes poorer.
It assumes, that a constant deficiency in
the supply of subsistence has a tendency to pro-
duce poverty among the great mass. According
to the laws of circulation, such a state of the
supply of an article universally used, compared
with that of the demand, by enhancing the
price, would tend to create much additional
wealth. It would yield an extra amount of
income and capital among the cultivating
classes, and consequently, through these an
extra amount of employment, or the means of
income, to the other classes of society. If we
exclude real famines, this has been uniformly
350 A GENERAL RECAPITULATION.
BOOK V.
verified in real life, when there was actually a
shortness in the supply of subsistence.
It assumes, that the predominant diseases
arising from the increase of population,
such as spring from a scarcity of subsistence
and poverty.
In real life, the predominant
diseases arising from populousness and the in-
crease of population, are those derived from
luxury and wealth, or an excess in eating and
drinking, on the one hand, and a deficiency of
healthful exercise, on the other.
It assumes, that the constant effort in the
population to increase beyond the means of sub-
sistence, tends to subject the lower classes to
distress, and to prevent any great permanent
melioration of their condition. But is this the
fact in real life? No. The uniform result of
the increase of population is an increasing in-
fluence, which operates towards improving the
condition of all ranks from the lowest to the
highest, with respect to the various comforts of
good living, education, in sum, all the means of
happiness, whatever use may be made of these
by the great body of circulators. The increase
of population is, in reality, the grand source of
wealth and improvement to mankind.
Such is the theory, which to the discredit
of statistical science imposed on so many
statisticians, and which at one time was consi-
dered by them as strictly demonstrated; a theory,
5
CHAP. VIII.
351
SUBSISTENCE QUESTION.
the results of which have been thus fully
shown to be "in the inverse ratio of those of
nature." I have called it a system of mere
fancy: I should be justified in calling it a sys-
tem of fanciful absurdity.
CHAPTER VIII.
CONCLUDING OBSERVATIONS ON THE SUBSISTENCE
QUESTION AT ISSUE BETWEEN
THE
POPULA-
TIONISTS AND ANTIPOPULATIONISTS.
THAT
HAT a system founded upon assumptions so
directly contrary to the causes and results in
real life, as the subsistence theory is, should
have met with success, does seem extraor-
dinary. Its reception may, however, be ac-
counted for partly by a leaning in most persons,
who have not thought much on the subject,
towards the opinion of the multitude, that new
comers, or an addition to circulators, place the
old in a worse state than before; and partly
from the fact of an equilibrium being found
between the demand of population and the sup-
ply of subsistence.
It was too hastily assumed, that this equi-
librium, the existence of which could not be
disputed, must spring from the latter being the
3
352
BOOK V.
OBSERVATIONS ON THE
cause of the former. Had our statisticians,
however, applied the law of nature, or the regu-
lating power of the demand, to this position,
they would have seen at once, that an equili-
brium was common to all the other species of
supply with that of subsistence, and that it
arose from the will of population. The alarm-
ing bubble of the subsistence theory would have
instantaneously burst before them.
The bold assertions of a theorist, who has
attained to reputation, have frequently, for a
time, all the influence of truths confirmed by
facts. And when these are. carefully and pru-
dently softened down in the detail by explana-
tions and limitations, the error in them is ren-
dered more secure from detection. The mys-
tery, which those visionaries the economists had
introduced into statistics, and which Dr. Adam
Smith unfortunately assisted in preserving by
his popular but unwarranted fancies respecting
the fundamental principle of productiveness, had
prepared the way for the reception of so wild and
mysterious a theory. That celebrated economist,
for an economist he is in the most important
point of all, had so bewildered our sciolists
in statistics, with certain fancied principles
and occult or unintelligible qualities, and had
succeeded so completely in turning their atten-
tion from real causes and their effects to these
imaginations on that grand point, and in throw-
1
?
1
a
CHAP. VIII.
353
SUBSISTENCE QUESTION.
+
ing the whole subject connected with the lead-
ing principle, into doubt, uncertainty, and ob-
scurity, that it had become as easy for an inge-
nious man to prove one thing as another in
statistics. This science of facts was in a man-
ner changed into a science of fancies.
Mr. Malthus seems to reckon greatly on his
theory having met with so much attention,
when it seems to militate so strongly against
the feelings of mankind. That it is strongly
repulsive to a great portion of mankind, is true;
but there is another portion of mankind, and
that by no means a small one, which takes a
particular delight (however unnatural as well as
injurious to their own happiness it may appear)
in viewing human nature on the dark side.
This cast of mind seems peculiarly prevalent in
this country. Our most popular works, at
least for a time, are those which dwell on the
gloomy side of affairs. A work of this cast, if
it be only successful in blackballing to a strik-
ingly sable pitch, never fails to have a run.
The gloomy and exaggerated picture of human
misery which Mr. Malthus has drawn, however
odious and repulsive to those who wish to enjoy
existence, and see things on the fair side, is
particularly attractive to our partizans of the
dark side. It feeds their spleen, and gratifies
them with something eminently malevolent
and livid. A gentleman, who was completely
A A
354
BOOK V.
OBSERVATIONS ON THE
overrun with hypochondria, told me, when the
Essay on Population was republished, with the
tour of human misery added to it, that it had
given him such pleasure, he had read it over
three times, and meant to read it again.
But in a free country and an inquiring age,
the operations of nature cannot be long mis-
represented or slandered with success. It is
one of the many advantages, for which we have
to thank the increase of population, that in its
progress it tends to cultivate the mind more
extensively, as really as the soil, and, of course,
to promote free and strict inquiry. Mr. Mal-
thus has attained to high notoriety: and noto-
riety has much influence in the literary world,
as in the world at large. There are also certain
manoeuvrings among theoretical parties, which
have for the time some influence in stifling
inquiry and preventing the progress of truth.
But no reputation, nor any manoeuvrings can
succeed in ultimately supporting a theory in
direct opposition to the laws of nature and
their results.
Mr. Malthus, indeed, in his preface to
the late edition, lays claim to the support of
facts since the first publication of his work.
This claim will not surprise those who have
read his Essay with discrimination. But we
have seen how far such a claim can be really
supported by the result of the last twenty years.
CHAP. VIII.
355
SUBSISTENCE QUESTION.
I
A
14
:
1. With respect to the fundamental ar-
ticle, subsistence. What has been the result of
the increase of our population, which, during
that period, has probably been more rapid than
at any other in the history of our island? Our
best lands by nature had in general been pre-
viously taken into cultivation. A luxurious or
superfluous consumption of eatables and drink-
ables (I allude, in the latter case, chiefly to
the wasteful use of grain in spirits) had ex-
tended in a most extraordinary manner
throughout every rank; and in addition to all
this, an unusual increase of more lucrative
kinds of employment, was constantly operating
to tempt the peasants to withdraw from the
fatiguing and the low-priced labour of supply-
ing subsistence. Yet our cultivators have kept
up the supply to the additional demand. With
respect to the less frugal species of subsistence,
meat, in the consumption of which there has
been so great an augmentation of the average
quantum, the islands have fully supplied the
additional requisitions. They have done the
same with regard to all the vegetable esculents,
except corn. They have drawn an additional
quantity of that from the exporting countries.
But the amount imported has by no means in-
creased according to the proportion of the
general increase at home. And even that
could have been with ease raised in the islands,
▲ ▲ 2
356
BOOK V.
OBSERVATIONS ON THE
if the deficiency had not been supplied from
the superfluity of countries, whose prices are
lower.
In some cases of ungenial seasons, from
the successful efforts of speculation, supported
by the maximum of an assize in bread, and
aided by the well-meant but injudicious inter-
ference of government, there has been an ap-
pearance of deficiency; but this was more in
appearance, than in reality. The quantity
wanted was always forthcoming, though at a
higher price. And what has been the general
result with respect to the supply of grain?
Such was the increase in that supply both in
this country and abroad, that our cultivators
at length, after our population had increased
about one fourth in twenty-five years, were
forced to come forward, and in opposition to
the wishes of the great body of the nation,
call upon the legislature to save them, by a high
protecting average price, from the ruinous
effects of a superabundance of grain at home,
as well as abroad.
2. With respect to employment. Such has
been the increase in the average amount of
employment, during the last twenty years, that
though new machinery of every kind has been
introduced to an extent utterly unparalleled,
and though the various classes of circulators
have attained to a much greater adroitness in
}
*
CHAP. VIII.
357
SUBSISTENCE QUESTION.
By the ces-
above 500,000
entirely out of
These are now
working, both machine and human labour
were barely able to keep up the supply to the
demand at the close of the war.
sation of the war requisitions,
hands were thrown wholly or
employment, in Britain alone.
obtaining employment in the peace lines. And
whence? From the increase of our population,
which is shown by the unusual extension of
buildings in many parts of the island.
per
3. And lastly, with respect to wealth. Our
population, as has already been noticed, has
probably increased one fourth since 1792; but
our income has increased more than double.
Instead of rising to 170 millions, according to
the old proportion, it rose to about 300. The
smaller population shared about 131. 6s. 8d.
individual, and the larger in 1814 no less
than 237. or about 70 per cent. more *. From
the cessation of war employments, and some
extensive emigrations of circulators, the na-
tional income has since sunk considerably, but
at the lowest it did not fall much under 207.
each, and now it is rising above that from the
advance in prices, which has been caused by
the increase of employment, created by the in-
crease of population.
And yet further: in some years, the lower
* Fourth Letter to M. Say, All Classes productive of
national Wealth, p. 312.
A A 3
358
BOOK V.
OBSERVATIONS ON THE
ranks, it is true, were distressed, or rendered
poorer by the rise in the price of provisions,
which was so exorbitant for a time, that their
wages could not on the sudden be brought
fully up to it, as in 1801. But though they
lost for the time, the cultivator gained and
they reaped a permanent benefit, from the
permanent rise in the general price of labour,
created by those very rises in the price of pro-
visions. They, on the other hand, were injured
occasionally and more permanently by abun-
dance, as in the year 1815. The diminution
of the cultivator's prices, which arose from
that abundance, deprived him of the means of
giving the usual amount of employment. Their
prices fell also, and at the same time the ave
rage amount of their employment decreased;
and thus this very abundance rendered them
poorer.
Such are the facts, which Mr. Malthus has
laid claim to, as supporting his theory. And
certainly, if results, that, in every variation of
circumstances, are in the directly opposite or
inverse ratio of what they would have been on
his theory, tend to confirm that theory, he has
obtained a complete unequivocal confirmation
of it. In truth, decisive as the statistical
results of the last twenty-five years have been
against the unproductive system, they have
CHAP. VIII.
859
SUBSISTENCE QUESTION.
been no less conclusive against the subsistence
theory.
In his attempt to foist a new and mon-
strous principle, equally odious as it is perni-
cious, into the system of nature, he has entirely
failed. On a fair examination, it is perceived
to be as untrue to the head, as it is felt to be
repulsive to the heart. That the amount of the
supply should regulate the amount of the demand
is a principle of almost self-evident absurdity.
Every principle of circulation, every real cause,
every actual result is against it.
And the absurdity of the principle is ren-
dered still more striking, when the regulating
power is given to one third of the supply over
the whole of the demand, while the other two
thirds are perfectly passive portions of the
supply, completely regulated by population.
No statistician ever did, or ever will dispute
the importance of that indispensably necessary
portion of the supply, subsistence. But with
Mr. Malthus it is wealth, happiness, every thing:
the great summum bonum of man. It is the
grand regulating cause in nature. It is the
god of this lower world.
I admit, that if nature in her arrangements
had constituted the supply the regulator of the
demand, and adjusted things to that funda-
mental law, as far as appears (but we may not
be aware of all the consequences of such a
A A 4
360
BOOK V.
OBSERVATIONS ON THE
change), it might have been as well for popu-
lation as the reverse, which is the law of her
present arrangements, and according to which
they are all adjusted. It would certainly be a
very pleasing alteration for the cultivator, the
clothier, the builder, the bookseller, and indeed
circulators of every class, as far as we can
judge at present, to have the supply constituted
the regulator. They would then have only to
produce as much of an article as they choose,
and they would find demanders for the whole
amount. But till nature's arrangements are
altered, unless circulators act according to the
regulating power of the demand, they will only
injure themselves. Were they to act upon
this new doctrine of our subsistence theorists,
they would find to their cost, that the old law
of nature was still in full and universal force,
though these theorists had chosen to imagine it
reversed, with respect to a most important
and extensive set of articles. They might
double the usual supply of any article, but they
would not find the number of customers for
the article increased by their theoretical folly.
For myself, I never admitted the subsist-
ence theory. Having long paid attention to
the principles of circulation, and particularly to
the regulating power of the demand, I per-
ceived the theory, as soon as proposed, to be
entirely founded on fallacy, or on mistaking
CHAP. VIII.
361
SUBSISTENCE QUESTION.
the effect for the cause. But I confess, I was
not completely aware of the flimsiness of the
superstructure of this alarming doctrine, or of
the mere unwarranted imaginations of which it
is built, till I had occasion lately to examine
Mr. Malthus's work more minutely, with a view
to the present discussion.
Many at least nominal believers it has cer-
tainly had to boast, but for my own part, I
do not think I have met with any real. They
had a kind of general idea, that the doctrine
was proved; but when pressed by the laws of
circulation, I found they had not examined the
subject, and could neither answer the objec-
tions, nor give me a reason for so strange an
aberration in nature from her own laws in the
case of subsistence alone. They believed it was
found to be true-Mr. Malthus had shown it
at great length-but for their part they had
not examined it minutely themselves, and they
could not pretend to give a decided opinion
upon it. In fact, as far as they did believe,
they believed they knew not why, or because
they imagined it was fashionable to do so.
There are some, I have been told, who talk
of the subsistence principle being as strictly
demonstrated as any thing in Euclid. This may
be a very useful observation to prevent their
opinion from being questioned by those about
them who are disposed to acquiesce in their
362
BOOK V.
OBSERVATIONS ON THE
fiat; but it shows to their opponents, that these
subsistencians are not acquainted with the
question really at issue, and that they have
never examined the subject, on which they give
an opinion so authoritatively, in such a manner
as to render their opinion of any value. It is
perfectly clear to all who have fairly examined
it, that the subsistence principle sets aside one
of the clearest and most powerful laws of nature
connected with man as an agent. If then it
be true, that the supply of subsistence has the
power attributed to it, this power must arise
from certain counteracting circumstances and
indirect influences. The proof of such a power
must, therefore, be the result of much reasoning
from a variety of causes and effects more or less
obscure, desultory and uncertain. And this
proof, though it may be sufficient, on the whole,
to convince the learned statistician, cannot
from the nature of things be perfectly satis-
factory, or free from some doubts.
Mr. Malthus himself has also pressed Eu-
clid into the cause against early marriage.
"The following proposition may be said to be
capable of mathematical demonstration. In a
country, the resources of which will not perma-
nently admit of an increase of population more
rapid than the existing rate, no improvement
in the condition of the people, which would
tend to diminish mortality, could possibly take
CHAP. VIII. SUBSISTENCE QUESTION.
363
}
place without being accompanied by a smaller
proportion of births, supposing of course nọ
particular increase of emigration. To a person
who has considered the subject there is no pro-
position in Euclid, which brings home to the
mind a stronger conviction than this *."
Here, as usual, this arch-enemy of early
marriage argues within the circle of his own
assumptions. He assumes the very thing
which is to be proved, or at least puts a case,
which may certainly be fancied capable of
existing on his theory, but cannot take place in
nature under the regulating power of the
demand. Where is this supposed country to
be found? I presume it is to subsistence he
particularly alludes, as that forms his grand
object in all these views; but the case is the
same with respect to all the other branches of
the supply. A country that has reached its com-
plement, and cannot enlarge its importations,
must be excepted, for the population of such a
country cannot increase at any rate at all.
Where then is the country possessing unculti-
vated or imperfectly cultivated land, or is con-
nected with countries in that state, which can-
not provide for an increase of population more
rapid than the existing rate, or for any increase
that may take place, or in which the cultivators
and importers will not be enabled by means of
* Essay, Appendix, vol. iii. p. 359.
364
BOOK V.
OBSERVATIONS ON THE
the influence of a real demand to procure sub-
sistence fully to the amount actually wanted?
The rate, at which subsistence is increased by
population, for it has no rate of increase of its
own, depends entirely on the will of population,
and that, again, is entirely regulated by the
demand, real or supposed. If the progress of
population in a country be variable, so will the
progress of subsistence.
The latter will be
more rapid or more slow for the next five or
more years, than it is at present, or has been
for the last five or more years, according to the
rate at which population and, of course, the
demand increases or decreases.
And farther all tendency in the demand
for subsistence to increase faster than at the
present rate, instead of deteriorating the con-
dition of the people, as is indirectly insinuated
in this passage, would, as in the case of the
other articles of the supply, improve their cir-
cumstances. By the laws of circulation, such
a tendency must necessarily augment the quan-
tum of employment and of wealth.
This fond subsistencian seems disposed
completely to reverse nature in the portion of
statistics under consideration. He treats popu-
lation as something quite passive and regulated,
just as subsistence is found to be in real life;
and he speaks of subsistence as something
having a kind of personal agency and regulat-
2
CHAP. VIII.
365
SUBSISTENCE QUESTION.
ing will, such as population in real life evi-
dently possesses. Most chapters of his Essay
present the attentive statistician with specimens
of this strange taste for inverting nature, and
these occasionally possessing a tinge of the
burlesque.
The following passage out of many shows
his fondness for introducing mystery and occult
causes into a plain practical subject. Most
persons would consider the opinion of Lord
Kaimes respecting the Indians* as in a manner
consisting of a mere truism. But Mr. Malthus
controverts it, and it certainly does not fall in
with the subsistence theory. "It is not there-
fore, as Lord Kaimes imagines, that the Ame-
rican tribes have never increased sufficiently to
render the pastoral or agricultural state neces-
sary to them,"-Here we have a real cause
specified" but" what? "from some cause or
other, they have not adopted in any great
degree these more plentiful modes of procuring
subsistence, and therefore have not increased
so as to become populous." This is curious
theorising in the usual circle.
Mr. Malthus seems to argue, as if subsist-
ence were something of a most ungovernable
nature, which all the exertions of population
* Sketches of the History of Man, vol. i. p. 99, 105.
Svo.
+ Essay, vol. i. B. i. ch. 4. p. 89.
366
BOOK V.
OBSERVATIONS ON THE
could make little or no impression upon until
it chose to move of its own accord. In nature
nothing is more easily moved or managed by
the influence of the demand, whether real or
artificial, than subsistence. It is true, that
with respect to white crops, it requires a year
to bring forward an additional indigenous
supply. But the cultivator is perfectly aware
of this; and the influence of an additional
demand, by operating along with his own
wishes and self-interest, is very apt to make
him overdo the business and injure himself by
his exertions.
The supply of subsistence in the annual
crops is generally more than a year before the
demand; and, if we include those forms of
subsistence which require more than a year to
prepare them for the market with profit, as the
greater portion of cattle, it is much more than
that in advance. In case of any particular
failure of crops, or of any particular increase
of population, this store in advance is drawn
upon to supply the deficiency. Subsistence in
the green form, as potatoes, or in the form of
meat in case of necessity, is consumed in a
larger portion than usual. We have within
the last twenty years seen several striking
instances both of an increasing and diminished
demand, as well as of an increased or dimi-
nished supply.
CHAP. VIII.
367
SUBSISTENCE QUESTION.
The cultivator, from a necessary regard for
his self-interest, yields to the impulse of all :
but not with the same promptness and ala-
crity to a decreasing as to an increasing de-
mand. Indeed such is the influence of the
latter, from the cultivator going so willingly
and fully forward with it, that if any check be
given to population, or if there be a sudden
withdrawing of any part of it, the result will
be distress to most farmers and ruin to many,
from their having overdone the increase of the
supply. Of this we had too severe a proof in
1815 and 1816. From the abundance of three
successive preceding crops, produced by the
exertions of the cultivator and the favourable-
ness of the seasons, rapid as was the increase
of our population, the supply was more than it
is usually, before the demand. The change of
political circumstances withdrew the demand
of, it is probable, about 120,000 mouths from
our cultivators *. And what was the result?
The fall of prices and a deficiency of demand
reduced the whole body of British and Irish
farmers to distress, and a great number of them
to ruin. A general despondence ensued. All
additional cultivation was stopt; and in many
districts portions of arable ground were turned
into pasture or left fallow.
*All Classes productive of national Wealth, p. 191.
368
BOOK V
OBSERVATIONS ON THE
Were not population then to proceed at its
usual rate, subsistence would over-abound, at
least, for some time. Indeed abundance sup-
poses rather a deficiency of demanders or of
population.
Other articles of the supply, as building,
clothing, &c. like subsistence, require more or
less time of preparation for increase: some
portions indeed, more than a year. The sup-
pliers are also aware of this, and from neces-
sity adjust matters accordingly. And there
would be just the same propriety of talking
about population pressing on the limits of
clothing, housing, service, &c. or being kept
down to their level, as on the limits of food, or
being kept to its level, in a country which has
not reached its complement.
Judging from facts, the opinions of Mr.
Malthus respecting the defecundating and re-
pressing influence of the usual quantum of
subsistence, under the regulating power of
population in the cultivating state, appear to
me to be downright reveries. The following is
a curious specimen of this sort.
"If a country
were never to be overrun by a people more ad-
vanced in arts, but left to its own natural pro-
gress in civilization; from the time that its pro-
duce might be considered as an unit, to the
time that it might be considered as a million
during the lapse of many thousand years, there
CHAP. VIII.
369
SUBSISTENCE QUESTION.
would not be a single period when the mass of
the people could be said to be free from dis-
tress, either directly or indirectly, for want of
food. In every state in Europe, since we have
first had accounts of it, millions and millions
have been repressed from this simple cause,
though perhaps in some of these states an
absolute famine may never have been known *."
As far as this is comprehensible or intel-
ligible, I confess, it seems to me to be the
purest dreaming without reference to facts.
That actual famine and occasional failures of
crops have produced a defecundating and re-
pressing effect, is true. But it is also true, that
the use of a superfluity of food, or luxury, has
produced the same effect, and perhaps still
more extensively. The real universal fact,
however, is, that the influence of general tem-
perance among Europeans, partly from poverty
or a small income, has been much more effec-
tive in rendering the population of the various
states more prolific, than both the other in-
fluences put together in making it unproduc-
tive. The population of Europe is infinitely
greater, at the present day, than it would have
been, had it been possible, according to the
arrangements of nature, that during the whole
of its history, its people had guzzled in all the
* Essay, vol. ii. B. ii. ch. 13. p. 217.
B B
370
BOOK V.
OBSERVATIONS ON THE
#
superabundance of the citizens of London,
Paris, Vienna, and its other large and wealthy
cities.
As this visionary humour has got much into
vogue from the example of the subsistencians,
I am tempted to set off a vision, built on the
solid ground, against this vision of theirs whose
base is in the clouds. The natural slow rate
of increase in population has kept by far the
greatest portion of the earth for at least four
thousand years little better than a mere un-
productive desert. At this day a very large
portion is in an utterly uncultivated state.
Indeed a very small part of it is cultivated to
the highest pitch of artificial fertility. Through-
out Great Britain and Ireland Mr. Gray
reckons, that there is not a million of acres
which yield the highest practicable average
quantity, and that there are not ten millions of
acres which produce three fourths of that quan-
tity*. What an incredible number of quar-
ters of wheat and other grain, what an amount
of potatoes and turnips, and what millions on
millions of cattle and sheep have annually
during those four thousand years been pre-
vented by a deficiency of population and its
repressing influence, from being produced!
+
I do not know indeed, that the progress of
* Happiness of States, B. vi. ch. 9. p. 483.
CHAP. VIII.
371
SUBSISTENCE QUESTION.
practical science is much quickened by this
kind of fanciful calculations. It may, however,
have its use for our populationists to give the
subsistencians a Rowland for their Oliver, since
the latter will indulge in them. Nor have I
any intention to blame nature. I am disposed
to take it for granted, that the system adopted
by her in peopling the earth is preferable, even
though, from the slowness of the increase of
population according to her arrangements, it
has kept so great a proportion of the world a
desert for these thousands of years, and pre-
vented the production of such an incalculable
amount of subsistence.
The opinion of Mr. Malthus, which per-
vades every part of his Essay, that the distress,
existing always more or less extensively among
the lower ranks, springs chiefly, indeed almost
entirely, from a tendency in nature to a defi-
ciency of subsistence, is utterly unwarranted
by facts. Absolute famines are, of course, ex-
cepted. In all ordinary cases, where man is
found in the cultivating state, there is uniformly
found a sufficiency. If any persons suffer from
too spare living, it arises not from the defi-
ciency of subsistence, but of income. The
latter, in nine cases out of ten, is the result of
imprudence or vice, and might have been pré-
vented by diligence and care. No general
abundance will cure this, for it depends almost
BB 2
372
BOOK V.
OBSERVATIONS ON THE
wholly on the agent himself. But as this dis-
tress springs from poverty, and by no means
from a deficiency in the supply of food, the in-
crease of population, which uniformly augments
wealth and improves the condition of all ranks,
tends to diminish the evil, except in the case of
imprudent or vicious conduct. Indeed a tend-
ency to a shortness in the supply would, as we
have seen, operate towards increasing employ-
ment among the working classes, and to raise
the wages of their labour.
Our subsistencians seem to entertain the
idea, that population waits deliberately and
passively till it actually suffers from starvation
before it cultivates additionally; but, in real
life, the cultivator, like every other supplier, is
regulated by what he can sell, and is always
disposed from self-interest rather to head the
demand, than to wait to be impelled by it.
Nor is there any difficulty in procuring hands
to enable him to advance. In all ordinary
cases there is plenty of persons in the different
walks of society not sufficiently employed, who
are glad to receive his commands.
The favourite plan of Mr. Malthus, in order
to correct the injurious supposed law of nature
respecting the supply of subsistence, is to en-
deavour to reduce the population to the sub-
sistence, rather than to raise the subsistence to
the population. The folly of this wild mea-
CHAP. VIII.
373
SUBSISTENCE QUESTION.
sure has been fully shown in the Happiness of
States *. Were even the subsistence principle
the real principle of nature, as it is but a mere
imagination, it would be better to attempt to
correct nature by raising the subsistence to the
population, than by reducing the latter to the
former. This would augment employment and,
consequently, income. It is also a much more.
practicable plan.
7
Among all the imaginations of the subsist-
ence theory, there is none more unlike the
realities of nature, than the supposed tendency
in the increase of population to deteriorate the
condition of the great mass. The uniform
effect of populousness and the increase of popu-
lation is to organize more completely the com-
munity, and employ its members more effec-
tively, as well to their own advantage as that
of others. They not only raise all ranks in the
scale of wealth, but they fill up the interstices
of society more completely. In thinly peopled
districts there are only the very rich and the
very poor, the lord and the vassal; as for
example, formerly in the Highlands of Scotland.
But in proportion as population accumulates,
there are new ranks and classes formed, till in
a very thick population there is no hiatus left
at all.
* B, vi, ch. 5,
p.
464.
BB 3
374
BOOK V.
OBSERVATIONS ON THE
Of this we have a most beautiful and inte-
resting example in the statistical history of
England, now probably the most populous
country per square mile on the globe. The
table presented by the income-tax exhibited
this in a most striking manner. We find the
incomes ascending by almost imperceptible
grades without a break from the lowest to the
highest and the number gradually diminishes
as the income increases. The whole forms a
pyramid not more pleasing than instructive to
the statistician. And as this country is the
most populous on earth, so it presents the
clearest and strongest proofs of the reality of
the population theory.
Bold assumptions and assertions may suc-
ceed for a time, but they cannot finally prevail
against facts. In an inquiring age like the
present, it is scarcely credible, that a system,
like the subsistence theory, so completely con-
trary to the laws of circulation and in its results
directly opposite to those of real life, can long
maintain its ground. The foundation prin-
ciple on which it is built, or that there is
uniformly an average deficiency of subsistence
compared with the demand, is so glaringly un-
true, that when fairly stated to a peasant, it
would only raise a smile. No, no, would he
say, there is always plenty of subsistence to be
got, if we have only money enough to buy it.
CHAP. VIII. SUBSISTENCE QUESTION.
375
A considerable alteration has certainly ap-
peared in the public opinion since the publica-
tion of the Happiness of States in the spring of
1815. That work has made converts to the
population theory both in the south and north;
but how far it may have had any influence in
producing the change which is now taking
place in the public mind, I have not the means
of ascertaining. Till its publication there
was a kind of general languor on the sub-
ject, and a pretty general indistinct sort of
belief on the subsistence theory. Now, how-
ever, we find every where doubts expressed
about that theory, not unfrequently sneers at
it, and its former believers seem to be rather
in a sceptical state. Some of our public critics
have declared their disbelief, and others express
their belief very ambiguously. Mr. Grahame
and Mr. Weyland have also come forward since
on the population side. And many occasional
writers have shown their good will to the same
cause in desultory attacks. In short, it is very
evident, from various circumstances, that good
sense is now beginning to assert its influence
on this interesting subject. And it is not im-
probable, but that, should Mr. Malthus live long,
he may see very unequivocal symptoms of this
terrific meteor, which he has attempted to raise
in nature, being about to expire in darkness,
The particular views of Mr. Grahame and Mr.
BB 4
376
BOOK V.
OBSERVATIONS ON THE
Weyland it is not necessary here to examine.
Mr. Malthus has given us some observations
upon them in his Appendix. But these amount
to nothing on the real question at issue *. The
only thing noticeable, that affects this question,
is the rapidity with which population has in-
creased of late in Great Britain in spite of the
increase of its towns, its wealth, luxury and
unhealthy employments. This has been al-
ready considered. The extraordinary amount
of additional employment created, and other
circumstances that distinguished the singular
period in question, and the unusual force given
by them to the stimulating causes, fully account
for that result. But it by no means affects the
theory of the Happiness of States. According
to that theory the rate of population per square
mile, and its rate of increase are, with respect
to the power of the demand, immaterial. Up
to an universal complement, the population,
* I am sorry to see a grave professor of political eco-
nomy demean himself to have recourse to one of the pueri-
lities of the rapturous coxcombs of the French Revolution
and such literary fribbles. He sports two notes of admi-
ration against Mr. Grahame, and no less than three against
Mr. Weyland. Such extravagant wonder may be in its
place among declamatory party-pamphleteers, or among
trash-rapture novellists, but surely the quantum of wonder
pointed out by one note of admiration, is enough for any
sober statistician. Nil admirari.
+ P. 153.
CHAP. VII.
377
SUBSISTENCE QUESTION.
whatever be its amount or rate of increase in a
country, can raise the subsistence fully to its
own demand, either by home cultivation or by
importation. In fact, the extraordinary in-
crease of population and the corresponding
increase of subsistence during the period quoted,
afford an additional and most striking proof
in favour of that theory, or of the principle, that
whether the increase of population be slow or
rapid, or whatever be the rate of populousness,
the demand maintains fully its regulating
power.
-
Mr. Malthus has not chosen to meddle with
this theory. The inquiring statistician, how-
ever, who is acquainted with it, sees at once,
that, founded as it appears to be on an express
law of nature, and supported by a detail of
actual causes and facts, it must either be satis-
factorily shown to be unwarranted, or the theory
of the Essay must be abandoned. Others have
attacked only the outworks of that system, but
the author of the Happiness of States, in his
endeavour to establish the principles of popu-
lation and production, as found in real life,
enters the citadel, and assails the very founda-
tions of it. One or other, therefore, must be..
exploded. Either the doctrines of the Happi-
ness of States must be set aside as unfounded,
or the system of Mr. Malthus's Essay is a
378
BOOK V.
OBSERVATIONS ON THE
work of mere imagination contrary to actual
causes and results.
There is no necessity here for going again
into any farther discussion concerning the
foundation principle of the subsistence theory,
as that has been done so minutely already. It
will be sufficient to observe generally, that if
the incontestable law of nature, the regulating
power of the demand, be set aside or abrogated
in the case of subsistence, this can only arise
from some physical impossibility. It can only
be from a natural deficiency either of materials
for the supply, or of the suppliers. And the
results of a natural deficiency of either will be
seen in a constant state of famine, or a constant
exorbitant price.
1. Then, as for a deficiency of materials.
After the lapse of thousands of years, no nation
of any extent has yet reached its complement,
or which does not possess abundance of the
materials of supply, A very considerable por-
tion of the globe is to this day an uncultivated
waste. And of the cultivated portion ninety-
nine parts out of a hundred are very imperfectly
cultivated. Indeed a great portion of this
yields little more than one third of what popu-
lation could make it produce,
2. With respect to the suppliers, There is
such a superabundance of these every where,
that over the whole extent of the civilized por-
CHAP. VIII. SUBSISTENCE QUESTION.
379
tion of the earth, there is a perpetual emigration
of persons from the cultivating lines into towns,
from a deficiency in the demand for subsistence
to detain and employ them.
3. As to the index of famines, these are
merely occasional or local. Sometimes indeed
there seems to be a shortness in the subsist-
ence branch, as in other branches of the supply;
but as frequently the suppliers are seriously in-
jured by a superabundance.
And 4. As to the index of price. The price
of the articles of subsistence, as of other articles,
sometimes rises above a fair average rate, but
it sometimes falls below that rate; and on an
universal average, the price of subsistence is
fair: that is, it is adjusted by both buyers and
sellers, according to the average prices of other
articles. The supply, therefore, is fully equal
to the demand.
There is nothing in Euclid, there is no-
thing in arithmetic, there is nothing in the
results of nature that seems clearer than this
deduction; or than the existence of a complete
regulating power in the demand over the supply
of subsistence on an universal average; or that
population regulates subsistence, as fully and
entirely, as clothing, housing, or any other
branch of the supply. And this will be the
fact in nature, till additional materials or addi-
tional suppliers can no longer be found.
380
BOOK V.
OBSERVATIONS ON THE
Nor is it less clear, that the increase of
population tends as necessarily to increase the
average quantity of employment and wealth.
The grand source of the errors of our subsist-
encians and other antipopulationists, seems
to lie in their considering an addition to the
number of circulators as an increase of sellers
only, and not as it is in nature, an increase of
buyers also. If they viewed these new comers
as both, they would see that it is a moral im-
possibility, but that the increase of number
must create an additional stimulus on the cir-
culandary powers, and necessarily augment the
average amount of employment, and tend to
raise the prices of employment and, of course,
enlarge the income.
Emigration, except in certain local cases, is
no proof whatever of a redundancy of popula-
tion in reference to the materials of subsist-
ence. It prevails chiefly in thinly-peopled dis-
tricts and countries. In those which are very
populous it exists in a much inferior degree,
and in them it is generally much more than
counterbalanced by immigration. It seems to
have flourished most among states in the ear-
liest periods of population, when it was most
useful for peopling the earth; and in propor
tion as nations approach nearer to their com-
plement, it gradually decays. It springs from
a spirit of restlessness and discontent which is
CHAP. VIII. SUBSISTENCE QUESTION.
381
found to inspire so considerable a portion of
our race; and nature undoubtedly intended it
to assist in promoting the peopling of the globe
as well as commercial intercourse. But it is
not really necessary, on account of subsistence,
till a country has reached its complement both
with respect to home culture and importation..
To obtain a more lucrative or comfortable
settlement seems to be the great object of emi-
grants. In the earlier periods of society, before
the cultivator could adjust the supply com-
pletely to the demand, the prospects of obtain-
ing subsistence in greater abundance no doubt
frequently had an influence. The quarrellings
among men have often likewise promoted emi-
grations. So have also the erroneous statistics
of governments. They imagined that the state
was too populous, and that to send off a por-
tion of their people as colonists would be ad-
vantageous both for those who went and those
who remained. We have seen how incorrect
such ideas are with respect to the parent state*.
It is pretended, that the checking which
nature, according to the populationists, gives to
the increase of population, by means of luxury
and unhealthy employments, is even of a worse
cast than that which the subsistencians recom-
mend. That luxury, or the use of super-
fluous food, and sedentary employments, which
* P. 184.
:
382
BOOK V.
OBSERVATIONS ON THE
+
spring from the wealth created by populous-
ness, has a tendency to defecundate and to
injure health, there can be no doubt. But, in
this mode of checking, nature shows her usual
benevolence and equalizing temper. The in-
crease of riches tends to put the means of inju-
ring health and prolificness more extensively
into the hands of the great mass of society,
but, by the very same gift, she confers on that
mass a greater variety of comforts. If a popu-
lous and rich country be less healthy than one,
which is thinly peopled and poor, it has at
least a greater share of comforts and the good
things of life, than the latter. On her plan too
a choice is left to the human agent. If he
choose virtuously and wisely, he will in general
enjoy the good without the alloy.
But what is the result of the artificial
checking recommended on the subsistence
theory by our would-be menders (or, what I
consider as synonimous with respect to all
who interfere with nature's plans, botchers)
of nature? Their moral restraint, a system
of late marrying to wit, would plunge society
into a flood of every species of vice and disso-
luteness. And this prudent regulation, which
is to destroy poverty, would, as far as it was
effective, by diminishing the source of all per-
manent increase of wealth, tend to make stag-
nation perpetual, and spread sloth and poverty
and misery throughout every class.
CHAP. VIII.
383
SUBSISTENCE QUESTION.
1
At the close of this discussion I have to
repeat what I said at the close of the former.
Aware that we are all so liable to err, I am
willing still to listen to any thing farther, which
can be brought forward upon the other side.
Every additional objection shall meet with that
attention to which it may seem entitled. I
confess, however, that so clear and decisive are
the facts, and so strict is the reasoning, on the
side of the population theory, that I entertain
not the least shadow of doubt upon the subject.
Should prejudice, imagination and name prove
still too powerful for facts and reasoning, I
shall regret the want of success: but, to my
latest hour, I shall look back, with increasing
satisfaction, on my endeavours to vindicate the
benevolent and virtuous arrangements of nature
against the odious and pernicious principles,
which our unproductive and subsistence theo-
rists, however honestly they might intend, have
attempted to fix upon them.
Fundamentally erroneous as Mr. Malthus's
views on population and subsistence are, we
owe in a considerable degree to him the parti-
cular attention which statisticians have for
some time paid to those subjects. Though
these views be erroneous in themselves, I have
no doubt but, from the examination and in-
quiries to which they have given rise, that they
will ultimately tend to the distinct develope-
3
384
BOOK V.
OBSERVATIONS ON THE
ment of the subject in all its branches and
bearings, and to the establishment of those
views which are correct.
It is noticeable, that the science of sta
tistics, though a familiar, and what may be
called a fire-side science, for it comes home to
the kitchen and parlour of every human family,
is the latest that seems to attract the attention
of inquirers, in the progress of civilization and
general science. This may perhaps partly be
accounted for from its being connected with
facts so familiar, that we pass our lives con-
stantly amid them, and are every hour receiv-
ing happiness or unhappiness from their causes
or results. What we have constantly before
us becomes so common, that we are apt to
pay it little or no particular attention. But
whether this be the cause that statistics have
been so late in the history of human science in
attracting the attention of learned analyzers,
the fact is so. And that part of them, which
is connected with population and its principles,
seems the latest of all. At length, however, all
branches have attracted the notice both of the
learned and unlearned; and no branch more
than that of population.
Unfortunately, however, thosc visionaries,
the French economists, at the very commence-
ment of the regular study of this most import-
ant of the sciences, succeeded in foisting into
CHAP. VIII.
385
SUBSISTENCE QUESTION.
it a machinery of mere whims and imagina-
tions, from which it has not been able to
recover to this very day. The peculiar whims
and imaginations of the subsistence theory
have at length been superadded to those; so
that this science, as taught by most at present,
is really little better than a mass of unwar-
ranted fancies, indeed absurdities. Quesnay,
Hume, Sir James Steuart, Adam Smith, Mal-
thus, our bullionists, and many others of name,
have lent their influence, more or less, to turn
a plain science, connected with clear every-day
facts and causes, into an unintelligible medley
of imaginary or contradictory causes, principles
and results, occult qualities, and every species
of fancying and dreaming. The whole of this
mysterious machinery of imagination and whim,
must, therefore, be swept away, before this
science can be really intelligible and of practical
use to men.
Fortunately, on the other hand, matter of
fact statisticians have, during the same period,
stood forward, and most essentially assisted the
student and sober inquirer, by procuring for
them such a variety and amount of facts in all
the branches of the science as perhaps were
never laid before the student of any other
science. At the head of these illustrious bene-
factors to statistics stands Sir John Sinclair, to
whom that science and the cultivators of Bri-
C C
386
BOOK V.
OBSERVATIONS ON THE
I
tain, indeed of Europe, and consequently,
Europe itself, are so highly indebted. It is no
small praise to these statisticians to say, that
they have done as much to advance the real
progress of the science, as our theorists of
highest name to retard it.
The former, and among them Mr. Malthus
in particular, have laboured in some points to
restore the Aristotelian mode of reasoning or
system-making, though this has been said to
be exploded. They assume some leading prin-
ciple, and reason forward from it to facts, in-
stead of analysing facts and reasoning back
from them to principles, according to the mode
of Bacon. This latter plan of philosophising is
as much calculated to detect error and esta-
blish truth, as the former to mislead, and to
promote and perpetuate dreaming in science.
The sober inquirer naturally adopts the first:
our dreamers and visionaries, the second.
There is something, it would appear, very
seductive in the Aristotelian method of assum-
ing. It saves the trouble of a patient ana-
lysing of facts and investigation of causes. The
slothful inquirer becomes master of the subject,
as he imagines, at once. He is also charmed
with the splendour of some of the visions, the
ingenuity of some of the fancies; and that
fondness for mystericising, which so many
1
+
;
CHAP. VIII.
387
SUBSISTENCE QUESTION.
1
entertain, is gratified by some occult cause or
inexplicable operation.
It is not among statisticians alone, indeed,
that this hankering after the old mode of phi-
losophising, or dreaming in science, is found,
but among them it is eminently prevalent. It
should, therefore, be a grand object with all
the friends to statistical truth to endeavour to
explode it, and return to a patient analysing
of facts and a strict tracing of them to real
causes.
The productive theory, which is essentially
connected with every branch of the science, by
introducing an arithmetical clearness and cer-
tainty into it, in fact, by showing the opera-
tions of nature in circulation as they really are,
is calculated to banish all ambiguousness and
obscurity, and puts the subsistence division of
it, with others, more completely under our
cognizance. If it cannot bring our economists
and other visionaries down from the clouds
which they have raised, to the solid ground, it
will at least dispel these clouds, and exhibit
those personæ to the sober inquirer in their
proper place. It will always be ready to detect
every new species of the nonsense of economism,
or of visioning, in whatever shape it comes.
I am well aware of the force and obsti-
nacy of prejudice, and of the unteachable cha-
racter of scientific visionaries: but the doc-
CC 2
388
BOOK V.
OBSERVATIONS ON THE
trines of the productive and population theories
are written in such large and legible characters
on every part of the arrangements of nature con-
nected with them, it seems scarcely credible,
that, in an inquiring age, they can be ultimately
either overlooked or misunderstood. Sooner or
later, through the agency of one or another,
they must be received by the great body of the
statisticians in Europe and America.
The year 1816, that memorable year in
statistics throughout Europe, exhibited such
decisive and incontrovertible proofs of the
reality of the productive theory and against the
unproductive, that no candid statistical in-
quirer, who attends to the results of that year,
can well entertain a doubt.
The year 1815, another memorable year in
statistics in Britain, was equally decisive
against the subsistence theory. To the dis-
credit of the age, the wild imaginations of this
theory had been received by too many of our
statisticians for solid realities, without examin-
ation. The results of that year alone, if
fairly considered, would prove fatal to it.
These, however, were by no means necessary
in order to explode such a system. It is formed
so clearly in contradiction to the uniform
results in real life, that the examination of
these results must at length dissipate the un-
couth misanthropic phantom which our gloomy
*
F
CHAP. VIII. SUBSISTENCE QUESTION.
389
paradox-mongers on its side have conjured up,
in the room of the pleasing form presented by
nature to the view of her unprejudiced spec-
tators. Our statisticians will recover from their
frightful reverie; and posterity will smile con-
temptuously at the inattention which so many
reflecting men, the author of it himself among
the rest, showed in admitting for a moment a
system so monstrous and odious, yet founded no
no actual fact connected with the real cause.
This is to express our dissent in strong lan-
guage. But is it too strong for a system,
which, as has been shown, while it leads to
every thing false in statistics, blasphemes
nature, and to the extent that it is effective,
injures virtue, depreciates the value of human
life, degrades marriage, deadens the feelings of
humanity, cherishes misanthropy and malevo-
lence, produces poverty, inspires despondence
and sloth, and completely damps all ardour of
improvement?
In this discussion I have endeavoured to
bring the two theories fully into contact with
each other in all their leading ideas, and tried
them by the laws of circulation, and by the
facts which result from these in real life, in
order that the reader might be able to come to
a decided opinion upon them. The question
every statistician will admit to be of the high-
est importance: not merely from the theo-
CC3
390
BOOK V.
OBSERVATIONS ON THE
retical principles involved in it, but the prac-
tical measures of such vital influence, which
depend upon the decision, as well as the peace
of mind necessarily connected with the popu-
lation theory. The subsistence theory has
thrown a dark and most dispiriting gloom over
the arrangements of nature. This is felt by
all who cherish a real good will towards their
race, or a love for virtue. And none have
lamented it more than those virtuous philan-
thropists, who have too hastily taken for
granted, that the subsistence theory was founded
upon nature's arrangements and results.
The issue of this discussion, I shall venture
to say, will dispel that gloom from every mind,
which, rejecting unwarranted assumptions, and
viewing nature as she is, not as she has been
misrepresented to be by misconceptions and
distorted statements, will allow real causes and
real facts to determine what is true. Not a
principle of the subsistence theory of Mr. Mal-
thus, but is in direct contradiction to the
actual principles of circulation, and not a result
but is in the inverse ratio of the results of
nature. On the other hand, the laws of
nature, and her facts, are as uniformly in favour
of the population theory of Mr. Gray. Her
laws are indeed its laws; and her results, its
results.
The subsistence theory is a proper appendix
2
CHAP. VIII.
391
SUBSISTENCE QUESTION.
to the unproductive theory, which I conceive,
I have shown in another work *, to be utterly
unwarranted, and indeed in direct contradic-
tion to the results of real life. Both are
equally false and injurious to human happiness.
Both alike blaspheme nature, misrepresent her
arrangements, and show her as a partial male-
volent stepdame, instead of a benevolent
parent to all her children. The unproductive
theory creates hateful distinctions unknown to
her, and sets up the various classes of men
against each other, as if they were by her ar-
rangements essentially injurious to each other.
The subsistence theory blasphemes her, by
showing her as forming such strange arrange-
ments, that men, by being temperate, virtuous,
and benevolent, and by obeying her genuine
dictates, entail misery on themselves, as indi-
viduals, and extend want and poverty, with all
the evils that flow from them, throughout
society. And, in order to save them from the
effects of her malevolence and misconduct, it
recommends measures which fill the virtuous
and benevolent with horror.
These wild and, in fact, absurd doctrines,
for such I consider myself as warranted to
style them, are not more injurious to naturę
and to the happiness of men, than the pro-
* All Classes productive of national Wealth.
cc 4
392
BOOK V.
OBSERVATIONS ON THE
ductive and population theories are just to the
one and advantageous to the other. The latter
are as benevolent, and tend as strongly to
produce philanthropy and content among
mankind, as the former are malevolent, and
operate towards rendering them hostile to each
other and discontented with their own con-
dition.
The productive theory exhibits men of all
classes, as essentially useful to each other, and
upon nature's arrangements, in labouring vir-
tuously for their own advantage, promoting the
advantage of all the rest. The population
theory shows, that the increase of our race,
far from being injurious to its happiness, ac-
cording to those arrangements, tends uniformly
to promote the welfare of the whole.
With the laws of nature and her actual re-
sults so clearly and entirely on our side, I am war-
ranted in considering the second, like the first,
fully proved to be the real theory of nature.
The history of our race, from its earliest period,
and statistical facts of every kind, combine to
show, that population, on an universal average,
has a natural tendency to increase, but, after
it reaches the cultivating state, not to over-in-
crease, either with respect to subsistence, employ-
ment, or wealth; for it regulates subsistence as
completely as the other branches of the supply,
while, in its progress, instead of overstocking,
CHAP. VIII.
393
SUBSISTENCE QUESTION.
either as to employment or income, it keeps
uniformly adding to the average amount of
both in sum, that the increase of population,
far from "tending constantly to subject the
lower classes of society to distress, and to pre-
vent any great permanent melioration of their
condition," is the grand, indeed the sole, ori-
ginal cause of the permanent increase of wealth,
as of civilization; and that it is constantly ope-
rating towards improving the condition of all
classes of society, from the lowest to the highest,
and diffusing among them a greater abundance
of the means of happiness.
1
MISCELLANEOUS
STATISTICS.
397
MISCELLANEOUS STATISTICS.
No. I.
THREE LETTERS TO M. SAY.
LETTER I.
On the Source of Productiveness in point of
SIR,
Wealth.
YOUR letter of the 2d of September 1817, has
given me great pleasure indeed, from the spirit of can-
dour which it breathes. It is a specimen, I trust, of a
better disposition about to spring up between the people
of our two countries, now alike free, and that certainly,
with all their faults, have long been the first in the
world for the attainments of the mind, and equally for
the works of peace and of war. It has delighted all
who have read it. Its spirit and tone form a striking
contrast with that haughty ferocious spirit, and that
rude, dictatorial and insulting tone, which too often dis-
graces the writings of opponents, and none more than
political: I fear, also, in no age more than the present.
There is something in candour which disarms an anta-
gonist, and makes him regret that he is forced to dissent,
398
FIRST LETTER TO M. SAY,
I have received both pleasure and instruction, I
assure you, from your treatise on Political Economy. In
some cases I have found my own opinions confirmed by
new facts and by new arguments, as I
take occasion to notice.
may afterwards
At present I confine my remarks to the grand
source of productiveness. To this I turned, as you
will conceive, with much interest. Indeed I would
have the statisticians both of this country and on the
continent to give their attention to this almost exclu-
sively for a time, till they reach some general settlement
on this grand fundamental point. It is so essentially
connected with all the questions, both theoretical and
practical, in statistics, that till it is settled according to
the real causes and results in nature, the science will
remain, as at present, unsatisfactory and uncertain, full
of a mixture of what is false, with what is true. The
same unfortunate, I had almost said, scandalous fact
will continue to be deplored, that scarcely two, either of
its teachers or its students, agree on any leading point.
The importance of ascertaining this grand principle
is now universally admitted by statisticians. And let
me say, that the honour of achieving this is an object
worthy of the ambition of them all. I hesitate not to
affirm, that the statistician who shall succeed in disco-
vering the real principle of productiveness, will do more
for the interests of mankind, than Newton in discovering
the principle of gravitation; and not less for the ad-
vancement of science in a branch perhaps even more
useful and interesting than his: indeed, inferior to none.
And such a discovery will as certainly insure immor-
tality to the author. Is not all this then sufficient to
tempt the statisticians, here as well as on the continent,
to exert themselves?
ON THE SOURCE OF PRODUCTIVENESS. 399
I assume that wealth, in its general sense, consists of
the materials of well-being or happy living, or else the-
means of obtaining these. On the first position, or the
value in use, there seems no contrariety of opinion. It
is respecting the second, the value in exchange, and the
creation of the means of obtaining this wealth, that sta-
tisticians differ,
It seems to me incontestable, that if there be a cer-
tain quality, by means of which articles, or circuland (if
you will permit me to adopt what I conceive to be a very
useful term), when possessed of it, are rendered pro-
ductive of wealth, while without it they are unpro-
ductive, this must be the source of productiveness or
the wealth-creating quality. Does then any such quality
exist ?
In your Letter you observe: "Vous considerez bien
la valeur echangeable comme le quantum de la richesse;
et en cela on peut dire que Smith, vous et moi, nous
sommes d'accord; mais lorsque vient la question de
savoir comment cette richesse est produite, nous ne mar-
chons plus ensemble." This is exactly the doctrine
which I have endeavoured in the Happiness of States to
explain and establish, But I do not think, it is the
doctrine of Smith. He in reality seems to me to express
the contrary. He admits, and indeed the statistician
must be completely ignorant of his subject who could
deny it, that the labour of "churchmen, lawyers, phy-
sicians, men of letters of all kinds, players, buffoons,
musicians, opera singers, opera dancers, &c. have a cer-
tain exchangeable value;" but he denies that this is
equivalent to real productive wealth. He says, "The
labour of the meanest of these has a certain value, regu
lated by the very same principles which regulate that of
400
FIRST LETTER TO M. SAY,
1
every sort of labour; and that of the noblest and most
useful produces nothing which could afterwards purchase
or procure an equal quantity of labour." (Vol. ii. B. ii.
ch. 3. p. 85.) The exchangeable value of their circuland
is so far from being real productive wealth, that he con-
siders it not merely as unproductive, but tending by
some mysterious imaginary process to diminish the real
wealth of a country. (p. 101.)
What indeed his adherents now maintain on this
topic, I do not know. They seem of late so bewildered
by the reasonings of the productive theory, and the
overpowering force of facts against them, that I ques-
tion if they know themselves. They appear to feel
their theory untenable, and yet their prejudices in
favour of it are so strong, that they cannot think of
abandoning the cause of their master, however contrary
to nature's arrangements and facts. They seem to be.
in a state of gloomy and uneasy scepticism. They are
grown sullen.
I certainly did not think you would have admitted
this doctrine, as in your treatise you have confined real
productiveness to a quality of circuland, which a consi-
derable portion of it, that has a real exchangeable value,
does not possess.
You add: "Il me semble que vous attribuez cette
création de valeur à la demande de l'acheteur tandis que
je l'attribue aux qualités qui, dans le produit, ont pro-
voqué cette demande." I shall presently notice what I
have endeavoured to maintain respecting the demand.
But I also consider the real wealth-producing power of
circuland to reside in a quality; that is, in its charge,
ability, or being the medium of price.
1
UTILITY, AS THE SOURCE OF WEALTH. 401
LETTER II.
Utility, not the Principle of Productiveness.
THE wealth-producing quality you name utility. I am
indeed much at a loss as to what quality you mean to
point out by this term. "Cette faculté qu'ont de cer-
taines choses de pouvoir satisfaire aux divers besoins des
hommes, qu'on me permette de la nommer utilité. You
add in a note: "Du latin uti, user d'où l'on a fait uti-
litas, utilité, qualité de pouvoir servir, de pouvoir être
employé." Traité, liv. i. ch. 1. p. 3.
extend the term
From this definition you seem to
utility far beyond the common bounds. Indeed, if you
had not elsewhere limited your meaning, I should have
considered it to include all in the qualities and amount
of articles supplied, which corresponds with the qualities
and amount required by what I understand by the
demand. In this sense it would comprehend every
thing that is used by men, and is equivalent to the
term circuland, adopted in the Happiness of States, or
that which constitutes articles circuland.
If this be your meaning, I cannot help thinking it
a very improper one, and that it would have been much
better to have adopted some other term for the quality.
For utility, in the common acceptation, points out a
quality of a very different and much more limited de-
scription. It denotes something in an article or opera-
tion, which is solidly advantageous, and to a certain
degree necessary to accomplish the proper purpose of
the article or operation, in contradistinction from some-
D D
402
SECOND LETTER TO M. SAY..
thing which is trifling, merely supernumerary, or, as we
would say, useless. By the utility of clothing, for
example, we mean something in it necessary to accom-
plish the proper purpose of it, and nothing beyond this.
Such a use of a term so well understood can only tend
to ambiguity and uncertainty.
Even in this sense, however, the quality of utility in
things is not productive of wealth, unless united with
the quality of profitable chargeability, or its being the
medium of a price, which brings profit or income to the
seller, and, of course, by his expenditure, reproducing
employment, income, and so forth.
But more probably by utility you mean what is
generally understood among circulators by that quality,
or something resembling it.
This quality of circuland did not escape my notice,
when endeavouring to discover what was the wealth-
producing quality of circuland. I saw it to be one
quality that created a demand, and a very extensive
one, but by no means the sole one. Besides, this very
quality is frequently attended with a real diminution oť
the means of wealth. On procuring your Treatise last
year, and finding that you made it the source of real
productiveness, I reviewed the subject, and have since
given it all the attention which your discrimination en-
titles your opinions to, and which, permit me to say, your
candour prompted me most willingly to give.
This doctrine concerning utility had been imputed
by Mr. Buchanan to an Edinburgh Reviewer of high
reputation as a statistician, whom he charged with "the
fallacy of maintaining, that labour, because it is useful,
must necessarily be productive." On this it is observed,
in the Appendix to All Classes productive of national
UTILITY, AS THE SOURCE OF WEALTH.
403
But
Wealth, p. 261, "The utility of circuland forms an
item of the means of happiness, and is that which
renders it of value to the enjoyer or consumer.
when we consider circuland in its exchangeable cha-
racter, and this is always the character in which we have
to view it, as affecting national wealth, it is not its utility
that produces wealth. In this Mr. Buchanan is right.
But it is its utility, which makes it be used, and thus
renders it actual circuland; of course, endowed with
chargeability." After considering the matter with much
care, this is exactly the opinion, which I entertain on
the subject of utility. This partial quality of things is
productive of exchangeable wealth only in the degree
that it is united with the universal quality of real circu-
land, chargeability, or a power to bring a price.
If the quantum of utility, were the quantum, and
entire quantum, of real exchangeable wealth, then those
portions of circuland which possess this quality would be
always productive, or be exchangeable wealth to the
degree in which they possess it. On the other hand,
those which do not possess it at all, or in an inferior
degree, will be unproductive, or no exchangeable wealth
at all, or only in that inferior degree. But this is con-
trary to facts.
All will admit that corn possesses the quality of
utility in the purest and highest degree, whatever be the
sense in which this term is used. Let us now try this
quality by the well-known facts of 1815; a year that
will long be remembered by the agriculturists of Britain,
and the results of which were too unequivocal to be mis-
understood. No one will dispute, but corn possessed the
same degree of utility that year, as it ever did, and ever
will possess. But was it equally productive of wealth, as
DD 2
404
SECOND LETTER TO M. SAY.
during the year before, or on an average
of
years ?
"That year was one of the most productive, both in
corn and cattle, to be found in the annals of British
agriculture. And what was the result? From a fall in
the rate of price, the abundance nearly ruined the whole
body of British farmers, and severely distressed every
other class in the island except fixed annuitants. In
fact, it reduced the nation to a temporary state of po-
verty, from which it has not yet recovered." (All Classes
productive, B. ii. ch. ii. p. 117.)
Let us try the other three theories by the results of
this celebrated year. The produce of 1815 was un-
usually abundant. According to M. Quesnay's doc-
trine then, it must have been productive of an unusual
quantity of wealth. Yet in real life this very abun-
dance reduced our nation to a distressing state of po-
verty. The produce in corn and cattle possessed the
usual solidity and fixedness of form required by Smith.
It was, as usual, a vendible commodity, which endured
after the labour that produced it was past; and yet an
equal quantity of labour could not be afterwards pro-
eured by it. Indeed, a very considerable portion of the
labour bestowed on this vendible commodity, far from re-
producing itself, was entirely lost.
What then was the cause of this extraordinary
change in this most useful species of circuland? Accord-
ing to the doctrines of the Happiness of States, it wanted
a due degree of the quality of chargeability, or had less of
it, than it usually possessed, from the circumstances of the
demand compared with the supply. Indeed, a portion
of it never became actual circuland possessed of any real
changeability during the year, for it could not be dis-
posed of at all. It was of no more exchangeable value
UTILITY, AS THE SOURCE OF WEALTH.
405
to the unfortunate farmer, than if it had been as much
seed procured from mere weeds. In fact, it would have
been better for him that he had not produced this extra
portion, for the price of the remainder would have been
higher, and probably have fully reimbursed him.
But next, if by the quality of utility we are to
understand what is commonly understood by being use-
ful, this limitation would exclude nearly as much circu-
land from being exchangeable wealth, or from possessing
productiveness, as even Dr. Smith's solid and fixed
form. A considerable portion of all the divisions of
articles used by men in a populous and rich country, has
not the quality of real utility. What is the utility of
most of the articles manufactured at Birmingham, or in
your toy and trinket-making towns? Of the fabrica-
tions of Lyons and Paisley? Of the fancy patterns of
the tamboured muslins of Glasgow; or of the printed
cotton and chintzes of Manchester and London? Of a
great portion of the ornaments of our houses and fur-
niture? Of much of the law proceedings, and of the
medical and other processes? And yet all these have
as real an exchangeable value, and are as really pro-
ductive of income and capital, that is, of wealth, and, of
course, as really reproductive of employment, &c. as
food, or the solid parts of houses and dress. And why?
Because, though not possessed of the quality, which we
call utility, they possess the quality of profitable
chargeability.
In some cases the quality of utility is rather inju-
rious to the production of wealth and the reproduction
of employment. The division of literature, among
others, affords us examples of this. Many works of the
most real utility sink unnoticed, and produce wealth
DD 3
406
SECOND LETTER TO M. SAY,
neither to the author nor the bookseller, while others of
no real merit, indeed some, which, instead of being use
ful, are injurious to mankind, produce much to both.
Whence arises this difference? Those useful works,
from a deficiency in the demand, do not possess the
quality of profitable chargeability, while the trash writ-
ings alluded to, by means of an abundance in the de-
mand, acquire a large portion of it.
Again, circuland endowed with utility, is sometimes
utterly unproductive; and yet the same, at other times,
is very productive, Let us take for example the well-
known case of Hume's History of England, a work
which, though occasionally deformed by the effects of a
party-spirit, unfavourable to genuine liberty, as well as of
a sceptical disposition hostile to religion, is, with these
exceptions, a perfect model of its kind, and unquestion-
ably equal to any history in ancient or modern times.
This work possesses utility in an eminent degree; and
it has long been, productive of much employment,
income, and wealth. Yet for many years, we all know,
it was utterly unproductive. And why? Was it from
any difference in the quality of utility?
same beauties and faults, the same quantity of instruc
tion, which it had at first. It was long unproductive,
because, from a total want of demand, this utility was not
united with the quality of actual chargeability; and it
became at length very productive by becoming united
with this quality in an eminent degree.
It has the
This celebrated example may be used for explaining
the process of the production of wealth, and reproduc
tion of employment. The printing of the work gave
employment to the paper-maker and printer, &c. So
far it was actual circuland, producing income. But
UTILITY, ÀS THE SOURCE OF WEALTH. 407
here the process stopt. When published, it ceased to
be actual circuland from there being no demand. The
author or publisher lost what the printer and others
had gained. It was à mere transfer case at best.
Some stimulation had indeed been given to circulation
by its printing, but there was no farther stimulus
created by it. And had the capital expended in the
production of this abortive circuland, been employed in
creating some other work, the process might have gone
on: At length, however, after many years a demand
arose for it; and thus it became actual circuland en-
dowed with profitable chargeability. Not only did the
printing of an edition create employment, but the sale
of it, by rendering another necessary, reproduced em-
ployment at least to the same amount. The profit
arising from it became income to the author, publisher,
and booksellers, and enabled them by their expenditure
also to produce fresh employment. Thus, in these
various ways, it was the medium of creating additional
means of wealth.
The deduction from all this is clear and incontro-
vertible, that utility, unless united with profitable
chargeability, is unproductive, and that it becomes pro-
ductive by means of its combination with this quality alone.
The quantum of profitableness in this quality, evidently
depends on the amount of the supply compared with the
amount of the demand.
From the datum of utility constituting the wealth-
producing quality, you draw the following conclusion
respecting the production and increase of wealth: “Il
n'y a donc véritablement production de richesse que là
où il y a création ou augmentation d'utilité." Traité,
liv. i.ch. i. p. 7. This is undoubtedly a correct con-
DD 4
408
SECOND LETTER TO M. SAY.
clusion on the assumption, that utility is the real source
of wealth: for, in such a case, where utility does not
exist, there can be no wealth produced; and where it
is augmented, there must be a corresponding increase of
wealth.
Such, however, is unquestionably not the fact in
real life. We have just seen that the wealth de-
rived from circuland is by no means necessarily con-
nected with the quality of utility in it. This quality
frequently exists in articles, and, instead of wealth, po-
verty is created by them. On the other hand, a great
portion of articles which actually create wealth, do not
possess this peculiar quality. And yet farther: the
increase of utility, far from necessarily producing a cor-
responding increase of wealth, frequently renders the
species of circuland less productive.
A great variety of examples of all this might be
quoted, both in regard to labour and skill, and the pro-
ductions of labour and skill. A baker, by applying
himself to plain baking, might make about a hundred
a year from using a certain quantity of flour; and
the same baker, by abandoning this useful branch of
his trade, and taking to that of buns and pastry, out
of one fifth portion of the flour, and on one fifth of the
amount of capital, might, and very probably would make
two hundred a year. Thus his labour and skill, by be-
coming less useful, would become much more profitable;
while by his expenditure he produces double the amount
of employment which he created in the more useful line.
Another man by applying his time and labour to admi-
nistering to the vices of his neighbours, might procure an
income of three hundred a year. Seized with remorse
he gives up this lucrative but immoral sort of circu-
UTILITY, AS THE SOURCE OF WEALTH. 409
land, and betakes himself to teaching young persons to
read and write, by which he can barely earn annually
sixty pounds. Who will dispute that his labour and
skill in the new line have much more utility? Yet, far
from producing an augmentation of wealth, it has
reduced him to a state of poverty. By his expenditure
also he reproduces much less employment to his neigh-
bours than before.
And next with respect to the results of labour and
skill. A machine may be much improved and ren-
dered doubly useful, and yet this increase in its utility,
from some circumstances in the demand, or by stirring
up. other competitors and overstocking the market, may
produce loss instead of profit. Even articles of cloth-
ing, of a fabric really superior in utility, or in point of
excellence and durability, may be sold for a loss, while
others made from the same wool, of a fabric of a much
inferior quality, but in some respect more fashionable,
will produce profit.
}
But it is needless to heap up examples of a fact so
well known, that an increase of utility by no means
necessarily produces an increase of profit, income, or
wealth.
Arguing from the limitation of utility, you deprive
a considerable portion of price of the power to produce
employment or wealth. You cite that part, which consists
of the charge for government.
"De même quand le
gouvernement met sur le vin, par exemple, un impôt qui
fait vendre 15 sous une bouteille, qui sans cela se serait
vendue 10 sous, que fait-il autre chose que faire passer,
pour chaque bouteille, 5 sous de la main des produc-
teurs ou des consommateurs de vin dans celle du per-
cepteur? La marchandise n'est ici qu'un moyen d'at
DD 5
410
SECOND LETTER TO M. SAY.
teindre plus ou moins commodément le contribuable, et
sa valeur courante est composée de deux élémens,
savoir: en premier lieu, sa valeur réelle fondée sur son
utilité, et ensuite la valeur de l'impôt que le gouverne-
ment juge à propos de faire payer pour la laisser fabri-
quer, passer ou consommer." p. 6.
It appears clear to me, that the portion in the price
of things, consisting of the charge for government, is as
essentially connected with what possesses a real utility,
as the portions charged for subsistence, clothing, lodg-
ing, service, &c. "These imposts" (taxes) " are the
medium by which government, as the agent of the
public, charges the people for the services performed for
them, by soldiers, sailors, diplomatists, and others.
Forming in many cases a separate charge, they are
looked upon by the multitude, as something of a differ-
ent kind from other charges, and of an odious character:
something that is taken from them, not voluntarily
given, and for which they receive nothing tangible or
visible in return, They do in fact, however, receive in
return something most truly valuable, which is protec-
tion from foreign enemies, and from lawless, dishonest,
and ferocious men at home. But this article is not tan-
gible, or visible, like the bread purchased from the baker,
or the clothes from the tailor. What then? Is it not
as substantial a good? And does it not tend as really to
their happiness?" All Classes productive, p. 127.
If the government part of the price of things be
unproductive then, it cannot possibly be from its being
charged for what does not possess real utility,
This, however, is noticed here merely as a fact re-
specting this species of circuland. The question at
issue concerning productiveness is not affected by its
being a fact. The power in price to reproduce employ-
UTILITY, AS THE SOURCE OF WEALTH.
411
ment does not depend on any portion of its being for
what is useful, more than on its being for what is super-
fluous, or even injurious. I should have no objection
in discussing this point to concede, for the time, that
the government item is not derived from what possesses
utility. The power to produce income and reproduce
employment, will be precisely as before, or to the amount
of the item.
In what point does this portion of price differ from
any other portion charged by the maker or seller for
subsistence, lodging, clothing, &c? Does it not yield
employment and income to the various classes con-
nected with government as really and fully, as that
portion which is drawn from the buyer for subsistence
yields income and employment to the various classes
connected with cultivation, and so on, with regard to
all the other items charged for clothing, service, &c. ?
And do not those government classes, in return, by
means of this portion becoming income to them, repro-
duce employment by expending it, or investing it as
capital, to its full amount, as the cultivating and other
classes by means of the items charged for them?
This charge on the part of government, again, is as
really taken into the price of things, as the charge of
ally
other class which has any thing to do with the article, or
the labour and skill connected with it. Circulators thus
fully reimburse themselves for it.
But suppose this portion of the price to be annihi-
lated, what would happen? The general price of
things would gradually sink till it was lower by the
whole proportion of this part. Who then but fixed
annuitants would gain by such a fall, were nothing else
to take place? But unfortunately, by annihilating this
·
412
SECOND LETTER TO M. SAY.
portion of price, you annihilate the whole of the em-
ployment and income created by it, just as were you
to annihilate any other of the portions, which constitute
price, whether for subsistence, for lodging, for clothing
(were this possible), you would annihilate the employ-
ment created by cultivating, or by building, or by manu-
facturing. And while you thus diminished the amount
of the demand, on the one hand, on the other, you
would throw the whole mass of suppliers in this line, as
supernumeraries, over upon the other lines already over-
stocked as they would be. I have only here to quote
the year 1816, as perfectly decisive on this point.
How then is the income or profit drawn, in the
excepted manner, not as real an addition to wealth, as
the profit or income drawn in any other? The part of
price, which you have excluded, as really represents in-
come and employment, or that which it is charged for,
as well as that which, in the process of reproduction, it
creates, as any other part of price. It is indeed a strict
mathematical truth, that all parts of price, whether
charged for what is useful or not, must alike create
more or less or equal employment and wealth, according
to the amount of their proportion.
Nothing has surprised me more, than that statisti-
cians should have failed to perceive the reality of this
grand principle in statistics, that whatever is charged
for must create income and reproduce employment in
one form or another, in proportion to its amount.
This seems so plain a truth, that it requires only to be
stated to be admitted. Yet our statisticians, like the
multitude, demur to that part which is charged for the
government and some other classes. They seem to
imagine that, what is given to government in particular, is
CHARGEABILITY, THE SOURCE OF WEALTH. 413
completely lost to the nation: so much, as it were, entirely
annihilated. And yet what is seen more actually ope-
rative on circulation, both in yielding income and re-
producing employment, and of course creating all the
additional stimulus arising from both?
I fear, Sir, you have had reason to think me prolix.
But your doctrine which finds the wealth-producing power.
in utility, seems much more reasonable than Quesnay's,
which places it in the produce of land, or Smith's, which
supposes it to reside in a certain solid transferable form
of things. Besides, though utility be combined with
only a part of circuland, it would admit the operations
of mind within the productive circle. There is indeed
something attractive in it. I have, therefore, considered
it worthy of this minute attention.
}
}
LETTER III.
Chargeability, as the Source of Productiveness.
J
IF
now, Sir, we turn to the examination of the quality
of chargeability, we see that it is indispensably neces-
sary to the production of exchangeable wealth. In all
cases, in which it exists, it is productive of income,
wealth and employment to the amount or degree, in
which it is possessed by circuland, whatever be the form
or character; and no circuland, whatever be its form or
character, that is not united with it in a profitable de-
gree, is productive. All circumstances and changes of
circumstances join to confirm this truth. It is in fact
G?
414
THIRD LETTER TO M. SAY.
equivalent to exchangeability, and, therefore, equal to
the quantum of exchangeable wealth.
The demand which is made up of the wants and
wishes of circulators, creates circuland; but it is the
quality of profitable chargeability, or, in other words,
being the medium of a profitable price, that renders it
effectually productive, The demand is often inefficient
with respect to the production of wealth. Sometimes
the article which is demanded, cannot be supplied, and
then chargeability cannot take place. At other times,
and this happens frequently, the demand, from the state
of the supply, fails to be productive, as the quantum of
chargeability is deficient. And yet the demand may be
very great, but the supply is greater. This deprives
the circuland of the quality of chargeability in a profit-
able degree.
Surely then, Sir, that quality of circuland, which in
a due degree uniformly renders it a source of income or
the means of wealth, and, of course, the cause not only
of the reproduction of the old quantum of employment,
but the production of an additional quantum, and with-
out which it is utterly unproductive of either income,
wealth, or additional employment, and further the
degree of which uniformly corresponds with the amount
of exchangeable wealth, must be the source of produc-
tiveness or the real wealth-producing quality. This,
indeed, seems to me to be what we in our language call a
truism, or what requires only to be stated to be per-
ceived to be true. When fairly expounded, it appears
to me to be nothing short of self-evident. We must
assent.
We have had so many mysterious processes, occult
qualities and unintelligible dogmas introduced into sta-
CHARGEABILITY, THE SOURCE OF WEALTH. 415
tistics by our various economists, that they have become
little better than a mere mass of inexplicable enigmas
and unmeaning parodoxes, so that, as I have already.
observed, scarcely two statisticians agree. It would,
therefore, be most desirable to clear this practical science,
so essentially connected with the happiness of all classes
in all its variety, of these paradoxical and useless subtle-
ties. And the productive theory is calculated to accom-
plish that object completely.
The principle of chargeability is so simple, and so
easily applied, that, if admitted, it would rid the science
of all obscurity and ambiguousness, and render it a
science of arithmetical clearness and certainty. The
results become mere matters of calculation. An indivi-
dual is productive of wealth to others, that is, to the
nation, just as to himself, or to the whole amount of his
income. And the same is true of any body or class of
circulators. It matters not, in this point of view, what
be the mode, or what the species of circuland by which
he and they obtain that income, for it will alike repro-
duce employment to others to its full amount. And the
wealth of a nation consists of the total of these incomes,
for they represent the means of happiness, as well as of
employment. According as this total increases or de-
creases, the nation possesses in a greater or less degree
the means of happiness and reproduction.
This principle is not more friendly to progress in
the science, than it is to benevolence. On the pro-
ductive system, of which it forms the basis, the advan-
tage of each individual tends to the advantage of all,
while the advantage of all tends to the advantage of the
individual. It knows no lines which render one class.
of circulators productive and another unproductive, and
?
416
THIRD LETTER TO M. SAY.
which tend to keep
against one another.
these classes in a state of feud
Neither does nature know any.
It considers all as she has made them, real friends and
assistants to one another, in the general pursuit.
This wealth-producing quality holds out the glorious
prospect to mankind, that the source of wealth is ines-
haustible. All other qualities or principles narrow or
limit that source. According to them, circulators in
obtaining income, are taking from a heap. According to
this, they are adding to it. The more liberally they
draw they render the source more copious, and instead
of injuring others, enable them (always excepting fixed
annuitants) to supply themselves with a larger amount
of income.
It may be urged here, that upon this theory, the
more circulators charge, as they draw it from others, the
nore must they draw from others, and, therefore, its
principle seems to operate against itself. This, however,
is only in seeming. A second view of the subject does
this apparent contradiction entirely away. The more
circulators charge on the general fund, it is true, the
more they draw from others; but the more they draw
from these, the more they put into the general fund.
Their income becomes either expenditure or capital. It,
of course, creates employment, or the means of charging
for others. This enables the latter to counter-charge in
their turn, and proves the source not only of reimburs-
ing themselves but of obtaining an increased income.
For surely if a circulator charges for a larger amount
of any article, or for a greater variety of articles than
before, he must necessarily create an increased amount
of employment, and of course income to the suppliers of
these articles.
CHARGEABILITY, THE SOURCE OF WEALTH. 417
Thus the wealth-producing quality of chargeability,
or the principle of charge for charge, renders the general
fund unlimited. The mine of real wealth, far from
being exhausted, like the mines of gold and silver, by
drawing from it, becomes more extensively copious, the
more it is drawn upon, from the necessarily correspond-
ing increase in the supply. What at first view seems a
paradox, on a full consideration is found to be a plain,
simple, real principle in nature. And the result of it is
as strictly demonstrable as any thing in Euclid.
I must not omit here to call your attention to the
vital connexion between the real principles of population
and the real principles of productiveness as to wealth, and
the necessity of studying them in conjunction, in order
completely to understand the process of the production
of the latter. "The increase of population, though its
influence on the production of wealth has been but too
much overlooked, is the great, indeed the sole original
cause of the permanent increase of wealth." In the sta-
tionary condition of population, the tendency in prices to
fall from the stagnation and deficiency of stimulus, inse-
parable from such a state, renders it extremely difficult
for a nation to keep up the wealth which it has acquired,
or to procure the means of reproducing only the usual
quantum of employment. But this has been fully dis-
cussed elsewhere.
In remarking on the foolish notion of Sir James
Steuart, which is still that of the multitude, that, if
foreign commerce should fail, the amount of internal
wealth could not be augmented, you say: "Il sem-
blerait que la richesse ne peut venir que du dehors.
Mais au dehors, d'où viendrait elle? Encore du
dehors. Il faudrait donc, en la cherchant de dehors en
EF
1
418
THIRD LETTER TO M. SAY.
dehors, et en supposant les mines épuisées, sortir de
notre globe; ce qui est absurde." Traité, p. 20.
This, Sir, is one of those decisive arguments, which
If now
leave to the opponent only evasion or assent.
you apply your own reasoning on the wealth procured
from abroad, to the wealth acquired at home, you will
find yourself fairly brought within the circle of the pro-
ductive theory, out of which, by the way, you must
pardon me, when I say, there is no possibility of escape.
If we seek from whom any individual, or class, procures
his or its wealth, we must go round the whole of the
individuals and classes, for we shall find none of them
draw it from themselves, but all from others. Which
others is it then ultimately drawn from? or how is it
procured at all? It was this dilemma, that gave me the
first idea of the productive system. I felt myself
irresistibly forced into it.
It would give me much pleasure to have your
assistance in the attempt to simplify a science so inte-
resting to us both, and give it the clearness and correct-
ness of which it is naturally so fully capable. The task
of stemming that flood of subtleties, mysterious pro-
cessses, and unmeaning paradoxes, which has long been.
flowing so strongly from the wild regions of economism
and fanciful theory upon it, is difficult; but surely it is
not impracticable. I will trust in the good sense of the
present inquiring age, that powerful though the influence
of prejudices, of high name and bold assertions, be, it
is not impossible to explode the strange mass of nonsen-
sical and paradoxical whims and imaginations with which
this science has been mixed, and show the causes and
results of nature connected with it in her simple truth *
*Such is the uncertainty that has been thrown upon the
CHARGEABILITY, THE SOURCE OF WEALTH. 419
From your discrimination in this science, and from
your attentions to facts, I will not despair to see you
ultimately range yourself on the side of the Productive
Theory with respect to the grand principle and its lead-
ing results. Some alterations would be necessary. But
a great portion of your detail will be found to be easily
compatible with the admission of that great principle.
Be this as it may, allow me to conclude my letter by
adopting the conclusion of your own.
"Je m'estimerai heureux, si quelqu'une des idées
qui se trouvent exposées dans cet ouvrage obtiennent
votre approbation et exercent quelqu' influence sur vos
estimables écrits; mais en même temps je recevrai avec
reconnaissance toutes les critiques que vous m'addres-
serez, dans la persuasion qu'elles n'auront lieu qu'après
un jugement rassis des raisons que j'ai données et des
faits sur lesquels je les fonde; et qu'elles me fourniront
ainsi un moyen de rectifier mes erreurs.
·
"Recevez, Monsieur, l'assurance de ma haute con-
sideration."
London, 12th March, 1818.
S. GRAY.
牛
​causes operating in circulation and their results, that frequently
we find our legislators, as well as yours and those of America, in
discussing questions in statistics, unsaying in one part of the
same speech, what they had said in another.
EE
>
420
THE POOR.
No. II.
On the Poor.
BY MR. GRAY.
ALMOST every person in a populous country, even in
the lowest regular walks of life, may by economy and
prudence attain, in the course of a long life, to a com-
petency. It is meant here, that the competency is to be
computed according to his rank, and it is assumed, that
his health is tolerably good, and that no particularly un-
favourable circumstances occur. But rigid economy
and prudence are not to be expected from all, if even-
from the most. Vices or misfortunes will always reduce
a considerable number to occasional or permanent de-
pendency on their neighbours. This is the fact even
with respect to the members of the middle and higher
ranks; and, therefore, it is less to be wondered at, that
those of the lower ranks, who have seldom the advan-
tage of a good education, should fall into the same dis-
tress.
The more populous, well-employed and rich a
country is, the more likely it is to have a larger propor-
tion of its circulators in a distressed state from vicious
habits and a want of economy. In a poor country the
deficiency of employment, the consequent temperance of
the people, and necessity, render habits of frugality and
prudence more general. Circulators also of the higher
elasses being in more pinched circumstances, are less
1
THE POOR.
421
disposed to give freely. But in a rich country the
various classes of labourers, mechanics, and manufac-
turers obtain lucrative employment so early and with
such facility, that the habits of strict frugality and pru-
dence are but rarely found. They are, of course, both
less careful and more dissipated. The great body of
them, particularly in towns, live from hand to mouth;
or to use a saying of the North, they make the day and
the way alike. When misfortune, or a reverse of circum-
stances comes, there is nothing provided. To use another
country saying, they have laid by nothing for a rainy
day. They are, therefore, obliged to throw themselves
on the pity of their more fortunate neighbours: and
they do this with less reluctance, as their vicious relaxed
habits have deadened much their feelings of independ-
ence. On the other hand, these fortunate neighbours,
from being wealthier than those of the same classes in a
thinly peopled country, are both able and disposed to
give more liberally.
Thus, though at the first view it may seem a pa-
radox, in proportion as a country grows more populous,
and (what is inseparably connected with this) more rich,
there will almost uniformly be an increasing proportion
of paupers.
The lower ranks, even with a common share of eco-
nomy, cannot well realize so much property as to meet
extraordinary expenses.
Their income also generally
depends on their health.
earn nothing, and yet they are obliged to spend more
than usual. The sum, which they in general can charge,
is barely sufficient to supply the current expenses of
the common style of living of the class. There is no-
thing then for the cases of illness, non-employment or
When unable to work, they
EE 3
422
THE POOR.
old age. Their relations cannot, like those of unfor-
tunate members in the richer classes, assist them. The
public must, therefore, make up the deficiency.
Nor has that body any just reason to complain of
this as a hardship. It is through the industry of these
ranks, that the middle and higher are enabled to attain
a competence, or riches. All the additional wealth,
which springs from an increase of population, is consi-
derably though indirectly owing to them: for it is these
poorer classes that are the most populating, or produce
the greatest number of children. These children, by
the employment which they create, enrich the commu-
nity, and though in general they assist their parents
after a certain age, the great number produced by each
pair frequently proves a drawback, while they are very
young; and if when they come to working years, they
turn out idle or extravagant, they prove the cause of
keeping their parents poor. Thus, what adds to the
wealth of others, prevents them from laying by as much
as is sufficient to meet accidents, and would, though they
were much more prudent than they generally are. In
doing for them what their very useful station in society
prevents them from doing for themselves, the middle and
higher ranks are only paying back a part of the wealth
which they have received from that mass, as well as
making some return for the various comforts which they
derive from its labours. The claim of the distressed
poor for the contributions of the richer, is a claim not
merely of humanity, but of justice. It is a claim of
strict right. And after all the heavy charges made
for the poor, on striking a. fair balance, the rich are
considerably the gainers.
It has indeed of late been attempted to deny the
THE POOR.
423
right of the poor to support*. To oppose this doc-
trine except by a flat denial, and stating the opposite, or
by affirming, that the poor have a right to support,
seems superfluous. This is a politico-moral truism,
which all attempts to confirm, would perhaps only tend
to throw some doubt upon, to the mind unperverted by a
false theory. And certainly it would be difficult to
make it appear more true to the well-disposed mind,
than by merely stating it. As, however, it has some
foundation in an unwarranted theory, it may be worth
while to make an observation or two upon it.
There are natural rights, and social rights, and legal
rights. When a natural right is also warranted by the
good of society, it becomes a real social right; and is
strictly indefeasible. Its value, or reality, does not
depend on the authority of any positive law, or of any
declaration from those possessing power; but on the
arrangements of nature. A legal right is something
that has been acknowledged and authorized by a com-
munity. A legal right may consequently be set aside
by a declaration from competent authority, for what a
community has enacted, it can disenact; but all the de-
clarations of all the legislators in the world will never
make that which is a real social right to be an unreal one,
or to be what is wrong. They may indeed so declare,
and they may act upon their declaration; but in so de
claring and so acting, they do what is contrary to the un-
alterable laws of justice. They are wrong, but the right
* By Mr. Malthus. "It appears to me," says he, "that we
are bound in justice and honour formally to disclaim the right of
the poor to support." Essay on the Principle of Population,
vol. iii. B. 4: ch. 8. p. 179.
EE 4
424
THE POOR.
remains still in reality what it was, in the eyes of a
perfect Being.
The poor in England have at present a legal right
to support. This might indeed be rescinded. Parlia
ment might declare, that the poor have no right to sup-
port; but I think I know Britons too well, to fear for
a moment, that a British legislature will ever disgrace
itself and the high character of its country for justice and
humanity, by any such declaration.
As to the reality of the right of the poor to support,
it is grounded alike upon the good of the community and
of the individual. The well-being of both requires its
admission. Both would be injured and rendered un-
happy were it not acted upon. By the constitution of
´our nature we are impelled as instinctively or necessa-
rily to assent to and act upon the proposition, we should
relieve or assist the poor and distressed, as to such
propositions as these, we should pay what we really
owe-we should perform what we promise-we should
honour our parents-we should defend our country.
The universal Christian rule for right acting, or of doing
to others what we would have them to do to us, and the
grand injunction of the Author of Christianity, to love
our neighbours as ourselves, both of which are founded
on private and public good, confirm the same truth. To
disclaim the right of the poor to support, is, therefore,
to affirm a moral untruth; and to act upon such a prin-
ciple, is to do not only what is inhuman, but what is
really unjust.
The author of this false proposition has been led
into it from that peculiar enmity to early marriage among
the lower classes, which he entertains, and which arises
from his incorrect theoretical views respecting popula
>
425
THE POOR.
*
tion *. He seems to imagine, that pauperism springs
chiefly, if not wholly, from marriage. It has, I con-
ceive, been strictly demonstrated, that the increase of
population, instead of tending, as he fancies, rather to
diminish the average amount of employment and of
wealth, necessarily increases the average proportion of
both. Were the condition which he requires, that no
man should marry who has not the prospect of being
able to maintain a family, strictly acted upon in its full
import,but this is impossible, for nature is much too
powerful for fanciful theory,-a decrease of population,
and its necessary consequences, universal stagnation,
torpor and poverty, would be the result.
No man, in such a case, could marry, who was not
really possessed of actual capital able to maintain a
family of the usual number; for no man, who depends
upon his own labour or the chances of employment, can
be said to have such a prospect of being able to support
a family, as would justify him in marrying, if he were
debarred of all prospect of assistance from others or the
public, in case of accident or misfortunes. A week
after marriage the most healthy prudent man, at the time
well-employed, may meet with an accident which may
either lame him or so affect his health as to prevent him
from earning a livelihood. Scarcely any members of
the lower ranks, on whom the increase of population
* "He" (who marries without the prospect of being able to
support a family) " should be taught to know, that the laws of
nature, which are the laws of God, have doomed him and his
family to suffer for disobeying their repeated admonitions; that
he had no claim of right on society for the smallest portion of
food, beyond that which his labour would fairly purchase.'
Essay on the Principle of Population, vol. iii. B. iv. ch. 8. p. 181.
2
426
THE POOR.
chiefly depends, could with prudence marry. Popula-
tion would stop, and the nation be reduced to poverty
and distress.
Prudence is unquestionably proper in all ranks, in
making the grand choice for life. And I believe a very
proper degree of prudence does distinguish the great
body of all ranks with regard to marriage. There are
certainly many who act like rash fools. On the other
hand, many marry without any favourable prospects,
and become rich, who, but for marriage, would have at
length been found among paupers. And is the grand
source of wealth and civilization to be weakened or de-
stroyed, because some persons act imprudently? Their
rashness punishes itself; but the great mass, with, what
cautious calculators would call, no very safe prospects,
completely succeeds. The members of the lower ranks
should, therefore, be left to choose on this interesting
point for themselves.
Were the declaration, recommended by this writer,
to be made by the legislature, and the condition which.
he points out, attempted to be put in force, the British
constitution would not exist six months. In such a con-
test, between the great mass of population and govern-
ment, it would soon be fatally found, that the subsist-
ence theory had made no progress at all among our
soldiers. They would range themselves as populationists
to a man. But really it is more safe to pass over such
wild and dangerous measures, and not to give them
consequence by discussion. England, I vouch for her,
will never consent to starve her poor, or abandon her
distressed, in compliance with any theory. She will
continue to assist in feeding the one and relieving the
other.
3
THE POOR.
427
It has become quite fashionable to declaim against
the mode of supporting the poor in South Britain as
giving rise to little else than inconveniencies and evils to
the state. A business of such vast extent, and managed
by such a number of agents, must present circumstances
to those inclined to carp, which will render it easy by
means of selections, with the aid of a little heightening,
to make a very strong case against this national measure.
But it is also as easy, by another and a fair mode of
selection, indeed by a plain simple statement, to make
out a case of a very different kind, and to show that
the English mode of supporting the poor, with all its
faults and inconveniencies, does credit to the country ;
that it is the source of relieving a vast amount of misery,
and effecting a vast amount of comfort. I hesitate not
to affirm, that this very system of supporting the poor,
which has been of late attacked so violently by so many,
forms a portion of the brightest glory of England.
Much praise has been bestowed on the precarious
unexpensive mode, in which the poor are supported in
many parts of Scotland.
As far as I have had an opportunity of observing,
there is little in the result, that renders the plan worthy
of imitation, but the reverse. The misery arising from
it to many old and unfortunate individuals, is most dis-
tressing to the attentive observer. It is affirmed, that
the poor there have in general an honest pride, which
will rather suffer the greatest hardships and distress,
than apply to the parish for relief, This is true. And
the spirit is to be honoured, It does high credit to the
people. But, in the name of justice and humanity, is
it fair, that the very virtues of the unfortunate, the high
manly spirit of the distressed, should be used to prevent
1
428
THE POOR.
their distresses from being relieved, and to make them
pine out the remains of life in a state of the most for-
lorn and pitiable wretchedness?
Besides, even in that division of Great Britain, the
old precarious voluntary mode, which suited thinly-
peopled poor times, is found more and more inadequate,
in proportion as districts become more populous and
richer; and the richest have been forced to adopt the
English system. Scotland at present has little more
than one person to twelve acres; and ere she reach one
person to seven acres, or only half the present rate of
England's population, and the superior wealth which
such a rate supposes, she will have found herself con-
strained, from necessity, to have recourse universally to
that plan, which England, from her thicker population
and greater wealth, had been obliged to have recourse to
so long before her.
The great increase in the amount drawn for our
poor, has frightened many. But it is to be considered,
that a large portion of this increase arises from the in-
crease of the average rate of prices in England. During
the last fifty years the average rate has risen in a propor-
tion of at least as 3 to 1. The number of the poor, how-
ever, has certainly increased in its proportion also. This
was to be expected. As we have seen, it is one of the
natural results of the relaxed and less frugal habits of
the great body of circulators produced by an augmenta-
tion of employment and wealth. But the increase, far
from showing that England has become poorer, proves
that she has grown richer. The amount paid by her to
maintain her poor in the year 1776 was under two mil-
lions, and in the year 1817 it was above eight; but was
the average wealth of the various classes of the people of
THE POOR.
429
England in 1776 equal to the average wealth in 1817?
They pay more, because they are able to pay more.
萨
​What proportion does this increase of our disburse-
ments, large as it is, bear to the increase of our income?
The latter advanced at least 170 millions during the
same period. This leaves a balance in favour of our cir-
culators of 162 millions.
But that addition to the expenditure of England
forms, in fact, also a real portion of her income. Though
these unfortunate circulators do not create so much em-
ployment, as if they were effective labourers, they re-
produce employment to the amount of the eight millions,
which they obtain by means of their more fortunate
neighbours.
These contributions for the poor, like other taxes,
are not really paid by the nominal payers. They are
charged on the general fund, or form part of the price
which each circulator charges for the articles in which he
deals.
The amount paid by the English farmer, for ex-
ample, is charged for in the price of his corn, cattle, &c.
In this case, he seems to be better off than the Scottish
farmer, though the disbursements of the latter for poor's
rates are in general but small. The average rent of
land, of a similar character in Scotland, appears to be
higher than in England, by at least the difference in
the amount of tithes and poor's rates per acre, though
the average price of Scottish wheat and barley be consi-
derably lower than the English *. This inferiority of
price in the grain of Scotland may be traced to the
greater moisture of the climate, which renders the pro-
* Third Letter to M. Say, All Classes productive, pi 306.
430
THE POOK.
duce in general more abundant in quantity but inferior
in quality, to the more efficient and less expensive modes
of cultivation, and to the lower average rate of general
prices from a thinner population, and consequently smaller
amount of national wealth. I do not conceive, that it
is owing to the charges for the clergy and the poor
being so much lower in Scotland, for the higher charge
of the landholder per acre there seems fully equal to the
charge for both.
The Scottish farmer, though he seems to have an
advantage, has none in reality; he pays to the land-
holder the difference which the English farmer pays to
the clergy and the poor. Nor is the Scottish proprietor,
if he has purchased his land, a gainer: for though he
gets a higher price per acre in rent, he has given a
larger amount of capital per acre for it. Indeed, I sus-
pect he is rather a loser. He commonly pays more for
the difference than it is worth; and I apprehend, that
the interest on capital invested in land is rather less in
Scotland, than in England.
1
The charge for the poor is thus added to the price
of the circuland of the farmer and others who pay the
tax; and were there no such charge or tax, that price,
on the average, would be proportionately lower.
There is no question, but that supporting the poor
in the generous humane way of England, is, like the
best human measures, liable to be abused, and to be
attended with some disadvantages. It is apt to make
the base minded among the lower ranks less frugal and
careful in their prosperous days. They look forward
to parish assistance, and spend without fear. But to
the great body of the circulators of the working classes,
who, I believe, have a spirit above asking for such relief
THE POOR.
431
}
except in actual distress, it does good without injury. It
tends somewhat to diminish the fears of poverty inse-
parable from their dependent condition. If things
should come to the worst, they have a generous country
to look to for assistance. And the knowledge of this,
though they may never have occasion to apply to their
country's generosity, is a source of general hope and
comfort to these hard-working and meritorious members
of society and their families.
To render pauperism more odious than it is of
itself, it has been recommended by some to make those
who obtain parish assistance wear badges. I would
not have Englishmen adopt such a measure. It is not
becoming their national character. I saw it tried in a
Scottish parish many years ago, and it was almost in-
stantaneously abandoned. The unfortunate poor hid
their badges, or wore them where they could not be
seen. Every body admitted the decency of the shame,
and none were harsh enough to make them comply with
the odious regulation. Such a measure would have no
influence on the base-minded, while it would inflict-am
unmerited stigma on our virtuous though unfortunate
neighbours, many of whom have seen better days. We
might perhaps save some of our money, and even that
I doubt, but we should lose in our national delicacy of
feeling. Poverty has evils enow attending on it, with
out having public insult added to the number. We
must not debase our generosity by the ungenerous
manner of practising it. We must not stigmatize the
poor.
1
To counteract the tendency to a dependence on the
parish, we must promote friendly societies, but above
all that admirable system, which is so well calculated to
1
432
THE POOR.
disseminate among the lower classes the habits of pru
dence and frugality, as well as the spirit of independence,
saving banks. We must raise the notions of those classes
by extending education among them; and our parish
clergymen should labour to point out the happy effects
of industry and prudence, and the miseries which flow
from idleness, extravagance, and want of foresight.
To employ the poor is recommended by every sound
statistical principle. But care must be taken not to
interfere with the fair gains of the effective labourer, by
selling their productions at a lower than the average
price.
To the system of settlement, I confess, I have a
thorough dislike. The whole is equally barbarous in
theory and in practice. It appears to me savage, in-
hospitable, inhuman, unchristian, unbritish. A more
just object is pretended for it, but it puts me in mind
of that detestation and hostile spirit encouraged among
barbarous nations, and even among our ancestors in
thinly-peopled times, against strangers, and of those
foolish antipopulation ideas which dictated the exclusive
privileges of our boroughs. To obviate the objection to
the poor overburdening some parishes, the funds now
set apart should be distributed by counties. This
would ease some parishes that labour under the misfor
tune of having more than the average number of poor;
and though those who are fortunate enough to have less
than that quota, might pay a little more than usual,
yet, as we all derive a considerable portion of our in-
comes by means of the labours of the lower classes, we
ought all to contribute the due share to them when in
distress. It is well known that many parishes which
are the most wealthy, have few or no poor, because these
have not the means of residing in them; while they are
7
THE POOR.
433
more than proportionately numerous in those parishes,
which abound with families of the lower and working
ranks, that are less able to assist their distressed neigh-
bours. This equalizing mode would render the general
rate lower.
·
One of the greatest evils arising from the English
plan of supporting the poor, appears to me to be its
tendency to keep the average prices of labourers. and
other workmen too low. This, upon the productive
theory, is seen to be a more flagrant evil, than on the
unproductive. By supplying a portion of income to
the circulators, when they are distressed by the rise of
the prices of the necessaries of life, we operate against
the natural tendency in price to adjust itself to the
amount of the demands on circulators. This is stated
to have been carried to a very extraordinary pitch in
some parishes.
•
<
As far as this practice is voluntary, or is not dic-
tated by imperious necessity, it is in every point of view
wrong. It gives the circulators, who employ these in-
dustrious labourers, an unfair advantage against their
neighbours. It deprives these labourers of the natural
reward of their labours; and instead of treating them as
what they are, effective members of the working com-
munity, it degrades them into paupers. I should hesi-
tate to admit the allowances so granted into the amount
of the poor rates. Such a plan is only a double way
paying the working circulator. And it operates directly
against the arrangements of nature, by which price, on
the average, adjusts itself to the actual demands of the
circulator for the common style of living, and, with an
increasing population, gradually augments the employ-
ment and income of a country.
F F
of
434
SKETCH OF A
To change a plan which involves só many interests
and is of such extent as that of supporting the poor, is
a matter of most serious importance, were it even prac-
ticable with safety. In the present state of statistical
science, and with such fanciful notions as are generally
entertained on the subject, it is utterly impracticable.
The following sketch of a national poor's fund was made
many years ago. The advantages which would pro-
bably result from it, are such as to entitle it at least to
be taken into consideration by the statistician.
A Sketch of a National Poor's Fund.
WHETHER the poor laws on the present mode could be
so altered as to produce a very great or radical improve-
ment, without introducing other evils and inconveniencies,
admits of doubt. It seems to me, that a plan, which
should make the poor pay for themselves, by contri
buting towards a national poor's fund, would remedy
many of the faults of the present system. At the same
time it would rescue the receiver from the degrading
condition of a pauper, which is so painful to the feelings
of many respectable, though unfortunate persons, and so
hurtful to the spirit of the whole mass of the poor.
This fund would be a national one, or for the whole
of the poor in the nation; but to receive its supplies
and distribute its disbursements nationally, would per-
haps not be the best way to accomplish its purposes
easily and effectually. The business might be done by
counties; or, in the case of these being too large, by
districts, for example, in Yorkshire, by its three ridings.
NATIONAL POOR'S FUND.
435
In each of these divisions, there would be a central
office for receiving the amount of the contributions, and
disbursing them to each parish according to the demand.
There might be a general office in the metropolis for
managing the business between the different county
offices. The tax, or contribution, must be compulsory
under the authority of the legislature. There should be
different rates, according to which for contributing a
larger or smaller sum, each person should be entitled to
draw for a larger or smaller weekly allowance. But
there must be a minimum calculated on what is necessary
to supply the wants of the poor. This amount at least,
every one, above a certain age, possessing a separate
income, must contribute, and for this he or she will be
entitled to draw according to a settled rate. The various
offices should also have a power to receive gifts and
legacies, to form a permanent fund, to be applied to the
purposes of the institution.
The lower ranks would have to pay this tax directly,
but it would operate to produce a rise in their wages to
cover it; and as the object of it is expressly to relieve
them from distress, and make a provision for them in
old age, it would probably soon cease to have the unpo-
pularity of a tax. The middle and higher ranks, by
getting rid of the payments for poor's rates, would, it is
likely, be disposed to contribute more than law required,
and except in the cases of very uncommon misfortunes,
they would never draw any thing from the fund. The
savings arising from this would go in aid of the general
contributions; and a per centage might be taken on
the amount of the whole, to form an accumulating
fund, to meet particular exigencies arising from seasons
of sickness, or of scarcity real or pretended. As the
FF 2
436
SKETCH OF A
rates of contribution ought to be so calculated, as always
to leave a balance in the office, the interest arising from
this might go to the same fund for the same purpose.
And should the amount be found inadequate to supply
the demands in years of extreme distress, a per centage
on the contributions must be imposed for the time.
The disbursements would be for the same purposes,
as at present, to supply the poor, when sick and unable
to work, or when they cannot earn a sufficient liveli-
hood. But this fund should be looked on also as giving
the poor an opportunity of laying up something for old
age. Some of our economists and justices seem to cal-
culate the life of the poor, as that of beasts of burden.
While a man is able to work at all, he ought, according
to them, to be forced to work. Those, who make the
happiness of men the standard of what is right and
wrong, will feel disgusted at this, and calculate in a very
different manner. At seventy, every man should be
entitled to a pension for life, according to the rate of his
contribution; and it should be left entirely to his own
choice, whether he worked any longer. To see a poor
old man almost bent double, with his knees failing him,
forced by necessity to drudge like the youngest, is a
most pitiable spectacle. If the old man prefer working
a little, he should enjoy his own earnings in addition,
but he ought to have enough to live on, according to
his usual style, independently of working. There would
be nothing disgraceful, or degrading, in this pension, as
in the weekly pittance at present. Far from this, it
would be honourable. It is his own property, as arising
from the contributions out of his own earnings during a
long, laborious and useful life.
This scheme would tend to increase both the popu-
NATIONAL POOR'S FUND.
437
lation and wealth of the country. These old pensioners,
by retiring, would leave a vacancy, which would create
a demand for new hands to fill it up. They would,
however, at the same time remain customers to the
various classes as before.
On this poor's fund might be ingrafted schemes for
pensioning widows and orphans. The middle and other
ranks might draw an annual sum from it, in propor-
tion to the contributions of husbands and parents for
that express purpose.
The friendly or benefit societies, which have been of
so much use to the working classes and are entitled to
all encouragement, must be exempted from the contri-
butions. The members belonging to these in this
island amount to several hundred thousands *. This will
occasion a considerable diminution in the income, but
so will it proportionally in the expenditure. Every
member, on producing a certificate from a society, that
he is an efficient member, should be exempted from the
tax imposed by the legislature, unless he shall choose
voluntarily to pay it, in order to enjoy the advantages
resulting from contributing. It might be taken into
consideration by the legislature, whether a person should
be exempt from the legal contribution, on becoming a
member after the establishment of this national scheme.
It would perhaps be better not to exempt him, but to
leave every one the choice of enjoying the advantages of
the other plan also.
;
1
On this scheme, all that vexatious business arising
from settlement, and all the inconveniencies of removing
* The number is greatly increased since this was written
It is stated that one twelfth of our resident population now
belongs to these societies.
卓
​1
7.
438
ESTABLISHMENTS
the poor to their parishes, might be avoided. The
person claiming could be paid by the district, in which
he is resident for the time, according to the rate of the
contributions for which he should produce receipts. The
metropolitan or central office might afterwards deter
mine what proportion any district should have to pay,
and order it to be paid. If indeed it were judged better,
that all the districts should transmit their contributions
to the central office, and draw for the amount of their
weekly disbursements, or strike a weekly balance and
transmit it when the income exceeds the expenditure, it
would be immaterial what office the person paid his
contributions to, or from which he drew out, what he
was entitled to receive.
No. III.
Foundling Establishments, or Hospitals.
MUCH has been said of late by some against hospitals,
or receptacles for foundlings. This arises naturally out
of the antipopulation theory.
If population could increase too rapidly, such insti-
tutions are hurtful, for their influence, as far as it
extends, operates towards that increase. But the more
rapid the increase of population, the more does a
country flourish, and the richer it becomes. These
receptacles, even in this point of view, are, therefore,
useful. They are to be considered as assisting the
country in its progress in wealth and the means of
happiness.
+
}
But while they are advantageous to a nation in this
FOR FOUNDLINGS.
439
point of view, they are warranted by a still nobler prin-
ciple, humanity. No object can be more humane, or
more worthy of the attention of the good, than to pro-
tect helpless infants, abandoned either from misery or
or from shame by their natural protectors, and left to
perish.
To theory some seem disposed to sacrifice feeling
and every thing else, which appears to stand in the
way of it. The virtuous and practical statistician will
allow no theoretical imaginations to check him in the
practice of humanity and patriotism. The imperfec-
tions of human nature give rise to many evils in society,
which can neither be completely prevented nor cured,
We are to take men as we find them, and to apply
the best remedies we can to the effects of their aber,
rations.
There is not an affection of the heart of man more
strong, than that of the love of our offspring, particularly
while these are very young, and cannot exist without
protection. This is eminently true when applied to thẹ
female. There are wretches, it is granted, who are sunk
so low in corruption and criminality, that they have
scarcely any thing human left but the form. With such
exceptions, nothing but the extreme of misery could force
a mother to abandon her infant child. We have all
seen with what force parents cling to their children even
amid the most uncomfortable and hopeless circum.
stances: and not in the virtuous class only neither. The
truth is, that children, even in the most forlorn cases,
instead of being felt by their parents as only evils in-
creasing their own, though themselves may say and even
fancy so, are in reality the principal source of what hap,
piness they have left. The exquisitely fine emotions of
FF 4
440
ESTABLISHMENTS
sympathy, and even the poignant solicitudes, which
they rouse in the parental bosom, render existence still
worth the labour of struggling to keep amid such á
dark and hopeless mass of surrounding evils. It may
be laid down as a maxim founded on experience, that if
a mother abandons her infant child, it must be either
from the extreme of vice, or the extreme of misery.
In proof of this, after all the parade and exaggera-
tion of our antipopulationists on the subject, the number
of foundlings in any country is but trifling.
The object of a foundling establishment is to provide
the necessary protection for those unfortunate children
that have been abandoned by their natural protectors,
whether from misery or from criminality. Can there
be any measure more agreeable to our natural ideas
and feelings, than for society to prepare protection for
such helpless little creatures so abandoned? Every head
and every heart reply at once instinctively, No.
گر
ü But such institutions, it has been said, tend to en-
couragé illicit connexions, and to induce married mothers
to escape the trouble of bringing up their children by
abandoning them to the care of the public.
7
เ
If the miseries attending upon illicit amours, and the
almost absolute certainty of detection, be not sufficient to
deter females, who have all a keen perception of conse-
quences in such cases, the hope of escaping shame by
abandoning the fruit of their unlawful connexions, will
not be wanted to make them imprudent. The miseries
and horrors of criminal pregnancy, and the dread of shame
and exposure, are but too apt to make the despairing
female think of getting rid of her distresses by either
destroying or exposing the child. And if either choice
must be made, who will not allow the latter to be pre-
+
J
FOR FOUNDLINGS.
441
A
}
ferable? I have no doubt, but were foundling esta-
blishments more within the reach of these unfortunate
females, child-murder would be less common.
*
As to the objection, that such establishments have a
tendency to induce married mothers to abandon their
children, I have to repeat, that such is the force of
nature, no mother will abandon her infant, who is not
driven to the unnatural act by the most severe necessity.
Or, if there be any mother, who would voluntarily for-
sake her child, she would get rid of it in a summary
manner, were exposing it not in her power.
But let it be supposed, that it is chiefly worthless
parents, who abandon their children, this is an addi-
tional argument in favour of foundling receptacles. The
children of such parents would be bred up amid every
species of vice and crime. They would prove the pests
of society, and most probably would close their detest-
able lives as felons. But in these receptacles they are
trained up in the habits of virtue, and fitted for becoming
useful members of society: and the majority of them, I
bélieve, turn out what their education fits them to be.
Were there no other advantage derived from such insti-
tutions, but this of saving a considerable number of
children from crimes, and making them useful instead
of injurious to the community, they would be worthy of
all encouragement. It is to be regretted, that they are
not more common than they are with us. But similar
institutions, under different names,' as hospitals for
orphans, &c. do exist in most districts, equally to the
credit and the advantage of the country. Our work-
houses also are had recourse to in cases of exposure,
though by no means particularly fit for the purpose.
It is urged, that such institutions are expensive.
+
442
ESTABLISHMENTS FOR FOUNDLINGS.
This, however, does not affect their principle: And what
though they be? The expense is well laid out. And this
expense, as in the case of all similar institutions, tends
fo increase the wealth of the country. If we are to take
this into consideration, the argument is still upon their
side. A foundling establishment proves an additional
source of employment to the mechanics in erecting and
repairing the offices connected with it: and in the ma-
nagement of it lucrative employment is afforded to
several persons, and a comfortable subsistence to others.
These become all additional customers to the cultivator,
manufacturer, &c. It is to be looked on in a similar light
as a new species of circuland, though but small in its
amount, which yields additional and profitable employ-
ment to a certain number, and thus tends to increase
the sum total of the profitable circuland of the country.
Part of the funds, in general, is derived from the
voluntary contribution of wealthy persons of a benevolent
cast of mind. And the management of such institutions
gives these excellent people employment of a sort most
agreeable to them, and which exercises the best feelings
of our nature,
J
In sum, whatever antipopulationists may pretend,
these institutions are entitled to every encouragement,
and they rank high among those, which tend to correct
the evil effects of the aberrations of human agents. To
recapitulate: they add to population; they save many
infants, who would probably otherwise be destroyed.
They make useful and happy members of society of a
great number, who would prove equally injurious to
the happiness of the community and to their own, And
to add to these advantages resulting from their natural
object, they give profitable employment or a comfortable
A NEW, OR MODERN CRUSADE.
443
competence to the persons engaged in the management of
them; they increase the demand for the articles of the
cultivator, mechanic and others; and they yield a bene,
volent kind of business to some of the rich.
No. IV.
A new, or modern Crusade.
Should certain not improbable events take place in
Turkey, Christianity, under the auspices of Britain,
and aided by British civilization, will find it a less
difficult task to extend her benevolent sway among
the unreasoning bigots of the East. P. 159.
SUPPOSE the spirit of one of the most distinguished and
enthusiastic crusaders of the twelfth century, roused by
the fame of the new Christian League, were to return
to earth, and make its appearance among the royal
leaguers and others, at the congress, about to take place
, to settle affairs, what would it say to the
at
astonished auditors?
But ghosts, as it is well known, usually speak in so
mysterious a way, and that too in so laconic and even
monosyllabic a style, that it is difficult to conjecture à
priori what they would say. Besides, they are too apt
to frighten their hearers for these to be able to attend
with due composure.
Suppose then this venerable spirit were to conceal
itself in the bosom of one of the most liberal of the
444
A NEW, OR MODERN CRUSADE.
politicians assembled there, and prompt him to speak
for it. The bigotry of the old warrior spirit would be
corrected by the liberality and enlightened views of our
modern politician; while the mere political ideas of the
latter would receive a taint of enthusiasm for the rights
of Christendom, and he would feel himself animated
with an unexpected warmth in her cause. Under such
inspiration he could not maintain silence on so auspicious
an occasion, great as his auditors were. Emboldened by
their well-known good will to the cause, and prompted
by the frank, cordial, old spirit within, he would address
them with the honest warmth, freedom, and plainness of
times long past, but which is said to be reckoned very
old fashioned by modern statesmen; and probably
enough to the following import. His royal and minis-
terial hearers would no doubt be surprised at first, and
put on a querying look as to what this might mean: yet
they might listen with occasional approbation to the in-
spired speaker, and even feel animated by his oration
respecting a new crusade.
Christendom, would he begin, is now fully pos-
sessed of the power to assert her rights, and she ought
to assert them. Our Christian brethren, degraded and
suffering under Mahometan tyranny, must be raised to
their proper place again, and effectually protected:
There never was a time so fitting for this great purpose.
Will she not then improve it? Millions of these bre-
thren are treated like slaves, or rather like beasts, in
the countries which were once their own, and to which
they have still only the real right. Should this be so?
Or will ye longer permit it?
As Christians, we must not go to war, unless from
necessity. We must not shed blood, unless others force
A NEW, OR MODERN CRUSADE.
445
us to it. The men of Christendom have also of late
had war in sufficient abundance. Yet still we must
protect our degraded and suffering brethren. Nor must
this protection be a grant of it in mere words. It must
be effective.
+
From the inefficient unprotective character of the
Turkish government, it is vain to expect real protection
from it, or at least only for a short season. Its members
could not grant security, if they would. It can only
be enforced by an acknowledged Christian body in the
state, formed in the metropolis for the purpose of seeing
justice done, and obtaining the redress of wrongs; and
this body communicating with Christian guardians in
every district of the empire, and supported by the mi-
nisters of Christendom, but for no other purpose except
the complete protection of Christians. Nothing short of
this, I conceive, will accomplish the fair and honest
purpose.
If the Turkish government refuses to grant the full
protection of Christians, and chooses to set Christendom
and justice at defiance, it must take the consequences.
Need it be told what these are likely to be? Let it
draw the sword, and the scabbard in such a war-
must be thrown away. Were it so fool-hardy, it would
in all human probability rush upon destruction. Mecca
would find, that it had been decreed before the creation,
that a Christian emperor was again to enter Constanti-
nople, and that the time of its prophet's power was now
about to come.
The great bulwark of Mahometanism is the Turkish
dynasty. Were this to expire, the detestable imposture
would feel the destructive effect, through a considerable
portion of its vast extent of sway.
446
A NEW, OR MODERN CRUSADE.
The fall of Constantinople, or rather Turkish des-
potism (for Constantinople is fallen and would rise
again by that event), before an European and Christian
government, would give a death-blow to the Arabian
imposture, and to the political miseries and moral enor-
mities which have sprung from it. Nothing like force
is meant with respect to the notions of the believers in
the impostor. Such a system could not possibly exist
for any length of time amid the clear light of reason.
Take away the influence of the scymitar on the one
hand, and let European civilization, aided by the irre-
sistible effects of the increase of population, come into
action on the other, and that religion which is hostile
to every thing that is manly, that is free, that is natural,
would rapidly perish of its own barbarity.
And here the friends of civilization and liberty natu-
rally look to the sovereign of Russia. The Emperor
Alexander has already done much for Europe and man-
kind. But there is still another glorious field before
him, on which no less is left for him to do in the same
glorious cause. Effective protection to the Christians
of the Turkish empire, either voluntarily granted or
obtained by conquest, is to be achieved. If arms are
appealed to, and victory should decide for Christendom,
whether in point of liberty, learning, civilization, and
even wealth, the overturning of the late military des-
potism, has not done more for Europe, than the over-
throw of Turkish despotism would do for Asia.
He who raises the cross in the room of the crescent at
Constantinople, would ultimately be hailed the second
saviour of Asia and her oppressed millions.
I confess I should be sanguine with respect to the
event, were the Turks to appeal to force against the claim
A NEW, OR MODERN CRUSADE.
447
!
of right. With the consent of the great European states,
and could they refuse their consent in such a cause? the
recapture of the city of Constantine, once the second if
not the first of Christian cities, would be the easy work
of one or two campaigns for the warriors of Russia.
But the whole must be done in the true spirit of a cru-
sade of civilization. It must be done with a pure and
holy view to restore to the fine countries I speak of, the
free use of all the blessings of nature. There must be
no annexation of territory, no exhibition of petty am-
bition. There must be governments established on the
principles of practical freedom and sound policy. The
governments must be Christian; but these nations must
be governed by themselves.
The noble-minded Alexander, the theme of praise
of every friend of liberty and humanity throughout
Europe, has certainly lost some of his hold on the
European mind, and somewhat clouded his glory, by his
retaining the sovereignty of the much-injured Poland.
He might have placed a member of his own house at
the head of the constitution, but every principle of jus-
tice and of sound policy required that the government
should be separate and independent.
Here our inspired politician would perceive, that his
ardent love for justice had carried him upon tender
ground. Having given an honest opinion, he would
leave its influence to operate, and turn to another topic.
He would see evident symptoms of his having roused
jealousies. But he would expect more from one great
power (who bordered on the enemy), aided by the good
wishes of the others, than from a combination of many:
If a crusade was necessary, he would consider it more
likely to be effective, were the Russian warriors to be
3
448
A. NEW, OR MODERN CRUSADE.
the chief crusaders, with their philanthropic sovereign
at their head. His object would be now to allay the
jealous doubts and fears.
•
t
Russia, it will be said, is already too powerful. Her
power is unquestionably very great; but she is cotem-
porary with states possessing also vast power. If her
population, wealth, science and strength be increased,
so are those of all her neighbours. Her territory is
infinitely too large for its population ever to become
fully and nationally effective. As soon as Siberia begins
to thicken in population, according to the results of the
arrangements of nature, there is every probability, that
a division must take place. The continental states are
becoming better organized. They are also now fully
aware of what is required of them, and of what they
can do by a junction against any overbearing neigh-
bour. The history of the colossal power of France
under Bonaparte has taught them all a lesson, which will
not soon be forgotten either on the side of the greater
or of the smaller states. Besides, in Christian effective
governments formed in the new divisions of Europe and
Asia, Russia would find useful neighbours, when she was
disposed to be quiet, but strong antagonists, if she chose
to encroach or dictate.
Russia, it may also be said, is not free, and,
therefore, cannot well give freedom to Turkey. But
though the Russian government be in form despotic, it
is Christian, and its agents are evidently actuated by
some of the best and most liberal principles of the
representative form. What we should want in Turkey,
if the case come to the decision of arms, would be to
overthrow a dynasty and government founded upon a
religion hostile to liberty, civilization, and every species
A NEW, OR MODERN CRUSADE.
449
1
of mental improvement. Time and the effects of the
increase of population which would result from that
event, aided by a philanthropic religion and European
civilization, would ultimately do all the rest.
Here the political predilections of our orator, though
he would feel the warrior spirit within prompting him to
go on, would urge him to stop in his career. He must
seize this fine opportunity of exhibiting his talent for
creating or new-modelling states to the powerful legis
lators before him.
The result of success to this crusade of civilization,
if sound policy be attended to, would be a division of
the vast domains of Turkish despotism into six or eight
governments. Of these the countries so dear to every
friend of literature and science, Egypt, Palestine and
Greece, the two latter considerably extended, would
no doubt form three. But these are things which would
be regulated by circumstances, and it is unnecessary to
go into any detail here. It is only intended to suggest
the idea of a crusade for the deliverance of some of
the finest and most interesting regions of the globe from
the yoke of a race of inveterate barbarians.
A new political arrangement of the states of the
northern coast of Africa, or Barbary, would form part
of the object of such a crusade. All attempts to render
the fanatical ruffians of Algiers, in particular, good
neighbours, will prove fruitless unless we new-model
their political constitution, and give them a Christian
government.
This would be somewhat too political for the warrior
spirit within, who would now be on a flame of enthusiasm
to assert the rights of injured Christendom, and to dis-
G G
450
A NEW, OR MODERN CRUSADE.
prove the pretensions of her Mahometan foes to the
regions, which they had conquered.
>
But suppose, would our orator then proceed, warmed
by his inspirer's enthusiasm, that the die was cast, that
the choice was made, that the Turks had determined on
putting all to hazard, by provoking a new crusade, and
that the philanthropic friend of Europe was about to
send on his warrior crusaders, who had already fought
so well and so successfully for the independence of
Christendom against military despotism. If ruminating,
in the purity of his heart, on the great work which he
had undertaken, he perceived any appearance of a
shadow of doubt concerning the justice of the enterprise,
I would address him as I now address you all thus:
The Turks have chosen to make the appeal to arms.
Be it so, we accept the appeal. And we will prosecute
it till justice gives the full award. We will not shrink
till we have fully satisfied the wishes of the good.
And what can be urged against the object of this
new crusade to improve the condition of mankind?
Every principle of justice and of sound policy warrants it
and enforces it. That barbarous dynasty, the Turkish,
which reflects such discredit on government, on religion,
on human nature, is still a race of usurpers. They con-
quered by the brute force of arms countries, which did
not belong to them by any shadow of right, drawn either
from usage, the principle of inheritance, or the good of
And to this hour by brute force they keep pos-
session of these countries against the wishes and inte-
rests of the descendants of the aboriginal inhabitants
who form still by far the greatest portion of the popu,
lation.
men.
These ferocious religionists made the too successful
A NEW, OR MODERN CRUSADE:
451
attempt in order to exterminate Christianity; and Chris-
tendom, from its then weakness, after a struggle of
centuries, was forced to give way. But did she lose
her right from being overpowered by fanatics? Unques-
tionably not. Those illiterate invaders have by force
endeavoured to exterminate her religion, which had been
voluntarily received by the nations now suffering under
their fanaticism. Has she not still the right of taking
up arms in her turn, to drive out these same barbarian
intruders, and the religion which they forced upon
these unhappy, these horribly oppressed nations? She
never abandoned the right. She never can lose it. And
she may resume the assertion of it, whenever she pos-
sesses the power of accomplishing her just and benevolent
purpose.
This dynasty, on the other hand, has never done
any thing to soften the power acquired by injustice down
into a privilege acquiesced in, and to give it a kind of
equitable character, the semblance of a right. From
the moment of their forcible intrusion they have op-
pressed the natives by the most savage, unrelenting,
stupid tyranny. As far as their government has ex-
tended, by means of those unprincipled ruffians, the
Pashas, whose government consists in oppression and
plunder, and of the hordes of petty subordinate ruffians by
whom it is carried on, they have rendered every district a
district of political and social misery. The scenes of the
brightest glory of man have been turned into scenes of
his grossest ignominy and most complete degradation.
Through the whole of their vast empire man no longer
deserves the name. Lawless injustice, fanaticism, and
tyranny characterize their acts towards these conquered
nations, whom they treat as reluctant slaves. They are,
G G 2
452
A NEW, OR MODERN CRUSADE.
therefore, not the rightful sovereigns of this empire.
They keep it by force, and a stronger and virtuous force
may recover it from them by the laws of the purest
justice and soundest policy.
And, as if to keep up the right of Christendom to
those countries, these ignorant, and now effeminate bigots
have never acknowledged the Christian states around
them till this hour, except for occasional purposes. They
have not regular ambassadors to carry on a friendly in-
tercourse with these states. With all the pride of un-
lettered barbarians they consider it beneath them to
treat these powers on a friendly footing. They are
thus in reality and in form confessed intruders, who
want no connexion with us. They hold their despotism
merely by the sufferance of Christendom, and the patient
endurance of slavery which has been produced by cruelty
and lawless force, among the unfortunate millions over
whom they and their ruffian agents tyrannize.
verers.
A very considerable portion of the slaves of this
dynasty consists still of Christians, the Greeks, Arme-
nians, Albanians, Cophts and others. All these would
hail the Christians of Europe as their brothers and deli-
Will Christendom then suffer those vast and
fine countries, which have been torn from her pale by
a horde of ignorant savages, to remain still in a state of the
most horrible oppression? Will she suffer human nature
to be degraded and brutified, and prevented from making
all progress in civilization and social happiness, where
it once shone in its brightest glory, by despicable bar-
barians, when her warriors in one or two campaigns
could restore them to her, and give their millions once
more the privileges of men ?
Is there a friend to humanity, who does not in-
A NEW, OR MODERN CRUSADE.
453
+
stinctively wish to see this happy catastrophe take place?
Is there a man who hears me, is there a man in Chris-
tendom, who can bear with patience the idea of such
contemptible fanatics, and political drivellers, themselves
-the slaves of those janissaries, those soldiers in nothing
but the name, and formidable only to those who employ
them, lording it over nations once the most illustrious on
earth? I speak not with reference to religious feelings:
I speak as a member of the community of Christendom: I
speak as a mere citizen of Europe. The infidel himself
cannot doubt or demur here. Whether Christianity be
of divine authority or not, we have seen, since it was
allowed to act for itself, that it exalts human nature,
and promotes civilization, liberty, and science. It is
another term for rational and manly religion founded on
the purest morality. It is calculated to make men what
their reason, though so often perverted, fits them to be,
rational agents, men in reality.
Would any sovereign or subject who now hears me
allow some petty mercantile arrangements to stand in the
way of the happiness destined by nature to so many of her
millions whom tyranny has made miserable? The change
would be infinitely preferable even in a mercantile point
of view. The trade and wealth arising from these mil-
lions, if put into a situation to allow nature and popu-
lation to exert themselves in their own way, would
receive a vast increase. But we must view the subject
more widely and more becoming men. Is there a human
being, who takes any interest in the welfare of his
neighbours, or in the progress of civilization, who would
not hail with rapture the overturning of a despotism,
which has for so many centuries counteracted the bene-
volent efforts of nature, and repressed the progress of
1
G G 3
454
A NEW, OR MODERN CRUSADE.
learning, of liberty, of commerce, of wealth, among so
considerable a portion of our race, and in so many inte-
resting districts of the earth? To thee, Alexander, in
particular, the friends of Europe and of Asia, the
friends of civilization, cast their eyes. Effective pro-
tection to the Christians throughout the Turkish empire,
or-
1
こ
​1
卡
​TABLE OF POPULATION AND WEALTH.
455
No. V.
TABLE
Of the comparative Population and Wealth of the Counties of
England and Wales, in the Year ending the 5th of April
1801, with their Rate of Increase in Numbers from 1801 to
1811.

COUNTIES.
Population per
square Mile.
Total Number of
Returns of 601.
& upwards, 1 in
Returns of the
Rich, or of 2001.
a Year and up-
wards, 1 in
Average of the
Incomes of the
the Rich.
Average Income
of 601. a Year &
upwards, per
square Mile.
Rank per Popu
lation,
Rank per In-
come of 601.
and upwards.
Increase from
1801 to 1811,
1 in
Rank per Rate
of Increase.
£.
£.
Bedford
147
38
244
840
811
22
21
9.29
34
Berks
150
28
100
600
1275
19
6
12.
41
Buckingham
144
31
170
590
847
24
17
10.5
39
Cambridge
129
29
130
480
767
28
25
7.6
25
Chester
182
36
230
640
791
9
24
5.35
8
Cornwall
160
45
304
670
567 15
32
6.63
19
Cumberland
70
46
373
530
201
47
45
7.1
23
Derby
166
47
282
830
734
14
27.
6.61. 18
Devon
114 31
211
.500
495
33
35
8.5
29
Dorset
96
33
158
530
513
38
34
12.3
42
Durham
176
46
249
560
640
11
30
8.2
28
Essex
151
21
197
550
956 18
12
8.7
31
Gloucester
200
39
190
560
940
7
13
9.
33
Hereford
95
36
212
590
485 39
38
18.2
48
Hertford
136
29
115
610
1024
25
9
6.9
21
Huntingdon
129
26
139
570
844 30
18
8.1
27
Kent
219
20
116
580
1723
5
5
4.8
3
Lancaster
391
29
227
710
1841
2
4
4.3
2
Leicester
159 31
168
540
835
16
19
6.89 16
Lincoln
74 31
164
580
484
46
39
14.9
-46
Middlesex
2922
13
42
1090
91.084
1
-1
6.2
13
Monmouth
$6 40
270
520
279 43
40
8.
26
Norfolk
149 38
177
600
793 20 23
14.7
45
Northampton
Nottingham,
Northumberland 80
187
Oxford
148 27
Rutland
100
33
153 33
176 · 550
36- 150 630
38.
196 660
127 550
184
4
633 17
468
20
13.7
44.
44 36
10.4
38:
898.
8
15
6.21 14)
1025
21
8
11.4
40.
Salop
121
37
770
218 610
660
35
29 681.5
54.
.
570 31
31
6.19 12
456
TABLE OF POPULATION AND WEALTH.

COUNTIES.
Population per
square Mile.
Total Number of
Returns of 601.
& upwards, 1 in
Returns of the
Rich, or of 200k
a Year and up-
wards, 1 in
Average of the
Incomes of the
Rich.
Average Income
of 60l. a Year &
upwards, per
square Mile.
Rank per Popu-
lation.
Rank
per In-
come of 601.
and upwards.
Increase from
1801 to 1811,
I in
Rank per Rate
of Increase.
£.
£.
Somerset
170
21
87
640
1900
12
3
9.3
35
Southampton
132
23
115
570
1023
27
10
· 8.55
30
Stafford
115
44
267
660
766
32
26
4.1
1
{
Suffolk
169
36
170
550 865
13
16
8.9
32
Surrey
932
21
107
580
2692 3
2
4.9
4
Sussex
109
32
144
600
688
34
28
5.32
7
Warwick
208
32
194
510
960
6
11
19.4
Westinoreland
52
37
245
530
185
51
46
9.5
Wilts
135
32
148
550
807
26
22
21.2
as co c
50
36
52
Worcester
179
33
163
510
921
10
14
6.4 17
York:
East Riding
99.
43
209
750
517
36
33
5.
5
North Riding
76
45
293
{
660 271 45
41
57.6
53
West Riding
230
35
201
630 1129
4.
7
6.33
15
WALES.
Anglesea
125
148
676
470
135
29
47
10.8
37
Brecon
35
72
390
460
69
54
51
5.1
6
Caermarthen
66
94
566
608
109
48
48
6.8
20
Caernarvon
-88
150
728
420
72 ›42
50
5.5
9
Cardigan
55
164
826
-
490
51 50
52
5.8
11
Denbigh
98 73
366
670 265 37
42
15.5
47
Flint
146
83
455
10,70
448 23
37
5.7
10
Glamorgan
90
61
349
540
281 40
43
7.3 24
Merioneth
44
137
123
660
42
52
54
20.8 51
Montgomery
62
77
623
440
96
49
49
18.3 49
Pembroke
89
71
827
560
228 41
44
18.
48
Radnor.
41
68
529
460
68 53
53
7.
22
?
FROM the variations in the estimated extent of the counties, the
interested incorrectness in the returns of income, and other reasons,
strict accuracy in this table is not to be expected. There is, how-
ever, in it an approximation to the truth. The errors probably
somewhat balance one another, and render it sufficiently exact to
show general results.
TABLE OF THE POPULATION, &c.
457
The influence of large towns, of the neighbourhood
of the metropolis, and of lucrative modes of employment,
is evident. When the rates of population are near one
another, variations in those points produce considerable
differences. But in all, the wealth-augmenting power of
the increase of population is distinctly seen, both in the
proportions of the returns of 607. a year and upwards,
and of 2007. a year and upwards, and of the amount of
the former per square mile. In the extremes, this is
very striking. For example, the returns of income of
607. and upwards in Middlesex, are 1 in 13; in Car-
digan, 1 in 164: of the rich, in the former, 1 in 42,
while the incomes average 10907.; in the latter 1 in 826,
and the incomes only reach an average of 4901. The
metropolitan county possesses, in incomes of 60%. and
upwards, 91,0842. per square mile: the Welch county
only to the amount of 512. The population of the
former per square mile was to that of the latter as 53 ta
1. At the rate of 517. this would give for Middlesex
27031. only per square mile, or the one thirty-third part
of its actual income of the given period.
I shall only notice two counties more that differ
greatly in rate of population, Kent and Cumberland.
In the former the returns of 60l. and upwards are 1 in
20: in the latter, 1 in 46: of the rich, in the former, 1
in 116, and the incomes averaging 5807.; in the latter,
1 in 373, and the incomes average 5307. Kent had,
in incomes of 607. and upwards, 17231. per square mile;
Cumberland 2017. The population of the former per
square mile is about three times the amount of the
latter. The Cumberland rate, however, would give
for Kent only 6037. per square mile instead of 17237.;
ør little more than the one third.
458 TABLE OF POPULATION AND WEALTH.
.
The rate of increase of numbers in the different
counties from 1801 to 1811 shows clearly, that this is
not regulated by their state with respect to the quantum
of indigenous subsistence. In fact, in several cases, the
increase is in an inverse ratio. The population of some
counties which produce most subsistence in comparison
with their inhabitants, accumulated slowest, and vice
versa. The increase or accumulation is evidently regu-
lated by the quantum of employmeut or the demand.
The annual increase of the income of Great Britain,
as shown by the income-tax, proves decisively the
wealth-augmenting power of the increase of population.
From 1801 to 1811, her numbers advanced rather more
than one seventh or about 14 per cent. ; but her income,
during the same period, rose nearly a half, or 50 per
cent. Her income kept increasing in the same greater
ratio than her population up to the close of the war.
The income of North Britain, indeed, between 1801
and 1815, as shown by the property-tax, seems to have
been trebled; but part of this extraordinary increase in
the amount of the tax, may be attributed to the more
effective modes of collecting it. At the close of the war,
the income of Britain had risen, since its commencement
in 1793, from 137. to 237. per individual, or 70 per
cent.; while her population had increased only about 25
per cent. or, compared with the increase of her income,
little more than at a rate of 1 to 3.
The annihilation of the immense amount of em-
ployment created by the war, lowered the income of the
nation at least 16 per cent. that is, about 50 millions,
or to less than 207. per individual, and reduced the
country to almost universal distress. The temporary
redundancy of our population, produced by that event,
is, however, gradually giving way before the power of
ESSAY I. PRICE REPRESENTS EMPLOYMENT. 459
enlarging the average amount of employment or the
demand, which is found to be uniformly possessed by
the increase of numbers. The daily addition to our
people, far from operating to continue the stagnation, is
augmenting our employment and income again very
palpably. The latter, it is likely, has already risen to
about 217. per individual. And if our population still
keep increasing at the same rate, the nation will reach
the amount of employment and income from which it
fell at the close of the war, there is every reason to
think, in 1820.
No. VI.
Four Essays on the Effects of average high
and low Prices *.
The higher price includes, in truth, is made up of the
additional charges of circulators for living better;
and it may be said to represent the more expensive
style of living in a country.-Happiness of States,
p. 146.
"A THOROUGH knowledge of price is necessary to
understand many of the most important operations in
the production of wealth, and to calculate the effects of
all: in short, to making any sure progress in the
science of statistics. Crude and confused notions about
it, have betrayed politicians into the most gross errors,
*These Essays were written in the spring of 1816, and first
published (but in another form) in the Farmer's Magazine for
May and August of that memorable year. P. 201 and 277.
5
460
PRICE REPRESENTS EMPLOYMENT,
and led them to conclusions that were in direct opposi-
tion to the real results of nature."
"
There is not, perhaps, a more inveterate prejudice
among mankind, than the notion, that a low price tends
to enrich a country; and, of course, that the lower
prices fall, the various classes will become more wealthy.
This, however, is directly contrary to facts, and neces-
sarily must ever be so. Yet, though all our classes,
except that of annuitants with fixed incomes, are, at
present (in 1816), actually suffering from the truth of
the opposite doctrine, the great body will not open their
eyes to what is brought home to their pockets. They
persevere in their prejudices, and use them for the basis
of the most illiberal, and indeed, absurd, accusations
against our various classes each in their turn. The
agricultural body happens to be particularly assailed at
present, though it be suffering with peculiar severity
from the effects of a too low price.
To attempt to teach the truth on this subject, I am
well aware, strange as it may seem, is a purpose nearly
Quixotic with respect to the great mass of the lower
ranks. Neither reasoning nor facts, I fear, will remove
prejudices so deeply rooted among these. There are
many, however, of all classes, and these are the most
liberal, upon whom neither facts nor reasoning will be
lost.
The popular notion animadverted upon, arises, like
other similar fancies, from a partial view of the subject.
These people look at it only as buyers, and each for
himself considers all others only as sellers. He thûs
leaves out, or overlooks, the essential point of himself
being a seller also. If we give a lower price, argue all,
it must be better for us. But they do not consider,
ESSAY 1. INCOME, AND THE STYLE OF LIVING. 461
that in order to be able to be buyers, they must be
sellers; and that if they buy lower, they must sell
lower. We could buy such an article for so much
twenty years ago, or at least at the close of the American
war; and now it is no less than twice or thrice the
amount. Granted. But is not the fact the same with
respect to the articles in which the speakers themselves
deal?
war.
And what is the cause of the rise? A higher
charge has been made by others on me, and I, in return,
have made a higher charge on others. This difference,
or the amount of the rise, does more than place the
various circulators in the same situation in which they
were twenty years ago, or at the close of the American
For though part of the rise is merely nominal,
or takes place to meet the higher charges of others, there
is also another part, the object of which was to obtain
the means of better living, or of saving more money, if
the dealer chooses. Thus all classes with us are richer,
not merely nominally, but really, than they were at the
close of the American war, or twenty years ago.
Our first conjectures in politics are very apt to be
wrong, and to require the correction of a deeper consi-
deration of facts. It seems a very probable thing to
our first thoughts, if the loaf should fall from 13d. to
9d. and meat from 10d. a pound to 6d. that all classes
would be richer; for, subsistence being cheaper, they
will have more money to spend on other articles. But
is this the fact? or can it be the actual result of such a
fall? Certainly not. Could the income of all classes
remain what it was before, and yet subsistence fall, all
classes, or the nation would be richer. But this cannot
possibly be. With respect to the class of annuitants
462
PRICE REPRESENTS EMPLOYMENT,
with fixed incomes, it is indeed the fact. Their income
remains the same, while their expenditure is diminished.
Such a fall, therefore, necessarily renders them richer,
but it tends to impoverish all the classes whose incomes
depend on the amount of employment at the rate of
price charged for it.
This fall in the price of subsistence produces neces-
sarily a diminution of the income of the circulators
who are employed in raising subsistence. Earning less
than they used to do, they must buy less from the other
circulators. These, therefore, must suffer a diminution
of their means to charge, or their income: of course,
likewise all those from whom they buy, and thus in a
circle through the whole mass of circulators, except fixed
annuitants.
It is an axiom in statistics, that price, income and
employment mutually represent one another, and, there-
fore, must correspond in amount. If a few misers be
excepted, the income of all circulators is spent in giving
employment, either by investing it as capital, or by
expending it on the various articles of living. Every
average diminution of price and income must produce a
diminution of employment or the means of charging, in
one shape or another. A general fall in the rate of
prices, therefore, is not, as so many imagine, a mere
reduction of the same articles to a lower nominal value,
while the amount of articles is the same as before. There
is a positive diminution of this amount equal to the
amount of the fall, or the proportion which it bears to
the former average price.
In the Happiness of States, the author, in his ana-
lysis of wages and of price*, has shown, that the rise
* B. ii. ch. 8 and 11,
ESSAY I. INCOme, and the STYLE OF LIVING. 463
in the average price of things, springs from the various
classes charging higher, in order to procure the means of
better living, each for itself, as well as to meet the in-
creasing demand made on them by others for a similar
purpose. Each class goes on charging as far as is in its
power, for more articles that are objects of desire
among men; and, in proportion as the average general
price rises, all succeed in obtaining their wishes.
Prices being thus made up of the charges of the
various classes for subsistence and so forth, and, of
course, representing the amount of employment or the
means of charging, in one form or another, the rise in
price must evidently denote a greater variety of employ-
ment, or a greater amount of the same sort. It follows,
as evidently, that when the price falls, there must be a
diminution of employment, or the means of charging in
one shape or another. A general reduction of price in
all articles, were that possible with an increase of popu-
lation, instead of enriching most circulators, or even
maintaining them in the same rank of wealth as before,
would render all but fixed annuitants poorer.
The same author has laid it down as an axiom in
dealing, that a change in the price of any article, whe-
ther to higher or lower, which affects the buyers and
sellers of it equally, leaves things, with respect to the
various dealers, as before*. But it is not meant by
this, that such a rise or fall makes buyer and seller nei-
ther richer nor poorer; which is contrary to the leading
doctrine taught in the same chapter, that the higher the
average general price of things, the richer a district or
country. It means that all such changes leave the
buyer and seller in the same comparative state, with
* P. 144.
464
?
PRICE REPRESENTS EMPLOYMENT,
respect to each other. In fact, it is grounded on the
mathematical truth, that 6 shillings bear the same pro-
portion to 8 that 12 do to 16; but it does not follow
from this, that 12 and 16 are not double the amount of
6 and 8.
In
In thinly-peopled districts, the rate of price is always
lower than in those which are more populous. But does
this render the various classes in the former richer? or
does it suppose them as rich? Quite the reverse.
the Highlands, not a century ago, a dozen of eggs
could be got for a penny, and meat for three farthings a
pound. But was the population there as rich then as
in Edinburgh or London now, where a single egg costs
from a penny to three pence, and a pound of meat from
eight pence to a shilling? Not to go back to the times
of Caractacus and Galgacus, or even to the era of the
Reformation, let us fix on the period at the commence-
ment of the American war, when the average rate of
British prices was so much lower than at present. Had
the different classes then the same variety of comforts in
living, or the same means of saving money, as they have
had for the last ten years?
In a general reduction of prices, all will participate
in the depression. Though they may preserve a cor-
responding comparative rank with respect to one another
as before, yet it is a fall. They may be on the usual
corresponding level, but it is a lower level. They have
all sunk alike, but still they have really sunk.
The rate of charging in different districts or coun-
tries, it is true, will vary. The greater ease or diffi-
culty in procuring some leading articles, and, of course,
the less or greater employment afforded by these, the
larger or smaller quantity of them rendered necessary by
ESSAY I. INCOME, AND THE STYLE OF LIVING. 465
climate, and the influence of peculiarities in temper,
morals, and manners, produce a difference in the general
rate of charging. In some cases, when districts or
nations are very dissimilar in their circumstances, these
differences may be considerable. The same nominal
amount of income in one of these districts and countries
may purchase an amount of articles of the same class,
very different from what it procures in another. But if
the same variety and same quantity of articles be used
by corresponding classes in any two states, the rate
of charging will not be materially different. Tra-
vellers find, that even in countries where the general
nominal rate of prices is much lower than in Britain, in
proportion as certain districts and towns approach the
variety of comforts and luxuries of Britons, and of
course, the rate of charging represents a similar variety
and amount of employment with theirs, the rate of price
approaches the British.
The mode of living is so essentially, connected with
the rate of charging, that if the one be given with
respect to any town or district, the other may be accu-
rately deduced from it. In proportion as any town or
district indulges in comforts and luxuries, the rate of
charging is high, and vice versa.. When we see a place
abounding in good houses and fine furniture, while the
inhabitants dress well and eat well, and are very con-
stantly employed, in short, exhibiting generally the
marks of comfort and opulence, we shall find that the
rate of charging in it is high. But if we enter a town,
where the houses are mean and dirty, while the inha-
bitants fare hardly, dress shabbily, and have more idle
time; where the marks of poverty are thus as conspi-
cuous as those of wealth were in the former, we may
H H
466
PEACE AND WAR PRICES.
rest assured that the price of things there is low..
Some peculiar local circumstances produce certain ex-
ceptions; but, in general, whether we compare different
periods of the same town or district, or different towns
and districts, the average price of articles, of bread, of
meat, of household furniture, of clothes, of instruction,
amusement, &c. according as this is higher or lower,
points out the comparative wealth or poverty of the
given period or place.
}
ESSAY II.
Peace and War Prices.
IT has become fashionable, of late, to consider peace
prices as synonimous with low prices, and war prices as
synonimous with high prices, particularly with respect
to agricultural produce. There seems no good ground
for this. The fact has happened to be so in the present
instance; but there is nothing in peace that necessarily
tends to lower the price of agricultural produce, or of
war to raise it. Or, if there be any general tendency of
the sort in either, for example, from the increase of
taxes in the one, or their diminution in the other, it is
liable to be counteracted by occasional circumstances of
both.
The average price of wheat per quarter, in Windsor
market, for the following years, proves this. In 1755
it was 17. 10s. 1d. In 1756, the first year of active war,
+
ESSAY II. PEACE AND WAR PRICES.
467
it rose to 21. Os. 2d. Next year it reached 27. 13s. 4d.
It then declined, during four years of hot war, till, in
1761, it had fallen to 17. 6s. 10d. It then rose again;
and, in 1763, the last year of that war, it was
11. 16s. 2d..
C
In 1764, the first year of peace, it rose to 27. 1s. 6d.
In 1765, to 27. 83. From 1766 to 1773, it varied con-
siderably every year, being lowest in 1769, or at
21. Os. 7d.; and highest in 1773, the last year of the
peace, or at 27. 19s. 1d.
In 1774, the first year of the American war, it fell
to 2 15s. 1d. It then kept falling to 1776, when it
was 21. 2s. 8d. It rose next year to 28s. 11d. It
fell during the subsequent two years, and reached its-
lowest depression during this war in 1779, when it
was 17. 16s. 2d. It then rose gradually till it reached
27. 14s. 3d. in 1783, the year in which the war ceased.
It was 5d. lower next year. It fell during the two
subsequent years of peace, but not so low as in 1779, a
year of hot war, for it only sunk to 21. 2s. 3d. It then
gradually rose till 1789, when it was 27. 16s. 2d. In
1790, it was the same. In 1791, it fell to 27. 9s. 4d. In
1792, it rose to 27. 13s.
In 1793, the first year of the French revolution
war, it was 21. 15s. 8d. It fell, in 1794, to 27. 14s.
In 1795, it rose to 47. 1s. 6d. In 1796, it was
47. Os. 2d. It fell, in 1797, to 31. 2s.: in 1798, to
27. 14s. In the famous years 1800 and 1801, it rose
to above 24 times this amount, or to 67. 7s. and 61. 8s. 6d.
In 1802, the year of the peace of Amiens, it fell nearly
one half, or to 31. 7s. 2d. It fell still farther, in 1803,
the
year of renewed war, or to 31. It rose 9s. 6d. in
1804. In 1805, it was as high as 47. Ss. In 1807, it
UH 2
468
PEACE AND WAR PRICES.
h
fell to 37. 18s. It was 37. 19s. 2d. in 1809; and during
the four subsequent years it was very high. It reached
its extreme height in 1812, or 67. 8s. During the re-
newed war of 1815 it continued gradually to fall, till it
reached its late very low price; and now it seems to
be evidently rising again.
These facts show, that agricultural produce rises and
falls in price, without any particular reference to peace
or to war; and, therefore, it is not a state of peace or
of war, which, of itself, raises or lowers the prices of the
farmer; but the occasional or particular circumstances of
either. And the same thing could be shown with
respect to the articles of other circulators. The mere
difference in circumstances, arising from our army being
chiefly at home or abroad, or from its carrying on war
in countries that can supply its soldiers with subsist→
ence, or in those that cannot, and in which they must
draw the supplies from our own farmers, will make a
very considerable difference in price for the period.
The following is a general view of the two states
with respect to price. In peace, the discontinuance of
the additional employment created by war, and a dimi
nution of the expenses of government, have a depressing
influence; while, in general, the more rapid progress of
population, and a more uninterrupted communication
with other nations, operate towards a rise. In war, the
increase of taxes and of military employments tends to
raise price, while a retardation of the increase of popu-
lation and interruptions to foreign commerce usually tend
to lower it.
ESSAY III, A FALL IN AVERAGE PRICES. 469
ESSAY III.
A Fall in average Prices produces a Diminution,
and a Rise in average Prices, an Increase of
Employment, Income, and Wealth.
FROM the constitution of price, or its being made up of
the charges for the articles which circulators use at any
given period, there can be no fixed rate of price by
nature.
{
There is, however, a fair, or natural rate of price
of all articles, compared with each other. This is the
average rate of price of the articles, for the period,
regulated as an average rate must be, by the style of
living of the classes that deal in them, and corrected
by competition, whether that rate, on a comparison of
countries or periods, be found to be high or low.
As all circulators charge according to the demands
made on them by others, the average rates of prices of
particular classes for the period, are taken into the ave-
rage general price of the period. This general rate is
thus adjusted to meet the average particular rates. In
proportion as any of these agree with the former, the
rate is, on the whole, better for circulators in general.
A little, tendency to a higher rate, however, far from
doing harm, is advantageous to the community. It in-
creases the stimulus on circulation, corresponds with the
desire of all circulators, to make a progress in living
better, as well as with the tendency to a higher price
HH 3
470
A FALL IN AVERAGE PRICES.
produced by the increase of population, and it aug-
ments the average amount of employment among the
various classes.
Average general prices thus can never be exorbitant,
or too high. For when prices, however high, are all
equally high, it is evident, they are adjusted to one
another. Such prices, for the reasons already given,
are necessarily better for all circulators, excepting fixed
annuitants.
The exorbitant prices of particular classes are inju-
rious to the other classes; not, indeed, because they are
high, but because they are disproportionate to the
prices of the latter. The community will not be poorer
for these too high charges of some of its people, for
they gain what the others lose; but they render these
others poorer for the time.
A
The charges of the lower ranks of circulators form
so large a portion of all price, that, in order to give
them a decent amount of comforts, the average rate of
price must reach a considerable height. The middle
ranks, with an inferior rate of charging, may obtain the
inore common comforts or luxuries: but the highest
rate of price, in the most crowded state of population,
will procure the lower classes only the cheaper comforts.
A low price keeps these hard-working classes grovelling
in dirt, and in a state of penury, which is barely able
to supply them with the merest necessaries.
As the rate of price and the style of living in all
their extent, necessarily correspond with and mutually
regulate each other, we cannot reduce the former with-
out altering the latter.
All the reduction in price, which can be effected by
any practicable diminution of taxes, is very inconsi
ESSAY III. CAUSES POVERTY AND DISTRESS. 471
derable. If we want to have the general rate of prices
reduced to that of any period, at which it was lower,
as, for example, the beginning of the last century, the
Reformation, or even to the still much lower rates at
the signing of Magna Charta, or of the times of the
Norman conquest, all ranks must be contented to
fall back to the inferior or poorer mode of living, and,
of course, the smaller average quantum of employment,
or the means of charging, of that particular period of
our ancestors on which we choose to fix. All must
consent to sacrifice the comforts and additional articles
in eating, clothing, furniture, instruction, amusement,
&c. which are represented by the difference between
the present average rate, and the rate of that period.
This is indispensably necessary; for it is that difference
which enables all ranks to obtain the more varied com-
forts, luxuries, and the larger average portion of wealth
of the present age,
But such a returning to poverty and inferior living
is an absurdity, with our present rate and state of
popu-
lation; and the possibility of it will never be seriously
admitted by any person acquainted with the subject,
who will allow himself to think freely on it. Nature
will force her way in spite of all prejudices; and she
will attend to no theory but her own. Her real laws
will continue to operate, whatever dreams may be in-
dulged in concerning them. And all the puny works
constructed by men to oppose her current, will ulti-
mately be swept away by one or other of her over-
whelming tides.
A fall in the price of any article, from which certain
classes derive the whole, or a considerable part of their
income, is uniformly, and, upon the foregoing analysis.
ནྭ
HH 4
472
A FALL IN AVERAGE PRICES
it is clear, that it ever must be, attended with more or
less embarrassment and distress to those classes and to
others through them.
Even in the case when this fall is from a temporary
exorbitant to the fair or natural rate, embarrassment
and distress will take place. It affects the amount of
income, and the mode of living of these classes, as well
as injures their arrangements. And most circulators.
will raise their mode of living to their income, if
this be increased, though the addition may be caused
merely by occasional circumstances. They are apt to
form arrangements in business suited to their new prices.
But when the fall is from the fair or natural rate to one
that is too low, the injurious consequences are more
general; for it reaches all, even the most prudent. In
proportion also as any branch of circulation is more
extensive or gives employment to a greater number, the
fall in price produces the more extensive and severe em-
barrassment and distress, as it affects more generally all
other classes.
This impoverishing effect, with the injurious con-
sequences, takes place when population is stationary,
and even decreasing; but, with an increasing popula-
tion, it is felt with double force. With a decreasing
population there is a natural tendency to a lower price,
and the particular fall coincides with this general move-
ment. But, with an increasing population, there is an
equally natural tendency to a higher price. The sup-
posed fall, therefore, is in opposition to the general
movement; and consequently must produce greater
embarrassment. Those classes that are more imme-
diately affected by the fall, suffer more severely, as there
is a tendency in the rates of many other classes of
ESSAY III. CAUSES POVERTY AND DISTRESS, 473
circulators, instead of yielding to the influence of
theirs, to counteract it, and at least to remain sta-
tionary. Their diminished income, of course, is felt with
more severity.
With an increasing population, from the nature of
things, this must ever be the fact. A permanent fall of
general average prices, with such a state of population,
seems to be an impossibility. From the supply of cer-
tain classes exceeding occasionally the demand for the
time, a fall in their articles may take place; but most
of the other articles will maintain their rate; and the
increase of population by its powerful, indeed uncon-
trollable influence, will at length check the falling move-
'ment in the former, and restore their prices to the
proper rates.
It is thus perfectly evident, that every fall from the
fair price, and particularly of any leading article, must
seriously injure the class that deals in it as well as all
connected with the class; while it brings only a little
temporary advantage to the annuitants with fixed in-
comes. The nation is necessarily poorer for every such
fall.
Had any statistician, who holds the genuine doc-
trine of nature, that a high average rate of price tends
to enrich a nation, and to increase its comforts, been
cruel enough, as a theorist, to have wished for a com-
plete confirmation of his doctrine, by the exemplifica-
tion of the effects of a too low rate of price, he has ob-
tained it in the history of the last nine months. A gal-
laut soldier, in the bosom of the Grampians, has said
quaintly, but not unreasonably, This peace and plenty,
which we were all bawling out for, have played the
dence with us. Every body is complaining. They
474
A FALL IN AVERAGE PRICES.
have ruined many, and injured most. And why? Be-
cause, under the present circumstances, peace and plenty
have for a time produced a reduction of the fair rate of
British subsistence.
The evils of a reduced price are at this moment felt
to be distressingly real by the greatest part of British
population. The price of that most extensive article of
all, subsistence, has fallen, on an average, more than
one fourth below its natural price: indeed, at present
(1816), nearly to one third. By the natural price of an
article, we have seen, is meant that price which enables
the dealers in it to meet the prices of other circulators,
for the given period, and live according to the usual
style of the class for the given period.
4
The average natural price of subsistence, as of
other articles, has risen considerably in Britain within
these twenty years. This has sprung from the higher
demands made on the cultivator, not only by the govern-
ment classes, but by all the other classes. These, in
like manner, have raised their prices to meet the in-
creased demands of government, as well as to pay for
the better style of living introduced by the augmented
wealth and employment, created by the increase of
population. Besides, this class, like others, has gradu-
ally reached a much better style of living; and, there-
fore, like them too, must charge higher to cover the
expense. The result of all this is a considerable rise in
the fair rate of his articles,
In this statement we perceive the real cause, and
find an easy solution of what puzzles many, that the rate
of price of corn and cattle, which in 1790 produced
profit and wealth to our cultivator, should prove a source
of loss, distress, and frequently, even of bankruptcy in
ESSAY III. CAUSES POVERTY AND DISTRESS. 475
1816. The charges of most classes on him are doubled,
How then can the same rate of price for his articles,
even allowing much for his superior skill in culture, and
for the improvements which he has introduced, enable
him to meet the demands upon him, and live according
to his rank?
The average natural price of wheat for the present
period, or that which corresponds with the general ave-
rage rate of other articles for the last seven or ten years,
cannot be taken lower than somewhere between 70s,
and 80s. the quarter; but it has fallen below 55s. The
income of the cultivator, therefore, is diminished in a
degree equal to about 20s. on every quarter of wheat.
Most of his other articles have fallen, though not in a
similar proportion with grain. According to this ratio,
the annual income of the agricultural population of Bri-
tain has suffered a defalcation little short of thirty mil-
lions. This population has, therefore, thirty millions
less to buy with from the other circulators, From the
fall in the price of many articles, in consequence of the
diminished demand, the remainder of the income, it is
true, will purchase more than the usual amount of
them: yet, as the amount diminished represented the
means of employment and charging somewhere or other,
that being gone, the employment and means of charging
represented by it, must be gone also.
If we take the average income of Great Britain at
300 millions, the amount of the income created by sub-
sistence at 30 per cent. on the whole, or 90 millions,
and the amount of the present reduction of this at 2-7ths,
or twenty-five millions, for, instead of possessing 30 per
cent. of the usual national income, that branch can only
procure the rate of 22, the nation is just twenty-five
476
A FALL IN AVERAGE PRICES
millions poorer by the fall. The employment, or means
of charging, throughout its various classes, is diminished
to that extent as effectually, as if a number of mere
misers had got possession of that quantity of the medium
of employment, and taken it entirely out of circulation.
It is, in truth, so much circuland in one shape or an-
other actually annihilated,
Arguing from these principles respecting the price of
things, which have unfortunately received too strong a
confirmation from the present stagnation and distress
arising from reduced prices, I took occasion, a year or
two ago, to tell several circulators not of the agricul
tural class, who wanted to see the loaf and meat at a
very reduced rate, that they, and particularly the poor,
would have nearly as good reason to regret such a fact,
did it actually take place, as the farmer himself. They
might get their bread and meat cheaper, but they would
have all less to procure it with. If a labourer can earn
only eighteen pence, when the loaf is at nine pence, he
is worse off than when he can earn half-a-crown, though
the loaf may be a shilling. The former will buy only
two loaves a-day, the latter two and a half. They have
now felt home the truth of these ideas.
If the farmer earns an income of 2001. a year, in-
stead of the usual three, though there may be a certain
fall in the prices of some other articles, he must buy
less from the shopkeeper, the tailor, the shoemaker,
the carpenter and so forth. These again, having lost
part of their usual income derived from him as well as
from their other customers, have not the means of pur-
chasing to the usual amount; and thus there is a dimi-
nution of buying and selling among all classes of circu
lators, except fixed annuitants. Hence the present
ESSAY III. CAUSES POVERTY AND DISTRESS. 477
general stagnation, distress, and despondence, through-
out all the towns and districts which depend chiefly on
the farmer; and more or less through all others. The
additional employment afforded to our manufacturing
districts by the new markets opened, or speculations
produced by the peace, has certainly done a little, for
the time, to check this decrease in the income and em-
ployment arising from the agricultural classes. The
diminution of both, general and great as it is, would
otherwise have been still more universal and consi-
derable.
The result is by no means the same, when the price
of any leading specics of circuland, for example, sub-
sistence, rises above the natural rate, or the rate which
is warranted by the prices of other circulators.
Let us
suppose, that the agricultural population, instead of the
proper 30 per cent. on the national income, is enabled,
by charging too high, to obtain 35 per cent. The other
classes, on the supposition that they have not, for the
time, the means of charging in return for this extra
charge, will have their income diminished 5 per cent.
in the whole. But still the nation is not poorer. This
is a mere transfer case. The agricultural class gains
what the other classes lose.
But, in general, unless the rise be so exorbitant for
a time, that the other classes have not the means of
charging for it, such an increase proves more or less
an addition to the wealth of a country. The other
classes, fixed annuitants being always excepted, succeed
in making some higher charge for their articles; and
the increase of employment, arising from the augmenta-
tion in the agricultural income, assists them in achiev-
ing this. A highish price is, therefore, always better
4
478
FOLLY OF THE ATTEMPT ·
for circulators in general, or a country, than a lowish
one.
A rise in prices operates like an increase of popula-
tion: a fall in prices, like a decrease. The former
tends to augment employment and income, and thus
creates a brisk market, and inspirits circulators. The
latter tends to diminish both employment and income,
and to produce a stagnation; consequently to depress
the mind of the circulator and to damp his ardour of
enterprise.
ESSAY IV.
Folly of the Attempt to reduce average Prices ;
The general increase in the price of things has ever
been a source of universal complaint; and yet it is
the clearest proof of the growing wealth of a country.
The complainers speak as buyers, while they forget
that they are sellers also, and are charging in their
turn, for their articles, a higher price than formerly.
They give more, it is admitted, but then they receive
more. Happiness of States, p. 145.
:
Nor a few of the commercial and other classes have
said, with respect to the present embarrassment,-Why
do not the farmers return to the more frugal modes of
living of their ancestors, and then the prices of their
ancestors would be sufficient?
To this question, the sound statistician, who is
ESSAY IV. TO REDUCE AVERAGE PRICES.
479
equally the friend of all classes, might reply with an-
other, much more pertinent as well as more liberal:
why should they return to the poorer modes of living
of their ancestors, if they can keep by the more com-
fortable modes which they have actually reached? The
first question is, in truth, as unwise as it is illiberal.
Those who ask it are not aware, that they are pleading
for their own poverty, as well as for that of the culti
vators. The farmer might well ask these people-And
why do you and your classes not return to the more
frugal modes of your ancestors, which would relieve me
considerably, at least for a time?
You keep your
prices, while I have been forced by temporary cir-
cumstances to reduce mine. And many of you, at least
for a time, are reaping some advantage from my unme-
rited poverty.
That the farmers, by the high average prices of
the last twenty years, had risen to a greater degree of
wealth, and a richer style of Aving than their ancestors,
is true. But so have the other classes, and to the
amount of at least one third through their means. And,
in the name of common justice, and of common sense,
why should the cultivator alone remain stationary in
poverty and discomfort, while all other classes are ad-
vancing in comfort and wealth? Why should not he
share as well as they, in the happy results with respect
to wealth and comfort, necessarily springing, through
the benevolent arrangements of nature, from the in-
crease of population? The wonderful exertions which
he has made, fully entitle him to this. Much distress,
it is admitted, was produced for five or six years by the
exorbitant price of his produce; but what has been the
480
FOLLY OF THE ATTEMPT
result, on the whole, of this superior style of living to
the great mass of circulators?
From the nature of circuland, or the materials of
circulation, that which is expenditure to one class, must
necessarily be a source of income to others. The
richer style of living of our cultivators, both land-owner
and tenant, has proved a more copious source of em-
ployment and income to the other classes. The better
style of living among the latter is, in a considerable
degree, to be attributed to the better style of living
among the former. The grand result of the benevo-
lent plan of Nature ought never to be forgotten by us
Directly, or indirectly, all necessarily share more or
less in the acquisitions of each *."
66
But it has been argued, that as our home rate of
prices is higher than that of any of our customers, it is
of consequence, that this rate should be reduced, in
order to retain the foreign market. It is true, if this
market depended entirely, or principally, on the mere
rate of home prices, such a reduction would be useful.
But, with some exceptions, it is not the mere price of
labour that determines the price of articles, nor yet the
mere price of articles that determines the sale of them.
Our higher rate of prices being the source of a greater
amount of capital, enables us to adopt modes of fabri
cation, by which we can make articles not only better,
but even cheaper than the inferior capitalist of lower
priced countries. This greater amount of capital also
enables us both to produce a more certain supply, and,
what is of vast consequence, to give longer credit. Thus
our higher rate of prices, though at first sight it appears
directly hostile to exportation, in reality operates in its
*Happiness of States, B. ii, ch. 10. p. 128.
ESSAY IV. TO REDUCE AVERAGE PRICES. 481
favour. And as a proof of this from experience, which
is the market, after all the theoretical conjectures we
have heard on the subject, out of which any of our lead-
ing articles have been driven by mere rate of price *?
Besides, our rate of prices operates in our favour
another way. Our articles of manufacture forming a
part of the expenditure of our foreign customers, and
the largest among our best, have a tendency to raise the
rate of charging in the countries to which we export.
And yet further: the increase of population, and con-
sequently of wealth, among our customers, has as con-
stant a tendency to raise the average rate of prices
among them as among ourselves. This rise in their price
will certainly tend to augment their capital; but, in
proportion as this is increased, their rate of prices will
approach nearer to ours. The truth is, the manufac-
turers of Britain have much more to fear from increasing
capital and growing excellence of fabric among the
foreign, than from mere price. Though it may seem
a paradox at the first view, it will be found to be a
fact, that the nearer the price-rate of foreigners comes
to our own, the more effectually will they rival us in the
general market.
But were even our high rate of price to diminish
somewhat the amount of employment derived from
abroad, the loss would be much more than counter-
balanced by this high rate of price at home. And, vice
versâ, if our exports should increase by a fall in our
price of subsistence, &c. the home demand would
decrease to a much larger amount.
In sum, a fall in the average rate of things has a
necessary tendency to diminish the amount of employ-
* See All Classes productive, B. ii. ch.9, p. 205.
I I
482
FOLLY OF THE ATTEMPT
ment, and to render all ranks of a nation poorer, while
a rise in the same rate has as necessary a tendency to in-
crease the quantum of employment, and to enrich. A
reduction of prices is equivalent to a diminution of the
quantum of employment and of income in a district or a
nation.
This is the fact, whatever be the class in which the
diminution takes place. The great reduction that has
been effected in the incomes of the war classes by the
return of peace has contributed considerably, with the
reduction of the farmer's prices, to produce the present
stagnation and distress. Not only have many thousands
been reduced in their pay, but many thousands entirely
deprived of employment for the time, and consequently,
also, of the means of giving employment to others.
Nothing in statistics can either be clearer in theory,
or more fully established in practice, than this: and yet
the cry both of the higher and lower multitude with us
at present is, Reduce prices! reduce prices!-That is,
distress all, make all poor. For what is this outcry for
a lower rate of prices, but bawling for greater poverty
and less employment? It is wishing us to return ta
the poorer times of our ancestors, to charge less for
food, clothing, housing, taxes, education; and to dimi-
nish the average quantum of employment, or the means
of income, through all classes. I should like to be
shown by these sapient price reducers, how a nation
when it divides at the rate of twenty pounds annually
per head, has not more exchangeable wealth that when
it divided at the rate of fifteen or ten.
Could these people obtain their wishes permanently,
they would deprive the lower classes of their present
little comforts, and drive them from their tidy cottages
ESSAY IV. TO REDUCE AVERAGE PRICES.
488
into the wretched hovels of lower-priced times, to pass
a weary life amid poverty, inconvenience and dirt. The
poor would, and ever must, suffer worst by a fall in
prices, as they cannot afford to part with one comfort, or
lose any of their employment. The middle ranks
would also be obliged to give up more or less of their
comforts, as they would be deprived of part of the em-
ployment which procures these: but all ranks, from
the lowest to the highest, would suffer. In short, these
price reducers would enrich all, by making every body
poorer. They would save the nation, as they phrase
it, by spreading poverty and bankruptcy through all
its ranks. Yes, they would render it rich and happy, by
robbing every class of more or less of its usual employ-
ment, and distressing man, woman, and child.
This price-reducing spirit is indeed by no means a
new inspiration. It has in all ages infested the multi-
tude in one form or another. It formerly produced
those sumptuary laws, which are now reckoned so ridi-
culous, even by many who are actuated by their spirit,
though, it would scem, there has been of late a strange
ebullition of the sort in Sweden. These sumptuary
wiseacres, like our price-reducers, thought the way to
enrich a country was, in plain British, to diminish the
amount of employment and narrow the source of wealth.
Instead of being guided by nature, and yielding to the
results of her arrangements, which are so admirably
formed gradually to extend the means of happiness, if men
will but let her have her own way, our politicians in all
ages have shown a disposition to check her, and model her
arrangements according to some old or new fancies of
their own. And what is usually the decision of a wiser
posterity respecting these meddlers and nature-menders?
II 2
484
FOLLY OF THE ATTEMPT
That they were ignorant bunglers, or fantastical wrong-
heads.
Circulators, when in the price-reducing humour,
女
​speak as consumers or buyers, Price, it is commonly
thought, falls at last entirely on the consumer. This,
however, is a mere misconception. The consumer, it
is true, pays nominally the whole of the price of the
article. But this price falls no more really on him, than
on any of the sellers through whose hands it passes, and
who add to the amount of the charge for it. They, in
their prices, countercharge each for a part: he, in his,
countercharges for the whole.
Some years ago the manufacturing classes laboured
under the effects of a reduction of prices, which in spite
of what our price-reducing theorist tells us, produced
similar distress among them, as the same thing is causing
among our cultivators and others at present; for the
effect is inevitable. Our economists, both in town and
country, seemed then honestly to pity the former, and
wished them a speedy rise. Scarcely a word was
said about the advantages of reducing prices, that now
grand recipe for saving the nation. There happened, at
that time, to be no rage for economy in blaze among
us, as at present: I mean, on the tongue, and in print.
For, while every body is raving for economy both with
tongue and type, I find, what some really economical
people would call extravagance, in as full possession of
most domestic administrations as ever. But now, when
the same evil has fallen on our agricultural classes, in-
stead of pity and kind words, they meet with taunts
about their style of living; or else with cold and grave
queries from our economy and retrenchment men, whe
ther it would not be better for the nation, that their
}
1
ESSAY IV. TO REDUCE AVERAGE PRICES.
485
prices should remain as they are, and that the prices of
all other classes should be reduced like theirs.
That the cry of lower prices should be set up for
the time by cockney economists, is not to be wondered
at; but that grave politicians, who profess to have
studied the science of statistics, should join in it, is more
unaccountable. It is founded on imaginations, that are
in direct opposition to the first principles of the science,
demonstrated by the whole mass of real facts, and
equally by general results and by exceptions from them.
Many of our statisticians compare the prices of British
agricultural produce, when our population was two and
even three millions less than it is at present, with what
those prices are now; and seem disposed to think, that
what was a fair natural rate then, should be a fair
natural rate still. Not a few of them ask, and some
wonder, why the rate which produced comfort, when
the population amounted to ten or eleven millions,
should produce distress when it is thirteen or fourteen.
This shows strange inattention to what may almost
be called the self-evident effects of the increase of popu-
lation. A man has only to open his eyes and look
round him, trusting to the guidance of common sense, to
see that this increase uniformly augments employment,
and of course wealth, among all ranks. Greater wealth
produces a better or more expensive style of living;
and, if all ranks live better, all ranks must charge higher
for what they sell.
A general progress in a more comfortable style of
living, particularly among the lower, and, of course, the
more populous classes, which is the result of the increase
of population and of wealth, is thus reciprocally cause
and effect to an increase of price. When people live
II 3
Ι
{
486
FOLLY OF THE ÁTTEMPT
better they must charge higher and increase the quan-
tum of employment; and by augmenting employment,
as well as charging higher, they are enabled to live
better, and charge still higher, and so on. Thus, though
sixty shillings a quarter for wheat proved a fair natural
rate, when our population was ten or eleven millions,
seventy-five or eighty shillings are no more than a fair
natural rate, when it has reached thirteen or fourteen.
The additional imposts for supplying the demands of
government, which have also been considerable, have
operated very powerfully, along with this natural in-
fluence of the increase of population and wealth, to in-
crease the rate of price.
All means of alleviating the present distress (in
1816) unless accompanied with a rise of prices, will
prove futile and abortive. The removing of the income-
tax will, however, for a time, necessarily tend much to
relieve the distressed circulators; not, indeed, by lower-
ing prices, as so many imagine, but by raising them.
It will bring nearly forty thousand pounds sterling a
day into the peace channels, and render perhaps from
eight to ten millions of additional income available
among the country bankers and country capitalists: the
rest will operate in the same way in the metropolis. Our
females will take care not to let this part of income form
an inactive mass of capital. They will rather anticipate,
than postpone. This will oppose for some time a very
powerful counteracting influence to that produced by the
reduction of pay and prices among so many war circu-
lators and others. It will give a fresh spring to our
manufactures, by increasing the demand and raising the
price; and the agricultural classes will feel the influence
in the circle.
ESSAY IV. TO REDUCE AVERAGE PRICES.
487
This influence indeed will only be temporary. Even
at first the case is but a transfer one with respect to the
nation. The late payers of the income-tax gain what
those to whom it gave employment lose. Price will gra-
dually fall from the competition to sell low, till ulti-
mately the demand is lessened to the amount which the
income-tax created.
The effects of the reduction of prices have com-
pletely belied the speculations of our price-reducing
theorists. Instead of the injury, done by the fall in the
prices of some leading articles, being alleviated by the
fall in the prices of others, as they imagine, it has been
increased. It made matters worse, by still further dimi-
nishing the average quantum of employment among the
various classes. Thus, instead of there being any ap-
pearance of these classes growing gradually more com-
fortable, or obtaining relief from this equalizing of
prices on a lower rate, the evil has become worse and
worse every day. Even some of our most furious
reduction-of-price theorists begin at length to cast a
wistful eye to a rise of prices, as if it was more likely to
effect a cure. And it will, and it alone.
That rise, I trust, has again commenced a perma-
nent progress. And as soon as our leading articles
reach their fair natural rates, these theorists will find
the lic given by facts to their theory by this rise, if not
more completely, at least more pleasantly, than by the
late and present depression. In proportion as wheat
approaches, say 80s. all classes, as well as the agricultural,
will find employment increased, their prices better, their
comforts more numerous, and their spirits improved as
well as their prospects.
The reduction-of-price fever seems rather to have
II 4
488
FOLLY OF THE ATTEMPT
passed the crisis; and perhaps, by harvest, the great
mass of Britons will have returned to a sober state of
mind: I mean, on this topic. Some other epidemic, it
is not unlikely, may have laid hold of the nation by
that time. The cool statistician knows not whether to
treat with serious indignation, or to laugh at the reveries
that have been sported during the delirium of this un-
usually high fever. I think, he had better smile.
There are already some slight symptoms of conva
lescence. A month or six weeks hence, even our town
economist may begin to think it a truth capable of
belief, that every shilling we take from a man's income,
renders him a worse customer to those with whom he
deals, by a shilling: it matters not, whether he buys
from the shoemaker, the hatter, the bookseller, or goes
to the play or the coffee-house. I know not whether
this economist will have sagacity enough to trace the
thing in its ramifications, till he reaches a total annihi-
Ere the harvest of 1816 came, the fever was nearly gone,
except among fixed annuitants. The other classes had suffered
so much from low prices, that they began soberly to believe,
that a bighish price was rather a goodish thing. We have had
several fevers and influenzas since. To say nothing of the old
periodical and dangerously inflammatory fever of the brain, or
the universal suffrage and annual parliament frensy, which
was very high, but that is nothing out of the common way, the
chief epidemic of 1817 has been the retrenchment influenza. It
is of the typhus kind, principally brought on, it is said, by dis-
tress and low living, but I have my doubts, and has been at-
tended with much restlessness, and more delirium. It still con-
tinues to rage, but the violence is rather, if any thing, abated.
How long it will be, ere we return to a state of sober convales-
cence, with respect to this epidemic, I venture not to prophesy.
A brisk trade may, perhaps, cure it. But it seems of a very
nervous and peculiarly lingering cast.
4
ESSAY IV. TO REDUCE AVERAGE PRICES. 489
lation of employment, or the means of charging, in one
form or another, to the amount. At any rate, I ques-
tion, if ever our cockney-agriculturist will so far forget
the cheap poultry, eggs and butter of small farms, as to
admit, that by reducing the rents of the landholders,
who are by far the most extensive and most profitable
set of customers to all the other classes, we should
injure these classes as much as the landholders them-
selves; and particularly, that most of them would either
not be able to come to John's chief town at all, or, if
they should come to John's chief town at all, they must
stay a shorter while, and buy less from every class of
John's people. If he should get so far cut of his usual
circle, as to think thus freely, he might perhaps query,
whether reducing rents, as it would necessarily reduce
John's custom and income also, be quite so useful and
advantageous a thing as it is held in the city.
To conclude more seriously: the liberal trade maxim,
so frequently in the mouths of dealers, Live and let live,
is one of the soundest principles in statistics. The rate of
charging of each class should be ample, but, in no case,
exorbitant. A permanent reduction in the prices would
reduce all ranks lower in the scale of wealth, in propor-
tion to the extent of the reduction, and prove a source of
universal embarrassment and discontent. But such a
change, with an increase of population, is impossible.
Local or temporary falls may and do take place; and
they must ever be attended, as in the present case, with a
diminution of employment and income, and consequently
with poverty and distress. A tendency in the rates of
prices to rise, according to an average fair proportion,
is, therefore, always most advantageous to individuals,
as well as to every class, except that of annuitants with
fixed incomes, and to the nation.
490
THE MONEY QUESTION.
No. VII.
The Money Question.
WE have now completed the discussion of the questions
between the statisticians and economists, or, if the
reader chooses, the Productives and Unproductives, and
between the Populationists and Subsistencians, affecting,
as they do, the foundations of the science of statistics.
And it has been endeavoured to establish, by an ana-
lysis of facts, or results, the real principles of circula-
tion, and of productiveness both with respect to wealth,
and subsistence, as they are found actually operating in
nature.
The questions between the moneyists and bullionists
are intimately connected with the former; and it might
be thought a part of the plan to discuss these in the
same manner. But the author of the Happiness of
States, in his attempt to settle the real principles of the
exchanging species of circuland, or money, found it
requisite to go so minutely into those questions, as to
render it unnecessary.
The bullionists have indeed of late begun to dream
again, but they have brought forth nothing new. It is still
the same dull round of stale fancy. The sun of bul-
lionism, which is a fanciful mixture of old prejudices with
modern economistical dreaming, shone some years ago
with dazzling brightness; but it seems now far in the
cloudy west. The abettors of that system in all their fine
erudite excursions find their auditors and readers have
THE MONEY QUESTION.
491
left them in the lurch. Out of their own circle, they
perceive but too plainly, that they are more apt to raise
a smile or produce a yawn, than to create interest.
They have been abandoned even by the multitude.
The lowest ranks now take paper in preference to metal
money. Indeed it is preferred by all, except the smelters,
or those who buy it as money, in order to sell it as
metal.
Striking as has been the confirmation of the prin-
ciples, developed in the Happiness of States, respecting
the source of real productiveness as to wealth, and the
regulation of subsistence, afforded by facts, in the most
varying and trying circumstances, since the publication of
that work, the principles of money established in it, have,
in equally varying and trying circumstances, met with a
confirmation not less complete. The doctrines there taught
concerning metal and paper money, about the time the
work was written, were opposed almost by every person
whether conversant or not conversant with the subject,
particularly in the south. They for the most part only
raised a smile, and were reckoned unworthy of serious
attention. Such, however, have been the irresistible
proofs in favour of them from facts (and these frequently
most distressing) which come before every man, and
affect intimately every man, that the ideas if not theo-
retically, are at least practically acquiesced in now by
all classes. From the influence of old prejudices and
modern dreaming many may still demur in words; but
they feel and are willing to enjoy the practical advan-
tages derived from them. Some of our bullionists
themselves are beginning at length to awake. Perhaps
when they open their eyes completely, they may be
induced to say, And behold it has been but a dream.
492
THE MONEY QUESTION.
The difficulty in this, as in some other cases of
dreaming or cloud-riding in statistics, is to get people to
open their eyes to plain facts, or to keep on the solid
ground. They shut their eyes and let their imaginations
run wild in the regions of economism, and soar far above
facts amid the clouds of fancy. In vain does every
man acquainted with the subject see, that the amount of
paper money, issued as money, whether increasing or
decreasing, depends entirely on the demand for it,
created by the circumstances of the market for the day,
the week, the month, the year: that the course of ex-
change fluctuates, and the price of gold and silver rises
or falls, without reference to the quantum of notes in cir-
culation that, for one example out of a perpetual train
of similar facts, the market price of gold from commer-
cial and political circumstances some years ago rose
forty per cent. above the mint or artificial price, and
lately it fell to this price and at present is only four or
or five per cent. above it, though the issue of bank-notes
has increased many millions: that the withdrawing of
the capital arising from paper money by the country
bankers, assisted most materially in producing the dis-
tress of 1816 and putting a stop to improvements of
every kind; and that the extension of that sort of
capital again is operating strongly to increase em-
ployment and income. Instead of attending to these
facts, they make mental excursions the Lord knows
where. If they are asked to show, how it is possible,
that the amount of that money which is always return-
able, and, therefore, regulated by the demand, and by
the will of the users, who must either pay or lose a per
centage on the amount which they needlessly keep, can be
excessive, they do not answer this plain question, on which
THE MONEY QUESTION.
493
the whole depends, by a statement of facts on the other
side. This does not seem to suit their purpose at all.
They fly up among the clouds of bullionism, and talk in
some kind of fancy jargon, which I should think would
puzzle our more subtle economists, skilled in the dia-
lects of imagination as they are, and can scarcely be
intelligible even to themselves.
All that I consider necessary here is to refer to the
third book of the Happiness of States, for the analysis
of the principal facts and investigation of the leading
principles of that admirable species of money, a volun-
tary paper currency, which completely answers all the
purposes of home-money, and at the same time proves
a most productive species of circuland, as well as a most
active capital. The first chapter treats of the nature of
money, The second points out the qualities of paper
money, and shows that it creates active capital to the
various classes of circulators to the amount of its issue,
and produces profit to the issuer to that amount, while
metal money withdraws its amount completely from the
total of capital, and produces no profit, but occasionally
loss. In the fourth chapter it is shown further, that
such a money is entirely regulated by the demand, and
that consequently the issue cannot be excessive: in the
fifth, that a voluntary money of this description is not
depreciable; and in the seventh, that it cannot affect
the state of the exchanges with foreign nations.
Some of our bullionists talk still indeed of the
great advantages to be derived from our returning to
what they call a wholesome state of currency, that is, to
a metal currency, or a currency at least chiefly com-
posed of metal. To make use of a medium, which de-
prives a state of an amount of active capital, equal to the
494
THE MONEY QUESTION,
quantity of money in circulation, and the withdrawing
of a part of which in 1816 assisted materially in paralys-
ing the efforts of the country: which robs individuals
and the nation of the income derived from the issue of
paper money (in Great Britain above three millions a
year) which would make the issuers buy gold at the
natural or market price, and sell it at a fixed artificial
price, and which consequently, when metal money only
is sought after, that is, when its materials will bring
more than its form as coin, would enable dishonest men
to fleece the issuers by selling it as metal: such a mea-
sure may produce a state of the currency, which these
bullionists may call wholesome; but all practical men,
all sound statisticians will consider it as a most 、 un-
wholesome state of things.
I may take occasion here to observe respecting the
balances of the public money in the hands of the Bank,
about which so much has been said, that the matter
admits of a fair and easy mode of adjustment, I am
fully aware of the truth of what I have endeavoured to
demonstrate, that, by the laws of statistics, every thou-
sand pounds made by the Bank of England, as well as
by any other company, or by any individual among us,
is so much added to the income of the country; and
either as capital, or as expenditure, creates employment,
in the circle, to that amount. Neither do I grudge it
any of its fair profits. I wish these to increase. But at
present, when our national income, unless we include
the sinking fund, is not equal to our expenditure, and
when from the disposition and circumstances of the
country, it is inconvenient to impose fresh taxes, to pay
a per centage for the use of our own money, or to be
deprived of the interest on it, is not so well.
THE MONEY QUESTION.
495
What I have to propose is this: the nation should
allow the Bank to have always a balance in its favour,
suppose, of three millions, which would be worth from
a hundred to a hundred and fifty thousand pounds a
year. Let the floating balances be ascertained every
month. For all that is above these three millions, the
Bank shall pay to government at the rate of four per
cent. or any other per centage agreed upon; but if the
public offices have overdrawn on these three millions,
government will pay interest at the same rate for the
amount. And that amount should always be limited to
the exhausting of the actual balance, or three millions.
When this event took place, the Bank might refuse to
answer any inore drafts, till it obtained a fresh supply of
public money. This adjustment should content the
Bank, and I think it would satisfy the country.
But to return to the money question: if government
will not adopt the mode of issuing metal money, as its
nature requires, at the market price of the day for
pieces of a certain weight, but will still persist in making
the Bank issue, that is, sell gold at a fixed price, which
it cannot be bought at, the usual inconveniencies will
certainly occasionally occur. Such expensive absurdities,
however, will at length cure themselves.
But in vain will our bullionists, or metal moneyists,
dream against paper money, and tell their dreams.
That admirable species of home money, though un-
known to our ancestors, is now well known throughout
Britain. Its value is acknowledged, and its excellence
felt. And to little purpose will any theorists declaim.
against it. Convenience and profit are too powerful for
theory. In practical matters, the dreamings of specu-
Jatists cannot stand long against waking realities, or their
496
THE MONEY QUESTION.
fancyings against facts. They may rhapsodise, but they
will not retard the progress of a voluntary paper money
of the British description. It will gradually be adopted
by our neighbours and connexions, till, except for small
change, it becomes what it is completely fitted to
be, the home money of all commercial and populous
nations.
له
1
INDEX.
A.
ABUNDANCE of subsistence not always favourable to early
marriage, 96, 124, 274. Results of, in 1815, decisively
against Mr. Malthus's theory, 199, 275. Sometimes in-
jurious to the various classes, 275, 358.
Acres, two, fully cultivated, required on the average to feed
a human individual, 106.
Alexander, Emperor of Russia, what he has done for Europe,
and what he should do for Asia, 446. His conduct to-
wards Poland criticised, 447. An address to him, 450.
Algiers, its government should be new-modelled, 449.
America, rapid increase of population in, since its disco-
very, 157.
185.
--, South, keeping it as a colony injurious to Spain,
United States of, the rate of the increase of popu
lation in, not a general natural rate, 56. Their rate of
doubling their population decisive against the subsistence
theory, 61. The cultivation of their waste lands an
enterprise of great difficulty, 63. Other states populate
less rapidly, because employed generally in less healthy
pursuits, 64. Those districts of, populate fastest that
live most temperately, 130. An exporting country with
respect to subsistence, 135. Their separation from Bri-
tain favourable to the latter, 185.
Amours, illicit, miseries of, 440.
Animals, observations on the assumption of Mr. Malthus,
that they increase naturally faster than their food, 26.
Their food suited to them, 27. Of the sea, and of the
land, 28. Do not appear to over-increase even in un-
peopled districts, 29.
Antipopulation notions, certain, held generally by the multi-
tude, 2.
Antipopulationists, an opinion of a statistician respecting
them, 332.
K K
INDEX.
Aristotelian method of reasoning from assumptions to
facts adopted by Mr. Malthus and others, 386.
Arithmetical ratio of increase attributed to subsistence by
Mr. Malthus, shown to be unfounded, 46.
Asia, slow increase of population in, 157. A great portion
of her people would welcome a Christian restorer of their
liberties, 446.
Axiom in statistics, quoted, 264. }
B.
Bachelor, compared with the married man, 293, 298. The
greater number of suicides said to be bachelors, 295.
Bank of England, plan respecting the balances of public
money in its hands, proposed, 494.
Berwickshire, its eminence for agricultural improvements,
137. Exports subsistence to a great amount, 138.
Nearly the slowest in the increase of population of all
the counties of Britain, ib. The cause of this, 141.
The size of its people compared with those of London,
287.
Bodily labour favourable to prolificness, 149.
Books of the gloomy cast, frequently most popular, 353.
Boroughs, their policy checks population and keeps them
poor, 244.
Britain, it suits her circumstances at present to purchase
a portion of subsistence, in order to allow a greater
proportion of her hands to be employed in more lucra
tive lines, 145. The rapid increase of her population
during the French Revolution war, one of the grand
sources of the astonishing increase of her income and
capital, 153. Mr. Malthus's observations on this consi-
dered, ib. Amount of her town population, 154. Her
employment increasing again from the increase of her
population, 187. Her cultivators forced to call for the
interposition of the legislature, to protect them from the
effects of a superabundance of subsistence, 356. Pro-
gressive increase in her income since 1792, to the close
of the war in 1815, 458. Decrease in it, in consequence
of the peace, ib.
Buchanan, Mr. his observation on utility, 402.
Buyers, remarks upon, 220.
Bullionism now going out of fashion, 490.
Bullionists, have assisted in injuring the science of sta-
tistics, 385. Now abandoned even by the multitude, 491.
INDEX.
}
C.
Capital, its amount great or small according to the greater
or smaller rate of population, 233.
Cardiganshire, its population and wealth compared with
those of Middlesex, 457.
Celibacy appears to be considered the grand saving virtue
in society by Mr. Malthus, 326.
Chargeability, profitable, the real source of productiveness
as to wealth, 212, 413. This principle introduces arith-
metical clearness and certainty into the science of sta-
tistics, 415. And renders the source of wealth inex-
haustible, 416.
Checks, Mr. Malthus's system of, rejected, 59. Upon
population, whether natural or artificial, uniformly tend
to diminish wealth, 244.
Children, exposing them, 120. Stealing them, 121. Of
the poor more numerous per family, and more useful in
point of income, 306. Old English saying respecting,
307. Intense natural affection for them in the human
breast, 439.
China, its case with respect to population, 151, 154; and
to emigration, 178.
Christendom, her right to countries wrested from her by
force asserted, 450.
Christianity, highly favourable to population, 158, 160.
Its extensive spread, 158. Fitted to be the religion of
the world, 159. Its grand catholic doctrines, ib.
Christians of the Turkish empire should be protected, 444.
And by an acknowledged body of their own, 445.
Circuland, circulators in using it add to a heap, 214. The
multitude, and statisticians in general, have overlooked
an essential link in the chain connected with it, ib.
Circulation, the principles of, decisively against the sub-
sistence theory, 41. The advantages of studying these
completely, 338. A striking instance of mistaking them
with respect to employment, 339.
Circulator, every additional, augments the demand as well
as the supply, 172, 174.
Circulators, the more various their classes, the more do
they increase the employment and wealth of one another,
218. Directly or indirectly, all share more or less in the
acquisition of each, 480.
Civilization has a populating influence, at least, to a cer-
tain rate of population per square mile, 149.
KK 2
INDEX.
1
Colonizing, as a mean of employing supernumeraries, 181.
Its effect on the mother country, 184.
Cockney agriculturist, 489.
Complement of population, 106.
Seems the natural
period for the close of the present system of things, 161.
The case of the earth's reaching this considered, 162.
Law suggested that would prevent the evils of it, ib.
Condorcet, 146.
Congress at
443.
Constantinople, effects of its returning under a Christian
dynasty, 446.
Corn considered with respect to its utility producing
wealth, 403.
Countries, populate slower in proportion as their people
are more luxurious in their eating, 130; and as more of
them are engaged in less healthy employment, 131.
Exporting and importing in the articles of subsistence,
135.
Country, the, constant emigration from, to towns, 205.
Crusade, a new or modern, essay on, 443.
Russians
should undertake it, 447. Objections to this considered,
448. Defended, 450.
Crusader, spirit of an old, 443.
Cultivator, synonimous with regulator of subsistence, 79.
This character of man not sufficiently attended to on the
subsistence theory, ib.
Cultivators, the proportion of, in a district regulates the
proportion of subsistence in it, 144. Can always on the
average raise the supply to the demand, 372.
Cumberland, its population and wealth compared with those
of Kent, 457.
Customs said to be derived from a scarcity of subsistence,
120.
D.
Death of fathers of families, frequently injurious to mar-
riage, 205.
Defecundating causes or circumstances, 19.
Demand, the, uniformly, by the law of nature, regulates the
supply as far as this is dependent on the will of man,
69; and, also, the number of the suppliers, 70, 102.
Average amount of, increased by the increase of popula-
tion, 213. The regulating power of, not applied to the
subsistence theory at its first broaching, 340. What
it is made up of, 414.
INDEX.
Depopulating causes, or circumstances, 19.
Diseases attributed to a scarcity of subsistence, 39. Pre-
dominant, in different rates of population, 283.
Distress, assertions of general, by antipopulationists, remark
on, 262. Of the lower ranks, not owing, as Mr. Mal-
thus supposes, to a scarcity of subsistence, but chiefly to
a want of prudence, 372.
Dunse, its population, 138.
E.
Earth, scarcely one-eighth peopled, 31. Result of an
universal survey of her nations with respect to popula-
tion and wealth, 88. A considerable portion of it
Christian, and it will probably at length be generally so,
158. Case of her reaching her full complement consi-
dered, 162. Result of the slow rate of the increase of
population with respect to its cultivation, 370.
East Indies, the effect of the connexion with that country
to Britain as to wealth, 185.
East Lothian, its state with respect to population and sub-
sistence, 139.
Edinburgh (city), its population and wealth, 232.
Edinburgh, county of, as to immigration, 178.
Egypt, 449.
Emigration, its injurious effects to a country, 184. Con-
stant, from country to town, and from less populous to
more populous districts, 204. Causes of, 380.
Employment, the medium of charging, and source of in-
come and wealth, 167. The average amount of, greater
according as the rate of population is thicker, 169, 193.
Created by every additional want, and by every new article
introduced into use, 175. Increase of, shown by the
quicker movement of circulators in populous districts,
176. Partial slackness of, in all rates of population,
193. Its increase in Britain from 1792 to 1817 com-
pared with the increase of numbers, 356.
England, an importing country with respect to subsist-
ence, 135. Her population has increased faster since
she imported subsistence than before, 136. With re-
spect to employment, 178, Compared with Scotland
on Mr. Malthus's ideas, 196. Her comparative wealth,
229. Remarks on her poor, 263. Increase in the
amount paid by her to them, 265, 429.
Affords an
interesting example of the advantages of populousness,
and the increase of population, to all ranks, 374. Table
J
KK 3
INDEX.
of the comparative wealth and population of her coun-
ties, 455. Rate of the increase of population in her
different counties from 1801 to 1811, 458.
Epidemical follies in statistics, 488.
Equilibrium, natural, between population and subsistence,
as between population and clothing, houses, &c. 101.
Essays, four, on the effects of average high and low prices,
459.
Europe, rapid increase of population in, for several cen-
turies, 157. The great melioration of the condition of
all her ranks, the result of this, 270. More populous
now, than she would have been, had her people always
fed luxuriously, 369.
Exchange, course of, fluctuates without reference to the
quantity of notes in circulation, 492.
Expenditure, what is, to one, a source of income to
others, 215.
Extravagance, private, still very general amid all our cries
of economy and retrenchment, 484.
F.
Family, a principal mean of happiness, 293. The ex-
pense of it considered, 293, 299.
Farmers, an illiberal question respecting, 478. Live better
now than formerly, like other classes, 479.
Farms, a tendency in the increase of population to render
them larger, 256.
Fifeshire, observation of the Reporter of, respecting the
effects of the abundance of 1815, 275.
Food, effects of a competition for, 260; and of an insuffi-
ciency and superfluity of, 289.
Forfarshire, observation of the Reporter of, respecting the
abundance of 1815, 275.
Foundlings, number of, small, 440.
1
Foundling establishments, or hospitals, essay on, 438.
Their advantages, 438, 441, 442. Calculated to prevent
child-murder, 440.
France, as to emigration, 178. As to population, wealth,
and subsistence, 258.
Franklin, Dr. a general observation of his, animadverted
upon, 30.
French populationist, an observation of, upon the funda
mental principle of Mr. Malthus's theory, 340.
Friendly societies, 267, 431, 437.
R
INDEX.
Fund, general, for paying, inexhaustible, as it increases with
the increase of the drafts upon it, 220. Objection to
its inexhaustibleness answered, 416.
G.
Gardeners, the cases of two compared, 301.
Geometrical ratio, ascribed by Mr. Malthus to the increase
of population, shown to be unfounded as to any regular
period of time, 47.
Ghosts, 443.
Glasgow, as to population and wealth, 232, 245.
God, argument for the being of, from the increase of popu-
lation, 161,
Gold rises and falls in price without reference to the
amount of notes in circulation, 492.
Government, should it encourage or check early marriage,
290. The effects of an increase of population calculated
to have a particular influence upon, 307. The encou-
ragement which it should, in ordinary times, give to
early marriage, 309.
Grahame, Mr. his work on population, 375.
Gray, Mr. his leading ideas respecting population, 4, 10.
His mode of treating of it, 7. His principle of popula-
tion, 12. Maintains that population as completely regu-
lates subsistence as all other divisions of the supply, 69,
122. The influence attributed by him to subsistence
with respect to marriage, 95, 123. Of the influence
of subsistence on population, 129. His opinion con-
cerning the cause of the increase of population, 140.
Thinks it probable, that the effects of the progress of
population will ultimately check that progress entirely,
147. His conjecture concerning the period of the
equalizing of the populating and depopulating causes,
152. Maintains that the increase of population tends
to augment the average quantum of employment, 168;
and of wealth, 226. His observations on France, 257.
His opinion concerning the predominant diseases exa-
mined, 283. Consequences of his theory concerning
population, 312, His three letters to M. Say on the
source of productiveness as to wealth, 397. An opinion
of his respecting a change in price explained, 463.
Greece, 449.
KK 4
INDEX.
H.
Happiness, the grand object of sound political measures,
312. The effects of this principle, 317. It leads to an
universal free commercial intercourse, 319.
}
Happiness of States, the leading doctrines of that work
respecting population, 4. The author examines the
doctrines of his opponents, without mentioning their
hames, 47. The misrepresentation of a critic as to its
doctrine concerning population, 319. If its theory re-
specting population be true, the subsistence theory must
be abandoned, 377. Its doctrines concerning money, 493.
Health, the effects of subsistence on, 133; and of the in-
crease of population, 283.
Hindostan, with respect to population, 151; and emigra
tion, 178.
Highlands of Scotland, as to employment, 178; to emi-
gration, ib.
Produce much surplus subsistence, 197.
Natural checks to population in, cause poverty, 244.
Selected by Mr. Malthus, as an example of redundant
population as to food, but erroneously, 277. Effects of
the increase of the population in, upon the condition of
the peasants, 302. The children in, charged with idle-
ness, 304.
Holland, remarks on the great number of marriages in
some of its villages, 203.
Hume, Mr. an observation of his respecting population ani-
madverted upon, 247. Erroneous ideas of his in statistics,
248. A just observation of his controverted by Mr.
Malthus, 325. The case of his History of England, as
to productiveness in point of wealth, 406.
I.
Illegitimate children, Mr. Malthus's harsh sentiments re-
specting, 330.
Income tax, effects of repealing it, 486.
Infants exposed, not numerous, 440.
I
Intention, good, in a broacher of pernicious opinions, does
not render them harmless, 336.
Ireland, an exporting country with respect to subsistence,
135. Emigration from, 178. Affords a strong proof of
the wealth-augmenting influence of the increase of popu
lation, 252.
Irish generally more prolific than the English because,
worse fed, 130.
เ
INDEX.
J.
Jarrold, Dr. his notion respecting a counteracting influence
on population in civilization, 149.
Justices. country, their extravagant ideas at present
(1817) respecting the evils arising from the English
poor laws, 327.
K.
Kaimes, Lord, an observation of his concerning the popu-
lation of the American savages defended, 365.
Kelso, its population, 232.
Kent, its population and wealth compared with those of
Cumberland, 457.
Kentucky, as to population, 156.
L.
Labour, human, inadequate to supply the demand of a
crowded population without machinery, 178.
Lanarkshire, as to population and subsistence, 139, 141;
and employment, 178; and immigration, ib.
Lancashire, as to population and subsistence, 139, 141; and
employment, 178.
Land, that is cultivable at all, may be cultivated to profit,
if the real demand of population requires it, 109. The
most fertile by nature generally cultivated first, 200.
The thicker the population, cultivation creates more em-
ployment, 201.
League, new Christian, 443. What it should do for the
Christians of the Turkish empire, 444.
Liverpool, as to income, 231.
Living, better style of, raises the rate of price, 485.
London, its supply of meat analysed, 72. As to popula-
tion and subsistence, 157; and immigration, 178;
and wealth, 232. The size of its indigenous inhabitants,
287.
Luxury tends to defecundate, and also to shorten life, 65,
150. The increase of, tends to augment employment,
200. Effect of, in combination with sedentary employ-
ment on the human stature and health, 284, 287.
INDEX.
M.
Machinery, more employed, the thicker the population,
177. Direct employment diminished by it, indirect in-
creased, 201.
Mahometanism, if unsupported by power, could not stand
before the progress of population and science, 446.
Malthus, Mr. his mode of treating of population defective,
6, 33. His leading ideas respecting it, 10. His prin-
ciple of population, or that it has a natural tendency
to increase faster than subsistence, 32. This principle
refuted, 34. His ultimate check animadverted upon,
36. His manner as a writer disapproved of, ib. His
immediate check considered, 39. The different ratios
of increase ascribed by him to population and subsist-
ence, shown to be unfounded, 46. The clashing of his
two principles of increase would make universal famines
almost constantly recur, 53. His system of checks
disapproved of, 59. Has reversed the law of nature
with respect to subsistence, 82. Has not examined the
principles of population and production by the law of
the demand, ib. Attributes a completely regulating
power to subsistence, and yet ascribes this power di-
rectly to it only in certain cases, 82, 85. His survey
of the different nations animadverted upon, 86. His
three general conclusions from this survey, examined, 90.
A case of excess in population put by him considered, 98,
191. His notions respecting the influence of subsistence
on population, 119; and the tendency of the increase of
population, from being checked by the increase of sub-
sistence, to diminish the average quantum of employment,
168, 190, 195, 272. His inattentiveness to the prin-
ciples of circulation, 197. His theory refuted equally
by the effects of abundance and of scarcity, 199. His
erroneous notion that the increase of population tends
to produce a too great fulness, 203. Inclined some-
times to make the effect the cause, 204. His leading
doctrine, that the increase of population, from the natu
rally slower increase of subsistence, tends to deteriorate
the condition of the lower classes, examinéd minutely
and refuted, 268, 373. The more rapid increase of
population than of subsistence would produce an effect
contrary to what he ascribes to it, and would augment
employment and income, 272. His example of this,
drawn from the state of the Highlands, decisively against
his theory, 277. Another observation of his on the
INDEX,
Highlands considered, 302. His opinion concerning the
predominant diseases examined, 283. His error in com-
paring the married and single, 305. His view of the
government of nature makes it that of a malignant
demon, and not of an all-good Being, 323. His strange
ideas concerning industry, 325. In his theoretical
visions, he finds a great portion of the eyils of mankind.
springing from the increase of population, 327. A quo-
tation from his harsh sentiments respecting the poor,
329. Essential defects in his mode of discussing the
subsistence question, 341. He argues in a circle, 345.
His theory a theory of fanciful assumptions, 346. It is
calculated to please the hypochondriacal and discon-
tented, 353. His claim to the support of facts since the
first publication of his Essay examined, 354, His extra-
vagant notions concerning subsistence, 359, A hypo-
thetical position of his examined, 362. Seems disposed
to reverse nature with respect to population and subsist-
ence, 364. An observation of his on an opinion of Lord
Kaimes considered, 365. His idea as to population
pressing on the limits of subsistence, 368. His unwise
plan of attempting to reduce population to subsistence,
372. His using two notes of admiration against Mr.
Grahame and three against Mr. Weyland noticed, 376.
His views respecting population, though erroneous, will
have an influence in establishing ultimately those which
are correct, 383. Has adopted the Aristotelian mode of
reasoning in science, instead of that of Lord Bacon, 386.
His opinion that the poor have not a right to support,
refuted, 423. His erroneous notion respecting the
origin of pauperism, 424. Under his restriction the
members of the labouring classes could not marry at all,
425.
Man, in the state of the hunter, as also in that of the
feeder, not prolific, 21, 22. In the agricultural state
very prolific, 22. Not so prolific in the commercial, 23.
As a cultivator, a complete regulator, 77. In the
hunter's state depends for subsistence on the supplies of
nature, and, therefore, liable to be regulated in his
numbers by that necessary, 80.
Manufactures, their effect on the size and health of men,
287.
Marriage, early, the grand source of population, 16.
Late, would render population retrogressive, 17. Pro-
lific at an earlier age in hot than temperate climates, ib.
General causes of, 18. Mere abundance of subsistence
does not always operate in its favour, 95, 124. How
INDEX.
f
far subsistence affects it, 126. Law suggested for
checking it, should the earth at length reach its full
complement, 162. Its effects as to virtue, 290; as to
happiness, 292; as to wealth, 296. Reasons for govern-
ment encouraging early, 307. To encourage the latter
tends to destroy an injurious competition on the part of
the single, 308. The encouragement which government,
in ordinary cases, should give to it, 309. To check it a
wild measure, 311. The immoral effects of late, 321.
Could scarcely take place among the lower ranks under a
restriction of Mr. Malthus, 426.
Means of subsistence, an equivocal mode of expression,
104.
Medical man, a, antipopulation ideas of, 333.
Metal money, an unproductive species of circuland, 493.
Its disadvantages, 494.
Middlesex, as to population, 156; and employment, 178.
Its population and wealth compared with those of Car-
diganshire, 457.
Mind, the, labour of, not favourable to fecundity, 149.
Money does not alter the nature or effects of charging, as
the source of income and wealth, 215.
Money question, 490.
Montesquieu, 31.
Mountaineers, generally poor, 244,
N,
Necessity, absolute, of subsistence makes no essential dif-
ference between this species of supply and others less
necessary, 104.
Negroes, a case put with respect to them, by Sir James
Steuart, 113.
Northumberland, the size of its people compared with those
of London, 287.
0.
Old men of the working classes should be exempted from
labour after 70, 436.
Oat-potatoe, the rapidity of the extension of its culture, 58,
Orkney, its slow increase in population, 138.
INDEX.
P.
Paper-money, now preferred even by the lower ranks, 491.
Its qualities, 492, 493. Injury done to Britain by with-
drawing part of the capital arising from it, 492. Of the
British kind will probably at length become the home-
money of all commercial nations, 496.
Palestine, 449.
Parliament, annual, fever, 488.
Paupers, see Poor.
Peace with respect to prices, 466, 468. Peace and plenty
of 1815, observation of an officer in the Grampians upon,
473.
Pergunnahs, certain, in the East Indies as to a decrease in
population and wealth, 242.
Poland, long an exporting country as to subsistence, 125.
Compared with France and Austria, as to, 196.
Poor, the, in England, remarks on, 263. Increase of the
charge for, a proof of her growing rich, 263, 428. Mr.
Malthus's harsh sentiments respecting the children of,
329. Might in general procure a competence in a
populous country, but it cannot be expected that they
will, 420, 422. Vicious, their number augmented by the
increasing wealth of a country, 420. Have a right to
support, 423. The danger, that would result from the
British legislature's disclaiming this right, 426. Mode
of supporting them in England, highly praiseworthy and
productive of much alleviation of misery, 427; but also
of some evils, 430. The Scottish mode disapproved of,
427. Contributions for, charged in the general price
of things, 429. Results of the English and Scottish
modes to the English and Scottish farmers and land-
holders, ib. The measure of stigmatizing the poor ob-
jectionable, 431. Employing the poor recommended,
432. The regulations in England respecting their set-
tlement injurious, 432. Bad effects of paying effective
labourers, as paupers, 433. Their condition meliorated
by a high average rate of price, 470, 476; and injured
by a low one, 470, 482. Suffer by a fall in the average
price even of subsistence, 476.
J
Poorer classes have more children per family, and their
children more useful, in point of income to them, 306.
Poor's fund, sketch of a national, 434.
Population, imagined by the multitude to be in general too
numerous, 1. This notion embodied in a theory by
Mr. Malthus, 3. In all ordinary circumstances, increases;
}
INDEX.
but has no tendency to over-increase, 12. In its increase
has no natural fixed ratio as to time, 14, 54. Increases
according to the earliness of marriage and the healthiness
of the great mass of the people, 16, 112. In the savage
or hunter's state unprolific, 21. In the pastoral still
not prolific, 22. In the agricultural, very prolific, 23.
In the commercial, not so productive, ib. What regu-
lates the rates of its increase, 24, 55. Will it con-
tinue to increase till it reaches its complement? 25, 145.
Its increase regulates the increase of subsistence, 50. Each
nation differs in general from others as to their ratio of
increase, or period of doubling, 56. When unchecked,
57. Regulates the supply of subsistence, as of all other
articles of production, 69. Examples of this, 75. May
decrease, and yet the available means of subsistence be
enlarged, 96. Constantly employed in raising subsist-
ence to its own level, 97. The case of its doubling in
15 years noticed, 99. Out of the advance of subsist-
ence draws the supplies for its increased numbers, 100,
366. Has the power fully to regulate the amount of
subsistence, or raise the amount of the supply of the
latter to its own demand till the earth shall be completely
peopled, 105, 107. As far as depends on subsistence,
may increase at any rate, however rapid, 108. Influence
of, upon subsistence, 111. The more crowded it is, it
consumes a greater average quantity of food, 122. In-
fluence of the extraordinary year 1816, upon, 124. Its
increase much in the inverse ratio of the quantity of
superfluous subsistence consumed, 129. Has not an
uniform tendency to rise to the means of subsistence,
134. Its increase carries in itself the seeds of counter-
action, which will probably at length fully check its own
progress, 147, 164. Slower increase of, in old populous
states, not owing to a scarcity of subsistence, but chiefly
to a superabundance, 156. Rapid increase for several
centuries in Europe and America: slow in Africa and
Asia, 157. The thicker the rate of, the greater average
quantity of employment, 169, 193, 207. Analysis of the
causes of this, 170, 209. Every addition to, creates a
corresponding addition to employment, 173. Its increase
augments the average demand, 214. Increase of, the
grand source of the increase of wealth, 223, 238. Aug-
ments the wealth of the whole mass according to an in-
creasing proportion, 226. Promotes a better style of
living among all classes, 227, 485. The thicker the
rate, and the more rapid the increase of, the richer,
228. A decisive proof of this in the history of Britain
INDEX.
during the French revolution war, 237. Decrease of,
tends to render circulators poorer, and according to an
increasing proportion, 241. Example and proof of this
in certain Pergunnahs in India, 242. Impoverishing
tendency attributed to the increase of, refuted, 246.
Increase of, tends to improve the condition of all ranks
from the lowest to the highest, 269. Effects of its increase
on health, 283. Its increase in Britain from 1792 to
1817, compared with the increase of subsistence, 355;
of employment, 356; of wealth, 357. Were it to be
suddenly checked, subsistence would superabound for a
time, 367. The mode of checking it adopted by nature,
compared with the artificial mode recommended by Mr.
Malthus, 381. Science of, one of the latest cultivated
by society, 384. Its increase raises the average rate of
prices, 485.
Populating causes, or circumstances, 18.
Price, the rate of that of subsistence decisive against the
existence of the principle of the subsistence theory, 41.
Rise in, observations upon, 222. Should be combined
with the amount of the supply or produce, in discussing
statistical questions respecting wealth, employment, &c.
276. Popular error concerning, 304. The item in it
charged for government productive, 410. All parts of it
alike productive of income and reproductive of employ-
ment, 412. Injurious effect of paying effective labourers as
paupers, 433. Utility of a knowledge of, in statistics, 459.
An increase in average price renders a country richer,
461. Causes of a rise in, 462. The rate of, in different
countries variable, and why, 464. The rate of, essen-
tially connected with the style of living in districts and
towns, 465. Peace and war prices, 466. Neither neces-
sarily higher, or lower, except in certain circumstances,
ib. No fixed rate of price by nature, 469. But there is
a fair, or natural average rate of price, and what this is,
ib. A tendency in average price to rise, beneficial to the
community, ib. Average general prices can never be
exorbitant, 470. Average high general prices advan-
tageous, but occasional exorbitant prices of certain
classes injurious, ib. Price must be high to give the
lower ranks a due quantum of comforts, ib. A general
reduction of price can only be effected by the great body
returning to a poorer style of living, ib. Fall in average
price produces embarrassment and distress, and parti-
cularly to the poor, 471, 476, 482. The evils of a
reduced price felt with universal severity in 1816, 473.
A rise in, either a transfer case, or beneficial, 477.
INDEX.
1
Folly of the attempt to reduce average prices, 478, 482.
Does not fall really on the consumer, 484. The distress
of 1816 only to be alleviated by a rise of prices, 486. A
tendency in, to rise, equally advantageous to individuals,
classes, and nations, 489.
Productiveness, in point of wealth, the great importance of
ascertaining what is the real source of, 398. Connexion
between the principle of this, and the principle of popu
lation, 417.
Productive theory, renders statistics clear and certain, 387.
Consequences of, 392. Promotes benevolence, 415.
Q.
Quarterly Review, the opinion of a writer in, respecting the
counteracting influence of civilization on population,
150.
Quesnay, M. his idea of the source of productiveness
contrary to facts, 211, 404.
R.
Rabbits, their multiplication, 113.
Radnorshire, as to employment, 178.
Reason constitutes man a regulator of subsistence, as of
all other branches of the supply, 35, 77.
Recapitulation, with respect to the principle of population,
66; the regulating power of population over subsist-
ence, 165; the increase of employment caused by the
increase of population, 208; and the increase of wealth
caused by the same, 281. A general, 338.
Redundancy of population throughout Europe in 1816
considered, 179. A proof of, with respect to food sup-
posed to be found in a want of employment, examined,
192.
Reformation, the great effect which it produced on popu-
lation by its setting the mind free, or asserting the right
of private judgment, 158.
Renfrewshire, with respect to immigration, 178.
Retrenchment influenza, 488.
Rights, legal, may be rescinded: social, are indefeasible,
423.
Russia, its territory much too large for an effective
national spirit and government, 448.
Rutland, its slow increase in population, 138.
3
INDEX.
S.
Saving banks, their utility, 432.
Say, M. his idea of the source of productiveness not
found to be warranted by facts, 211. Quotation respect-
ing Mr. Gray's theory, and his own, from his letter to
Mr. Gray, 399. His doctrine of utility being the prin-
ciple of productiveness examined, 401. A decisive
argument of his respecting internal wealth, 417. This
applied to the productive theory, 418.
Scarcity, tendency towards, increases employment, 197.
Raises price, and in general adds to the wealth of the
supplier, 198, 272.
Scotland, an exporting country with respect to subsistence,
135. As to emigration, 178. Compared with England
on Mr. Malthus's ideas, 196. Her comparative wealth,
229. Her old mode of supporting the poor disapproved
of, 427. Gradually adopting a mode similar to the
English, 428. Iler grain compared with that of Eng-
land, 429.
Scots, more prolific than the English, because worse fed,
130.
Sellers, observation upon, 220.
Settlement of the poor in England an injurious system, 432.
Shetland, its slow increase in population, 138.
Siberia, as to subsistence, 30; and employment, 178.
Silver rises and falls in price, without reference to the
amount of notes in circulation, 492.
Sinclair, Sir John, the eminent services, which he and
other practical statisticians have rendered to statistics,
385.
Single, perhaps no happy person remains so voluntarily,
295. Perhaps not generally richer than the married, 301.
Soil in general, by nature not very fertile, 51.
Smith, Dr. Adam, his opinion respecting the cause of the
increase of population, 139. His idea of the source of
productiveness erroneous, 211, 404. Remarks on his
notion concerning exchangeable wealth, 399. His adhe-
rents grown sceptical respecting the correctness of his
ideas of the source of productiveness, 400.
Spain, injury done to her by her colonizations, 185.
Statistics, one of the sciences latest cultivated by society,
384. Injured by the fancies of the economists, subsist-
encians and bullionists, 385. Rendered arithmetically
clear and certain by the principle of chargeability, 415,
Statistics, miscellaneous, 397.
LL
INDEX.
Steuart, Sir James, the original author of the principle of
the subsistence theory, 112. His notions respecting the
influence of population and food on each other, ib.
Compares the generative faculty to a spring loaded with
a weight, 127. Assumes that people multiply faster,
the better they are fed, 128. Hostile to marriage among
the lower ranks, 329. A notion of his respecting internal
wealth refuted by M. Say, 417.
Subsistence, whether abundance of, tends to increase the
prolific power, queried, 24. The vast amount of the
means of, in all countries still untouched, 15, 38, 45; and
the average rate of its price, decisive against the sub-
sistence theory, 42. The amount of its increase regu-
lated by the increase of population, 50. Has of itself
no natural ratio of increase whatever, 51. Natural
amount of, scarcely the one thirtieth of the artificial, 52.
The rapidity of increase of which it is capable, 58.
Effects of the abundance and deficiency of, on popula-
tion, 65. The notion of its uniformly increasing slower
than population, a wild fancy utterly unwarranted by the
arrangements of nature, 67. Its influence with respect
to marriage, 94. The proportionate amount which it
forms in housekeeping, 95.
The available means of,
may be increased, and yet population decreased, 96.
Has no level of its own, 97. In connected districts,
usually a year or two in advance upon population, 99.
Agrees in amount with the demand of population, like
houses, clothing, &c. 100. Natural tendency to an equi-
librium between it and population, 101. As far as de-
pends on it, population may increase at any rate, however
rapid, 108. ~ Influence of, upon population, 111. Has
no peculiar influence in hastening or retarding marriage,
127. Superfluity of, unfavourable to the increase of
population, 129. Its influence on health, 133. The
quantity of, produced in a district, regulated by the
proportion of cultivators; which proportion is regulated
by the circumstances of the district, 144. Effects of an
increased demand for, 260. It is a superabundance of,
and not a tendency to a deficiency, which diminishes the
stimulus on industry, 275. Its influence on population
only what is common to it with the other branches of
the supply, 277. Limits of, easily extended by the cul-
tivator, 324. Its increase compared with the increase of
population in Britain from 1792 to 1817, 355. As to
the current increase of population, 366. Would super-
abound for a time, were population not to go on in-
creasing, 367. Should be raised to the demand of popu-
INDEX.
lation in case of a deficiency, 373. Fall in the average
price of, diminishes employment and wealth, 462.
Effects of the fall in the price of, in 1815 and 1816, 473.
Subsistence question, observations upon, 351.
Subsistence theory, its repulsive effects not to be taken into
consideration in deciding on its truth or falsehood, 33.
The rate of doubling in the United States decisive against
it, 61. Constant emigration from the country to town
shows it to be unfounded, 205. Its consequences to
society, 320, 389. Hostile to early marriage, 321. The
odious and unjust view which it gives of nature, 322.
Tends to throw a thick gloom over human prospects,
and to paralyze industry, 324. Degrades man to the
level of beasts and vegetables as to subsistence, 326.
Injurious to humanity and charity, 328. Particularly
hostile to the lower ranks, and the poor, ib. Tends to
depreciate the value of human life, 332. Were it gene-
rally believed, would render human life quite insecure,
334. Observations upon, 338. Not tried, at first, by
the law of nature, or the regulating power of the demand,
340. The various assumptions of which it consists, com-
pared with the causes and results in nature, 346. Re-
marks upon the faith of its supposed believers, 361.
Change taking place in the public mind respecting, 375.
Shown decisively to be false by the state of the materials
and suppliers of subsistence, and by the indexes of
famine and of price, 378. Another of an opposite kind,
but equally founded on fallacy, 344.
Subsistencians, a fond observation of theirs animadverted
on, 361. Have assisted in injuring the science of sta-
tistics, 385.
Subtilising, fondness of theorists for, 5.
Suffrage, universal, fever, 488.
Suicides, the greater number of, said to be bachelors, 295.
Superabundance of subsistence, injurious to the various
classes, 275.
Supply, the, regulated by the demand, 69. Of London
with meat analyzed, 72. Human labour incapable of
furnishing it, in a thick rate of population, without the
use of machinery, 177. A portion of, constituted the
grand regulating cause by Mr. Malthus, 343, 359. Re-
marks upon, were it to be constituted the regulator of
the demand, 359.
Sumner, Mr. attempts to reconcile the principle of the
subsistence theory, with the government of an all-good
Being, 323.
LL 2
INDEX.
Sumptuary laws, folly of, 483.
Sweden, a recent ebullition of sumptuary folly in, 483.
Switzerland, as to emigration, 178. Distress of, in 1816,
183. Natural check to population in, causes poverty,
244.
T.
Table of the comparative population and wealth of the
counties of England and Wales, with their rates of in-
crease in population, 455.
Towns, large, their antipopulating effect, 151. At what
number of inhabitants this may be supposed to begin to
produce these effects, 152. Constant emigration from
the country to, 205. Rich in proportion to their greater
population, 228, 231, 240. The ugliness and inferiority
of old, and of old portions of, 235. Their extension, a
proof of the increase of population and wealth combined,
236. Large, tend to render even remote districts more
prosperous, 249.
Trade maxim, Live and let live, sound statistics, 489.
Turkish dynasty, the great prop of Mahometanism, 445.
A considerable portion of its slaves, Christians, 452.
U.
What it
Articles
Some of
Utility, not the source or principle of productiveness, 211,
401. M. Say's definition of it considered, 401.
denotes in the cominion acceptation, ib.
possessing it, not necessarily productive, 405.
them unproductive, ib. Some also occasionally produc-
tive and occasionally unproductive, 406. Sometimes
injurious to productiveness, 405. The increase of, not
necessarily attended with an increase of productiveness,
but sometimes with a diminution of that quality, 408.
M. Say's opinion concerning the unproductiveness of a
certain portion of actual price, examined, 409.
W.
Wales, its comparative wealth, 229. Table of the compa-
rative population and wealth of its counties, with their
rates of increase in population, 456.
Wallace, Mr. a speculation of his, 146.
INDEX.
Want, and the diseases springing from it, more common in
thinly peopled, than in populous districts, 285.
Wants of men, the source of all employment and charging,
215. Increase, as population grows more numerous, 216.
War, commonly increases employment, 180. Increase of
population and wealth in Britain during that of the
French Revolution, 237. With respect to prices, 466,
468.
Waste lands, below a certain height above the level of the
sea, may be cultivated to profit, when population requires
their cultivation, 109. Average expense of cultivating
them, ib. An example of a piece very elevated, culti-
vated to advantage, 110.
Wealth, the source of, profitable chargeability, 212. Detail
of facts showing that its increase depends upon the
increase of population, 226. National increase of, tends
to augment the number of vicious poor, 266, 420. As
the grand object of statistical measures, examined, $13.
The effects of such a principle, 314. Its increase in
Britain from 1792 to 1817, compared with the increase
of population, 357. General definition of, 399. Ren-
dered by the productive system inexhaustible, 416. Ob-
jections to this answered, ib.
*
West India islands, their effect, as a colony of Britain, 185.
Weyland, Mr. his work on population, 376.
Wheat, prices of, in Windsor market, from 1755 to 1815,
466.
Y.
Young, Mr. Arthur, notion of his respecting the over
population of France, refuted, 253, 258. And of the
effects of a reduction of the same, refuted also, 261.
York, its population, 232.
THE END.
SA
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}
7
S. Gosnell, Printer, Little Queen Street, London.
WORKS BY MR. GRAY.
THE MICROCOSM:
Or, A PICTURESQUE DELINEATION of the ARTS, AGRI-
CULTURE, MANUFACTURES, &c. of GREAT BRITAIN, in a
Series of above Six Hundred Groups of small Figures for the Embel-
lishment of Landscape; comprising the most interesting Subjects in
rural and domestic Soenery, in external and internal Navigation, in Country
Sports and Employments, in the Arts of War and of Peace. The whole
accurately drawn from Nature, and etched by W. H. Pyne, and aqua-
tinted by J. Hill. To which are added, Explanations of the Plates, and
Essays relating to their various Subjects. Published by Miller, Albe-
marle Street, 1806 and 1808. In 2 Volumes, 10 Guineas plain, and 20
Pounds coloured.
THE HAPPINESS OF STATES;
Or, an INQUIRY CONCERNING POPULATION, the MODES
of SUBSISTING and EMPLOYING IT, and the EFFECTS of all
on HUMAN HAPPINESS. 4to. 17. 11s. 6d.
A Book of general Results and an Index are now added, which may
be had separately by those who possess Copies.
In this Work the Author investigates the subjects of Circulation,
Money, Population and Production, as found in nature, and endeavours
to clear them from those imaginations with which they have been mixed,
and to establish their real principles by an analysis of facts. He has
also given a view of the effects of the increase of Population.
To the attention of those, who are about to enter on the study of the
important practical science of Statistics, or Political Economy, as it has
been generally but injudiciously called, the Second Book, on the materials
and principles of Circulation, is earnestly recommended.
All sure pro-
gress in the science depends on having correct notions of these. And
whether the Student ultimately admits the ideas of the Author concern-
ing Productiveness as to Wealth, or those of Quesnay, Smith, or Say,
this extensive and minute analysis of the results, as actually found around
us every day and every where, will be of use to enable him to analyse,
examine, and decide for himself.
Preparing for the Press,
THE
MESSIA D,
A Poem.
WORKS BY DR. PURVES.
ALL CLASSES PRODUCTIVE
OF
National Wealth :
Or, The THEORIES of M. QUESNAY, Dr. ADAM SMITH, and
Mr. GRAY, concerning the various CLASSES of MEN, as to the
PRODUCTION of WEALTH to the COMMUNITY, analysed and
examined. Svo. 9s.
"This argument leads us by a new and certainly an unexpected road, to
a novel conclusion in favour of the theory that utterly denies any
distinction between any of the applications of capital and indust»,
which are subservient to the wants and enjoyments of man.”
Edinburgh Review, vol. iv. p. 362.
Gray versus Malthus.
THE PRINCIPLES
OF
"1
POPULATION AND PRODUCTION
INVESTIGATED:
And the Questions, Does Population regulate Subsistence, or Subsist-
ence Population: has the latter, in its Increase, a Tendency to augment or
diminish the average Quantum of Employment and Wealth: and should
Government encourage or check early Marriage, discussed. 8vo.
"Ie are aware of the importance of a full discussion of the principles
of population and production in the present conflicting state of the
public opinion on that great practical question."
No. 31, Quarterly Review, October 1816, p. 36.
In the former Work, the doctrines of Economists, both of the sect
of Quesnay and of Smith, concerning the Unproductiveness of certain
Classes, are examined, and shown to be directly contrary to the principles
of Circulation operating in real life, and the Circulators who procure
their income by the exertions of the mind, and whom those speculatists
have attempted to degrade into paupers, are restored to their proper place
in society. Among other statistical matters, a new view is given of the
National Debt, and a double mode of liquidation pointed out, by which
the nation may at once enjoy the advantages expected from that liquida-
tion. There is also an analysis of the causes of the universal stagnation
and distress of 1816, a year that will long be so memorable in the his-
tory of the Statistics of Europe. And the Appendix contains Four Letters
to M. Say, in which some of the Observations of that eminent political
Economist on England and Englishmen" are corrected.
In the latter, the Population and Subsistence Theories, as found in
the Happiness of States of Mr. Giay and the Essay on the Principle of
Population of Mr. Malthus, are minutely analysed, the regulating power
of Population over Subsistence fully established, and early Marriage
Some articles of Mis-
shown to be uniformly advantageous to a State.
cellaneous Statistics are added. Among these are, Three Letters to M.
Say, in which his Principle of Productiveness, as to Wealth, is examined,
Observations on the English mode of supporting the Poor, and Four
Essays on the eflect of average high and low Prices.
暑
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