/ ^ / JkB^lll S 0^/ //f TO AN ESSAY ON THE PRXNCXFLE or POPI7Z.J1TZON, &c. &c. BY T. R. MALTHTJS, A. itt. Late Fellow of Jesus College, Cambridge, and Professor of W story and Political Economy in the East- India College^ Hertfordshire. FIRST AMERICAJV EDITIOJV. GEORGETOWN, D. C. PUBLISHED BY CHARLES CRUIKSHANK, Rind's Press — Congress-Street. 1831. J^y C03»T^]N'TS, BOOK II. <>/ the Checks to Pojndation in the Different slates of Modern Eu- rope. (Continued.) ■HAP. Page I. Of the Checks to Population in France (continued) ... 5 VII. Of the Checks to Population in England (continued) ... 13 BOOK III. Of the Different systems or Expedients which have been Proposed or have prevailed in society, as they affect the evils arising from the Principle of Pojjulation. (Continued) OiiAP. Page. II. Of Systems of Equalitj' (continued) 30 IV. Of Emigration (continued) 4j[ VI. Of Poor-Laws (continued) 43 VIII. Of the Agricultural System 68 IX. Of the Commercial System 77 X. Of tlie Systems of Agriculture and Commerce combined 90 XI. Of Cc.rnrLaws. Bounties upon Exportation, ...... ]05 XII. Of Corn-Laws. Restrictions upon Importation 127 XIII. Of increasing Wealth, as it affects the .Condition of the Poor ,{ J49 XIV. Liencral Observations (continued) ./,' 167 BOOK IV. tf ourfiitvre Prospects Respecting the retnmal or mitigation of the evils Arising from thf Principle of Population: (Coatinued) ^^"A"- Page. VI. Effects of the Knowledge of the principal Cause of Pover- ty on Civil Liberty (continued) I77 XII. Different Plans of improving the Condition of the Poor considered, (continued,) . . • 184 Appendix . , . . , 201 AED'TIOXS, BOOK II.— CHAPTER VII. fTo follow page 447, Vol. 1, American Edition of 1809 ; and pag«k 448, Vol, 1, London Edition of 1S07.] Of the checks to Population in France. ( Continued.) I have not thought it advisable to alter the conjectural calculations and suppositions of the preceding chapter on account of the returns of the prefects for the year IX, as well as some returns published since by the go- vernment in 1813, having given a smaller proportion of births than I had thought probable : first, because these returns do not contain the early years of the revolution, when the encouragement to marriage and the proportion of births might be expected to be the greatest ; and second- ly, because they still seem fully to establish the main fact, which it was the object of the chapter to account for, namely, the undiminished population of France, notwith- standing the losses sustained during the revolution; al- though it may have been effected rather by a decreased proportion of deaths than an increased proportion of births. According to the returns of the year IX, the propor- tion of the births, deaths, and marriages, to the whole population, are as follow : B ESSAY ON Book U Checks to Population Births. Deaths. Marriages. 1 in 33 I in 38| 1 in 157*. But these are, in fact, only the proportions of one year, from which no certain inference can be drawn. They are also applied to a population between three and four mil- lions greater than was contained in ancient France, which population may have always had a smaller proportion of births, deaths and marriages; and further, it appears highly probable from some of the statements in the Ana- f. lyse des Proces Verhaux., that the registers had not been very carefully kept. Under these circumstances, they cannot be considered as proving what the numbers im- ply- In the year XL, according to the Statistique Elemen- taire, by Peuchet, published subsequently to his Essai^ an inquiry was instituted under the orders of M. Chap- tal for the express purpose of ascertaining the average proportion of births to the population ;t and such an in- quiry, so soon after the returns of the year IX.. affords a <;lear proof that these returns were not considered by the minister as correct. In order to accomplish the object in view, choice was made of those communes in 30 de- *See a valuable note of M. Prevost of Geneva to his translation of this work, vol. ii. p. 8S. M. Prevost thinks it probable that there are omissions in the returns of the births, deaths and marriages for the year TX. He further shews that the proportion of the population to the square league for Old France should be 1014, and not 1086. But if there is reason to believe that there are omissions in the registers, and that the population is made too great, the real proportions will be essentially different from those which are her* given. fP. 831, Paris. 1805. Chap. Vn. POPULATION. In Fiance. (Continued.) partments distributed over the whole surface of France, which were likely to afford the most accurate returns. — And these returns for the years VIII., IX., and X., gave a proportion of births as 1 in 28|^^ ; of deaths, as 1 in 30y|o ■) ^^^ of marriages, as 1 in 132yJ|^. It is observed by M. Peuchet, that the proportion of population to the births is here much greater than had been formerly assumed, but he thinks that, as this calcu- lation had been made from actual enumerations, it should be adopted in preference. The returns published by the government in 1813 make the population of ancient France 28,786,911, which, compared with 28,000.000, the estimated popu- lation of the year IX, shew an increase of about 800,000 in the 11 years irom 1802 to 1813. No returns of marriages are given, and the returns of births and deaths are given only for fifty departments. In these fifty departments, during the ten years begin- ning with 1802 and ending with 1811, the whole number of births amounted to 5,478,669, and of deaths to 4,696,857, which, on a population of 16,710,719, indi- cates a proportion of births as 1 in 30|, and of deaths as 1 in 35|. It is natural to suppose that these fifty departments were chosen on account of their shewing the greatest in- crease. They contain, indeed, nearly the whole increase that had taken place in all the departments from the time of the enumeration in the year IX. ; and consequently the population of the other departments must have been ^ ESSAY ON Book II. Checks to Population ■almost stationary. It may furtlier be reasonably conjec- tured that the returns of marriages were not publislied on account of their being considered as unsatisfactory, and shewing a diminution of marriages, and an increased proportion of illegitimate births. From these returns, and the circumstances accompa- nying them, it may be concluded, that whatever might have been the real proportion of births before the revo- lution, and for the six or seven subsequent years, when the manages prematures are alluded to in the Proces Vcr- baux, and proportions of births as 1 in 21, 22, and 23, are mentioned in the Statistique Generale, the propor- tions of births, deaths and marriages, are now all consi- derably less than they were formerly supposed to be * It has been asked, whether, if this fact be allowed, it does not clearly follow that the population was incorrect- ly estimated before the revolution, and that it has been diminished rather than increased since 1782? To this question 1 should distinctly answer, that it does not fol- low. It has been seen, in many of the preceding chap- ters, ihat the proportions of births, deaths and marriages, are extremely different in different countries, and there 3S the strongest reason for believing that they are very *In the year 1792 a law was passed extremely favorable to early jnarriaojes. This was repealed in the year IX., and a law substituted which threw e;reat obstacles in the way of marriage, accordina; to Peuchet, (p. 234.) These two laws will assist in accountinsj for a smaH proportion of births and marriages in the ten years previous to 1813. consistently with the possibility of a large proportion in the first six or seven years after the commencement of the revolution. Chap rn. POPULATION, A In Fiance. (Continued.) different in the same country at diiTerent periods, and un- der dilferent circumstances. That changes of this kind liave taken place in Swit- zerland has appeared to be almost certain. A similar ef- fect from increased healthiness in our own country may be considered as an established fact. And if we give any credit to the best authorities that can be collected on the subject, it can scarcely be doubted that the rate of mortality has diminished during ihe last one or two hun- dred years, in almost every country in Europe. There is nothing, therefore, that ought to surprise us in the mere fact of the same population being kept up, or even a de- cided increase taking place, under a smaller proportion ol' births, deatlis and marriages. And the only question is, whether the actual circumstances of France seem to render such a change probable. Now it is generally agreed, that the condition of the lower c:« .sses of people in France before the revolution was very wretched. The wages of labour were about 20 sous, or ten pence, a day, at a time when the wages of labour in England were nearly seventeen pence, and the price of wheat of the same quality in the two coun- tries was not very different. Accordingly, Arthur Young represents the labouring classes of France, just at the commencement of the revolution, as "76 per cent, worse fed, worse clothed, and worse supported, both in sickness and in health, than the same classes m England."* And *youi;g a Travels in France* vol. i. p. 437^, 10 ESSAY ON Book IL Checks to Population though this statement is perhaps rather too strong, and sutiicient allowance is not made for the real difference of prices, yet his work every where abounds with observa- tions which shew the depressed condition of the labour- ing cVaUqs in France at that time, and imply the pressure of the population very hard against the limits of subsistence. On the other hand, it is universally allowed that the condition of the French peasantry has been decidedly im- proved by the revolution and the division of the national domains. All the writers who advert to the subject no- tice a considerable rise in the price of labour, partly oc- casioned by the extension of cultivation; and partly by the demands of the army. In the Statistique Elemen- taire of Peuchet, common labour is stated to have risen from 20 to 30 sous,* while the price of provisions ap- pears to have remained nearly the same; and Mr. Bir- beck, in his late Agricultural Tour in France,t says that the price of labour without hoard is twenty pence a clay, and that provisions of all kinds are full as cheap again as in England. This would give the French labourer the same command of subsistence as an English labourer would have with three shillings and four pence a day. — But at no time were the wages of common day labour in England so high as three shillings and four pence. Allowing for some errors in these statements, they are evidently sufficient to establish a very marked improve- ment in the condition of the lower classes of people in 'P.391. iP. 13. C/iap. VII. POPULATION. 11 In France. (Continued.) France. But it is next to a physical impossibility that such a relief from, the pressure of distress should take place without a diminution in the rate of mortality ; and if this diminution m the rate of mortality has not been accompanied by a rapid increase of population, it must necessarily have been accompanied by a smaller propor- tion of births. In the interval between 1 802 and 1813, the population seems to have increased, but to have increased slowly. Consequently, a smaller proportion of births, deaths and marriages, or the more general opera- tion of prudential restraint, is exactly what the circum- stances would have led us to expect. There is perhaps no proposition more incontrovertible than this, that, in two countries, in which the rate of increase, the natural healthiness of climate, and the state of towns and manu- factures are supposed to be nearly the same, the one in which the pressure of poverty is the greatest will have the greatest proportion of births, deaths and marriages. It does not then, by any means, follow, as has been supposed, that because, since 1802 the proportion of births in France has been as 1 in 30, Necker ought to have used 30 as his multiplier instead of 25|. It the representations given of the state of the labouring clas- ses in France before and since the revolution be in any degree near the truth, as the march of the population in both periods seems to have been nearly the same, the present proportion of births could not have been applica- ble at the period when Necker wrote. At the same time it is by no means improbable that he took too low a mul- n rfeSAY ON POPULATION. Book IL Checks to Population in France. (Continued.) tiplier. It is hardly credible, under all circumstances, that the population of France should have increased in the interval between 1785 and 1802 so mucha-^ from 25 1 mil- lions to 28. But if we allow that the multiplier might at that time have been 27 instead of 25f, it will be allow- ing- as much as is in any degree probable, and yet this will imply an increase of nearly two millions from 1785 to 1813, an increase far short of the rate that has taken place in England, but still sufficient amply to shew the force of the principle of population in overcoming- ob- stacles apparently the most powerful. \\ ith regard to the question of the increase of births in the six or seven first years after the commencement of the revolution, there is no probability of its ever being determined. In the confusion of the times, it is scarce- ly possible to suppose that the registers should have been regularly kept; and as they were not collected in the year IX., there is no chance of their being brought for- ward inja correct state at a subsequent period. BOOK ir.— CHAP. VII. [To follow Page 485, Vol. 1, American Edition, 1809 ; and page 48U Vol. 1, London Edition, 1807.] Of the Checks to Population in England. (Continued.) The returns of the Population Act in 1811 undouhted- ly presented extraordinary results. They shewed a great- ly accelerated rate of progress, and a greatly improved healthiness of the people, notwithstanding the increase of the towns and the increased proportion of the popu- lation engaged in manufacturing employments. They thus furnished another striking instance of the readiness with which population starts forwards, under almost any weight, when the resources of a country are rapidly in« creasing. The amount of the population in 1 800, together with the proportions of births, deaths and marriages, given in the registers, made it appear that the population had been for some time increasing at a rate rather exceeding what would result from a proportion of births to deaths as 4 to 3, with a mortality of 1 in 40. These proportions would add to the population of a country every year y^^th part ; and if they were to continue, would, according to table ii, page 168, douhle the population in every successive period of 83 1 years. This is a rate of progress which in a rich and well f)eo- pled country might reasonably be expected to diminish rather than to iiicrease. But instead of any such diminu- 14 ESSAY ON Book. 11. Checks to Population lion, it appears that as far as 1810 it had been considera- bly accelerated. In 1810, according to the returns from each parish, with the addition of ^^th for the soldiers, sailors, &c.the population of England and Wales was estimated at 10,- 488,000,* which, compared with 9,168,000. the popula- tion of 1800 estimated in a similar manner, shews an in- crease in the ten years of 1 ,320,000. The registered baptisms during ten years were 2,878,- 906, and the registered burials 1,950,189, The excess of the births is therefore 928,717, which falls very con- siderably short of the increase shewn by the two enume- rations. This deficiency could only be occasioned either by the enumeration in 1800 being below the truth, or by the inaccuracy of the registers of births and burials, or by the the operation of these two causes combined ; as it is obvious that, if the population in 1 800 were estima- ted correctly, and the registers contained all the births and burials, the difference must exceed rather than fall short of the real addition to the population; that is, it would exceed it exactly by the number of persons dying abroad in the army, navy, &c. There is reason to believe that both causes had a share in producing the effect observed, though the latter, that is, the inaccuracy of the registers, in much the greatest degree. *See the Population Abstracts published in 1811, and the valuable Prelimmary Observations by Mr. Hickman. Chap. VIL POPULATION. 15 In England (Continued.) In estimating the population throughout the century,* the births have been assumed to bear the same proportion at all times to the number of people. It has been seen that such an assumption might often lead to a very incorrect es- timate of the population of a country at different and dis- tant periods. As the population, however, is known to have increased with great rapidity from 1800 to 1810, it is probable that the proportion of births did not essentially diminish during that period. But if, taking the last enu- meration as correct, we compare the births of 1810 with the births of 1 800, the result will imply a larger popula- tion in 1800 than is given in the enumeration for that year. Thus the average of the last five years' births to 1 810 is 297,000, and the average of the five years' births to 1800 is 263,000. But 297,000 is to 263,000 as 10,488,- 000, the population of 1810, to 9,287,000, which must, therefore, have been the population in 1 800, if the pro- portion of births be as'iumed to be the same, instead of 9,168,000, the result of the enumeration. It is further to be observed that the increase of population from 1795 to 1 800 is, according to the table, unusually small, com- pared with most of the preceding periods of five years. And a slight inspection of the registers will shew that the proportion of births for five years from 1795, including the diminished numbers of 1796 and 1800, was more likely to be below than above the general average. For *See a table of the population throughout the century, in page 25, of the Preliminary Observations to the Population Abstracts printed in 1811. 16 ESSAY ON Book. It. *= Checks to Population these reasons, together with the general impression on the subject, it is probable that the enumeration in 1800 was short of the truth, and perhaps the population at that time may be safely taken at as much as 9,287 ,000 at the least, or about 1 1 9,000 greater than the returns gave it. But even upon this supposition, neither the excess of births above the deaths in the whole of the ten years, nor the proportion of births to deaths, as given in the regis- ters, will account for an increase from 9,287,000 to 10,- 488,000. Yet it is not probable that the increase has beea much less than is shewn by the proportion of births at the two periods. Some allowance must therefore ne- cessarily be made for omissions in the registers of births and deaths, which are known to be very far from correct, particularly the registers of births. There is reason to believe that there are few or no omissions in the registers of marriages ; and if we sup- pose the omissions in the births to be one sixth, this will preserve a proportion of the births to the marriages as 4 to 1 , a proportion which appears to be satisfactorily established upon other grounds ;* but if we are warrant- ed in this supposition, it will be fair to take the omis- sions in the deaths at such a number as will make the ex- cess of the births above the deaths in the ten years ac- cord with the increase of population estimated by the increase of the births. The registered births in the ten years, as was mention- *See the Preliminary Oiservations on the Population Abstracts, p. axvi. Chap. VII. POPULATION 11 In England (Continued.) ed before, are 2,878,906, which increased by one sixth, will be 3.358,723. The registered burials are 1,950,- 189, which increased by one twelfth, will be 2,112,704. The latter subtracted from the former, will give 1,246,- 019 for the excess ot births, and the increase of popula- tion in the ten years, which number added to 9,287,000, the corrected population of 1800, will give 10,533,019, forty-five thousand above the enumeration of 1810, leav- ing almost exactly the number which in the course of the ten years appears to have died abroad, This number has been calculated generally at about 4^^ per cent, on the male births ; but in the present case there are the means of ascertaining more accurately the number of males dy- ing abroad during the period in question. In the last population returns the male and female births and deaths are seperated ; and from the excess of the male births above the female births, compared with the male and fe- male deaths, it appears that forty-five thousand males died abroad.* The assumed omissions, therefore, in the births and burials seem to answer so far very well. It remains to see whether the same suppositions will give such a proportion of births to deaths, with such a rate of mortality, as will also account for an increase of numbers in ten years from 9 287,000 to 10,488,000. *See Population Abstracts, ISll, p. 196 of the Parish Register Ab- stract. It is certainly very extraordinary that a smaller proportion o! males than usual should appear to have died abroad from 1800 to 1810 ; but as the registers for this period seem to prove it, I have made my c'alca- lations accordingly. 18 ESSAY ON Book. IL Checks to Population If we divide the population of 1810 by the average births of the preceding five years, with the addition of one-sixth, it will appear that the proportion of births to the population is as 1 to 30. But it is obvious that if the population be increasing with some rapidity, the average of births for five years, compared with the population at the end of such period, must give the proportion of births too small. And further, there is always a proba- bility that a proportion which is correct for five years may not be correct for ten years. In order to obtain the true proportion applicable to the progress of population during the period in question, we must compare the an- nual average of the births for the whole term, with the average or mean population of the whole term. The whole number of births, with the addition of one- sixth, is, as before stated, 3,358,723, and the annual ave- rage during the ten years 335,872. The mean popula^ tion, or the mean between 10,488,000 (the population of 1810) and 9,287,000 (the corrected population of 1800) is 9,887,000; and the latter number divided by the average of the births will give a proportion of births to the population as 1 to rather less than 29|, instead of 30, which will make a considerable difference. In the same manner, if we divide the population of 1810 by the average of the burials for the preceding five years, with the addition of one-twelfth, the mortality will appear to be as 1 in nearly 50 ; but upon the same grounds as with regard to the births, an average of the burials for five years, compared with the population at the end of such term, must give the proportion of burials. Chap.VIL POPULATION. 19 In England (Continued.) too small ; and further, it is known, in the present case, that the proportion of burials to the population by no means continued the same during the whole time. In fact, the registers clearly shew an improvement in the healthiness of the country, and a diminution of mortality progressively through the ten years; and while the ave- rage number of annual births increased from 263,000 to 297,000, or more than one-eighth, the burials increased only from 192,000 to 196,000, or one-48th. It is obvi- ously necessary then for the purpose in view to compare the average mortality with the average or mean popula- tion. The whole number of burials in the ten years, with the addition of one- 12th, is, as was before stated 2,1 12,- 704, and the mean population 9,887,000. The latter, divided by the former, gives the annual average of burials compared with the population as 1 to rather less than 47. But a proportion of births as 1 to 29|, with a proportion of deaths as 1 to 47, will add yearly to the numbers of a country one-79th of the whole, and in ten years will increase the population from 9,287,000 to 10,531,- 000, leaving 43,000 for the deaths abroad, and agreeing very nearly with the calculation founded on the excess of births.* *A general formula for estimating the population of a country at any distance from a certain period, under given circumstances of births and mortality, may be found in Bridge's Elements of Alge- bra, p. 225, Log. A =s= log. P -f- n X log. 1 -\- m — b 2^0 ESSAY ON Book It ' . \ Checks to Population, We may presume, therefore, that the assumed omis- sions in the births and deaths from 1800 to 1810 are not far from the truth. But if these omissions of one-sixth for the births and one twelfth for the burials, may be considered as nearly right for the period between 1800 and 1810, it is proba^ ble that they may be applied without much danger of er- ror to the period between 17 :0 and 1800, and may serve to correct some of the conclusions founded on the births alone. Next to an accurate enumeration, a calculation irom the excess of births above the deaths is the most to be depended upon. Indeed when the registers contain all the births and deaths, and these are the means of set- im.i: out from a known population, it is obviously the same as an actual enumeration; and where a nearly correct al- A representing the required population at the end of any number of years; n the number of years; P the actual population at the given period; -' the proportion of yearly deaths to the population, or ratio m of mortality; i the proportion of yearly births to the population, or' ratio of births. In the present case, P = 9,287,000 ; n = 10 , m = 47 ; b = . 9| m — b = i^ and 1 + m — b m b "II ra b l^he log. of «» =00546; .• . n x log. l-j- m — b m a 5= 05460, Log. P. =: 6.96787, which adde'^ to 05460 as 7.02247 the tog. of A, the number answering to wliich is lOjSSljOOO Chap. VII. POPULATION. 21 In England (Continued.) lovvance can be made for the omissions in the registers, and for the deaths abroad, a much nearer approximation to it may be obtained in this way than from the propor- tion of births to the whole population, which is known to be liable to such frequent variations. The whole number of births returned in the twenty years, from 1780 to 1800, is 5,014,899, and of the bu- rials 3,840,455. If we add one-sixth to the former, and one-twelfth to the latter, the two numbers will be 5,850,715; and 4,160,492, and subtracting the latter from the former, the excess of the births above the deaths will be 1,690,223. Adding this excess to the population of 1780, as calculated in Mr. Rickman's tables, from the births, which is 7,953,000, the result will be 9,643 000, a number which, after making a proper allowance for the deaths abroad, is very much above the population of 1800 as before corrected, and still more above the number which is given in the table as the result of the enumera- tion. But if we proceed upon the safer ground just muggest- ed, and taking the corrected population of 1 800 as es- tablished, subtract from it the excess of the birtbs du- ring the twenty years, diminished by the probable num- ber of deaths abroad, which in this case will be about 124,000, we shall have the number 7,721,000 for the population of 1780, instead of 7,953,000; and there is ffood reason to believe that this is nearer tbe truth ;• *The very small difference between the population of 17S(Vand 1785, as given in the table, seems strongly to imply that one of the two estimates is erroneous. D 22 ESSAY ON Book H. Checks to Population and that not only in 1780, but in many of the intermediate periods, the estimate from the births has represented the population as greater, and increasing more irregularly, than would be found to be true, if recourse could be had to enumerations. This has arisen from the proportion of births to the population being variable, and, on the whole, greater in 1780, and at other periods during the course of the twenty years than it was in 1800. In 1795, for instance, the population is represented to be 9,055,000, and in 1800, 9,168.000;* but if we sup- pose the first number to be correct, and add the excess of the births above the deaths in the five intervening years, even without making any allowance for omissions in the registers, we shall find that the population in 1800 ought to have been 9,398,000 instead of 9,168,000; or if we take the number returned for 1 800 as correct, it will ap- pear- by subtracting from it the excess of births during the ; ve preceding years, that the population in 1795 ought to have been 8,825,000, instead of 9,055,000.— Hence it follows, that the estimate from the births in 1795 cannot be correct. To obtain the population at that period, the safest way is to apolv the before-mentioned corrections to the regis- ters, and, havina: made the allowance of 4:} per cent, on the male hirths for the deaths abroad, subtract the re- mainina: excess of the births from the corrected returns of 1800. The result in this case will be 8.831,086 for *Fopulation Abstracts, 1811. Preliminary View, p< xxV. Chap. VIL POPULATION. U In England. (Continued.) the population of 1795, implying an increase in the five years of 455,91 4, instead of only 113,000, as shewn by the table calculated from the births. If we proceed in the same manner with the period from 1790 to 1795, we shall find that the excess of births above the deaths (after the foregoing corrections have been applied, and an allowance has been made of 44 per cent, upoii the male births for the deaths abroad.) will be 415.669, which, subtra* te' from 8,831,086, the popula- tion of 1795, as above estimated, leaves 8,415,417 for the population of 1790. Upon the same principle, the excess of the births above the deaths in the interval between 1785 and 17 90 will tur» out to be 416,776. The population in 1785 will there- fore be 7,998,641. And, in like manner, the excess of the births above the deaths in the interval between 1780 and 1785 will le 377,544, and the population in 1780 7,721,097. The two tables therefore, of the population, from 1780 to 1810, will stand thus:— Table, calculated from the births alone, in the Preliminary Ob- servations to the Population Ab- stracts printed in 1811. Population in 1780 1785 1790 1795 1800 1805 1810 7,953,000 8,016,000 8,675,000 9,055,000 9,168,000 9,828,000 10,488,000 Table, calculated from the excess of the births above the deaths, after an allowance made for the omissions in the registers, aad the deaths abroad. Population 1780 1785 1790 1795 1800 1805 1810 7,721.000 7,998,000 8,415,000 8,831,000 9,287,000 9,837,000 10,488,000 U ESSAY ON Book U •'I ' ' -- ■ — Checks to Population In the first table, or table calculated from the births alone, the additions made to the population in each pe- riod of five years are as follows : — From 1780 to 1785 63,000 From 1785 to 1790 659,000 From 1790 to 1795 380,000 From 1795 to 1800 113,000 From 1800 to 1805 660,000 From 1805 to 1810 660,000 In the second table, or table calculated from the excess of the births above the deaths, after the proposed correc- tions have been applied, the additions made to the popu- lation in each period of five years will stand thus : — From 1780 to 1785 277,000 From 1785 to 1790 417,000 From 1790 to 1795 416,000 From 1795 to 1800 456,000 From 1800 to 1805 550,000 From 1805 to 1810 651,000 The progress of the population, according to this latter table, appears much more natural and probable than ac- cording to the former. It is in no respect likely that, in the interval between 1780 and 1785, the increase of population should only have been 63,000, and in the next period 659,000; or that, in the interval between 1795 and 1800, it should have been only 113,000, and in the next period 660,000. But it is not necessary to dwell on pro- babilities ; the most distinct proofs may be brought to shew that, whether the new table be right or not, the old table must be wrong. Without any allowance being Chsip. VIL POPULATION. 25 In England (Continued.) made for omissionm the registers, the excess of the births above the deaths in the period from 1780 to 1785, shews an increase of 1 93,000, instead of 63,000. And on the other hand, no allowances for omissions in the registers, that could w\\h the slightest degree of probability be supposed, would make the excess of births above the deaths in the period from 1785 to 1790 equal to 659,000. Making no allowance for omissions, this excess only a- mouats to 317,406 ; and if we were to suppose the omis- sions in the births one 4th, instead of one 6th, and that there were no omissions in the registers oi burials, and that no one died abroad, the excess would still fall short of the number stated by many thousands. The same results would follow, if we were to estimate the progress of population during these periods by the proportion of births to deaths, and the rate of mor- tality. In the first period the increase would turn out to Be very mush greater than the increase stated, and in the other very much less. Similar observations may be made with regard to some of the other periods in the old table, particularly that be- tween 1795 and 1800, which has been already noticed. It will be found on the other hand that, if the propor- tion of births to deaths during each period be estimated with tolerable accuracy and compared with the mean po- pulation, the rate of the progress of the population deter- mined by this criterion will, in every period, a^ree very nearly with the rate of progress determined by the excess of the births above the deaths, after applying the propos- ed corrections. And it is further worthy of remark that, if «e ESSVV ox Book II Checks to Population «■■■'' " ' '■ ' ■■.*»■ the connections pix>posed sliouUi bo in some dti^reo inac<*' curate, as is pmbable, (he ern^-s arisuiij,- iVom aiiv such vjaaouracios are likely to be very much less eousiderable than those whioh must necesstjviily arise I'l^oin the assump- tion on which the old table is tbundeii ; aauuM y that the^ births boar at all tinu>' t!\o s;^mo proportion to the popu- lauon. Ol ooiirso I do no: nu\ni to vojoo t any estimate ot' popu- lation torau\l in t'uis wav, \vl\on no In'^ttor niatorials are to bo lound ; but, in the pivsont case, the registers ot" the burials as well as baptisms ai"e ^iveii every year, as tar back as 1781"), and those vo^isiei^, with the tirm ^i\nnul ol Uie last onunioranon to stand upon, ailoiil the moans of givinii- a fuovo oonooi Mblo ot' the population tVon^ nSO th.ui was betbre t"uvnishod. and of show inii- at the vsame time ilie uncertaituy oi' ostimatos from tlio births- alone, pariicularly with a view toilio pro^ross ot" popula- tion during pariieular j.>erio\o or throo lunidred thousand aio not ot' uuioh unportanoo; but in ostiinatius^ the rate of increase during a period ot" ti\ t^ or ton vears, on erj\Tir to this amount is quite tatal. It will be allou'ed^ I ooni!eive, to make an essential ditloreuoe in our eonciu- sions respecting tht^ raio ot" iiici'ease for any fi\e veai-s which we may ti\ upon, whether the additiiMi made to the population during,' tho term in question is t>S.lXX"> oY an.OOO, I15,(HH1 or t:n>.000. o:)ii.000 or tHAXX). ^^'uh ro^ard to the period ot" tho century previous 10 nS(), as tlie registers ot* tlio l>aptisms and burials are not returned ior every yoai*, it is not possible to apply Chap. Vll rOPTTT.ATTON. ST III England (Continued.) \\\c same oonortidiis. And i( w\\\ he ohvious tluit, in the tal)le oalculalod from the births previous to this j)e- riod, when the registers are only given Ibr insidated years At some distance Irom eaeli other, very considerable errors may arise, not m(M( ly iVoni the varying pro[)ortion of the births to ilu^ jH>pul;\tu)n, on averages of five years, but from the individual y(\irs produeeil not re|)resenting with tolerablo rcivvrctness these averages.* A very slight iihuiee at the valuable^ tabl<> o'( baptisms, buri- als and marriages, given in the rreliminary Observations to the Population Abstraetsf-. will shew how very little dependence ought to be placed upon inference respect- ing the population drawn from the number of births, deaths or marriages in individual years. If, for instance, we were estimating the population in the two years I8(X) and 1801, compared with the two following yeais 1802 and 180;], tVom thr proportion o1 marriages to the popula tion, assuming this ]>roportion to be always the same, it would ap[)ear that, it'the population in the tirst two veirs were nine millions, in the second two years imnv diitelj' succeeding it would he considerably above twe.lvp millions, and thus it would seem to have increased al)0 <' three millions, or more than one third, in this shoii interval. Nor would the result of an estimate, formed from the births for the two years 1800 and 1801 compared with *From tho one or ttio other of Ihoso c:nise!i. I li;u e tittle tloubt, tlwl the miiiilier-i in the t.>Me lor \HW ;mit 177l>, \vl>iili imply :^o riipiil iui inerease of population in that interval, i!o no' tear tlte jiroper relation to each other. It is probable thai the number eiven for 1770 is tOf» ffroaK fP. 20. 28 ESSAY ON Book H. Checks to Population II III - , the two years 1803 and 1804, be materially different ; at least such an estimate would indicate an increase of two millions six hundred thousand in three years. The reader can hardly be surprised at these results, if he recollects that the births, deaths and marriages bear but a small proportion to the whole population ; and that consequently variations in either of these, which may take place from temporary causes, cannot possibly be accom- panied by similar variations in the whole mass of the pop- ulation. An increase of births o* one-third, which might occur in a single year, instead of increasing the popula- tion one-third, would only perhaps increase it one-eighti- eth or ninetieth. It follows therefore, as I stated in the last chapter, that the table of the population for the century previous to 1780, calculated from the returns of the births alone, at the distance of ten years each, can only be considered as a very rough approximation towards the truth, in the ab- sence of better materials, and can scarcely in any degree be depended upon for the comparative rate of increase at particular periods. The population m 1810, compared with that of 1800, corrected as proposed in this cha{)ter, implies a less ra- pid increase than the difference between the two enumer- ations; and it has further appeared that the assumed proportion of births to deaths as 47 to 29| is rather below than above the truth. Yet this proportion is quite extra- ordinary for a rich and well-peopled territory. It would add to the population of a country one 79th every year, and were it to continue, would, according to table ii. p. ■CJutp. Vn. POPULATION. 2^ Checks to Population in England. (Continued.) '-■ ■>-^* 168 in this volume, double the number of inhabitants in less than fifty-five years. This is a rate of increase, which in the nature of things cannot be permanent. It has been occasioned by the stimulus of a greatly-increased demand for labour, com- bined with a greatly-increased power of production, both in agriculture and manufactures. These are the two elements necessary to form an effective encouragement to a rapid increase of population. A failure of either of these must immediately weaken the stimulus; and there is but too much reason to fear the failure of one of them at present. But what has already taken place is a striking illustration of the principle of population, and a proof that in spite of great towns, manufacturing occupa- tions, and the gradually-acquired habits of an opulent and luxuriant people, if the resources of a country will admit of a rapid increase, and if these resources, are so advin- tageously distributed as to occasion a constantly increas- ing demand for labour, the population will not fail to keep pace with them*. £ BOOS: ni— CHAP, n: (To follow Page 120 Vol. 2nd, American Edition 1809. And Page 4)5 Vol. 2nd, London Edition 1807.] Of systems of Equality (continued.) It was suggested to me some years since by persons for whose judgment I have a high respect, that it might be advisable, in a new edition, to throw out the matter relative to systems of equality, to Wallace, Condorcet abd Godwin, as having in a considerable degree lost its interest, and as not being strictly connected with the main subject of the essay, which is an explanation and illustra- tion of the tlieory of population. But independently of its being natural for me to have some little partiality for that T>art of the work which led to those inquiries on whic^ the main subject rests ; I really think that there should be somewhere on record an answer to systems of equality' founded on the principle of population ; and perhaps such an answer is as appropriately placed, and is likely to have as much effect, among the illustrations and applica- tions o( the principle of population,as in any other situ- ation *o which it could be assigned. The appearances in all human societies, particularly in all those which are the furthest advanced in civilization an<- improvement, will ever be such, as to inspire super/ fic'al observers with a belief that a prodigious change for the better might be effected by the introduction of $ system of equality and of common property . They set €haj). II. ESSAY ON POPULATION. &i Of Systems of Equality. (Continued.) abundance in some quarters, and want in others ; and the natural and obvious remedy seems to an equal division of the produce. They see a prodigious quantity of human exertions wasted upon trivial, useless, and sometimes pernicious objects which might either be wholy saved or more effectively employed. They see invention after in- vention in machinery brought forward, which is .sje^ming ly calculated, in the most marked manner, to abate the surn of human toil. Yet with these apparent means of giving plenty, leisure and happiness to all, they still seie .the labours of the great mass of society undiminished, and their condition, if not deteriorated, in no very strik- ing and palpable manner improved. Under these circumstances, it cannot be a matter their inclinations. As all would be equal, and in smiilai cir- F 38 ESSAY ON Book. HI. Of Systems of Equality. (Continued.) cumstances, there would be no reason whatever why one individual should think himself obliged to practise the duty of restraint more than another. The thing, howe- ver, must be done, with any hope of avoiding universal misery ; and in a state of equality, the necessary restraint could only be effected by some general law. But how is this law to be supported, and how are the vi61ations of it to be punished ? Is the man who marries early to be pointed at with the finger of scorn ? is he to be whipped at the cart's tail.-* is he to be confined for years in a pri- son .'' is he to have his children exposed ? Are not all di- rect punishments for an offence of this kmd shocking and unnatural to the last degree? And yet, if it be absolute- ly necessary, in order to prevent the most overwhelming wretchedness, that there should be some restraint on the tendency to early marriages, when the resources of the country are only sufficient to support a slow rate of in- crease, can the most fertile imagination conceive one at once so natural, so just, so consonant to the laws of God and to the best laws framed by the most enlightened men, as , that each individual should be responsible for the maintainance of his own children; that is, that he should be subjected to the natural inconveniences and difficulties arising from the indulgence of his inclinations, and to no other whatever } That this natural check to early marriages arising from a view of the difficulty attending the support of a large family operates very widely throughout all classes of so- ciety in every civilized state, and may be expected to be still more effective, as the lower classes of people con- Chap. II. POPULATION. 39 Of Systems of Equality. (Continued.) tinue to improve in knowledge and prudence, cannot ad- mit of the slightest doubt. But the operation of this na- tural check depends exclusively upon the existence of the laws of property and succession; and in a state of equality and community of property could only be re- placed by some artificial regulation of a very different stamp, and a much more unnatural character. Of this Mr. Owen is fully sensible, and has in consequence taxed his ingenuity to the utmost to invent some mode by which the difficulties arising from the progress of population could be got rid of, in the state of society to which he looks forward. His absolute inability to suggest any mode of accomplishing this object that is not unnatural, immoral, or cruel in a high degree, together with the same want of success in every other person, ancient* or modern, who has made a similar attempt, seem to shew that the argument against systems of equality founded on the principle of population does not admit of a plausible answer, even in theory. The fact of the tendency of population to increase beyond the means of subsistence may be seen in almost every register of a country parish in the kingdom. The unavoidable effect of this tendency to depress the whole body of the people in want and misery, unless the progress of the population be some- how or other retarded, is equally obvious; and the im- possibility of checking the rate of increase in a state of *The reader has already seen in ch. xiii. bk. i. the detestable means of checking population proposed by some ancient lawgivers in order to support their systems of equality. 40 ESSAY ON POPULATION. Book Ilf. Of Sj'^stems of Equality. (Continued.) equality, without resorting to regulations that are unna- tural, immoral, or cruel, forms an argument atonce con- clusive against every such system.- BOOK HI. Continuation of Chapter IV. TTo follow page 147, Vol. 2, American Edition of 1809 ; and page, 72, Vol, 2, London Edition of 1807.] OJ Emigration. In all countries the progress of wealth must depend mainly upon the industry, skill and success of individuals, and upon the state and demands of other countries. Con- sequently, in all countries, great variations may take place at different times in the rate at which wealth increases, and in the demand for labour But though the progress of population is mainly regulated by the effective demand for labour, it is obvious that the number of people can- not conform itself immediately to the state of this de- mand. Some time is required to bring more labour into the market when it is wanted ; and some time to check the supply when it is flowing in with too great rapidity. If these variations amount to no more than that natural sort of oscillation noticed in an early part of this work, which seems almost always to accompany the progress of population and food, they should be submitted to as a part of the usual course of things. But circumstances may occasionally give them greai^^ force, and then during the peviod that the supply of labour is increasing faster 42 ESSAY ON POPULATION. Book III Of Emigration. than the demand, the labouring classes are subject to the most severe distress. If, for instance, from a combina- tion ef external and internal causes, a very great stimulus should be given to the population of a country for ten or twelve years together, and it should then comparativefy cease, it is clear that labour will continue flowing into the market with almost undiminished rapidity, while the means of employing and paying it have been essentially contracted. Jt is precisely under these circumstances that emigration is most useful as a temporary relief ; and it is in these circumstances that Great Britain finds her- self placed at present.* Though no emigration should take place, the population will by degrees conform itself to the state of the demand for labour ; but the mterval must be marked by the most severe distress, the amount of which can scarcely be reduced by any human efforts ; because, though it may be mitigated at particular periods, and as it affects particular classes, it will be proportion- ably extended over a larger space of time and a greater number of people. The only real relief m such a case is emigration ; and the subject at the present moment is well worthy the attention of the government, both as a matter of humanity and policy. *1S16 and 1S17. BOOK III.— CHAP. VI. FTo follow Page 187, Vol. 2nd, American Edition, 1809; and patfe 112, Vol. 2nd, London Edition, 1807.] Of Poor-Laws (Continued.) The remarks made in the last chapter on the nature and effects of the poor laws have been in the most stri- king manner confirmed by the experience of the years 1815,1816 and 1817. During these years, two points of the very highest importance have been established, so as no longer to admit of a doubt in the mind of any ration- al man. The first is, that the country does not in point of fact fulfil the promises which it makes to the poor in the poor- laws, to maintain and find in employment, by means of parish assessments, those who are unable to support them- selves or their families, either from want of work or any other cause. And secondly, that with' a very great increase of legal parish assessments, aided by the most liberal and praise- worthy contributions of voluntary charity, the country has been wholy unable to find adequate employment for the numerous labourers and artificers who are able as well as willing to work. It can no longer surely be contended that the poor-laws really perform what they promise, when it is known that many almost starving families have been found in London and other great towns, who are deterred from going on the parish by the crowded, unhealthy and horrible state / 44 ESSAY ON Book TIL Of Poor-Laws. (Continued.) of the workhouses into which they would be received, if indeed they could be received at all ; when it is known that many parishes have been absolutely unable to raise the necessary assessments, the increase of which, accor- ding; to the existing laws, have tended only to bring more and more persons upon the parish, and to make what was collected less and less effectual ; and when it is known that there has been an almost universal cry from one end of the kingdom to the other for voluntary charity to come in aid of the parochial assessments. These strong indications of the inefficiency of the poor- laws, may merely be considered, not only as incontrover- tible proofs of the fact that they do not perform what they promise but as affording the strongest presumption that they cannot do it. The best of all reasons for the breach of a promise, is, the absolute imposibility of exe- cuting it- indeed it is the only plea that can ever be con- sidered as valid. But though it may be fairly par- donable not to execute an imposibility, it is unpardonable knowingly to promise one. And if it be still thought ad- visable to act upon these statutes as far as is practicable it would surely be wise so to alter the terms in which they are expressed, and the general interpretation given to them, as not to convey to the poor a false notion of what really is within the range of practicability. It has appeared further as a matter of fact, that very large voluntary contributions, combined with greatly in- creased parochial assessments, and aided by the most able and incessant exertions of individuals, have failed to give the necessary employment to those who have been thrown Chap. VL POPULATIOM. 4y Of Poor Laws. (Continued.) out of work by the sudden falling off of demand which has occurred during the last two or three years. It might perhaps have been foreseen that, as the great movements of society, the great causes which render a nation progressive, stationary or declining, for longer or shorter periods, cannot be supposed to depend much upon parochial assessments or the contributions of charity, it could not be expected that any efforts of this kind should have power to create in a stationary or declining stale of thmgs that effective demand for labour which only belongs to a progressive state. But to those who did not see this truth before, the melancholy experience of the last two years must have brought it home with an overpowering' conviction. It does not however by any means follow that the ex- ertions which have been made to relieve the present dis- tresses have been ill directed. On the contrary, they have not only been prompted by the most praiseworthy motives ; they have not only fulfilled the great moral du- ty of assisting our fellow-creatures in distress-, but they have in point of fact done great good, or at least preven- ted great evil. Their partial failure does not necessari- ly indicate either a wani of energy or a want of skill in those who have taken the lead in these efforts, butmerely that a part only of what has been attempted is practicable. It is practicable to mitigate the violence and relieve the severe pressure of the present distress, so as to carry the sufferers through to better times, though even this can only be done at the expense of some sacrifices, not merely of the rich, but of other clas.ses of the poor. But G 46 ESSAY ON J^ook III. Of Poor-Laws. (Continued.) it is impracticable by any exertions, either individual or national, to restore at once that brisk demand for commo- dities, and labour which has been lost by events, that, however they may have originated, are now beyond the power of control. The whole subject is surrounded on all sides by the most formidable difficulties, and in no state of things is it so necessary to recollect the saying of Daniel de Foe quoted in the last chapter. The manufacturers all over the country, and the Spitalfields weavers in particu- lar, are in a state of the deepest distress, occasioned im- mediately and directly by the want of demand for the produce of their industry, and the consequent necessity felt by the masters of turning off many of their workmen in order to proportion the supply to the contracted demand. It is proposed however, by some well-meaning people, to raise by subscription a fund for the express purpose of setting to work again those who have been turned off by their masters, the effect of which can only be to continue glutting a market, already much too fally supplied. This is most naturally and justly objected to by the masters, as it prevents them from withdrawing the supply, and ta- king the only course which can prevent the total destruc- tion of their capitals, and the necessity of turning off all their men instead of a part. On the other hand, some classes of merchants and man- ufacturers clamour very loudly for the prohibition of all foreign commodities which may enter into competition with domestic products, and interfere, as they intimate with employment of British industry. But this is most Chap. VI POPULATION 47 Of Poor-Laws. (Continued.) naturally and most justly depreccitcd by other classes of British subjects, who ar'e employed to a very great extent in preparing' and manufacturing those commodities which are to purchase our imports from foreign countries. And it must be allowed to be perfectly true that a court-ball at which only British stufts are admitted, may be the means of throwing out of employment in one quarter of the country just as many persons as it furnishes with em- ployment in another. Still, it would be desirable if possible to employ those that are out of work, if it were merely to avoid the bad moral effects of idleness, and ol the evil habits which might be generated by d(>pending for a considerable time on mere alms. But the difficulties just stated will shew, that we ought to proceed in this part of the attempt with great caution, and that the kinds of employment which ought to be chosen are thase, the result ot which will not interfere with existing capitals. Such are public works of all descriptions, the making and repairing of roads, bridges, railways, canals, &.c. ; and now perhaps, since the great loss of agricultural capital, almost every sort of labour upon the land, which could be carried on by pub- lic subscription. Yet even in this way of employing labour, the ben- efit to some must bring with it disadvantages to others, "That portion of each person's revenue which might go in subscriptions of this kind, must of course be lost to the various sorts of labour which its expenditure in the usual channels would have supported ; and the want of demand thus occasioned in these channels mus tcause the pressure of 48 ESSAY ON Book. Ill Of Poor-Lavvs. (Continued.) distress to be felt in quarters which might otherwise have escaped it. But this is an effect which in such ca- ses, it is impossible to avoid ; and, as a temporary mea- sure, it is not only charitable but just, to spread the evil over a larger surface, in order that its violence on particu- lar parts mav be so mitigated as to be made bearable by all. The great object to be kept in view is to support the people through their present distresses, in the hope (and I trust a just one) of better times. The difficulty is with out doubt considerably agravated by the prodigious stim- ulus which has been given to the population of the country of late vears, the effects of w^hich cannot suddenly sub- side. But it wdll be seen probably, when the next returns of the population are made, that the marriages and births have diminished, and the deaths increased in a still great- er dcijree than in 1800 and 1801; and the continuance of this effect to a certain degree for a few years will retard theprogress of the population, and combined with the in- creasing wants of Europe and America from their increas- ingr^c})es, and the adaptation of the supply of commodities at home to the new distribution of wealth occasioned by the alteration of the circulating medium will again give life and energy to all our mercantile and agricultural transactions, and restore the labouring classes to full em. ployment and good wages. On the subject of the distresses of the poor, and par.^ ticularly the increase of pauperism of late years, the Xnost erroneous opinions have been circulated. During the progress of +he war. ^h" increase in the proportion of persons requiring parish assistance was attributed chiefly Chap. VI. POPULATION. 49 Of Poor Laws. (Continued.) to the high price of the necessaries of Hfe. We have seen these aecessaries of life- experience a great and sud- den fall, and yet, at the same time, a still larger propor- tion of the population requiring parish assistance. It is now said that taxation is the sole cause of their distresses, and of the extraordinary stagnation in the de- mand for labour; yet I feel the firmest conviction, that if the whole of the taxes were removed to-morrow, this stagnation, mstead of being at an end, would be conside- rably aggravated. Such an event would cause another great and general rise in the value of the circulating me- dium, and bring with it that discouragement to industry with which such a convulsion in society must ever b(^ at- tended. If, as has been represented, the labouring clas- ses now pay more than half of what they receive in tax- es, he must know very little indeed of the principles on ^hich the wages of labour are regulated, who can for a moment suppose that, when the commodities on which they are expended have fallen one-half by the removal of taxes, these wages themselves would still continue of the same nominal value. Were they to remain but for a short time the same, while all commodities had fallen, and the circulating medium had been reduced in propor- tion, it would be quickly seen that multitudes of them would be at once thrown out of employment. The effects of taxation are no doubt in many cases per- nicious in a very high degree ; but it may be laid down as a rule which has few exceptions, that the relief obtain- ed by taking off a tax, is in no respect equal to the inju- ry inflicted in laying it on ; and generally it may be said 30 ESSAY ON Book III Of Poor-Laws. (Continued.) that the specific evil of taxation consists in the check which it gives to production, rather than the diminution which it occasions in demand. With regard to ail com- modities indeed of home production and home demand, it is quite certain that the conversion of capital into re- venue, which is the eflFect of loans, must necessarily in- crease the proportion of demand to the supply ; and the conversion of the revenue of individuals into the revenue of the government, which is the effect of taxes properly imposed, however hard upon the individuals so taxed, can have no tendency to diminish the general amount of de- mand. It will, of course, diminish the demands of the persons taxed by diminishing their powers of purchasing ; but to the exact amount that the powers of these persons are diminished, will the powers of the government and of those employed by it be increased. If an estate of five thousand a year has a mortgage upon it of two thousand, two families, both in very good circumstances, may be living upon the rents of it, and both have considerable demands for houses, furniture, carriages, broad-cloth, silks, cottons, &c. The man who owns the estate is cer- tainly much worse off than if the mortgage-deed was burnt, but the manufacturers and labourers who supply the silks, broad-cloth, cottons, &c. are so far from being likely to be benefitted by such burning, that it would be a considerable time .before the new wants and tastes of the enriched owner had restored ihe former demand; and if he were to take a fancy to spend his additional incoma in horses, hounds and menial servants, which is probable, not only would the manufacturers and labourers who had Chap. VI POPULATION. 51! Of Poor Laws. (Continued.) before supplied their silks, cloths and cottons, be thrown out of employment, but the substituted demand would be very much less favorable to the increase of the capital and general resources of the country. The foregoing illustration represents mor^ nearly than may generally be imagined the effects of a national debt on the labouring classes of society, and the very great mistake of supposing that, because the demands of a con- siderable portion of the community would be increased by the extinction of the debt, these increased demands would not be balanced, and often more than balanced, by the loss of the demand from the fundholders and govern- ment. It is by no means intended by these observations to in- timate that a national debt may not be so heavy as to be extremely prejudicial to a state. The division and dis- tribution of property, which is so beneficial when car- ried only to a certain extent, is fatal to production when pushed to extremity. The division of an estate of five thousand a year will generally tend to increase demand, stimulate production and improve the structure of socie- ty ; but the division of an estate of eighty pounds a year will generally be attended with effects directly the re- verse. But, besides the probability that the division of proper- ty occasioned by a national debt may in many cases be pushed too far, the process of the division is effected by means which sometimes greatly embarrass production. — This embarrassment must necessarily take place to a cer- tfiin extent in almost every species of taxation ; but un- 3^ ESSAY ON Book III Of Poor-Laws. (Continued) der favorable circumstances it is overcome by the stimu- lus given to demand. During the late war, from th» pro- digpous increase of produce and population, it may fairly be presumed that the power of production was not essen- tially impeded, notwithstanding the enormous amount of taxation ; but in the state of things which has occurred since the peace, and under a most extraordinary fall of the exchangeable value of the raw produce of the land, and a great consequent diminution of the circulating medium, the very sudden increase of the weight and pressure of taxation must greatly aggravate the other causes which discourage production. This effect has been felt to a considerable extent on the land , but the distress in this quarter is already much mitigated ; and among the mer- cantile and manufacturing classes, where the greatest numbers are without employment, the evil obviously ari- ses, not so much from the want of capital and the means of production, as the want of a market for the commo- dity when produced — a want for which the removal of taxes, however proper, and indeed absolutely necessary as a permanent measure, is certainly not the immediate and specific remedy. The principal causes of the increase of pauperism, in- dependently of the present crisis, are, first, the general in- crease of the manufacturing systems and the unavoidable variations of manufacturing labour : and secondly, and more particularly, the practice which has been adopted in some counties, and is now spreading pretty generally all over the kingdomj oi paying a considerable ^ortioR Chap. VL POPULATION. 53 Of Poor-Laws. (Continued.) of what ought to be the wages of labour out of the pa- rish rates. During the war, n hen the demand for labour was great and increasing, it is quite certain that nothing but a practice of this kind could for any time have pre- vented the wages of labour from rising fully in propor- tion to the necessaries of life, in w^hatever degree these necessaries might have been raised by taxation. It was seen, consequently, that in those parts of Great Britain where this practice prevailed the least, the wages of la- bour rose the most. This was the case in Scotland, and some parts of the North of England, where the improve- ment in the condition of the labouring classes, and their increased command over the necessaries and convenien- ces of life, were particularly remarkable. And if, in some other parts of the country where the practice did not greatly prevail, and especially in the towns, wages did not rise in the same degree, it was owing to the influx and competition of the cheaply raised population of the surrounding counties. It is a just remark of Adam Smith, that the attempts of the legislature to raise the pay of curates had always been ineffectual, on account of the cheap and abundant supply of them, occasioned by the bounties given to young persons educated for the church at the universities. And it is equally true that no human efforts can keep up the price of day-labour so as to enable a man to support on his earnings a family of a moderate size, so long as those who have more than two children are considered us hav- ing a valid claim to parish assistance. If th»is system were to become universal, and I own it H 54 ESSAY ON Book. Ill Of Poor-Laws. (Continued.) appears to me that the poor-laivs naturally lead to it, there is no reason whatever why parish assistance should not hy degrees begin earlier and earlier; and I do not hesitate to nssert, that, if the government and constitu- tion of the ^try were in all other respects as perfect as the wilde?;t visionary thinks he could make them ; if parliaments were annual, suffrage universal, wars, taxes, and pensions unknown, and the civil list fifteen hundred a year, the great body of the community might still be a oollection of paupers. I have been accused of proposing a law to prohibit the poor from marrying. This is not true. So far from pro- posing such a law, 1 have distinctly said that, if any per- son chooses to marry without having a prospect of being able to maintain a family, he ought to have the most per- fect liberty so to do ; and whenever any prohibitory pro- positions have been suggested to me as advisable by per- sons who have drawn wrong inferences from what I have said, I have steadily and uniformly reprobated them, I am indeed most decidedly of opinion, that any positive law to limit the age of marriage would be both unjust and immoral; and my greatest objection to a system of equality and the system of the poor-laws (two systems which, however different in their outset, are of a nature calculated to produce the same results) is, that the society in which they are effectively carried into execution, will uUimatel- be reduced to the miserable alternative of clioosing between universal want and the enactment of direct 'aws aarainst marriage. What 1 have really propos'ed is a very different mea- Chap. VL POPULATION. 55 Of Poor-Laws. (Continued.) sure. It is the gradual and very gradual abolition of the poor-laws.* And the reason why I have ventured to sug- gest a proposition of this kind for consideration is my firm conviction, that they have lowered very decidedly the wages of the labouring classes, and made their gene- ral condition essentially worse than it would have been if these laws had never existed. Their operation is every where depressing; but it falls peculiarly hard upon the labouring classes in great towns. In country parishes the poor do really receive some compensation for their low wages ; their children, beyond a certain number, are real- ly supported by the parish ; and though it must be a most grating reflection to a labouring man, that it is scarcely possible for him to marry without becoming the father of paupers; yet if he can reconcile himself to this pros'- pect, the compensation, such as it is, is no doubt made to him. But in London and all the great towns of the king- dom, the evil is suffered without the compensation. The population raised by bounties in the country naturally and n,ecessarily flows into the towns, and as naturally and ne- cesj.arily tends to lower wages in them; while in point of fact, those who marry in towns and have large fami- lies, receive no assistance from their parishes, unless they are actually starving ; and altogether the assistance which the manufacturing classes obtain for the support of their families, in aid of their lowered wages, is perfectly in- considerable. *So gradual as not to affect any individuals at present alive, or who will be born within the next tw6 years. 5Q ESSAY ON Book III] Of Poor-Laws. (Continued.) To remedy the effects of this competition from the country, the artificers and manufacturers in towns have been apt to combine, with a view to keep up the price of labour, and to prevent persons from working below a cer- tain rate. But such combinations are not only illegal, but irrational and ineffectual ; and if the supply of workmen in any particular branch of trade be such as would natu- rally lower wages, the keeping them up forcibly must have the effect of throwing so many out of employment, as to make the expense of their support fully equal to the gain acquired by the higher wages, and thus render these higher wages in reference to the whole body perfectly futile. It may be distinctly stated to be an absolute impossi- hility, that all the different classes of society should be both well paid and fully employed, if the supply of la- bour on the whole exceed the demand ; and as the poor- laws tend in the most marked manner ta make the sup- ply of labour exceed the demand for it, their effect must be, either to lower universally all wages, or, if some are kept up artificially, to throw great numbers of workmen out of employment, and thus constantly to increase the poverty and distress of the labouring classes of society. If these things be so (and I am firmly convinced that they are) it cannot but be a subject of the deepest regret to those who are anxious for the happiness of the great mass of the community, that the writers which are now most extensively read among the common people should have selected for the subject of reprobation, exactly that line of conduct which can alone generally improve their Chap. VI. POPULATION. 57 Of Poor-Laws. (Continued.) coiidition, and for the subject of approbation that system which must inevitably depress them in poverty and wretchedness. They are taught that there is no occasion whatever for them to put any sort of restraint upon their inchnations, or exercise any degree of prudence in the affair of mar- riage ; because the parish is bound to provide for all that are born. They are taught that there is as little occa- sion to cultivate habits of economy, and make use of the means afforded them by saving banks, to lay by their earnings while they are single, in order to furnish a cot- tage when they marry, and enable them to set out in life with decency and comfort ; because I suppose, the parish is bound to cover their nakedness, and to find them a bed and a chair in a work-house. They are taught that any endeavour on the part of the higher classes of society to inculcate the duties of pru- dence and economy can only arise from a desire to save the money which they pay in poor-rates ; although it is absolutely certain that the only mode consistent with the laws of morality and religion, of giving to the poor the largest share of the property of the rich, without sinking the whole community in misery, is the exercise on the part of the poor of prudence in marriage, and of econo- my both before and after it. They are taught that the command of the Creator to increase and multiply is meant to contradict those laws which he has himself appointed for the increase and mul- tiplication of the human race ; and that it is equally the duty of a person to marry early, when, from the impossibili 5^ ESSAY ON Booh m. Of Poor-Laws. (Continued.) ty of adding to the food of the country in which he lives, the greater part of his offspring must die prema- turely, and consequently no multiplication follow from it, as when the children of such marriages can all be well maintained, and there is room and food for a great and rapid increase of population. They are taught that, in relation to the condition of the labourirtg classes, there is no other difference between such a country as England, which has been long well peo- pled, and where the land, which is not yet taken into cul- tivation, is comparatively barren, and such a country as America, where millions and millions of acres of fine land are yet to be had for a trifle, except what arises from tax- ation. And they are taught, O monstrous absurdity ! that the only reason why the American labourer earns a dollar a day, and the English labourer earns two shillings, is that the English labourer pays a great part of these two shil- lings in taxes. Some of those doctrines are so grossly absurd that I have no doubt they are rejected at once by the common sense of many of the labouring classes. It cannot but strike them that, if their main dependence for the sup- port of their children, is to be on the parish, they can only expect parish fare, parish clothing, parish furniture, a parish house and a parish government, and they must know^ that persons living in this way cannot possibly be in a happy and prosperous state. It can scarcely escape the notice of the common me'= ^hanic, that the scarcer workmen are upon any occasicHi Chap, ri POPULATION 59 Of Poor-Lavvs. (Continued) the greater share do they retain of the value of what they produce for their masters ; and it is a most natural infer- ence, that prudfince in marriage, which is the only moral means of preventing an excess of workmen ahove the de- mand, can be the only mode of giving to the poor per- manently a large share of all that is produced in the country. A common man, who has read his Bible, must be con- vinced that a command given to a rational being by a mer- ciful God cannot be intended so to be interpreted as to produce only disease and death instead of multiplication ; and a plain sound understanding would make him to see that, if in a country in which little or no increase of food is to be obtained, every man were to marry at eighteen or twenty, when he generally feels most inclined to it, the consequence must be increased poverty, increased disease and increased mortality, and not increased numbers, as long at least as it continues to be true (which he will hard- ly be disposed to doubt) that additional numbers cannot live without additional food A moderately shrewd judgment would prompt any la- bourer acquainted with the nature of land to suspect that there must be some great diiference, quite independent of taxation, between a country such as America, which might easily be made to support fifty times as ma- ny inhabitants as it contains at present, and a country such as England, which could not without extraordinary exertions be made to support two or three times as many. Hp would at least see that there would be a prodigious difference in the power of maintaining an additional num- 60 ESSAY ON Book III Of Poor-Laws, (Continued.) ber of cattle, between a small farm already well stocked and a very large one which had not the fiftieth part of what it mighi be made to maintain ; and as he would know that both rich and poor must live upon the produce of the earth as well as all other animals, he would be dispose^ to conclude that what was so obviously true in one case, could not be false in the other. These considerations might make him think it natural and probable that in those coun- tries where there was a great want of people, the wages of labour would be such as to encourage early marriages and large families, ior the best of all possible reasons, be- cause all that are born may be very easily and comforta- bly supported; but that in those countries which were already nearly full, the wages of labour cannot be such as to give the same encouragement to early marriages, for a reason surely not much worse, because the persons so brought into the world cannot be properly supported. There are few of our mechanics and labourers who have not heard of the high prices of bread, meat and la- bour in this country compared w^ith the nations of the continent, and they have generally heard at the same time that these high prices were chiefly occasioned by taxa- tion, which, though it had raised among other things the money wages of labour, had done harm rather than good to the labourer, because it had before raised the price of the bread and beer and other articles in which he spent his earnings. With this amount of mformation, the mean- est understanding would revolt at the idea that the very same cause which had kept the money price of labour in all the nations of Europe much lower than in England, Chap. VI POPULATION. 61 Of Poor-Laws. (Continued.) namely, the absence of taxation, had been the means of raising it to more than double in America. He would feel quite convinced that whatever might be the cause of the high money wages of labour in America, which he might not perhaps readily understand, it must be some- thing very different indeed from the mere absence of tax- ation, which could only have an effect exactly o{ p') ite. With regard to the improved condition of the lower classes of people in France since the revolution, which has also been much insisted upon; if the circumstances accompanying it were told at the same time, it would af- ford the strongest presumption against the doctrines which have been lately promulgated. The improved condition of the labouring classes in France since the revolution has been accompanied by a greatly diminished proportion of births, which has had its natural and necessary effect in giving to these classes a greater share of the produce of the country, and has kept up the advantage arising from the sale of the church lands and other national domains, which would otherwise have been lost in a sWrt time. The effect of the revolution in France has been, to make every person depend more upon himself and less upon others. The labouring classes are therefore become more industrious, more saving and more prudent in mar- riage than formerly; and it is quite certain that without these effe -ts the revolution would have done nothing for them. An improved government has, no doubt, a natural tendency to produce these effects, and thus to improve the condition of the poor. But if an extensive system of parochial relief, and such doctrines as have lately I 02 ESSAY ON POPULATldN. Book tit Of PoorLaws. (Continued.) been inculcated, counteract them, and prevent the labour- ing classes from depending upon their own prudence and industry, then any change for the better in other respects becomes comparatively a matter of very little importance and under the best form of government imaginable, there may be thousands on thousands out of employment and half starved. If it be taught that all who are born have a right to support on the land, whatever be their number, and that there is no occasio to exercise any prudence in the af- fair of marriage so as to check this number, the temp- tations according to all the known principles of human nature, will inevitably be yielded to, and more and more will gradually become dependent on parish assistance. There cannot therefore be a greater inconsistency and contradiction than that those who maintain these doctrines respecting the poor, should still complain of the number of paupers. Such doctrines and a crowd of paupers are un avoidably united ; and it is utterly beyond the power of any revolution or change ofgovernnjient to separate theoL BOOK III.— CHAP. VIII [To follow page 219, Vol. 2, American Edition of 1809;] Of the Jigricultural System. As it is the nature of agriculture to produce subsis- tence for a greater number of families than can be em- ployed in the business of cultivation, it might perhaps be supposed that a nation which strictly pursued an agricul- tural system would always have more food than was ne- cessary for its inhabitants, and that its population could never be checked irom the want of the means of subsis* tence. It is indeed obviously true that the increase of such a country is not immediately checked, either oy the want of power to produce, or even by the deficiency of the ac- tual produce of the soil compared with the population. Yet if we examine the condition of its labouring classes, we shall find that the real wages of their labour are such as essentially to check and regulate their increase, by checking and regulating their command over the means of subsistence. A country under certain circumstances of soil and situ- ation, and with a deficient capital, may find it advanta- geous to purchase foreign commodities with its raw pro- duce, rather than manufacture them at hoiTie ; and in this 64 ESSAY ON Book. III. Of the Agricultural System. case it will necessarily grow more raw produce than it consumes. But this state of things is very little connect- ed either with the permanent condition of the lower clas- ses of the society or the rate of their increase ; and in a country where the agricultural system entirely predomi- nates, and the great mass of its industry is directed to- wards the land, the condition of the people is subject to almost every degree of variation. Under the agricultural system perhaps are to be found the two extremes in the condition of the poor ; instances where they are in the best state, and instances where they are in the worst state of any of which we have accounts- In a country where there is an abundance of good land, where there are no difficulties in the way of its purchase and distribution, and where there is an easy foreign vent for raw produce, both the profits of stock, and the wa- ges of labour will be high. These high profits and high wages, if habits of economy pretty generally prevail, will furnish the means of a rapid accumulation of capital and a great and continued demand for labour, while the rapid increase of population which will ensue will maintain un- diminished the demand for produce, and check the fall of profits. If the extent of territory be considerable, and the population comparatively inconsiderable, the land may remain understocked both with capital and people for some length of time, notwithstanding a rapid increase of both; and it is under these circumstances of the agri- cultural system that labour is able to command the great- est portion of the necessaries of life, and that the condi- tion of the labouring classes of society is the best Chap. VIIL POPULATION. 63 Of the Agricultural System. The only drawback to the wealth of the labouring clas- ses under these circumstances is the relatively low value of the raw produce. If a considerable part of the manufactured commodi- ties used in such a country be purchased by the export of its raw produce, it follows as a necessary consequence that the relative value of its raw produce will be lower, and of its manufactuied produce higher, than in the coun- tries with which such trade is carried on But where a giv- en portion of raw produce will not comnaand so much of manufactured and foreign commodities as in other coun- ti^ies, the condition of the labourer cannot be exactly measured by the quantity of raw produce which falls to his share. If, for instance, in one country, the yearly earnings of a labourer amount in money value to fifteen quarters of wheat, and in another to nine, it would be in- correct to infer that their relative condition, and the com- forts which they enjoy, were in the same proportion, be- cause the whole of a labourer's earnings are not spent in food ; and if that part which is not so spent will, in the country where the value of fifteen quarters is earned, not go near so far in the purchase of clothes and other con- veniences as in the country where the value of nine quar- ters is earned, it is clear that altogether the situation of the labourer in the latter country may approach nearer to that of the labourer in the former than might at first be supposed. At the same time it should be recollected that quantity always tends powerfully to counterbalance any deficiency of value ; and the labourer who earns the greatest num- m ESSAY ON Book HI Of the Agricultural SystenL ber of quarters may still command the greatest quantity of necessaries and conveniences combined, though not to the extent implied by the proportions of the raw pro* duce. America affords a practical instance of the agricultural system in a state the most favorable to the condition of the laboring classes^ The nature of the country has been such as to make it answer to employ a very large proper^ tion of its capital in agriculture ; and the consequence has been a very rapid increase of stock. This rapid in- crease of stock has kept up a steady and continued de- mand for labour. The labourmg classes have in conse~ quence been peculiarly well paid. They have been able to command an unusual quantity of the necessaries of life; and the progress of population has been unusually rapid. Yet even here, some little drawback has been felt from the relative cheapness of corn. As America till the late war imported the greatest part of its manufactures from England, and as England imported flour and wheat from America, the value of food in America compared with manufactures must have been decidedly less than in Eng- land. Nor would this effect take place merely with re- lation to the foreign commodities imported into America, but also to those of its home manufactures, in which it lias no particular advantage. In Agriculture, the abun- dance of good land would counterbalance the high wages of labour and high profits of stock, and keep the price of corn moderate, notwithstanding the great expense of these two elements of price. But in the production of manufactured commodities they must neeessajcily tell. Chap, nil POPULATION. 6f Of the Agricultural System. without any particular advantage to counterbalance them and must in general occasion in home goods, as well as foreign, a high price compared with food Under these circumstances, the condition of the labour- ing classes of society cannot in point of conveniences and comforts be so much better than that of the labour- ers of other countries as the relative quantity of food which they earn might seem to indicate , and this conclu- sion is sufficiently confirmed by experience. In some very intelligent Travels through a great part of England, written in 1810 and 1811 by Mr. Simond, a French gen- tleman, who had resided above twenty years in America, the author seems to have been evidently much struck with the air of convenience and comfort in the houses of our peasantry, and the neatness and cleanliness of their dress. In some parts of his tour he saw so many neat cottages, so much good clothing, and so little appearance of poverty and distress, that he could not help wonder- ing where the poor of England and their dwellings were concealed. These observation coming from an able, ac- curate and apparently most impartial observer, just lan- ded from America and visiting England for the first time, are curious and instructive ; and the facts which they no- tice, though they may arise in part from the different ha- bits and modes of life prevailing in the t* o countries, must be occasioned in a considerable degree by the caus- es above mentioned. A very striking instance of the disadvantageous effect of a low relative price of food on the condition of the poor may be observed In Ireland. In Ireland the fundp 68 ESSAY ON Book. HI. Of the Agricultural System. for the maintainance of lahour have increased so rapidly during the last century, and so large a portion of that sort of food which forms the principal support of the lower classes of society has heen awarded to them, that the increase of population has heen more rapid than in al- most any known country, except America. The Irish labourer paid in potatoes has earned perhaps the means of subsistence for double the number of persons that could be supported by the earnings of an English labourer paid in wheat; and the increase of population in the two countries during the last century has been nearly in pro- portion to the relative quantity of the customary food a- warded to the labourers in each. But th;„ir general con- dition with respect to conveniences and comforts are very far indeed from being in a similar proportion. The great quantity of food which land will bear when planted with potatoes, and the consequent cheapness of the labour sup- ported by them, tends rather to raise than to lovver the rents of land, and as far as rent goes, to keep up the price of the materials of manufactures, and all other sorts of raw produce, except potatoes. In the raw materials of of home manufactures, therefore, a great relative disad- vantage will be suffered, and a still greater both in the raw and manufactured produce of foreign countries. The exchangeable value of the food which the Irish labour- er earns above what he and his family consume will go but a very little way in the purchase of clothing, lodging and other conveniences; and the jconsequence is that his condition in these respects is extremely miserable, at the Chap, nil. POPULATION. 69 Of the Agricultural System. same time that his means of subsistence, such as they are, may be comparatively abun(iant. In Ireland the money price of labour is not much more than the half of what it is in England. The quantity of food earned by no means makes up for its deficient value. A certain portion, therefore, of the Irish labourer's wa- ges (a fourth or a fifth for instance) will go but a very lit- tle w^ay in the purchase of manufactures and foreign pro- • duce. In America, on the other hand, even the money wages of labour are nearly double those of England. — Though the American labourer, therefore, cannot pur- chase manufactures and foreign produce with the food that he earns so cheap as the English labourer, yet the greater quantity of this food makes up for its deficiency of relative value. His condition compared with the la- bouring classes of England, though it may not be so much superior as their relative means of subsistence might in- dicate, must still on the w^hole have decidedly the ad- vantage; and altogether, perhaps, America may be pro- duced as an instance of the agricultural system in which the condition of the the labouring classes is the best of any that we know. The instances where, under the agricultural system, the condition of the lower classes of society is very wretched, are more frequent. When the accumulation of capital stops, whatever may be the cause, the popula- tion, before it comes to a stand, will always be pressed on as near to the limits of the actual means of subsist- ence, as the habits of the lower classes of the society will allow ; that is, the real wages of labour will sink till K % ESSAY ON Book III' Of the Agricultural System. they are only just sufficient to maintain a stationary popu- lation. Should this happen, as it frequently does, while land is still in abundance and capital scarce, the profits of stock will naturally be high ; but corn will be very cheap, owing to the goodness and plenty of the land, and the stationary demand for it, notwithstanding the high pro- fits jf stock ; while these high profits, together with the usual want of skill and proper division of labour, which at- tend a scanty capital, will render all domestic manufactured commodities comparatively very dear. This state of things XvM naturally be unfavorable to the generation of those hab- its of prudential restraint which most frequently arise from the custom of enjoying conveniences and comforts, and it is to be expected that the population will not stop till the wages of labour, estimated even in food, are very low. But in a country where the wages of labour estimated in food are low, and that food is relatively of a very low value, both with regard to domestic and foreign manufac- tures, the condition of the labouring classes of society must be the worst possible. Poland, and some parts of Russia, Siberia and Euro- pean Turkey, afford instances of this kind. In Poland the population seems to be almost stationary or very slow- ly progressive ; and as both the population and produce are scanty, compared with the extent of territory, we ma\ infer with certainty that its capital is scanty, and yet slowly progressive. It follows, therefore, that the de- mand for labour increases very slowly, and that the real w^a (es ot ;ab' ui , or the command of the labouring classes over the necessaries and conveniences of life, are such Chap. VI IL POPULATIOV. 71 Of the Agricultural System. as to keep the population down to the level of the slowly increasing quantity that is awarded to them. And as from the state of the country the peasantry cannot have been much accustomed to conveniences and comfoits, the checks to its population are more likely to be of the pos- itive than of the preventive kind. Yet here corn is in abundance, and great quantities of it are yearly exported. But it appears clearly that it is not either the power of the country to produce food, or even what it actually produces, that limits and regulates the progress of population, but the quantity which in the actual state of things is awarded to the labourer, and th^ rate at which the funds so appropriated increase. In the present case the demand lor labour is very small j and though the population is inconsiderable, it is greater than the scanty capital of the country can fully employ ; the condition of the labourer, therefore, is depressed by his being able to command only such a quantity of food as will maintain a stationary or very slowly increasing popu- lation. It is further depressed by the low relative value of the food that he earns, which gives to any surplus he may possess a very small power in the purchase of manu- factured commodities or foreign produce. Under these circumstances, we cannot be surprised that all accounts of Poland should represent the condi- tion of the lower classes of society as extremely misera- ble; and the other parts of Europe, which resemble Po- land in the state of their land and capital, resemble it ia the condition of their people. In justice, however, to the agricultural system, it 72 ESSAY ON Book HI. Of the Agricultural System, should be observed, that the premature check to the capi- tal and the demand for labour, which occurs in some of the countries of Europe, while land continues in consid- erable plenty, is not occasioned by the particular direc- tion of their industry, but by the vices of the government and the structure of the society, which prevent its full and fair developement in that direction. Poland is continually brought forward as an example of the miserable effects of the agricultural system. But nothing surely can be less far. The misery of Poland does not arise from its directing its industry chiefly to agriculture, but from the little encouragement given to industry of any kind, owing to the state of property and the servile condition of the people. While the land is cultivated by boors, the produce of whose exertions be- longs entirely to their masters, and the whotie society consists mainly of these degraded beings and the lords and owners of great tracts of territory, there will evi- dently be no class of persons possessed of the means ei- ther of furnishing an adequate demand at home for the surplus produce of the soil, or of accumulating fresh capital and increasing the demand for labour. In this miserable state of things, the best remedy would unques- tionably be the introduction of manufactures and com- merce-, because the introduction of manufactures and commerce could alone liberate the mass of the people from slavery, and give the necessary stimulus to industry and accumulation. But were the people already free and industrious, and landed property easily divisible and alienable, it might still answer to such a country as Pq- Chap. Viri. POPULATION. T3 Of the Agricultural System. land to purchase its finer manufactures from foreign coun- tries by means of its raw products, and thus to continue essentially agricultural for many years. Under these new circumstances, however, it would present a totally differ- ent picture from that which it exhibits at present; and the condition of the people would more resemble that of the inhabitants of the United States of America than of the inhabiiants of the unimproved countries of Europe. Indeed, America is, perhaps, the only modern instance of the fair operation of the agricultural system. In every countrv of Europe, and in most of its colonies in other parts of the world, formidable obstacles still exist to the employment of capital upon the land, arising from the remains of the feudal system. But these obstacles which have essentially impeded cultivation have been very far indeed from proportionably encouraging othei branches of industry. Commerce and manufactures are necessary to agriculture ; but agriculture is still more necessary to commerce and manufactures. It must ever be true that the surplus produce of the cultivators, taken in its most enlarged sense, measures and limits the growth of that •pafft of the society which is not employed upon the land. Throughout the whole world the number of manufactur- ers, of merchants, of proprietors and of personstngaged in the various civil and military professions, must be ex- actly proportioned to this surplus produce, and cannot in tbe nature of things increase beyond it. If the earth had been so niggardly of her produce as to oblige all her in- habitants to labour for it, no manufacturers or idle per- sons could ever have existed. But her first intercourse ^4 ESSAY ON Book. HI. Of the Agricultural System. with man was a voluntary present, not very large indeed, but sufficient as a fund for his subsistence till he could procure a greater. And the power to procure a greater was given to him in that quality of the earth by which it may be made to yield a much larger quantity of food, and of the materials of clothing and lodging, 'han is ne- cessary to feed, clothe and lodge the persons employed in the cultivation of the soil. This quality is the founda- tion of that surplus produce which peculiarly distinguish- es the industry employed upon the land. In propoition as the labour and ingenuity of man exercised upon the land have increased this surplus produce, leisure has been given to a greater number of persons to employ themselves in all the inventions which embellish civilized life; while the desire to profit by these inventions has continued to stimulate the cultivators to increase their surplus pro- duce. This desire, indeed jpay be considered as almost absolutely necessary to give it its proper value, and to en- courage its further extension ; but still the order of pre- cedence is, strictly speaking, the surplus produce ; be- cause the funds for the subsistence of the manufacturer must be advanced to him before he can complete his- work ; and no'step can be taken in any other sort of in- dustry unless the cultivators obtain from the soil more than they themselves consume. If in asserting the peculiar productiveness of the la- bor employed upon the land, we look only to the clear monied rent yielded to a certain number of proprietors, we undoubtedly consider the -.ubject in a very contracted point of view. In the advanced stages of society, this rent Chap. Vm. POPUI.ATION. 75 Of the Agricultural System. forms indeed the most prominent portion of the surplus produce liere meant; but it may exist equally in the shape of high wages and profits during the earlier periods of cultivation when there is little or no rent. The labour- er who earns a value equal to fifteen quarters of corn in the year may have only a family of three or four children, -and not consume in kind above five or six quarters, and the owner of the farming stock, which yields high pro- fits, may consume but a very moderate proportion of them in food and raw materials. All the rest, whether in the shape of wages and profits, or of rents, may be consid- ered as a surplus produce from the soil, which affords the means of subsistence a»d the materials of clothing and lodging to a certain number of people according to its extent, some of whom may live without manual exertions, and others employ themselves in modifying the raw ma- terials obtained from the earth into the forms best suited to the gratification of man. It will depend, of course, entirely upon its answering to a country to exchange a part of the surplus produce lor foreign commodities, instead of consuming it at home, whether it is to be considered as mainly agricultural or otherwise. And such an exchange of raw produce for manufactures, or peculiar foreign products, may for a pe- riod of some extent suit a state, which might resemble Poland in scarcely any other feature but that of export- ing corn. It appears then, that countries in which the industry of the inhabitants is principally directed towards the land, and in which corn continues to be exported, n^y enjor 76 ESSAY ON POPULATION. Book III Of the Agricultural System. great abundance or experience great want, according to the particular circumstances in which they are placed. They will in general not be much exposed to the tempo- rary evils of scarcity arising from the variations of the seasons ; but the quantity of food permanently av^arded to the labourer may be such as not to allow of an increase of population; and their state, in respect to their being progressive, stationary or declining, will depend upon other causes than that of directing their attention princi- pally to agriculture. CHAPTER IX. Of the Commercial System. A Country which excels in commerce and manufac- tures, may purchase corn froto a great variety of others j and it may be supposed, perhaps, that proceeding upon this system, it may continue to purchase an increasing quantity, and to maintain a rapidly increasing population, till the lands of all the nations with which it trades are fully cultivated. As this is an event necessarily at a great distance, it may appear that the population of such a country will not be checked from the difficulty of pro- curing subsistence till after the lapse of a great number of ages. There are, however, causes constantly in operation, which will occasion the pressure of this difficulty, long before the event here contemplated has taken place, and while the means of raising food in the surrounding coun- tries may still be comparatively abundant. In the first place, advantages which depend exclu- sively upon capital and skill, and the present possession of particular channels of commerce, cannot in their na- ture be permanent. We know how difficult it is to con- fine improvements in machinery to a single spot ; we know that it is the constant object, both of individuals and couja- •*r8 ESSAY ON Book HI Of the Commercial System, tries, to increase their capital ; and we know, from the past history of commercial states, that the channels of trade are not unfrequently taking a different direction. It is unreasonable therefore to expect that any one country, merely by the force of skill and capital, should remain in possession of markets uninterrupted by foreign competi- tion. But, when a powerful foreign competition takes place, the exportable commodities of the country in ques- tion must soon fall to prices which will essentially reduce profits ; and the fall of profits will diminish both the power and the will to save. Under these circumstances the accumulation of capital will be slow, and the demand for labour proportionably slow, till it comes nearly to a stand; while, perhaps, the^ new competitors, either by raising their own raw materials or by some other ad- vantages, may still be increasing their capitals and popula- tion with some degree of rapidity. But, secondly, even if it were possible for a consider- able time to exclude any formidable foreign competition, it is found that domestic competition produces almost un- avoidably the same eifects. If a machine be invented in a particular country, by the aid of which one man can do the work of ten, the possessors of it will of course at first make very unusual profits; but as soon as the inven- tion is generally known, so much capital and industry will be brought into this new and profitable employment as to make its products greatly exceed both the for- eign and domestic demand «t the old prices. These pri- ces, therefore, will continue to fall, till the stock and la- bour employed in this direction cease to yield unusuaV Ckup.iX. POPULATION. 7,9 Of the Commercial System. profits. In this case it is evident that , though in an ear- ly period of such a manufacture, the product of the in- dustry of one man for a day might have been exchanged for such a portion of food as would support forty or fifiy persons; yet at a subsequent period, the product ol the same industry might not purchase the support of te;i. In the cotton trade of tins country, which has extend- ed itself so w-onderfuUy during the last twenty-five years very little effect has hitherto been produced by loreign competition.* The very great fall which has taken place in the prices of cotton goods has been almost exclusively owmg to domestic competition and t.iis competition has so glutted both the home and foreign markets, that the present capitals employed in the trade, notwithstanding the very peculiar advantages which they possess from the saving of labour, have ceased to possess any advantage whatever in the gen- eral rate of their profits. Although, by means of the admirable machmery used in the spinning cotton, one boy or girl can now do as much as many grown persons could do formerly ; yet neither the wages of the labourer, nqr the profits of his master, are higher than in those em- ployments where no machinery is used, and no saving of labour accomplished. The country has, however, in the mean time, been very greatly benefitted. Not only have all its inhabitants been enabled to obtain a superior fabric for clothing, at a less expence of labour and property, which must be consider- -^ 'IS 16 80 ESSAY ON Book. III. r ■ - I • Of the Commercial System. ed as a great and permanent advantage ; but the high tem- porary profits of the trade have occasioned a great ac- cumulation of capital and consequently a great demand for labour ; while the extending markets abroad and the new values thrown into the market at home, have created such a demand for the products of every species of in- dustry, agricultural and colonial as well as commercial and manufacturing, as to prevent a fall of profits. This country from the extent of its lands and its rich co- lonial possessions, has a large arena {or the employment of an increasing capital ; and the general rate of its pro- fits are not, as it appears, very easily and rapidly reduced by accumulation. But a country such as we are consider- ing, engaged principally in manufactures, and unable to direct its industry to the same variety of pursuits, would sooner find its rate of profits diminished by an increase of capital, and no ingenuity in machinery could save it, afler a certain period, from low profits and low wages, and their natural consequences, a check to population. Thirdly, a country which is obliged to purphase both the raw materials of its manufactures and the means of subsistence, for its population from foreign countries, is almost entirely dependent for the increase of its wealth and population on the increasing wealth and demands of the couHtries with which it trades. It has been sometimes said-that a manufacturing coun- try is no more dependent upon tlie country which sup- plies it with food and raw materials, than the agricultural country is on that which manufactures for it, but this is really an abuse of terms. A country with great resour- Chap. IX. POPULATION 81 v^ Of the Commercial System. ces ill land may find itdecidedly for its advantage to em- ploy the main part of its capital in cultivation and to im- port its manufactures. In so doing, it will often employ the whole of its industry most productively, and most rapidly increase its stock. But, if the slackness of its neighbours, in manufacturing, or any other cause, should either considerably check or altogether prevent the impor- tation of manufactures, a country with food and raw materials provided at home cannot long be at a loss. For a time it would not certainly be so well supplied; but manufacturers and artisans would soon be found, and would soon acquire tolerable skill;* and though the capi- tal and population of the country might not, under the new circumstances in which it was placed, increase so rapidly as before, it would still have the powt^r of increas- ing in both to a great and almost undefinable extent. On the other hand, if food and raw materials were de- fied to a nation merely manufacturing, it is obvious that it could not longer exist. But not only does the absolute existence of such a nation, on an extreme supposition, de- pend upon its foreign commerce, but its progress in wealth must be almost entirely measured by the progress and demand of the countries which deal with it. How- ever skillful, industrious and saving such a nation might be, if its customers, from indolence and want of accumu- lation, would not or could not take off a yearly increasing value of its commodities, the effects of its skill and ma- chinery would be but of very short duration. This has been fully exemplified in America (1816) m ESSAY ON Book III Of the Commercial System. Tliat the cheapness ol manufactured commodities, oc- casioned by skill and machinery in one country, is calcu- lated to encourage an increase of raw produce in others no person can doubt ; but we know at the same time that high profits may continue for a considerable period in an indol-ent and ill-governed state, without producing- an in- crease of wealth; yet, unless such an increase of wealth and demand were produced in the surrounding countries, the increasing ingenuity and exertions of i.\yd manufactur- ing and commercial state would be lost in continually fall- ing prices. It would not only be obliged, as its skill and capital increased, to. give a larger quantity of manufactur- ed produce for the raw produce which it received ii» re- turn ; but it might be unable, ey,en with the temptation of reduced prices, to stimulate its customers to such pur- chases as would allow of an increasing importation of food and raw materials ; and without such an increasing importation, it is quite obvious that the population mus,t become stationary. It would come to the same thing, whether this in- ability to obtain an increasing quantity of food were occasioned by the advancing money price of corn or the falling money price of manufactures. In either case the effect would be the same ; and it is certain that tliis eflect might take place in either way, from increas- ing competition and accumulation in the manufacturing nation, and the want of them in the agricultural, long be- fore an essential increase of difficulty had occurred in •the production of corn. Fourthly. A nation which is obliged to purchase frojii Chap. IX. POPULATION. Of tlie Commercial System. others nearly the whole of its raw materials, and tlie means of its subsistence, is not only dependent entirely up- on the demands of its customers, as they may be variously affected by indolence, industry or caprice, but it is sub- jected to a necessary and unavoidable diminution of de- mand in the natural progress of these countries towards that proportion of skill and capital \\hich they may reasonably be expected after a certain time to possess. It is generally an accidental and temporary, not a na- tural and permanent, division of labour which con- stitutes one state the nianufacturer and the carrier of others. While, in these landed nations, agricultural profits continue very high, it may fully answer to them to pay others as their manufacturers aiid car- riers ; hut when the profits on land fall, or the tenures on Avhich it can be held are not such as to encourage the investment of an accumulating capital, the owner of this capital will naturally look towards commerce and manu- factures for its employment; and, according to the just reasoning of Adam Smith and the Economists, finding at home both the materials of manufactures, the means of subsistence, and the power of carrying on their own trade with foreign countries, they will probably be able to conduct the business of manufacturing and carrying for themselves at a cheaper rate than if they allowed it to continue in the hands of others. As long as the agri- cultural nations continued to apply their increasing capi- tal principally to the land, this increase of capital would be of the greatest possible advantage to the manufactur- ing and commercial natioii. It would be indeed the, main 84 ESSAY ON Book. III. Of the Commercial System. cause and great regulator of its progress in wealth and population. But after they had turned their attention to manufactures and commerce, their further increase of capital would he the signal of decay and destruction to the manufactures and commerce which they had before supported. And thus, in the natural progress of nation- al improvement, and without the competition of superior skill and capital, a purely commercial state must be un- dersold and driven out of the markets by those who pos- sess the advantage of land. In the distribution of wealth during the progress of im- provement, the interests of an independent state are es- sentially different from those of a province, a point which has not been sufficiently attended to. Jf agricultural capi- tal increases and agricultural profits diminish in Sussex, the overflowing stock will go to London, Manchester, Liverpool, or some other place where it can probably be engaged in manufactures or commerce more advantage- ously than at home. But if Sussex were an independent kingdom, this could not take place ; and the corn whicli is now sent to London must be withdrawn to support manu- facturers and traders living within its confines. If Eng- land therefore had continued to be separated into the se- ven kingdoms of the Heptarchy, London could not possi- bly have been what it is ; and that distribution of wealth and population which takes place at present, and which we may fairly presume is the most beneficial to the whole of the realm, would have been essentially changed, if the object had been to accumulate the greatest quantity of wealth and population in particular districts instead of the Chap. IX. POPULATION. 85 Of the Commercial System. whole island. But at all times the interest of each inde- pendent state is to accumulate the greatest quantity of wealth within its limits. Consequently, the interest of an independent state, with regard to the countries with which it trades, can rarely be the same as the interest of a pro- vince with regard to the empire to which it belongs, and the accumulation of capital which would occasion the withdrawing of the exports of corn in the one case would leave them perfectly undisturbed in the other. If, from the operation of one or more of the causes above enumerated, the importation of corn into a man- ufacturing and commercial country should be essentially checked, and should either actually decrease, or be pre- vented from increasing, it is quite evident that its pop- ulation must be checked nearly in the same proportion. Venice presents a striking instance of a commercial state, at once stopped in its progress to wealth and pop- ulation by foreign competition. The discovery made by the Portuguese of a passage to India by the Cape of Good Hope completely turned the channel of the Indian trade. The high profits of the Venetians, which had been the foundation of their rapidly increasing wealth and of their extraordinary preponderance as a naval and commercial power, were not only suddenly reduced, but the trade itself, on which, those high profits had been made, was almost annihilated, and their power and wealth were shortly contracted to these more confined limits which suited their natural resources. / In the middle of the 1 5th century, Bruges in Flanders was the great (entrepot of the trade between the north and M 86 ESSAY ON Book. III. Of the Commercial System, the south of Europe. Early in the 16th century its com- merce began to decline under the competition of Antwerp. Many English and foreign merchants in consequence left the declining city, to settle in that which was rapidly increasing in commerce and wealth. About the middle of the 16th century Antwerp was at the zenith of its power. It contained above a hundred thousand inha- bitants, and was universally allowed to be the most illus- trious mercantile city, and to carry on the most exten- sive and richest commerce, of any in the north of Eu- rope. The rising greatness of Amsterdam was favoured by the unfortunate siege and capture of Antwerp by the duke of Parma ; and the competition of the extraordinary in- dustry and persevering exertions of the Hollanders not on- ly prevented Antwerp from recovering her commerce, but gave a severe blow to the foreign trade of almost all the other Hanse Towns. The subsequent decline of the trade of Amsterdam it- self was caused partly, by the low profits arising from home competition and abundance of capital, partly by ex- cessive taxation, which raised the price of the necessa- ries of life-, but more than either perhaps, by the pro- gress of other nations possessing greater natural advan- tages, and being able, even with inferior skill, industry and capital, beneficially to carry on much of that trade which had before fallen almost exclusively into the hands of the Dutch. As early as 1669 and 1670, when sir William Temple pas in bolland, the effects of abundance of capital and do- Chap. IX. POPULATION. 87 Of the Commercial System. mestic competition were such, that most of the foreign trades were loosing ones, except the Indian, and that none of them gave a profit of more than two or three per cent* In such a state of things both the power and the Avill to save must be greatly diminished. The accumula- tion of capital must have been either stationary or de- clining, or at the best very slowly progressive-, In fact Sir. William Temple gives it as his opinion that the trade of Holland had for some years passed its meridian, and begun sensibly to decay .f Subsequently, when the pro- gress of other nations was still more marked, it appeared from undoubted documents that most of the trades of Hol- land, as well as its fisheries, had decidedly fallen off, and that no branch of its commerce had retained its former vigour, except the American and African trades, and that of the Rhine and Maese, which are independent of foreign power and competition. In 1669, the whole population of Holland and West Friezeland was estimated by John de Witt at 2,400,000.| In 1778, the population of the seven provinces was esti- mated only at 2,000,000 ;§ and thus in the course of a- bove a hundred years, the population,^ instead of increas- ing, as is usual, had greatly diminished. In all these cases of commereial states, the progress of wealth and population seems to have been checked by one or more of the causes above mentioned, which must ^Temple's Works, vol. i. p. 69. fol. fid. p. 67. {Interest of Holland, vol. i. p. 9. §Richesse de la Hollande, vol, ii p. .S49. 88 ESSAY ON Book. Ill Of the Commercial System. necessarily affect more or less the power of commanding the means of subsistence. Universally it may be observed, that if from any cause or causes whatever, the funds for the maintenance of labour in any country, cease to be progressive, the effective de- mand for labour will also cease to be progressive ; and wages will be reduced to that sum, which, under the ex- isting prices of provisions, and the existing habits of the people, will just keep up, and no more than keep up, a stationary population. A state so circumstanced is under a moral impossibility of increasing, whatever may be the plenty of corn, or however high may be the profits of stock in other countries.* It may indeed at a subsequent period, and under new circumstances, begin to increase again. If by some happy invention in mechanics, the dis- covery of some new channel of trade, or an unusual in- crease of agricultural wealth and population, in the sur- rounding countries, its exports, of whatever kind were to become unusually in demand, it might again import an increasing quantity of corn and might again increase its population. But as long as it is unable to make yearly additions to its imports of food, it will evi- dently be unable to furnish the means of support to an in- *It is a curious fact, that among the causes of the decline of the Dutch trade. Sir. William Temple reckons, the cheapness of corn, which, he says, "has been for these dozen years, or more, general in these parts of Europe." (vol. i. p. 69.) This cheapness, he says, impeded the vent of spices and other Indian commodities among the Baltic nations, by diminishing their power of purchasing. Chxtp. IX. POPULATIOIS.. 89 Of the Commercial System. creasing population ; and it will necessarily experience this inability, when from the state of its commercial trans- actions, the funds for the maintainance of its labour be- come stationary, or begin to decline. b6ok in— chap, x Of Systems of JJgriculture and Commerce combined. In a country the most exclusively confined to agricul- ture, some of its raw materials will always be worked up for domestic use. In the most commercial state, not absolutely confined to the walls of a town, some part of the food of its inhabitants, or of its cattle, will be drawn from the small territory in its neighborhood. But in speaking of systems of agriculture and commerce com- bined, something much further than this kind of combi- nation is intended ; and it is meant to refer to countries where the resources in land, and the capitals employed in commerce and manufactures, are both considerable, and neither preponderating greatly over the other. A country so circumstanced possesses the advantages of both systems, while at the same time it is free from the peculia' evils which belong to each, taken separately. The prosperity of manufactures and commerce in any state implies at once that it has freed itself from the worst parts of the feudal system. It shews that the great body of the people are not in a state of servitude ; that they have both the power and the will to save ; that when cap- ital accumulates it can find the means of secure employ- ment, and consequently that the government is such as to Chap. X. ESSAY ON POPULATION. 91 Of Systems of Agriculture and Commerce combined. afford the necessary protection to property. Under these circumstances, it is scarcely possible that it should ever experience that premature stagnation in the demand for labour, and the produce of the soil, which at times has marked the history of most of the nations of Europe. — In a country in which manufactures and commerce flou- rish, the produce of the soil will always find a ready mar- ket at home ; and such a market is peculiarly favorable to the progressive increase of capital. But the pro- gressive increase of capital, and of the funds for the maintenance of labour, is the great cause of a de- mand for labour, and of high corn wages, while the high relative price of corn, occasioned by the improved ma- chinery and extended capital employed in manufactures, together with the prosperity of foreign commerce, ena- bles the labourer to exchange any given portion of his earnings in corn for a large proportion both of domestic and foreign conveniences and luxuries. Even when the effective demand for labour begins to slacken, and the corn wages to be reduced, still the high relative value of corn keeps up comparatively the condition of the labour- ing classes ; and though their increase is checked, yet a very considerable body of them may still be well lodged and well clothed, and able to indulge themselves in the conveniences and luxuries of foreign produce. Nor can they ever be reduced to the miserable condition of the poor in those countries, where, at the same time that the demand for labour is stationary, the value of corn, com- pared with manufactures and foreign commodities is ex- tremely low. 92 ESSAY ON Book III Of Systems of Agriculture All the peculiar disadvantages therefore of a purely agricultural country are avoided by the growth and pros- perity of manufactures and commerce. In the same manner it will be found that the peculiar disadvantages attending states merely manufacturing and commercial will be avoided by the possession of resources in land. A country which raises its own food cannot by any sort of foreign competition be reduced at once to a ne- cessarily declining population. If the exports of a mere- ly commercial country be essentially diminished by for- eign competition, it may lose, in a very short time, its power of supporting the same number of people; but if the exports of a country which has resources in land be diminished, it will merely lose some of its foreign conve- niences and luxuries ; and the great and most important of all trades, the domestic trade carried on between the towns and the country, will remam comparatively undis- turbed. It may indeed be checked in the rate of its pro- gress for a time by the want of the same stimulus ; but there is no reason for its becoming retrograde ; and there is no doubt that the capital thrown out of employment by the loss of foreign trade will not lie idle. It will find some channel in which it can be employed with advantage, though not with the same advantage as before ; and will be able to maintain an increasing population, though not increasing at the same rate as under the stimulus of a prosperous foreign trade. The effects of home competition will in like hianner be very different in the two states we are comparing. Chap. X. POPULATION. 93 and Commerce, combined. In a state merely manufacturing and commercial, home competition and abundance of capital may so reduce the price of manufactured, compared with raw produce, that the increased capital employed in manufactures may not procure in exchange an increased quantity of food. In a country where there are resources in land this cannot happen; and though from improvements in machineiy and the decreasing fertility of the new land taken into cul- tivation, a greater quantity of manufactures will be given for raw produce, yet the mass of manufactures can never fall in value, owing to a competition of capital in this spe- cies of industry, unaccompanied by a correspondent com- petition of capital on land. It should also be observed that in a state, the revenue of which consists solely in profits and wages, the dimi- nution of profits and wages may greatly impair its dis- posable income. The increase in the amount of capital and in the number of labourers may in many cases not be sufficient to make up for the diminished rate of profits and wages. But where the revenue of the country consists of rents as well as pjofits and wages, a great part of what is lost in profits and wages is gained in rents, and the dis- posable income remains comparatively unimpaired Another eminent advantage possessed by a nation which is rich in land, as well as in commerce and manufactures, is, that the progress of its wealth and population is in a comparatively slight degree dependent upon the state and progress of other countries. A nation, whose wealth de- pends exclusively on manufactures and commerce, cannot increase without an increase in the raw products of the countries with which it trades ; or taking away a share of N 94 . ESSAY ON Book III Of Systems of Agriculture what they have been in the habit of actually consuming^ which will rarely be parted with; and thus the ignorance and indolence of others may not only be prejudicial, but fatal to its progress. ' A country with resources in land can never be exposed to these inconveniences ; and if its industry, ingenuity and economy increase, its wealth and population will in- crease, whatever may be the situation and conduct of the nations with which it trades. When its manufacturing capital becomes redundant, and manufactured commodi- ties are too cheap, it will have no occasion to wait for the increasing raw products of its neighbors. The trans- fer of its own redundant capital to its own land will raise fresh products, against which its manufactures may be exchanged, and by the double operation of diminishing coraoaratively the supply, and increasing the demand, en- hance their price. A similar operation, when raw pro- duce is too abundant, will restore the level between the profits of agriculture and manufactures. And upon the same principle the stock of the country will be distriba- ted through its various and distant provinces, according to the advantag:es presented by each situation for the em- ployment, either of agricultural or manufacturing capi- tal. A country in which, in this manner, agriculture, manu- factures, and commerce, and all the different parts of a larsre territory, act and re-act upon each other in turn, Divrht evident! V eo on increasing in riches and strength, although surrounded bv Bisho^ ^erkely's wall of brass. Such a country would naturally make the most of its fo- '^ Chap. X POPULATION. 95 and Commerce, combined. reign commerce, whatever might be the actual state of it; and its increase or decrease would be the addition or removal of a powerful stimulus to its own produce , but still the increase of this produce, to a very considerable extentj vvould be independent of foreign countries ; and though it might be retarded by a failure of foreign conv merce, it could not either be stopped or be made retro- grade. A fourth advantage derived from the union of agricul- ture and manufactures, particularly when they are nearly balanced, is, that the capital and population of such a country can never be forced to make a retrograde move- ment, merely by the natural progress of other countries to that state of improvement to which they are all con- stantly tending According to all general principles, it will finally an- swer to most landed nations, both to manufacture for themselves, and to conduct their own commerce. That raw cottons should be shipped in America, carried some thousands of miles to another country, unshipped there, to be manufactured and shipped again for the American market, is a state of things which cannot be permanent. That it may last for sonoe time there can be no doubt; and I am very far from meaning to insinuate that an ad- vantage, while it lasts, should not be used, merely be- cause it will not continue forever. But if the advantage be in its nature temporary, it is surely prudent to have this in view, and to use it in such a wav, that when it ceast's, it may not have been productive, on the whole, ol more evil than good. 96 ESSAY ON Book. HI. Of Systems of Agriculture If a country, owing to temporary advantages of this kind, should have its commerce and manufactures so greatly preponderate as to make it necessary to support a large portion of its people on foreign corn, it is certain that the progressive improvement of foreign countries in manufactures and commerce might, after a time, subject it to a period of poverty and of retrograde movements in capita] and population, which might more than counter- balance the temporary benefits before enjoyed. While a nation in which the commercial and manufacturing popu- lation continued to be supported by its agriculture, might receive a very considerable stimulus to both, from such temporary advantages, without being exposed to any es- sential evil on their ceasing. The countries which thus unite great landed resources with a prosperous state of commerce and manufactures, and in which the commercial part of the population never essentially exceeds the agricultural part, are eminently- secure from sudden reverses. Their increasing wealth seems to be out of the reach of all common accidents ; and there is no reason to say that they might not go on increasing in riches and population for hundreds, nay, al- most thousands of years. We must not however imagine that there is no limit to this progress though it is distant, and has certainly not been attained by any large landed nation yet known. We have already seen that the limit to the population of commercial nations is the period when, from the actu- al state of foreign markets, they are unable regularly to import an increasing quantity of food. And the limit to Chap. X. POPULATION. 9T and Commerce, combined. the population of a nation which raises the whole of its food on its own territory is, when the land has been so fully oc- cupied and worked, that the employment of another la- bourer on it will not on an average raise an additional quantity of food sufficient to support a family of such a size as will admit of an increase of population. TJjis is evidently the extreme practical limit to the pro- gress of population, which no nation has ever yet reach- ed, nor indeed ever will ; since no allowance has been here made either for other necessaries besides food, or for the profits of stock, both of which, however low, must always be something not inconsiderable. Yet even this limit is very far short of what the earth is capable of producing, if all were employed upon it who were not employed in the production of other neces- saries; that is, if soldiers, sailors, menial servants, aad all the artificers of luxuries, were made to labour upon the land. They would not indeed produce the support of a family, and ultimately not even of themselves ; but till the earth absolutely refused to yield aiiy more, they would continue to add something to the common stock ; and by increasing the means of subsistence, would afford the means of supporting an increasing population. The whole people of a country might thus be employed du- ring their whole time in the production of mere necessa- ries, and no leisure be left for other pursuits of any kind. But this state of things could only be effected by the forced direction of the national industry into one channel by public authority. Upon the principle of private pro- perty, w^hich it may be fairly presumed will always pre- 98 E^SAY ON Pook III Of Systems of Agriculture vail in society, it could never happen. With a view to the individual interest either of a landlord or farmer, no labourer can ever be employed on the soil who does not produce more than the value of his wages; and if these wages be not on an average sufficient to maintain a wife, and rear two children to the age of marriage, it is evi- dent that both the population and produce must come to a stand. Consequently, at the most extreme practical li- mit of population, the state of the land must be such as to enable the last employed labourers to produce the main- tenance of as many, probably, as four persons. And it is happy for mankiixl that such are the laws of nature. If the competition for the necessaries of life, in the progress of population, could reduce the whole hu- man race to the necessity of incessant labour for them, man would be continually tending to a state of degrada- tion ; and all the improvements which has marked the middle stages of his career would be completely lost at the end of it ; but in reality, and according to the univer- sal principle of private property, at the period when it will cease to answer to employ more labour upon the land, the excess of raw produce, not actually consumed by the cultivators, will, in the shape of rents, profits and wages, particularly the first, bear nearly as great a proportion to the whole as at any previous period, and, at all events, sufficient to support a large part of the society living ei- ther without manual labour, or employing themselves in modifying the raw materials of the land into the forms best suited to the gratification of man. When we refer therefore to the practical limits of pop- CJmp. X. POPULATION 99 and Commerce, combined. Illation, it is of great importance to recollect that they must be always very far short of the utmost power of the earth to produce food. It is also of great importance to recollect that long be- fore this practical limit is attained in any country the rate of the increase of population will gradually diminish. When the capital of a country becomes stationary from bad government, indolence, extravagance, or a sudden shock to commerce, it is just possible that the check to population may in some degree be sudden, though in that case it cannot take place without a considerable convul- sion. But when the capital of a country comes to a stop from the continued progress of accumulation and the ex- haustion of the cultivable land, both the profits of stock and the wages of labour must have l^een gradually diminish- ing for a long period, till they are both ultimately so low as to atford no further encouragement to an increase ot stock, and no further means for the support of an in- creasing population. If we could suppose that the capi- tal employed upon the land was at all times as great as could possibly be applied with the same profit, and there were no agricultui-al improvements to save labour, it is obvious that, as accumulation proceeded, profits and wages would regularly fall, and the diminished rate in the progress of population would be quite regular. But practically this can never happen ; and various causes, both natural and artificial, will concur to prevent this reg- ularity, and occasion great variations at different times in the rate at which the population proceeds towards it« final limit. 100 ESSAY ON Book. Ill Of Systems of Agriculture In the first place, land is practically almost always un- derstocked with capital. This arises partly from the usual tenures on which farms are held, which, by discouraging the transfer of capital from commerce and manufactures, leaves it principally to be generated on the land ; and partly from the very nature of much of the soil of almost all large countries, which is such that the employment of a small capital upon it may be little productive, while the employment of a large capital in draining, or in changing the character of the soil by a sufficient quantity of natu- ral and artificial manures, may be productive in a high degree; and partly, also, from the circumstance that af- ter every fall of profits and wages there will often be room for the employment of a much greater capital upon the land than is at the command of those, who, by being in the actual occupation of farms, can alone so employ it. Secondly ; improvements in agriculture. If new and superior modes of cultivation be invented, by which not only the land is better managed, but is worked with less labour, it is obvious that inferior land may be cultivated at higher profits than could be obtained from richer land before ; and an improved system of culture, with the use of better instruments, may for a long period more than counterbalance the tendency of an extended cultivation and a great increase of capital to yield smaller propor- tionate returns. Thirdly ; improvements in manufactures. When by in- creased skill and the invention of improved machinery in manufactures, one man becomes capable of doing as much as eight or ten could before, it is well known, that, from Chap. X. POPULATION. 10,1 and Commerce, combined, tlie principle of home competition and the consequent great increase ot quantity, the prices of such manufac- tures will greatly fall; and, as far as they include the ne- cessaries and accustomed conveniences of labourers and farmers, they must tend to diminish that portion of tlie value of the whole produce which is consumed necessari- ly on the land, and leave a larger remainder. From this larger remainder may be drawn a higher rate of profits, notwithstanding the increase of capital and extension of cultivation. Fourthly; the prosperity of foreign commerce. If from u. prosperous foreign commerce, our labour and domestic commodities rise considerably in price, while foreign com- modites are advanced comparatively very little, an event which is very common, it is evident that the farmer or labourer will be able to obtain the tea, sugar, cottons, linens, leather, tallow, timber, &c., which he stands in need of, for a smaller quantity ot corn or labour than be- fore ; and this increased power of purchasing foreign commodities will liave precisely the same effect, in al- lowing the means of an extended cultivation without a fall of profits, as the improvements in manufactures just referred to. Fifthly ; a temporary increase in the relative price of raw produce from increased demand. Allowing, what is certainly not true, that a rise in the price of raw produce will, after a certain number ot years, occasion a propor- tionate rise in labour* and other conimodities, yet, during *A rise which is occasioned exclusively by the increased quantity o 102 ESSAY on' :Book. HI. Of Systems of Agriculture the lime that the price of raw produce takes the lead, it is obvious that the profits of cultivation may increase un- der an extended agriculture, and a continued accumula- tion of capital. And these intervals, it should be observ- ed, must be of infinite importance in the progress of the wealth of a landed nation, particularly with reference to the causes of deficient capital upon the land before men- tioned. If the land for the most part generates the new capital which is employed in extending its cultivation ; and if the employment of a considerable capital for a certain period will often put land in such a state, that it can be cultivated afterwards at comparatively little ^i'- pense; a period of high agricultural profits, though it Wiay last only eigh< or ten years, may often be the means of giving to a country what is equivalent to a fresh quan- tity of land. Though it is unquestionably and necessarily true, there- fore, tha.t the tendency of a continually increasing capital aud extending cultivation is to occasion a progressive fall both of profits and wages ; yet the causes above enu- merated are evidently sufficient to account for great and long irregularities in thjs progress. We see, in consequence, in all the states of Europe, grea<^ variations at different periods in the progress of their capital and population, After slumbering for years of labour which may be required in the progress of society to raise a given quantity of corn on the last land taken into cultivation, must of course be peculiar to raw produce, and will not be communicated to those commodities, in, the production of which there is no increase cff labour. Chap. X POPULATION. 10j8 and Commerce, combined, in a state almost stationary, some countries have made a sudden start, and have begun increasing at a rate almost approaching to new colonies. Russia and parts of Prus- sia have afforded instances of this kind, and have con- tinued this rate of progress after the accumulation of capital and the extension of cultivation had been proceed- ing with great rapidity for many years. From the operation of the same cauijes we have seen similar variations in our own country. About the middle of last century the interest of money Avas at 3 per cent.; and we may conclude that the profits of stock were near- ly in proportion. At that time, as far as can be collect- ed from the births and marriages, the population was in- creasing but slowly. From 1720 to 1750, a period of SO years, the increase is calculated to have been only a- bout 900,000 on a population of 5,565 000*. Since this period it cannot be doubted that the capital of the coun- try has been prodigiously enlarged, and its cultivation very greatly expended ; yet during the last twenty years, we have seen the interest of money at above 5 per cent., with profits in proportion; and, from 1800 to 1811, an increase of population equal to 1,200,000 on 9,287,000, a rate of increase about two anjl a half times as great as at the former period. But, notwithstanding these causes of irregularity in the progress of capital and population, it is quite certain that they cannot reach their necessary practical limit but by a very gradual process. Before the accumulation of cap* •Population Abs^acts, Preliminary Observations, table, p. xxv. 104 ESSAY ON POPULATION. Book III. Of Systems of Agriculture and Commerce combined. ital comes to a stop from necessiiyy the profits of stock must for a long time have been so low as to afford scarce- ly any encouragement to an excess of saving above ex- penditure ; and before the progress of population is final- ly stopped, the real wages of labour must have been gra- dually'diminishing, till, under the existing habits of the pfeople^ th€!y could only support such families as woulfl just keep up, and no more than keep up, the actual popu- lation. It appears, then, that it is the union or the agricultural and commercial systems, and not either of them taken separately, that is calculated to produce the greatest na- tional prosperity ; that a country with an extensive and rich territory, the cultivation of which is stimulated by improvements in agriculture, manufactures and foreign commerce, has such various and abundant resources, that it is extremely difficult to say when they will reach their limits. That there is, however, a limit which, if the capital and population of a country continue increasing, they must ultimately reach, and cannot pass ; and that this limit, upon the principle of private property, must be far short of the utmost power of the earth to produce food. CHAPTER Xr Of Corn-Laws. Bounties upon Exportation. It has been observed that some countries, with great resources in land, and an evident power of supporting a groatly increased population from their own soil, have yet been in the habit of importing large quanties of foreign corn, and have become dependent upon other states for a great part of tlieir supplies. The causes which may lead to this state of things seem to be chiefly the following : First ; any obstacles which the laws, constitutions and customs of a country present to the accumulation of ca-* pital on the land, which do not apply with equal force to the increasmg employment of capital in commerce and manufactures. In every state in which the feudal system has pre- vailed, there are laws and customs of this kind, which prevent the free division and alienation of land like other property, and render the preparations for an extension of cultivation often both very difficult and very expensive. Improvements m such countries are chiefly carried on by tenants, a large part of whom have not leases, or at least leases of any length ; and though their wealth and respectability have of late years very greatly increased 106 ESSAY ON Book. Ill Of Corn-Laws, and yet it is not possible to put them on a footing with enter- prising owners, and to give them the same independence, and th(* same encouragement to employ their capitals with spirit, as merchants and manufacturers. Secondly, a system of direct or indirect taxation, of auch a nature as to throw a weight upon the agriculture of a country, which is either unequal, or, from peculiar circumstances, can be better borne by commerce and manufactures. It is universally allowed that a direct tax on cora grown at home, if not counterbalanced by a correspon- ding tax on the importation of it, might be such as to de- stroy at once the cultivation of grain, and make a coun- try import the whole of its consumption; and a partial ef- fect of the same kind would follow, if, by a system of ni- direct taxation the general price of labour were-raised and yet by means of drawbacks on home and foreign commo- dities, by an abundance of colonial produce, and by those peculiar articles*, the demand for which abroad would not be much affected by the increase of price, the value of the whole of the exports, though not the quantity might admit of increase. Thirdly; improved machinery, combined wath exten- sive capital and a very advantageous division of labour. If in any country, by means of capital and machinery, one man be enabled to do the work of ten, it is quite ob- vious, that before the same advantages are extended to *A rise in the price of labour in China would certainly increase tJie roturns wjiich it receive for its teasi Chap. XL POPULATION. lOT Bounties upon Exportation. other countries, a rise in the price of lahour will but ve- ry little interfere with the power of selling those sorts of commodities, in the production of which the capital and machinery are so effectively applied. It is quite true that an advance in the necessary wages of labour, which increases the expense of raising corn, may have the same effect upon many commodities besides corn; and if there Were no others, no encouragement Avould be given to the importation of foreign grain, as there might be no means by which it could be purchased, cheaper abroad. But a large class of the exportable commodities of a commer- cial country are of a different description. They are ei- ther articles in a considerable degree peculiar to the country and its dependencies, or such as have been pro- duced by superior capital and machinery, the prices of which are determined rather by domestic than foreign competition. All commodities of this kind will evidently be able to support without essential injury an advance in the price of labour, some permanently, and others for a considerable time. The rise in the price of the commo- dity so occasioned, or rather the prevention of that fall which would otherwise have taken place, may always in- deed have the effect of decreasing in some degree the quantity of the commodity exported ; but it by no means follows that it will diminish the whole of its bullion value in the foreign country, which is precisely what determines the bullion value, and generally the quantity of the re- turns. If cottons in this country were now to fall to half their present price, we should undoubtedly export a greater quantity than we do at present j b.ut I very much lOS^ ESSAY ON Book III Of Corn-Laws, and doubt whether we should export double the quantity, and yet we must do this to enable us to command as much foreign produce as before. In this case, as in numerous others of the same kind, quantity and value go together to a certain point, though not at an equal pace ; but be- yond this point, a further increase of quantity only dimi*- nishes the whole value produced, and the amount of the returns that can be obtained for it. It is obvious then that a country, notwithstanding a bigh comparative price of labour and of materials, may easily stand a competition with foreigners in those commo- dities to Avhich it can apply a superior capital and ma- chinery with great effect; although such a price of labour and materials might give an undisputed advantage to fo- reigners in agriculture and some other sorts of produce, "where the same savihg of labour cannot take place. Con- sequently such a country may find it cheaper to purchase a considerable part of its supplies of grain from abroad with its manufactures and peculiar products, than to grow the whole at home. If, from all or any of these causes, a nation becomes habitually dependent on foieign countries for the support of a considerable portion of its population, it must evi- dently be subjected, while such dependence lasts, to some of those evils which belong to a nation purely manufac- turing and commercial. In one respect, indeed, it will still continue to have a great superiority. It will possess resources in land, which may be resorted to when its manufactures and commerce, either from foreign compe- tition, or any other causes, begin to fall. But, to balance Chap. XI. roi ULATION 109 Bounties upon Exportation. this advantage^ it will be subjected, during the time that large importations are necessarj-, to mucli greater fluctu- ations in its supplies of corn, than countries wltolly man- ufacturing and commercial. The demands of IJolland and Hamburgh may be known with considerable accura- cy by the merchants who supply them. If they increase they increase gradually, and, not being subject from year to year to any great and sudden variations^ it might be safe and practicable to make regular contracts for the average quantity wanted. But it is otherwise with such countries as England and Spain. Their wants are neces- sarily very variable, from the variableness of the seasons, and if -the merchants were to contract Avith ejcporling countries for the quantity required in average years, two or three abundant seasons might ruin them. They must necessarily wait to see the slate of the crops in each year, in order safely to regulate their proceedings; and though it is certainly true that it is only the deficiency from the average crop, and not the whole deficiency, which may be considered altogether in the .light of a new demand in Europe ; yet the largeness and previous un- certainty of this whole deficiency, the danger of making' contracts fdr a stated quantity annually, and the greater chance of hostile combinations against large and warlike states, must greatly aggravate the difficulties of procur- ing a steady supply ; and if it be true that unfavorable seasons are not unfrequently general, it is impossible to conceive that they should not occasionally be subject to great variations of price. It has been sometimes stated that scarcities are partial, r 110 ESSAY ON Book. III. Of Corn-Laws, and riot general, an3 that a deficiency in one country is always compensated by a plentiful supply in others. But this seem^ to be ouite an unfounded supposition. In the evidence brouia^ht before the Committee of the House of Commons in 1814 relating: to the corn laws, one of the corn mer- chants being asked whether it frequently happened that crops in the countries bordering upon the Baltic failed, when they failed here, replied, "When crops are unfavo- " rable in one part of Europfi, it generally happens that *' they are more or less so in another."* If any persoa will take the trouble to examine the contemporaneous prices of corn in the dilFerent countries of Europe for some length of time, he will be convinced that the answer here given is perfectly just. In the last hundred and fifty years, above twenty will be found in which the rise of prices is common to France and England, although there was seldom much intercourse between them in the trade of corn : and Spain and the Baltic nations, as far as their prices have been collected, appear frequently to have shared in the same-general deficiency. Even within the last five years, two ha V occurred, the years 1811-12, and 1816-17, in which, with extrao dinary high prices in this country, the imports have been comparatively inconside- rable ; which can only have arisen from those scarcities having been areneral over the greatest part of Europe. Under these circumstances let us suppose that two mil- lion quarters of foreign grain were the average quantity an- Buallv wanted m this country, and suppose, at the same time, that a million quarters were deficient from a bad -^ea- *Jleport, p. ^3, Chap. XI. POPULATION. Hi Bounties upon Exportatiou. son ; the whole deficiency to be supplied would then be three millions. If the scarcity were .^reneral in Europe, it may (airly be concluded, that some states would prohibit the export of their corn entirely, and others lax it very highly ; and if we could obtain a million or fifteen hundred thousand quarters, it is ])robably as much as we could reasonably expect. We should then, however, be two millions or fifteen hundred thousand quarters deficient. On the other hand, if we had habitually grown our own consumption, and were deficient a million of quarters from a bad sea- son, it is scarcely probable that, notwithstanding a gene- ral scarcity, we should not be able to obtain three or four hundred thousand quarters in consequence of our advanc- ed prices ; particularly if the usual prices of our corn and labour were higher than in the rest of Europe. And in this case the sum of our whole deficiency would only be six or seven hundred thousand quarters, instead of fifteen hundred thousand or two millions of quarters. If the present year (1816-17) had found us in a state in which our growth of corn had been habitually far short of our consumption, the distresses of the country would have been dreadfully aggravated. To provide against accidents of this kind, and to se- cure a more abundant and, at the same time, a more steady supply of grain, a system of corn-laws has been recom- mended the object of which is to discourage by duties or prohibitions the importation of foreign corn, and encourage by bounties the exportpition of corn of home growth. • lU ESSAY ON Book III Of Corn-Lau's, and A system of this kind was completed in our own coun- try in 1688,* the policy of which has been treated of at pome length by Adam Smith. In whatever way the general question may be finally decided, it must be allowed by all those who acknow- ledge the efficacy of the great principle of supply and demand that the line of argument taken by thp author of the JVealth o/JYations agaijist the system is essentially erroneous. He first states that, whatever extension of the foreign market can be occasioned by the bounty, must in every particalap year be altogether at tlie expense of the home market, as every bushel of corn which is exported by means of the bounty, and which would not have been ex- ported without the bounty, would have remained in the home market to increase the consumption, and to lower the price of that commodity .f In this observation he evidently misapplies the term market. Because, by selling a commodity lower, it is easy to get rid of a greater quantity of it, in any particular mar- ket, than would have gone off otherwise, it cannot justly be said that by this process such a market is proportional ly extended. Though the removal of the two taxes men- tioned by Adam Smith as paid on account of the bounty lyould certainly increase the power of the lower classes to purchase, yet in each particular year the consumption *Thona;l] the object here stated may not have been the specific object of the law of 1688, it is certainly the object for which the system h^ )jeea sub|equeotly recommended. tYoi- ij. b. ♦v. c. /J. Chap. XI. POPULATION. 11$ Bounties upon Exportation. must ultimately be limited by tbe population, and the in cieayo of consumption Irom the. lenjoval of these taxes would hy no means be sulficient to g'we tlie same en- coura'^emeiit to cultivation as the addition of the foreign demand. If the price of British corn in the home market rise in consequence of the bounty, hcfore the price of })roduciion is increased (and an immcdiale rise is dls- ti'.icily acknowledged by Adam Smith,) it is an unanswer- able proof that the etlectual demand for British corn is extended by it ; and that the diminution of demand at home, whatever it may be, is more than counterbalanced by the extension of demand abroad. Adam Smith goes on to say that the two taxes paid by the people on account of the bount}-, namely, the one to the government to pay this bounty, and the other paid in the advanced price of the commodity^ must either reduce the subsistence of the labouring poor, or occasion an augmentation in their pecuniary wages proportioned to that in the pecufriary price of their suhsistence. So far as it operates in the one way it must reduce the ability of the labouring poor to educate and bring up their chil- dren, and must so far tend to restrain the population of the country. So far as it operates in the other, it must reduce the ability of the employers of the poor to em- ploy so great a number as they otherwise might do, and must so far tend to restrain the industry of the country. It will be readily allowed that the tax occasioned b}- tlie bounty will have the one or the other of tlie elTects here contemplated; but it cannot be allowed that it will have both. Y^it it is observ/idj that tliough the tax, whicli that 1J4 ESSAY ON ISookm Of Corn-Laws, and institution imposes upon the whole body of the people, be very burdensome to those who pay it, it is of very little advantage to those who receive it. This is surely a contra diction. If the price of labour rise in proportion to the price of wheat, as is subsequently asserted, how is the labourer rendered less competent to suppcfft a family ? If the price of labour do not rise in proportion to the price- of wheat, how is it possible to maintain that the landlords and farmers are not able to employ more laboungrs on their land ? Yet in this contradiction the author of the Wealth of JYations has had respectable followers ; and some of those who have agreed with him in his opinion that corn regulates the prices of labour, and of all other commodities, still insist on the injury done to the la- bouring classes of society by a rise in the price of corn, and the benefit they would derive from a fall. The main argument however which Adam Smith ad- duces against the bounty is, that as the money price of corn regulates that of all other home-made commodities, the advantage to the proprietor from the increase of mo- ney price is merely apparent, and not real ; since what he gains in his sales he must lose in his purchases.. This position, though true to a certain extent, is by no means true to the extent of preventing the movement of capital to or from the land, which is the precise point in question. The money price of corn in a particular coun- try is undoubtedly by far the most powerful ingredient in regulating the price of labour, and of all other commo-^ dities ; but it is not enough for Adam Smiths position, that it should be the most powerful ingredient ; it must be Cfutp. Xt POPULATION. 1 1 5 Bounties upon Exporlation. shewn that other causes remaining the same, the price of every article will rise and fall exactly in proportion to the price of corn, and this is very far from being: the case. Adam Smith himself excepts all foreign commodities ; but when we reflect upon the vast amount of our imports, and the quantity of foreign articles used in our manufac- tures, this exception alone is of the greatest importance. Wool and raw hides, two most important materials of home growth, do not according to Adam Smith's own reasonings, (Book I c. xi, p. 363, et. seq ) depend much upon the price of corn and the rent of land ; and the price of flax, tallow and leather, are of course greatly influenc- ^ by the quantity we import. But woollen cloths, cotton and linen goods, leather, soap, candles, tea, sugar &c., which are comprehended in the above named articles, form almost the whole of the clothing and luxuries of the industrious classes of society. It should be further observed that in all countWes, the industry of which is greatly assisted by fixed capital, the part of the price of the wrought commodity which pays the profits of such capital will not necessarily rise in consequence of an advance in the price of corn, ex- cept as it requires gradual renovation; and the advantage derived from machinery which has been constructed be- fore the advance in the price of labour will naturally last for some years In the case also of great and numerous taxes on con sumption, a rise or fall in the price of corn, though i1 would increase or decrease that part of the wages of la- bour which resolves itself into food, evidently would nof 116 ESSAY ON ■ Book. J 11. Of Corn-Laws j and increase or decrease that part whicli is destined for pay- ment of taxes. It cannot then be admitted as a general position that the money price of corn in any country is a just measure of the real value of silver in that country. But all these con- siderations, though ofgTcat weight to the owners of land, will not influence the farmers beyond the present leases. At the expiration of a lease, any particulcir advantage whicli a farmer had received from a favourable proportion between the price of corn and of labour would lie taken from him, and any disadvantage from an unfavourable pro- portion be made up to him. The sole cause which would determine the proportion 6f capital employed in agricul- ture, would be the extent of the effectual demand, for corn; and if the bounty had reall)^ enlarged this demand, which it certainly would have done, it is impossible to suppose that more capital would not be employed upon the land. When Adam Smith says that the nature of things has stamped upon corn a real value, which cannot be altered by merely altering the money price, and that no bounty upon exportation, no monopoly of the home market, can raise that value, nor the freest competition lower it, it is obvious that he changes the question from the profits of the growers of corn, or of the proprietors of the land, to the physical and absolute value of corn itself. I cer- tainly do not mean to say that the bounty alters the phy- sical value of corn, and makes a bushel of it support equally well a greater number of labourers than "t did before ; but I certainly do mean to say, that the bounty Chap. XI POPULATION. 117 Bounties upon Exportation. to the British cultivator does, in the actual state of things, really increase the denoand for British corn, and thus en- courage him to sow more than he otherwise would do, and enables him in consequence to employ more bushels of corn in the maintenance of a greater number of la- bourers. If Adam Smith's theory were true, and the real price of corn were unchangeable, or not capable of experien- cing a relative increase or decrease of value compared with labour and other commodities, agrijjulture would be indeed in an unfortunate situation. It would be at once excluded from Jhe operation of that principle so beauti- fully explained in^'the Wealth of J\'ations^ by which capi- tal flows from one employment to another, according to the various aud necessarily fluctuating wants of society. But surely we cannot doubt that the real price of corn varies, though it may not vary so much as the real price of other commodities ; and that there are periods when all wrought commodities are cheaper, and periods when they are dearer, in proportion to the price of corn ; and in the one case capital flows from manufactures to agricul- ture, and in the other from agriculture to manufactures. To overlook these periods, or consider them of slight importance, is not allowable ; because in every branch of trade these periods form the grand encouragement to an increase of supply. " Undoubtedly the profits of trade in any particular branch of industry can never long remain higher than in others ; but how are they lowered except by the influx of capital occasioned by these high profits ? It never can be a national object permanently to increase 118 i^SSAY ON Book. lit Of Corn-Laws, and the profits of any particular set of dealers. The national object is the increase of supply ; but this object cannot be attained except by previously increasing the profits of these dealers, and thus determining a greater quantity of capital to this particular employment. The ship-owners and sailors of Great Britain do not make greater profits now than they did before the Navigation Act; but the ob- ject of the nation was not to increase the profits of ship- owners and sailors, but the quantity of shipping and sea- men ; and this could not be done but by a law, whiclj, by increasing tbe demand for them, raised the profits of the capital before employed in this way, and determined a greater quantity to flow into the same channel. The ob- ject of a nation in the establishment of a bounty is, not to increase the profits of the farmers or the rents of the landlords, but to determine a greater quantity of the na- tional capital to the land, and consequently to increase supply; and though, in the case of an advance in the price of corn from an increased demand, the rise of wa- ges, the rise of rents and the fall of silver tend, in some degree, to obscure our view of the subject; yet we can- not refuse to acknowledge that the real price of corn va- ries during periods suflSciently long to affect the determi- nation of capital, or we shall be reduced to the dilemma of owning that no possible degree of demand can encou- tage the growth of corn. It must be allowed then that the peculiar argument re- lating to the nature of corn brought forward by Adam Smith upon this occasion cannot be maintained ; and that 3 bounty upon the exportation of corn must enlarge the Chap. XI. POPm.ATION. * 11^ Bounties upon Exportation. demand for it, and encourage its production in the same manner, if not in the same degree, as a bounty upon the exportation of any other commodity. But it has been urged fuithcr that this increased produc- tion of corn mu-;t necessarily occasion permasient cheap- ness; and a period of considerable lengtb, during the (list 61 years of the last century, while a bounty was in full operation in this country , has been advanced as a proof of it. In this conclusion, however, it may be reasonably suspected that an effect, in its nature temporary, though it may be of some duration, has been mistaken for one which is necessarily permanent. According to the theory ot demand and supply, the bounty might be expected to operate in the following manner: It is frequently stated in the Wealth of JVatiotis that a great demand is followed by a great supply ; a great scarcity by a great plenty, an unusual dearnessby an un- usual cheapness. A great and indefinite demand is indeed generally found to produce a supply more than propor- tioned to it. This supply as naturally occasions unusual cheapness; but this cheapness, when it comes, must in its turn check the production of the commodity ; and this check, upon the same principle, is apt to continue longer than necessary, and again to occasion a return to high prices. This appears to be the manner in which a bounty upon the exportation of corn, if granted under circumstances favorable to its efficiency, might be expecterl to operate, and this seems to have been the manner in which it really 120 ESSAY ON Book. III. Of Corn -Laws, and did operate in the only instance where it has been fairly tried. Without meaning to deny the concurrence of other causes, or attempting to estimate the relative efficiency of the bounty, it is impossible not to acknowledge that when the growing price of corn was, according to Adam Smith, only 28 shillings a quarter, and the corn markets of Eng- land were as low as those of the continent, a premium of five shillings a quarter upon exportation must have occa- sioned an increase of real price, and given encourage- ment to the cultivation of grain. But the changes pro- duced in the direction of capital to or from the land will always be slow. Those who have been m the habit of employing their stock in mercantile concerns do not rea- dily turn it into the channel of agriculture ; and it is a still more difficult and slower operation to withdraw cap- ital from the soil, to employ it in commerce. For the first 25 years after the establishment of the bounty in this country the price of corn rose 2 or 3 shillings in the quarter; but owiiig probably to the wars of Wil- liam and Anne, to bad seasons, and a scarcity of mo- ney, capital seems to have accumulated slowly on the land, and no great surplus growth was effected. It was not till after the peace of Utrecht that the capital of the country began in a marked manner to increase ; and it is impossi- ble that the bounty should not gradually have directed a larger portion of this accumulation to the land than would otherwise have gone to it, A surplus growth, and a fall of price for thirty or forty years, followed. It will be said that this period of low prices was too Chap. XL POPULATION. 121 Bounties upon Exportation. long to be occasioned by a bounty, even according to the theory just laid down. This is perhaps true, and in all probability the period would have been shorter if the bounty alone had operated ; but in this case other causes powerfully combined with it. The fall in the price of British corn was accowipanied by a fall of prices on the continent. Whatever were the general causes which produced this effect in foreign countries, it is probable that they were not wholly inope- rative in England. At all events nothing could be so powerfully calculated to produce cheapness, and to occa- sion a slow return to high prices, as a considerable sur- plus growth, w^hich was unwillingly received, and only at low prices, by other nations. When such a surplus growth had been obtained, some time would necessarily be required to destroy it by cheapness, particularly as the moral stimulus of the bounty would probably continue to act long after the fall of prices had commenced. If to these causes we add that a marked fall in the rate of in- terest, about the same time, evinced an abundance of cap- ital, and a consequent difficulty pf finding a profitable em- ployment for it ; and consider further the natural obsta- cles to the moving of capital from the land ; we shall see sufficient reason why even a long period might elapse without any essential alteration in the comparative abun- dance and cheapness of corn. Adam Smith attributes this cheapness to a rise in tlie V alue of silver. The fall in the price of corn which took place in France and some other countries about the same time might give some countenance to the conjecture. But ■ I m ESSAY ON Book III Of Corn-Laws and the accounts we have lately had of the produce of the mines during the period in question does not sufficiently support it •, and it is much more probable that it arose from the comparative state of peace in which Europe v\as placed after the termination of the wars of Louis XIV., which facilitated the accumulation of capital on the land and encouraged agricultural improvements. With regard to this country, indeed, it is observed by Adam Smith himself, that labour and other articles were rising; a fact very unfavourable to the supposition of an increased value of the precious metals. JS'ot only the money price of corn fell, but its value relative to other articles was lowered, and this fall of relative value, to- gether with great exportations, clearly pointed to a rela- tive abundance of corn, in whatever way it might be oc- casioned, as the main cause of the facts observed rather than a scarcity of silver. This great fall in the Bri- tish corn market, particularly during the ten years from 1740 to 1750 accompanied by a great fall in the conti- nental markets, owing in some degree perhaps to the great exportation of British corn, especially during the years 1748, 1749 and 1750, must necessarily have given some check to its cultivation, while the increase of the real price of labour must at the same time have given a stimulus to the increase of population. The united op- eration of these two causes is exactly calculated first to diminish and ultimately to destroy a surplus of corn ; and as, after 1764, the wealth and manufacturing popula- tion of Great Britain increased more'rapidly than those of her neighbours, the returning stimulus to agriculture Chap. XL POPULATION. m Bounties upon Exportation. consideral)le as it was, arising almost exclusively from q home demanded, was incapable oi producinj^ a surplus; and not beinij confmcd as before to British cultivation, owing to the alteration in the corn-laws, was inadequate even to effect an independent supply. Had the old corn- laws remained in full force, we should still probably have lost our surplus growth, owing to the causes above men- tioned, although from their restrictive clauses we should certainly have been nearer the gror^ih of an independent supply immediately previous to the scarcity of 1800. It IS not therefore necessary, in order to object to the bounty, to say with Adam Smith that the fail in the price of corn which took place during the first half of the last century must have happened in spite of the bounty, and could not possibly have happened in consequence of It. We may allow; on the contrary, what I think we ought to allow, according to all general principles, that the bounty, when granted under favourable circumstan- ces, is really calculated, after going tlirough a period of dearness, to produce the surplus and the cheapness which it advocates promise;* but according to the same general principles we must allow that this surplus and cheapness, from their operating at once as a check to produce and an encouragement to population, cannot be for any great length of time maintained. *As far as the bounty miifht tend to force the cultivation of poorer land, so far no doubt it would have a tendency to raise the price of corn but we know from experience that the rise of price naturally occasion ed in this way is continually counteracted by iinprovenieiits in agri- Culture. As a matter of fact it must be allowed, that, during the peri- od of the last century when co^rn was laUiny, irtoreland nutst h*\c ^een taken into cultivation. ll'4 ESSAY ON Book III. Of Corn-Laws and The objection then to a bounty on corn; independently of the objections to bounties in general, is, that when im- posed under the most favourable circumstances it cannot produce permanent cheapness : and if it be imposed un- der unfavourable circumstances ; that is, if an attempt be made to force exportation by an adequate bounty at a time when the country does not fully grow its own consump- tion ; it is obvious not only that the tax necessary for the purpose must be a very heavy one, but that the effect will be absolutely prejudicial to the population, and the surplus growth will be purchased by a sacrifice very far beyond its worth. But notwithstanding the strong objections to bounties on general grounds, and their inapplicability in cases which are not unfrequent, it must be acknowledged that while they are operative ; that is, while they produce an exportation which would not otherwise have taken place, they unquestionably encourage an increased growth of corn in the countries in which they are established, or maintain it at a point to which it would not otherwise have attained. Under peculiar and favourable circumstances a country might maintain a considerable surplus growth for a great length of time with, an inconsiderable increase of the growing price of corn ; and perhaps little or no increase of the average price, including years oi scarcity.* It *The average price is different from the growing price. Years of scarcity, which must occasionally occur, essentially affect the average price ; and the growth of a surplus quantity of corn, which tends to Chap. XL POPULATION 135 Bounties upon Exportation. from any period during the last century, when an aver- age excess of growth for exportation had' been obtained by tJie stimulus of a bounty, the foreign demand for our corn had increased at the same rate as the domestic de- mand, our surplus growth might have become permanent. After the bounty had ceased to stimulate to fresh exer- tions, its influence would by no means be lost. For some years it would have given the British grower an absolute, advantage over the foreign grower, This advantage would of course gradually diminish ; because it is the nature of all effectual demand to he ultimately supplied, and oblige the producers to sell at the lowest price they can afford consistently with the general rates of profits. But, after having experienced a period of decided en- couragement, the British -grower would find himself in the habit of supplying a larger market than his own upon equal terms with his competitors. And if the foreign and British markets continued to extend themselves equal- ly, he would continue to proportion his supplies to both ; because, unless a particular increase of demand were to take place at home, he could never withdraw his foreign supply without lowering the price of his whole crop; and the nation would thus be in possession of a constant store for years of scarcity. But even supposing that by a bounty, combined with the most favourable state of prices in other countries, a particular state could maintain permanently an average prevent scarcity, will tend to lower this average, and make it P roach nearer to the growing price. R 126 ESSAY ON POPULATION. Book. Ill Of Corn-Laws, excess of growth for exportation, it must not of course be imagined that its population would not still be checked by. the difficulty of procuring subsistence. It would indeed be less exposed to the particular pressure arising from years of scarcity ; but in other respects it would be subject to the same checks as those already described in the preced- ing chapters ; and whether there was a habitual exporta- tion or not, the population would be regulated by the real wages of labour, and would come to a stand when the necessaries which these wages could command were not sufficient, under the actual habits of the people, to eia= courage an increase of numbers. CHAPTER XM. 'o Of Corn-Laws. Restrictions upon Importatien. Tlie laws which prohibit the importation of toreigu grain, though. by no means unobjectionable, are not open to the same objections as bounties, and must be allou ed to be adequate to the object they have in view — the main- tenance of an independent supply. A country with land- ed lesources, which determines never to import corn but when the price indicates an approach towards a scarcity, will necessarily, in average years, supply its own wants. Though we may reasonably, therefore, object to restric- tions upon the importation of foreign corn, on the grounds of their tending to prevent the most profitable employ- ment of the national capital and industry, to check popu- lation, and to discourage the expoit of our manufactures; yet we cannot deny their tendency to encourage the growth of corn at home and to procure and maintain an independent supply, A bounty, it has appeared, suffi- cient to make it answer its purpose in forcing a surplus growth, would, in many cases, require so very heavy a direct tax, and would bear so large a proportion to the whole price of the corn, as to make it in some countries next to impracticable. Restrictions upon importation im- pose no direct tax upon the people, On the contrary, 128 ESSAY ON Book. lit. Of Corn-Laws. they might be made, if it were thought adviseable, sour- ces of revenue to the government, and they can always without difficulty, be put in execution, and be made infal- libly to answer their express purpose of securing, in ave- rage years, a sufficient growth of corn for the actual pop- ulation. We have considered, in the preceding chapters, the peculiar disadvantages which attend a system either al- most exclusively agricultural or exclusively commercial, and the peculiar advantages which attend, a system in which they are united, and flourish together. It has fur- ther appeared that in a country with great landed resour- ces, the commercial population may, from particular causes, so far predominate as to subject it to some of the evils which belong to a state purely commercial and man- ufacturing, and to a degree of fluctuation in the price of corn greater than is found to take place in such a state. It is obviously possible, by restrictions upon the impor- tation of foreign corn to maintain a balance between the agricultural and commercial classes. The question is not a question of the efficiency or inefficiency of the measure proposed, but of ite policy or impolicy. The object can certainly be accomplished, but it may be purchased too dear; and to those who do not at once reject all inquiries on points of this kind, as impeaching a principle which they hold sacred, the question, whether a balance between the agricultural and commercial classes of society, which would not take place naturally, ought, under certain cir- cumstances, tp be maintained artificially, must appear to Clmp.Xn. POPULATION. 120 Restrictions upon Importation. be the most important practical question in the whole compass of poiltical economy. One of the objections to the admission ef the doctrine that restrictions upon importation are advantageous is, that it cannot possibly be laid down as a general rule that every state ought to raise its own corn. There are some states so circumstanced that the rule is clearly and ob- viously inapplicable to them. In the first place there are many states which have made some figure in history, the territories of which have been perfectly inconsiderable compared with their main town or towns, and utterly incompetent to supply the actual population with ibod. In such communities, what is called the principal internal trade of a large state, the trade which is carried on between the towns and the country, must necessarily be a foreign trade, and the im- portation of foreign corn is absolutely necessary to their existence. They may be said to be born without the ad- vantage of land, and, to whatever risks and disadvanta- ges a system merely commercial and manufacturing may be exposed, they have no power of choosing any other. All that they can do is to make the most of their own situation, compared with the situation of their neighbors, and to endeavour by superior industry, skill and capital, to make up for so important a deficiency. In these ef- forts some states of which we have accounts have been wonderfullyfsuccessful ; but the reverses to which they have been subject have been almost as conspicuous as the degree of their prosperity compared with the scantiness of their natural resources. 130 ESSAY ON Book III Of Corn-Laws. Secondly, restrictions upon the importation of foreign corn are evidently not applicable to a country which, from its soil and climate, is subject to very great and sud- den variations in its home supplies, from the variations of the seasons. A country so circumstanced will unques- tionably increase its chance of a steady supply of grain by opening as many markets for importation and expor- tation as possible, and this will probably be true, even though other countries occasionally prohibit or tax the exports of their grain. The peculiar evil to which such a country is subject can only be mitigated by encourag- ing the freest possible foreign trade in corn. Thirdly, restrictions upon importation are not applica- ble to a country which has a very barren territory, al- though it may be of some extent. An attempt fully to cultivate and improve such a territory by forcibly direct- ing capital to it would probably, under any circumstan- ces, fail ; and the actual produce obtained in this way might be purchased by sacrifices which the capital and industry of the nation could not possibly continue to sup- port. Whatever advantages those countries may enjoy, which possess the means of supporting a considerable population from their own soil, such advantages are not within the reach of a state so circumstanced. It must either consent to be a poor and inconsiderable communi- ty, or it must place its chief dependence on other resour- ces than those of land. It resembles in many respects those states which have a very small territory ; and its policy, with regard to the importation of cornj must of course be nearly the same. Chap. XII POPULATION. 131 Restrictions upon Importation. In all these cases there can be no doubt of the impoli- cy of attempting to maintain a balance between the agri- cultural and commercial classes of society which would not take place naturally. Under other and opposite circumstances, however, this impolicy is by no means so clear. If a nation possesses a large territory consisting of land of an average quality, it may without difficulty supj)ort from its own soil, a population fully sufficient to maintain its rank in wealth and powf '^[ among the countries with which it has relations,' \ ither of commerce or of war. Territories of a certain extent must ultimately in the main, support their own population. As each exporting country approaches towards that complement of wealth and population to which it is naturally tending, it will gradually withdraw the corn which for a time it had spar- ed to its more manufacturing and commercial neighbors, and leave them to subsist on their own resources. The peculiar products of each soil and climate are objects of foreign trade, which can never, under any circumstances, fail. But food is not a peculiar product; and the coun- try which produces it in the greatest abundance may, ac- cording to the laws which govern the progress of popu- lation, have nothing to spare for others. An extensive foreign trade in corn beyond what arises from the varia- bleness of the seasons in different countries is rather a temporary and incidental trade, depending chiefly upon, the different stages of improvement which different coun^ " tnes may have reached, and on other accidental circum- stances, than a trade whifth is in its nature pern^anent, ; ]32 ESSAY ON Book HI Of Corn-Laws. and the stimulus to which will remain in the progress of society unabated. In the wildness of speculation it has been suggested (of course more in jest than in earnest) that Europe ought to grow its corn in America, and de- vote itself solely to manufactures and commerce, as the best sort of division of the labour of the globe. But even on the extravagant supposition that the natural course of things might lead to such a division of labour for a time, and that by such means Europe could raise a popu- lation greater than its land's-* could possibly support, the consequences ought justly to beptlieaded. It is an unques- tionable truth that it must answer to every territorial state in its natural progress of wealth, to manufacture for itself, unless the countries from Avhich it had purchased its manufactures possess some advantages peculiar to them besides capital and skill. But when upon this prin- ciple America began to withdraw its corn from Europe and the agricultural exertions of Europe were in- adequate to make up for the deficiency, it would certainly be felt that the temporary advantages of a greater degree of wealth and population (supposing them to have been really attained) had been very dearly pur- chased by a long period of retrograde movement and misery. If then a country be of such a size that it may fairly be expected finally to supply its own population with food ; if the population which it can thus support from its own resources in land be such as to enable it to main- tain its rank and power among other nations ; and further if there be reason to fear not only the final withdrawing of foreign corn used for a certain time, which might be Chap. XII. POPULATION, 133 Restriction of Importation. a distant event, but the immediate effects that attend a great predominance of a manufacturing population, such as increased unhealthiness, increased turbulence, increas- ed fluctuations in the price of corn, and increased variable- ness in the wages of labour ; it may not appear impolitic artificially to maintain a more equal balance between the agricultural and commercial classes by restricting the im- portation of foreign corn, and making agriculture keep pace with manufactures. Thirdly, if a country be possessed of such a soil and climate, that the variations in its annual growth of corn are less than in most other countries, this may be an addition- al reason Tor admitting the policy of restricting the im- portation of foreign corn. Countries are very different in the degree of variableness to which their annual sup- plies are subject; and though it is unquestionably true that if all were nearly equal in this respect, and tlie trade in corn really free, the steadiness of price in a particular state would increase with an increase in the number of the na- tions connected with it by the commerce of grain ; yet it by no means follows that the same conclusion will hold good when the premises are essentially different; that is when some of the countries taken into the circle of trade are subject to very great comparative variations in their supplies of grain, and when this defect is aggravated by the acknowledged want of real freedom in the foreign trade of corn. i Suppose, for instance, that the extreme variations above and below the average quantity of corn grown, were in England | and in France | a free intercource between the 134 ESSAY ON Book. Ill Of Cora-Laws, two countries would probably increase the variableness of the English markets And if, in addition to England and France, such a country as Bengal could be brought near, and admitted into the circle — a country in which according to Sir George Colebrook, rice is sometimes sold four times as cheap in one year as in the suc- ceeding without famine or scarcity ;* and where, not- withstanding the frequency of abundant harvests, de- ficiencies sometimes occur of such extent as necessarily to destroy a considerable portion of the population ; it is quite certain that the supplies both of England and France would become very much more variable than before the accession. In point of fact, there is reason to believe that the British isles, owing to the nature of their soil and climate are peculiarly free from great variations in their annual produce of grain. If we compare the prices of corn in England and France from the period of the commence- ment of the Eaton tables to the beginning of the revolu - tionary war, we shall find that m England the highest price of the quarter of wheat of 8 bushels during the whole of that time was SI. 15s 6rf|, (in 1648,) and the lowest price \l. 2s. \d. (in 1743,) while in France the highest price of the septier was 62 francs 78 centimes ( in 1662, ) and the lowest price Sfrancs 89 centimes (in 171 8)* In the one case the difference is a little above ♦Husbandry of Bengal, p. 108. Note. He observes in the text of the same page that the price of corn fluctuates much more than in Europe. *Garmer'a Edition of the Wealth of Nations vol. ii. Table, p. 18S. Chap. XII. POPULATION. 135 Restriction of Importation. ■-. - ■■ - ■ ■ — ■ ■ ■ ■ •■ ■ ' ■■,■....- > 3| times, and in the other very nearly 7 times. In the Ei> glish tables, during periods of ten or twelve years, only two instances occur of a variation amounting to as much as 3 times; in the French tables, during periods of the same length, one instance occurs of a variation of above 6 times, and three instances besides of a variation of 4 times or above. These variations may perliaps, have been aggravated by a want of freedom in the internal trade of corn, but they are strongly confirmed by the calculations of Tur- got, which relate solely to variations of produce, with- out reference to any difficulties or obstructions in its free transport from one part of the country to another. On land of an average quality he estimates the produce at seven septiers the arpent in years of great abundance and three septiers the arpent in year of great scarcity ; while the medium produce he values at five septiers the arpent* These calculations he conceives are not far removed from the truth; and proceeding on these grounds he observes that, in a very abundant year, the produce will be five months above its ordinary consumption, and in a very scarce year as much below. These variations are, I should think, much greater than those which take place in this country, at least if we may judge from pri- ces, particularly as in a given degree of scarcity in the two countries their is little doubt that from the superior riches of England, and the extensive parish relief which it affords to the poorer classes in times of dearth, its prices ^CEuVres de Turgof, toia, vi. p. 143. Edit. JS04- 13fr ESSAY ON Book HI. Of Corn-Laws would rise more above the usual average than those of France. If we look to the prices of wheat in Spain during the same period, we shall find, in like manner, much greater variations than in England. In a table of the prices of the fanega of wheat in the market of Seville from 1675 to 1764 inclusive, published in the Appendix to the Bullion Report,* the highest price is 48 reals vellon (in 1677,) and the lowest price 7 reals vellon (in 1720,) a difterence of nearly seven times; and in periods often or twelve years the difference is in two or three instances as much as four times. In another table, from 1788 to 1792 inclusive, relating to the towns of Old Castille, the highest price in 1790 was 109 reals vellon the fanega, and in 1792 the lowest price was only 16 reals vellon the fanega. In the market of Medina del Rio Seco, a town of the kingdom of Leon, surrounded by a very fine corn country, the price of the load of four fanegas of wheat was, in May, 1800, 100 reals vellon, and in May, 1804 600 reals vellon, and these were both what were called low prices^ as compared with the highest prices of the year. The difference would be greater if the high pri- Cf'> were compared with the low prices. Thus, in 1799, the low price of the four fanegas was 88 reals vellon, and in 1 804 the high prices of the four fanegas was 640 reals vellon, — a difference of above seven times in so short a period as six years.f In Spain, foreign corn is freely admitted ; yet the vari- *Appendix p. 182. ^Bullion Report. Appendix, p. 185. Chap.XlL POPULATION. 137 Restriction upon Importation. ation of price, in the towns of Andalusia, a province ad- joining the sea, and penetrated by the river Guadalquiver though not so great as those just mentioned, seems to shew that the coasts of the Mediterranean by no means furnish very steady supplies. It is known, indeed, that Spain is the principal competitor of England in the purchase of grain in the Baltic; and as it is quite certain that what may be called the growing or usual price of corn in Spain is much lower than in England, it follows, that the difference between the pricesof plentiful and scarce years must be very considerable I have not the means of ascertaining the variations in the supplies and prices of the northern nations. They are, however, occasionally great, as it is well known that some of these countries are at times subject to very severe scarcities. But the instances already produced are sufficient to shew, that a country which is advan- tageously circumstanced with regard to the steadiness of its home supplies may rather diminish than increase this steadiness by uniting its interests with a country less fa- vourably circumstanced in this respect; and this steadi- ness will unquestionably be still further diminished, if the country which is the most variable in its supplies is allowed to inundate the other with its crops when they are abundant, while it reserves to itself the privilege of retain ing them in a period of slight scarcity, w^hen its commer- cial neighbour happens to be in the greatest want.* * These two circumstances essentially change the premises on which the question of a free importation, as applicable to a particulstr state, must rest. rse ESSAY ON Book lit Of Corn-Laws. 3dlj, if a nation be possessed of a territory, not only of a sufficient extent to maintain under its actual cultiva- tion a population adequate to a state of the first rank, but of sufficient unexhausted fertility to allow of a very great increase of population, such a circumstance would of course make the measure of restricting the importation of foreign corn more aplicable to it, A country which, though fertile and populous, had been cultivated nearly to the utmost, would have no other means of increasing its population than by the admission of foreign corn. But the British isles shew at present no symptoms whatever of this species of exhaustion. The necessary accompaniments of a territory worked to the utmost are very low profits and extent, a very slack demand for labour, low wages, and a stationary population. Some of these symptoms mayiiideed take place without an exhaus- ted territory ; but an exhausted territory cannot take place without all these symptoms. Instead, however, of such symptoms, we have seen in this country, during the twenty years previous to 1814, a high rate of profits and interest, a very great demand for labour, good wages, and an increase of population more rapid, perhaps, than during any period of our history. The capitals which have been laid out in bringing new land into cultivation, or miproving the old must necessarily have yielded good returns, or, under the actual rate ot general profits, they would not have been so employed ; and although it ig strictly true that as capital accumulates upon the land, its profits nuist ultimately diminish ; yet owing to the increase of agricultaral skill, and other causes noticed in a forirjaw Chap. XIL POPULATION. 139 Restrictions upon Importation. chapter, these two effects of progressive cultivation do not by any means always keep pace with each other. — Though they must finally unite and terminate the career of their progress together, they are often, during the course of their progress, separated for a considerable time, and at a considerable distance. In some countries, and some soils, the quantity of capital which can be ah- sorbed before any essential diminution of profits necessa^ lily takes place is sd great, that its limit is not easily cal- culated; and certainly, when wc consider what has actu- ally been done in nome districts of England and Scotland, and compare it with what remains to be done in other dis- tricts, we must allow that no near approach to this limit has yet been made. On account of the high money price of labour, and of the materials of agricultural capital, occasioned partly by direct and indirect taxation, and partly, or perhaps chiefly, by the great prosperity of our foreign commerce, new lands cannot be brought into cul- tivation, nor great improvements made on the old, without a liigh money price of grain ; but these lands, when they have been so brought into cultivation or improved, have by no means turned out unproductive. The quantity and value of their produce have borne a full and fair propor- tion to the quantity of capital and labour employed upon them; and they were cultivated with great advantage both to individuals and the state, as long as the same, or nearly the same, relations between the value of produce and the cost of production, which prompted this cultiva- Hon, continued to exist. Ixi snch a state (sf the soiL the British empire might iim 140 ESSAY ON Book. III. Of Corn -Laws. questionably be able, not only to support from its own a- gricultural resources its present population, but double, and in time, perhaps, even treble the number ; and con- sequently a restriction upon the importation of foreign corn, which might be thouglit greatly objectionable in a country which had reached nearly the end of its resour- ces, might appear in a very diiferent light in a country capable of supporting from its own lands a very great increase of population. But it will be said, that although a country may be al- lowed to be capable of maintaining from its own soil not only a great, but an increasing population, yet if it be ackaowledged that, by opening its ports for the free ad- mission of foreign corn, it may be made to support a greater and more rapidly increasing population, it is un- justifiable to go out of our way to check this tendency, and to prevent that degree of wealth and population which would naturally take place. This is unquestionably a powerful argument: and grant- ing fully the premises, (which, however, may admit of some doubt,) it cannot be answered upon the principles of political economy solely. I should say, however, that if it could be clearly ascertained that the addition of wealth and population so acquired would subject the society to a greater degree of uncertainty in its supplies of corn, greater fluctuations in the wages of labour, greater un- healthiness and immorality owing to a larger proportion of the population being employed in manufactories, and a greater chance of long and depressing retrograde move- ments occasioned by the natural progress of those cdun- Chap.XIL POPULATION. 141 Restrictions upon Importation. tries from which corn had been imported ; I should have no hesitation in considering such wealth and population as much too dearly purchased. The happiness of a socie- ty is, after all, the legitimate end even of its wealth, pow- er and population. It is certainly true that with a view to the structure of society most favourable to this happi- ness, and an adequate stimulus to the production of wealth from the soil, a very considerable admixture of commer- cial and manufacturing population with the agricultural is absolutely necessary ; but there is no argument so fre- quently and obviously fallacious as that which infers that what is good to a certain extent is good to any extent *, and though it will be most readily admitted that in a large landed nation, the evils which belong to the manufactur- ing and commercial system are much more than counter- balanced by its advantages, as long as it is supported by agriculture ; yet, in reference to the effect of the excess which is not so supported, it may fairly be doubted whe- tlier the evils do not decidedly predominate. It is observed by Adam Smith, that the "capital which is acquired to any country by commerce and marufacture* is all a very uncertain and precarious possession, till some part of it has been secured and realized in the cultivation and improvement of its lands."* It is remarked in another place, thSit the monopoly of the colony trade, by raising the rate of mercantile profit* discourages the improvement of the soil, and retards the Tol.ii. b. iil. C.4, p. 137 T 143 ESSAY OK Sook III • ■* '■ -»■ ...» ■ ■■ , ■ , I , < Of Corn-Laws. natural increase of that great original source of revenue, the rent of land.* Now it is certain that, at no period, have the manufac- tures, commerce and colony trade of the country heen in a state to absorb so much capital as during the twenty years end ins: with 1814. From the year 1764 to the peace of Amiens, it is generally allowed thatthecom- m^-rce and manufactures of the country increased faster than its agriculture, and that it became gradually more and more dependent on foreign corn for its support. — = Since the peace of Amiens the state of its colonial mo- nopoly and of its manufactures has been such as to de^ mand an unusual quantity of capital ; and if the peculiar circumstances of the subsequent war, the high frieghts and insurance, and the decrees of Buonaparte, had not rendered the importation of foreign corn extremely diffi- cult and expensive, we should at this moment, according to all general principles, have been in the habit of sup- porting a much larger portion of our population upon it, than at anv former period of our history. The cultiva- tion of the country would be in a very different state from what it is at present. Very few or none of those grf'at improwments would have taken place which may be said to have nurrhased fresh land for the state that no fall of price can destroy. And the peace, or accidents of diflferent kinds, might have curtailed essentially both our colonial and manufacturing advantages, and destroyed *VoI. ii. b. iv. c. 8,.p. 495. Chap. XII. POPULATION. US Restrictions upon Importation. or driven away our capital before it had spread itself on the soil, and become national property. As it is, the practical restrictions thrown in the way of importing foreign corn during the war have forced our steam engines and our colonial monopoly to cultivate our lands; and those very causes which, according to Adam Smith, tend to draw capital from agriculture, and would certainly have so drawn it, if we could have continued to purchase foreign corn at the market prices of France and Holland, have been the means of giving such a spur to our agriculture, that it has not only kept pace with a very rapid increase of commerce and manulactures, but has re- covered the distance at which it had for many years been left behind, and now marches with them abreast. But restrictions upon the importation of foreign corn in a country which has great landed resources, not only tend to spread every commercial and manufacturing ad- vantage possessed, whether permanent or temporary, on the soil, and thus in the language of Adam Smith, secure and realize it ; but also tend to prevent those great ocil- ations in the progress of agriculture and commerce, which are seldom unattended with evil. It is to be recollected, and it is a point of great impor- tance to keep constantly in our minds, that the distress which has been experienced among almost all classes of society from the sudden fall of prices, except as far as it has been aggravated by the state of the currency, has been occasioned by natural^ not artificial^ causes. There is a tendency to an alternation in the rate of the progress of agriculture and manufactures in th^ samemaa' 144 ESSAY ON Book III Of Corn-Laws. ner as there is a tendency to an alternation in the rate of the progress of food and population. In periods of peace and uninterrupted trade, these alternations, though not favourable to the happiness 'and quiet of society, may take place without producing material evil; but the in- tervention of war is always liable to give them a force ^nd rapidity that must unaviodably produce a convulsion in the state of property. The war that succeeded to the peace of Amiens found us dependent upon foreign countries for a very consider- able portion of our supplies of corn ; and we now grow our own consumption, notwithstanding an unusual increase of population in the interval. This great and sudden change in the state of our agriculture could only have been effected by very high prices occasioned by an inadequate home supply and the great expense and difficulty of im- portmg foreign corn. But the rapidity with which this change has been effected must necessarily create a glut in the market as soon as the home growth of corn became fully equal or a little in excess above the home consump- tion ; and, aided only by a small foreign importation, must inevitably occasion a very soidden fall of prices. If the ports had continued open for the free importation of foreign corn, there can be little doubt that the price of corn in J 81 5 would have been still considerably lower. This low price of corn, even if by means of lowered rents our pre- sent state of cultivation could be in a great degree pre- served, must give such a check to future improvement, that if the ports were to continue open, we should cer- tainly not grow a sufficieacy at home to keep pace with CImp. XL POPULATION 145 Restrictions upon Importation. our ijicreasing population ; and at the end often or twelve years we might be found by anew war in the same state that we w^ere at the commencement of the present. We should then have the same career of high prices to pass through, the same excessive stimulus to agriculture* fol- lowed by the same sudden and depressing check to it, and the same enormous loans borrowed with the price of wheat at 90 or 100 shillings a quarter, and the monied incomes of the landholders and industrious classes of society near- ly in proportion, to be paid when wheat is at 50 or CO shillings a quarter, and the incomes of the landlords and industrious classes ot society greatly reduced — a state of things which cannot take place without an excessive ag- gravation of the difficulty of paying taxes, and particu- larly that invariable monied amount which pays the in- terest of the national debt. On the other hand a country which so restricts the im- portations of foreign corn as on an average to grow its own supplies, and to import merely in periods of scarcity is not only certain of spreading every invention in manu- factures and every peculiar advantage it may possess from its colonies or general commerce on the land, and thus of fixing them to the spot and rescuing them from ac- cidents ; but is necessarily exempt from those violent and distressing convulsions of property which almost unavoida- * According to the evidence before the House of Lords (Reports, p. 49,) the freight and insurance alone on a quarter of corn were greater by 48 shillings in ISll than in 1814. Without any artificial interfer- ence then it appears that war alone may occasion unovoidably a pr6- digious increase of pricf.. 146 ESSAY ON Booh HI. Of Corn-Laws. bly arise from the coincidence, of a general war and an insufficient home supply of corn. If the late war had lound us independent of foreigners for our average consumption, not even our paper currency (Could have made the prices of our corn approach to th© prices which were at one time experienced.* And if we had continued, during the course of the contest indepen- dent of foreign supplies, except in an occasional scarcity it is impossible that the growth of our own consumption, or a little above it, should have produced at the end of the war so universal a feeling of distress. The chief practical objection to which restrictions on the importation of corn are exposed is a glut irom an a- bundant harvest, which cannot be relieved by exportation And in the consideration of that part of the question which relates to the fluctuations of prices this objec- tion ought to have its full and fair weight. But the fluctuation of prices arising from vthis cause has some- times been very greatly exaggerated. A glut which might essentially distress the farmers of a poor coun- try, might be comparatively little felt by the farmers of a rich one ; and it is difficult to conceive that a nation with an ample capital, and not under the influence of a great shock to commercial confidence, as this coun- try was in 18J5, would find much difficulty in reserving the surplus of ona year to supply the wants of the next or some future year. It may fairly indeed be doubted whe- •It will be found upon examination, that the prices of our corn led the way to the excess and diminution of our paper currency, rathef than followed, although the prices of corn could never have been eitl)«F so high or so low if this escess and diounution had not taken plac» Chap. XII POPULATION. 147 Restrictions of Importation. tber, in such a country as our own, the fall of price aris- ing from this cause would be so great as that which would be occasioned by the sudden pouring in of the supplies from an abundant crop in Europe, particularly from those states which do not regularly export corn. If our ports were always open, the existing laws of France would still prevent such a supply as would equalize prices ; and Fre'uch corn would only come in to us in considerable quantities in years of great abundance, when we were the least lii-.ely to want it, and when it was most likely to occasion a ului.* But if the fall of price occasioned in those two ways would not be essentially different, as it is quite certain tliat the rise of price in years of general scarcity would be less in those countries which habitually grow their own supplies ; it must be allowed that the range of varia- tion will be the least under such a system of restriction as without preventing importation when prices are high, will secure in ordinary years a growth equal to the con- sumption. One objection however to systems of restriction must always remain. They are essentially unsocial. I cer- tainlj think that, iji reference to the interests of a par- ticular state, a restriction upon the importation of foreign •om may sometimes be advantageous; but I feel still more certain that in reference to the interests of Europe in •Almost all the corn merchants who gave their evidence before the committees of the two houses iri 1S14 seemed fully aware of the low price: likely to be occasion-i, by aa abundant crop in Europe, if onr port* wv» op^ft te refteiT» it. Book. in. ESSAY ON POPULATION. 148 Of Corn-Laws. Restrictions upon Importation. general the most perfect freedom of trade in corn, as well as in every other commodity, would he the most ad vantageous. Such a perfect freedom, however, could hard ly fail to be followed by a more free and equal distribu- tion of capital, which though it would greatly advance the riches and happiness of Europe, would unqaestionably render some parts of it poorer and less populous than they are at present ; and there is little reason to expect that individual states will ever consent to sacrifice the wealth within their own confines to the wealth of the world. It is further to be observed, that independently of more direct regulations, taxation alone produces a system of discouragements and encouragements which essentially interferes which the natural relations of commodities to each other; and as there is no hope of abolishing taxation it may sometimes be only by a further interference that these natural relations can be restored. A perfect freedom of trade therefore is a vision whick }t is to be feared can never be realized. But still it should be our object to make as near approaches to it as we can It should always be considered as the great general rule. And when any deviations from it are proposed, those who propose them are bound clearly to make out the excep- tion. CHAPTER XIll. Of increasing Wealthy as it affects the Condition of the Poor. The professed object of Adam Smith's Inquiry is the ^i\''ature and Causes of the Wealth of JVations. There is another, however, still more interesting, which he oc- casionally mixes with it — the causes which affect the hap- piness and comfort of the lower orders of society, which in every nation form the most numerous class. These two subjects are, no doubt, nearly connected ; but the na- ture and extent of this connexion, and the mode in which increasing wealth operates on the condition of the poor have not been stated with sufficient correctness and pre- cision. Adam Smith, in his chapter on tlie wages of labour, considers every increase in the stock or revenue of the society as an increase in the funds for the maintenance of labour; and having before laid down the position that the demand for those who live by wages can only in- crease in proportion to the increase of the funds for the payment of wages, the conclusion naturally follows, that every increase of wealth tends to increase the demand for U 150 ESSAY ON Book. III. . Of increasing Wealth, as it labour and to improve the condition of the lower classes of society.* Upon a nearer examination, however, it will be found that the funds for the maintenance of labour do not ne- cessarily increase with the increase of wealth, and very rarely increase in 'proportion to it; and that the condition of the lower classes of society does not depend exclu- sively upon the increase of^the funds for the maintenance of labour, or the power of supporting a greater number of labourers. Adam Smith defines the wealth of a state to be the an- nual produce of its land and labour. This definition evi- dently includes manufactured produce as well as the pro- duce of the land. Now upon the supposition that a nation, from peculiar situation and circumstances, was unable to procure an additional quantity of food, it is obvious that the produce of its labour would not necessarily come to a stand, although the produce of its land or its pow- er of importing corn were incapable of further in- crease. If the materials of manufactures could be ob- tained either at home or from abroad, improved skill and machinery might work them up to a greatly increas- ed amount with the same number of hands, and even the number of hands might be considerably increas- ed by an increased taste for manufactures compared with war and menial service, and by the employment consequertVu of a greater proportion of the whole population in manufacturing and commercial labour. *Vol. i. book i, c 8. Chap. XIIL POPULATION. 151 affects the Condition of the Poor. That such a case does not frequently occur will be most readily allowed. It is not only however possible, but forms the specific limit to the increase of population in the natural progress of cultivation, with which limit, the limit to the further progress of wealth is obviously not contemporary. But though cases of this kind do not often occur, because these limits are seldom reach- ed; yet approximations to them are constantly taking place, and in the usual progress of improvement the in- crease of wealth and capital is rarely accompanied with a proportionately increased power of supporting an ad- ditional number of labourers. Some ancient nations, which according to the accounts we have received of them, possessed but an inconsiderable quantity of manufacturing and commercial ca])ital, appear to have cultivated their lands highly by means of an agra- rian division of property, and were unquestionably very populous. In such countries, though full of people al- ready, there would evidently be room for a very great increase of capital and riches ; but allowmg all the weight that is in any degree probable to the increased produc- tion or importation of food occasioned by the stimulus of additional capital, there would evidently not be room for a proportionate increase of the means of subsistence. If we compare the early state of our most flourishing European kingdoms with their present state, we shall find this conclusion confirmed almost universally by experi- ence. Adam Smith, m treating of the different progress of 152 ESSAY ON Book. III. Of increasing. Wealth, as it opulence in different nations, says that England, since the time of Elizabeth, has been continually advancing in commerce and manufactures. He then adds, "The cul- " tivation and improvement of the country has no doubt " been gradually advancing. But it seems to have fol- " lowed slowly and at a distance the more rapid progress " of commerce and manufactures. The greater part of " the country must probably have been cultivated before " the reign of Elizabeth, and a very great part of it still " remains uncultivated and the cultivation of the far great- " er part is much inferior to what it might be.'* The same observation is applicable to most of the other countries of Europe. The best land would naturally be the first occupied ThiS land even with that sort ofindolentcultivation and great waste of labour which particularly marked the feudal times would be capable of supporting a considerable population; and on the increase of capital, the increasing taste for conveniences and luxuries, combined with the decreas- ing power of production in the new land to be taken in- to cultivation, would naturally and necessarily direct the greatest part of this new capital to com.merce and- man- ufactures, and occasion a more rapid increase of wealth than of population. The population of England accordingly in the reign of Elizabeth appears to have been nearly five millions, which would not be very far short of the half of what it *Vol. ii. book iv. c. 4. p. 133, Chap. XIII. POPULATION. 153 affects the Condition of tlie Poor. is at present ; but when we consider the very great pro- portion which the products of commercial and manufac- turing industry now bear to the quantity of food raised for human consumption, it is probably a very low esti- mate to say that the mass of wealth or the stock and re^ venue of the country must, independently of any change in the value of the circulating medium, have increased above four times. Few of the other countries in Europe have increased to the same extent in the commercial and manufacturing wealth as England ; but as far as they have proceeded in this carreer, all appearances clearly indicate that the progress of their general wealth has been great- er than the progress of their means of supporting an ad- ditional population. That every increase of the stock or revenue of a na- tion cannot be considered as an increase of the real funds for the maintenance of labour will appear in a striking light in the case of China. v Adam Smith observes that China has probably long been as rich as the nature of her laws and institutions will admit; but intimates that with other laws and institutions, and if foreign commerce were held in honour, she might still be much richer. If trade and foreign commerce were held in great ho- nour in China, it is evident that, from the great number of her labourers and the cheapness of her labour, she might work up manufactures for foreign sale to a great amount. It is equally evident that, from the great bulk of provisions and the prodigious extent of her inland ter- ritory, she could not in return import such a quantity as 154 ■ ESSAY ON Book III Of increasing Wealth, as it would be any sensible addition to her means of subsist- ence. Her immense amount of manufactures, thereforej she would either consume at home, or exchang-e tor lux- uries collected from all parts of the world. At present the country appears to be over-peopled compared with what its stock can employ, and no labour is spared in the production of food. An immense capital could not be employed in China in preparing manufactures for foreign trade, without alteiing this state of things, and taking off some labourers from agriculture, which might have a ten- dency to diminish the produce ot the country. Allow- ing, however, that this would be made up, and indeed more than made up, by the beneficial effects of improved skill and economy of labour in the cultivation of the poorest lands, yet, as the quantity of subsistence could be but little increased, the demand for manufactures which would raise the price of labour, would necessarily be followed by a proportionate rise in the price of pro- visions, and the labourer would be able to command but little more food than before. The counti^ would, how- ever, obviously be advancing- in wealth; the exchangea- ble value of the annual produce of its land and labour would be annually augmented ; yet the real funds for the maintenance of labour would be nearly stationary. The argument perhaps appears clearer when applied to Chi- na, because it is generally allowed that its wealth has been long stationary, and its soil cultivated nearly to the utmost.* •How far this latter opinion is to be depended upon it is not ver^ 4J)uip. Xm POPULATION. 155 affects the condition of the Poor. In all these cases, it is not on account of any undue pre- ference given to commerce and manufactures, compared with agriculture, that the effect just desciihed takes place, but merely because the powers of the earth in the pro- duction of food have narrower limits than the skill and tastes of mankind in giving value to raw materials, and consequently in the approach towards tlie limits of sub- sistence there is naturally more room, and consequently more encouragement, for the increase oi the one species of wealth than of the other. It must he allowed, then, that the funds for the main- tenance of labour do not necessarily increase with the in- crease of wealth, and very rarely increase in proportion to it. But the condition of the lower classes of society cer- tainly does not depend exclusively upon the increase of the funds for the maintenance of labour, or the means of supporting more labourers. That these means form al- ways a very powerful ingredient in the condition of the poor, and the main ingredient in the increase of popula- tion, is unquestionable. But, in the first place, tlie com- forts of the lower classes of society do not depend sole- ly upon food, nor even upon strict necessaries; and they cannot be considered as m a good state unless they have the command of some conveniences, and even luxuries. easy to say. Improved skill and a saving of labour would certainly enable the Chinese to cultivate some lands with advantage which they cannot cultivate now, but the more general use of horses instead of men might prevent this extended cyltivation from giving any encou- ragement to ari increa'se of people. 156 ESSAY ON Book III. Of increasing Wealth, as it Secondly, the tendency in population fully to keep pace with the means of subsistence must in general prevent the increase of these means from having a great and per- manent effect in improving the condition ot the poor. — And, thirdly, the cause w^hich has the most lasting effect in improving the situation of the lower classes of society depends chiefly upon the conduct and prudence of the individuals themselves, and is, therefore, not immediately and necessarily connected with an increase in the means of subsistence. With a view therefore to the other causes which afFfect the condition of the labouring classes, as well as the in- crease of the means of subsistence, it may be desirable to trace more particularly the mode in which inci easing wealth operates, and to state both the disadvantages as well as the advantages with which it is accompanied. In the natural and regular progress of a country to a state of great wealth and population, there are two dis- advantages to which the lower classes of society seem necessarily to be subjected. The first is, a diminished power of supporting children under the existing habits of the society with respect to the necessaries of life. And the second — the employment of a larger proportion of the population in occupations less favorable to health, and more exposed to fluctuations of demand and unsteadiness of wages. A diminished power of supporting children is an ab- solutely unavoidable consequence of the progress of a country towards the utmost limits of its population. If we allow that the power of a given quantity of territory Chap. XIIl. POPULATIO?^ J 57 affects the Condition of the Poor. to produce food has some limit, we must allow that as this limit is approached, and the increase of population becomes slower and slower, the power of supporting children will be less and less, till finally, when the in- crease of produce stops, it becomes only sufficient to maintain, on an average, families of such a size as will not allow of a further addition of numbers. This state of things is generally accompanied by a fall in the corn price of labour; but should this effect be prevented by the prevalence of prudential habits among the lower clas- ses of society, still the result just described must take place; and though from the powerful operation of the preventive check to increase, the wages of labour esti- mated even in corn might not be low, yet it is obvious that in this case the power of supporting children would rather be nominal than real ; and the moment this power began to be exercised to its apparent extent, it would cease to exist. The second disadvantage to which the lower classes of society are subjected in the progressive increase of wealth is, that a larger portion of them is engaged in un- healthy occupations, and in employments in which the wages of labour are exposed to much greater fluctuations than in agriculture and the simpler kinds of domestic trade. On the state of the poor employed in manufactories with respect to health, and the fluctuations of wages, I will beg leave to quote a passage from Dr. Aikin's De- scription of the Country round Manchester : — " The invention and improvements of machines tp 158 ESSAY ON Book HI Of increasing Wealth, as it " shorten the labour have had a surprising influence to " extend our trade, and also to call in hands from all parts " particularly children for the cotton mills. It is the wise " plan of providence, that in this life there shall be no " £:ood without its attendant inconvenience. There are " M?nr which are too obvious in these cotton mills, at d " ;:'ir V victory to government over every proposition for teforoi, whether violent or moderate, but they have fur- nished the most fatal instruments of offensive attack a- gamst the constiution itself. They are naturally calculat- ed to excite some alarm, and to check moderate reform ; bu alarm, when once excited, seldoms knows where to stop, and the causes of it are particularly liable to be ex- aggerated. There is reason to believe that it has been un- der the influence of exaggerated statements, and of infer- ences drawn by exaggerated fears from these statements that acts unfavourable to liberty have been passed without an adequate necessity. But the power of creating these ex- agjirerated fears, and of passina: these acts has been un- questionably furnished by the extravagant expectations of the ipoi)le. And it must be allowed that the present times iurnish a very striking illustration of the doc- rine that an ignorance of the principal cause of pover- Chap. VI. POPULATION. 183 Principal cause of Poverty, &c. ty is peculiarly unfavourable, and that a knowledge of it must be peculiarly favourable, to the cause of civil liberty. CHAPTER XII * [To follow Page 387. Vol. 2nd, London Edition 1807. And Page Vol. 2d. American Edition, 1809.] Different Plans of improving the Condition of the poor considered (continued.) The increasing portion of the society which has of late years become either wholly or partially dependent upon parish assistance, together with the increasing burden of the poor's rates on the landed property, has for some time been working a gradual change in the public opinion respecting the benefits resulting to the labouring classes of society, and to society in general, from a legal provision for the poor. But the distress which has followed the peace of 1814, and the great and sudden pressure which it has occasioned on the parish rates, have accelerated this change in a very marked manner. More just and en- lightened views on the subject are daily gaining ground ; the difficulties attending a legal provision for the poor are better understood, and more generally acknowledged ; and opinions are now seen in print and heard in conversa- tion, which twenty years ago would almost have been considered as treason to the interests of the state. Written in 1817. Chap. XII POPULATION. 185 Condition of the Poor, considered This change of public opinion, stimulated by the se- vere pressure of the moment, has directed an unusual portion of attention to the subject of the poor-laws ; aud as it is acknowledged that the present system has essen- tially failed, various plans have been proposed either as substitutes or improvements. It may be usetul to inquire shortly how far the plans which have already been pub- lished are calculated to accomplish the ends which they propose. It is generally thought that some measure of importance will be the result of the present state of pub- lic opinion. To the permanent success of anv such mea- sure, it is absolutely necessary that it should ap-ply itself in some degree to the real source of the difficul- ty. Yet there is reason to fear, that notwithstanding the present improved knowledge on the subject, this pomt may be too much overlooked. Among the plans which appear to have excited a con- siderable degree of the public attention, is one of Mr. Owen. I have already adverted to some views of Mr. Owen in a chapter on Systems of Equality, and spoke of his experience with the respect which is justly due to it. If the question were merely how to accommodate, sup- port and train, in the best manner, societies of 1 200 peo- ple, there are perhaps few persons more entitled to atten- tion than Mr, Owen . but in the plan which he has pro- posed he seems totally to have overlooked the nature of the problem to be solved. This problem is, Hov) to pro- vide for those wlio are in xoant^ in such a manner as to prevent a continual increase of their numbers^ and oj the proportion which they bear to the whole society. And it 186 ESSAY ON Book IV Different Plans of improving the must be allowed that Mr. Owen's plan not only does not make the slightest approach towards accomplishing this object, but seems to be peculiarly calculated to ef- fect an object exactly the reverse of it that is, to increase and multiply the number of paupers. If the establishments which he recommends could really be conducted according to his apparent intentions, the order of nature and the lessons of providence would in- deed be in the most marked manner reversed ; and the idle and profligate would be placed in a situation which might justly be the envy of the industrious and virtuous. The labourer or manufacturer who is now ill lodged and ill clothed, and obliged to work twelve hours a day to maintain his family, could have no motive to continue his exertions, if the reward for slackening them, and seeking parish assistance, was good lodging, good clothing, the maintenance and education of all his children, and the exchange of twelve hours hard work in an unwholesome manufactory for four or five hours of easy agricultural labour on a pleasant farm. Under these temptations, the numbers yearly falling into the new establishments from the labouring and manufacturing classes, together with the rapid increase by procreation of the societies themselves, would very soon render the first purchases of land utter- ly incompetent to their support. More land must fhen be purchased, and fresh settlements made; and if the higher classes of society were bound to proceed in the system according to its apparent spirit and intention, there cannot be a doubt that the whole nation would shortly become a nation of paupers with a community of goods. Chap. Xll. POPULATION. IS*: Condition of the Poor, considered. Such a result might not perhaps be alarming to Mr. Owen. It is just possible indeed that he may have had this result in contemplation when he proposed his plan, and have^thought that it was the best mode of quietly introduc- ing hat community of goods which he believes is ne- cessary to complete the virtue and happiness of society. But to those who totally dissent from him as to the effects to be expected from a community of goods; to those who are convinced that even his favourite doctrine, tiiat a man can be trained to produce more than he consumes, which is no doubt true at present, may easily cease to be true, when cultivation is pushed beyond the bounds prescribed to it by private property ;* the approaches towards a sys- tem of this kind, will be considered as approaches to- wards a system of universal indolence, poverty and wretchedness Upon the supposition then, that Mr, Owen's plan could be effectively executed, and that the various pauper soci- eties scattered over the country could at first be made to realize his most sanguine wishes, such might be expect- ed to be their termination m a moderately short time, from the natural and necessary action of the principle of po}julation. But it is probable that the other grand objection to all systems of common property would even at the very- outset confound the experience of Mr. Owen, and destroy the happiness to which he looks forward. In the socie- ty at the Lanerk Mills, two powerful stimulants to indus- "See O.' X. "b. iii. p. IRfi. 188 "' ESSAY ON Book.lK^ Different Plans of improving the try and good conduct are in action, which would be to- tally wanting in the societies proposed. At Lanerk, the whole of every man's earnings is his own; and his pow- er of mamtaining himself, his wife and children, in de- cency and comfort, will be in exact proportion to his in- dustry, sobriety and economy. At Lanerk, also, if any workman be perseveringly indolent and negligent, if he get drunk and spoil his work, or if in any way he con- duct himself essentially ill, he not only naturally suffers by the diminution of his earnings, but may at any time be turned off, and the society be relieved from the influence and example of a profligate and dangerous member. Oh the other hand, in the pauper establishments proposed in the present plan, the industry, sobriety and good conduct ot each individual, would be very feebly indeed connect- ed with his power of maintaining himself and family comfortably ; and in the case of persevering idleness and misconduct, instead of the simple and effective remedy of dismission, recourse must be had to a system of direct punishment of some kind or other, determined, and en- forced by authority, which is always painful and distress- ing, and generally inefficient. I confess it appears to me that. the most successful ex- perience, in such an establishment as that of Lanerk, fur- nishes no ground whatever to say what could be done to- wards the improvement of society in an establishment where the produce of all the labour employed would go to a common stock, and dismissal from the very nature and object of the institution, would be impossible. If Under such disadvantages the proper management of these Ckap. XII. POPULATION. 18^ Condition of the Poor, considered. establishments were within the limits of possibility, what judgment, what firmness, what patience, would be requir- ed for the purpose ! Bat where are such qualities to be found in sufficient abundance to manage one or two mil- lions of people ? On the whole then it may be concluded, that Mr. Owen's plan would have to encounter obstacles that real- ly appear to be insuperable, even at its first outset; and that if these could by any possible means be overcome, and the most complete success attained, the system would, without some most unnatural and unjust laws to prevent the progress of population, lead to a state of universal poverty and distress, in which, though all the rich might be made poor, none of the poor could be made rich, not even so rich as a common labourer at present. The plan for bettering the condition of the labouring classes of the community, published by Mr. Curwen, is professedly a slight sketch ; but principles, not details, are what it is our present object to consider ; and the principles on which he would proceed are declared with sufficient distinctness, when he states the great objects of his design to be, 1. Meliorating the Resent wretched condition of the lower orders of the peoplfe. ^. Equalizing by a new tax the present poor's rates, which must be raised for their relief. 3, And givmg to all those who may think proper to place themselves under its protection, a voice in the lo- cal management and distribution of the fund destined for their support. Z 190 ' ESSAY ON Book IV DiiFerent plans of improving the The first proposition is, of course, or ought to be, the object of every plan proposed. And the two last may be considered as the modes by which it is intended to ac- complish it. But it is obvious that these two propositions though they may be both desirable on other accounts, not only do not really touch, but do not even propose to touch the great problem. We wish to check the increase and diminish the proportion of paupers, in order to give greater wealth, happiness and independence to the mass of the labouring classes. But the equalization of the poor's rates, simply considered, would have a very strong tendency to increase rather than to diminish the number of the dependent poor. At p e ent the parochial rates fall so very heavily upon one particular species of property, that the persons, whose business it is to allow them, have in general a very strong interest indeed to keep them low ; but if they fell equally on all sorts of property, and particularly if they were collected from large districts, or from counties, the local distributors would have comparatively but very feeble motives to reduce them, and they might be expec- ted to increase with great rapidity. It may be readily allowed, however, that the peculiar weight with which the poor's rates press upon land is essentially unfair. It is particularly hard upon some country parishes, where the births greatly exceed the deaths owing to the constant emigrations which are taking place to towns and manufactories, that under any circum- sta ices, a great portion of these emigrants should be re- turned upon them, when old, disabled, or out of workv Ckap.Xn. POPULATION. v 191 Condition of the Poor, considered. Such parishes may be totally without the power of fur- nishing either work or support for all the persons born within their precincts. In fact, the same number would not have been born in them, unless these emigrations had taken place. And it is certainly hard therefore that par- ishes so circumstanced should be obliged to receive and maintain all who may return to them in distress. Yet in the present state of the country, the most pressing evil is not the weight upon the land, but the increasing pro- portion of paupers. And, as the equilization of the rates would certainly have a tendency to increase this propor- tion, I should be sorry to see such a measure introduced even if it were easily practicable, unless accompanied by some very strong and decisive limitations to the continu- ed increase of the rates so equalized. The other proposition of Mr. Curwen will in like man- ner, be found to afford no security against the increase of pauperism. We know perfectly well that the funds of the friendly societies, as they are at present constituted, though managed by the contributors themselves, are sel- dom distributed with the economy necessary to their per- manent efficiency; and in the national societies proposed, as a (considerable part of the fund would be derived from the poor's rates, there is certainly reason to expect that every question which could be influenced by the contributors would be determined on principles still more •indulgent and less economical. On this account it may well be doubted, whether it would ever be advisable to mix any public money, deriv- |ed from assessments, with the subscriptions of the labour- 192 ESSAY ON Book. IK Different plans of improving the ing classes. The probahle result would be that in the case of any failure in the funds of such societies, arising from erroneous calculations and too liberal allowances, it would be expected that the whole of the deficiency should be made up by the assessments. And any rules which might have been made to limit the amount applied in this way would probably be but a feeble barrier against claims founded on a plan brought forward by the higher classes of society. Another strong objection to this sort of union of paro- chial and private contributions is, that from the first the ' members of such societies could not justl}'^ feel them- selves independent. If one half or one third of the funds were to be subscribed from the parish, they would stand upon a very different footing from the members of the present benefit-clubs. While so considerable a part of the allowances to which they might be entitled in sickness or in age would really come from the poor's rates, they would be apt to consider the plan as what, in many respects, it really would be, — only a different mode of raising the rates. If the system were to become general, the contri- butions of the labouring classes would have nearly the effects of a tax on labour, and such a tax has been gene- erally considered as more unfavourable to industry and production than most other taxes. The best part of Mr. Curwen's plan is that which pro- poses to give a credit to each contributor, in proportion to the amount of his contributions, and to make his allow- ances in sickness, and his annuity in old age, dependent upon this amonnt ; but this object could easily be accom* Chap. XU. POPULATION. 193 -^ ■ — — — y Condition of the Poor, considered. plished without'the objectionable accompaniments. It is also very properly observed, that " want of employment " must furnish no claims on the society; for if this " excuse were to be admitted, it would most proba- " bly be attended with the most pernicious consequen- " ces." Yet it is at the same time rather rashly intima- ed, that employment must be found for all who are able to work; and, in another place, it is observed, that time- ly assistance would be afforded by these societies, with- out degradation, on all temporary occasions of suspended labour On the whole, vvlien it is considered that a large and probably increasing amount of poor's rates would be sub- scribed to these societies; that on this account their mem- bers could hardly be considered as independent of parish assistance ; and that the usual poor's rates would still re- main to be applied as they are now, without any propos- ed limitations, there is little hope that Mr. Curwen's plan would be successful in diminishing -the whole amount of the rates and the proportion of dependent poor. There are two errors respecting the management of the poor, into which the public seem inclined to fall at the present moment. The first is a disposition to attach too much importance to the effects of subscriptions from the poor themselves, without sufficient attention to the mode in which they are distributed. But the mode of distribution is much the more important point of the two ; and if this be radically bad, it is of little consequence in what man^ ner th^ subscriptions are raised, whether from the poor themselves or from any other quarter. If the labouring 194 ESSAt ON Book. IV. Different plans of improving' the classes were universally to contribute what might at first appear a very ample proportion of their earnings, for their own support in sickness and in old age, when out of work, and when the family consisted of more than two children ; it is quite certain that the funds would become deficient. Such a mode of distribution implies a power of supporting a rapidly increasing and unlimited popula- tion on a limited territory, and must therefore terminate in aggravated poverty. Our present friendly societies or benefit-clubs aim at only limited objects which are suscep- tible of calculation ; yet many have failed, and many more it is understood are likely to fail from the insufficiency of their funds. If any society were to attempt to give much more extensive assistance to its members ; if it were to endeavour to imitate what is partially effected by the poor-laws, or to accomplish those objects which Condor- cet thought were within the power of proper calculations, the failure of its funds, however large at first, and from whatever sources derived, would be absolutely inevitable. In short it cannot be too often or too strongly impressed Opon the public, especially when any question for the im- provement of the condition of the poor is in agitation, that no application of knowledge and ingenuity to this subject, no efforts either of the poor or of the rich, or both in the form of contributions, or in any other way, can possibly place the labouring classes *of society in such a state as to enable them to marry generally at the same age in an old and fully peopled country as they may do with perfect safety and advantage in a new one. The other error towards which the public seems to Hi- €hap,XIL POPULATION 195 Condition of the Poor, considered. cline at present is that of laying too much stress upon the employment of the poor. It seems to be thought that one of the principal causes ol the failure of our present system is the not having properly executed that part of the 43d of Elizabeth which enjoins the purchase of materials to set the poor to work. It is certainly desirable, on many ac- counts to employ the poor when it is practicable, though it will always be extremely difficult to make people work ac tively who are without the usual and most natural motives to such exertions ; and a system of coercion involves the necessity of placing great power in the hands of persons very likely to abuse it. Still however it is probable that the poor might be employed more than tliey have hither- to been in a way to be advantageous to their habits and morals, without being prejudicial in other respects. But we should fall into the grossest error if we were to im- agine that any essential part of the evils of the poor-laws, or of the difficulties under which we are at present la- bouring, has arisen, from not employing the poor; or if we were to suppose that any possible scheme for giving work to all who are out of employment can ever in any degree apply to the source of these evils and difficulties, so as to prevent their recurrence. In no conceiva- able case can be forced employment of the poor, though managed in the most judicious manner have any direct tendency to proportion more accurately the supply of la- bour to the natural demand for it. And without great care and caution it is obvious that it may have a pernicious ef- fect of an opposite kind. When for instance, from defi- cient demand or deficient capital, labour has a strong ten- 196 ESSAY ON Book IV. Different plans of improving the dency to fall, if we keep it up to its usual price by creat- ing an artificial demand by public subscriptions or advan- ces from the government, we evidently prevent the popu- lation of the country from adjusting itself gradually to its diminished resources, and act much in the same manner as those, who would prevent the price of corn from ris- ing in a scarcity, which must necetrsarily j|terminate in in- creased distress. ' Without then meaning to object to all plans for employ ing the poor, some of which, at certain times and with proper restrictions, may be useful as temporary measures, it is of great importance, in order to prevent ineffectual efforts and continued disappointments, to be fully aware that the permanent remedy which we are seeking cannot possibly come from this quarter. It may indeed be affirmed with the most perfect confi- dence that there is only one class of causes from which any approaches towards a remedy can be rationally expect ed ; and that consists of whatever has a tendency to in- crease the prudence and foresight of the labouring clas- ses. This is the touchstone to which every plan pro- posed for the improvement of the condition of the poor should be applied. If the plan be such as to co- operate with the lessons of Nature and Providence, and to encourage and promote habits /of prudence and fore- sight, essential and permanent benefit may be expected from it : if it has no tendency of this kind, it may possi- bly still be good as a temporary metisure, and on other ^recounts, but we may be quite certain that it does not ap- Chap. Xll. POPULATION. 191 Condition of the Poor, considered. ply to the source of the specific evil for which we are seeking a remedy. Of all the plans which have yet been proposed for the assistance of the labouring classes, the saving -banks, as far as they go, appear to be much the best, and the most likely, if they should become general, to effect a perma- nent improvement in the condition of the lower classes of society. By giving to each individual the full and entire benefit of his own industry and prudence, they are cal- culated greatly to strengthen the lessons of Nature and Providence ; and a young man, who had been saving from fourteen or fifteen with a view to marriage at four or five and twenty, or perhaps much earlier, would probably be induced to wait two or three years longer if the times were unfavorable ; if corn were high ; if wages were low ; or if the sum he had saved had been found by ex- perience not to be sufficient to furnish a tolerable securi- ty against want. A habit of saving a portion of present earnings for future contingencies can scarcely be suppos- ed to exist without general habits of prudence and fore- sight; and if the opportunity furnished by provident banks to individuals, of reaping the full benefit of saving, should render the practice general, it might rationally be expected that, under the varying resources of the coun- try, the population would be adjusted to the actual de- mand for labour, at the expense of less pain and less po- verty; and the remedy thus appears, so far as it goes, to apply to the very root of the evil. The great object of saving-banks, however, is to pre- vent want and dependence by enabling the poor to pro- Aa 198 ESSAY ON J^ook. IK Different plans of improving the vide against contingencies themselves. And in a natural state of society, such institutions, with the aid of pri', aie charity well directed, would probably be all the means necessary to produce the best practicable effects. In tlie present state of things in this country the case is essen- tially different. With so very large a body of poor, ha- bitually dependent upon public funds, the in&titutiony of saving-banks cannot be considered in the light of substi- tutes for the poor's rates. The problem how to support those who are in want in such a manner as not continually to increase the proportion which they bear to the whole society will still remain to be solved. But if any plan should be adopted either of gradually abolishing or gradually re- ducing and fixing the amount of the poor's rates, saving- banks would essentially assist it, at the same time that they would receive a most powerful aid in return. In the actual state of things, they have been establish- ed at a pe.iod likely to be particularly unfavorable to them — a period of very general distress, and of the most extensive parochial assistance; and the success which has attended them, even under these disadvantages, seems dearly to shew, that in a period of prosperity and good wages, combined with a prospect of diminished parochial assistance, they might spread very extensively, and have a considerable effect on the general habits of the people. With a view to give them greater encouragement at the present moment, an act has been passed allowing per- sons to receive parish assistance at the discretion of the juslices, although they may have funds of their own un- ^ea: a certain amount in a saving bank. But this is pro* Clutp. XII. POPULATION. 199 Condition of the Poor, considered. bably a short-sighted policy. It is sacrificing the prin- ciple for which saving banks are established, to obtain an advantage which, on this very accoant, will be compa- ratively of little value. We wish to teach the labouring classes to rely more upon their own exertions and resour- ces, as tbe only way of really improving their condition ; yet we reward their saving by making them still depend- ent upon that very species of assistance which it is our object that they should avoid The progress of saving- banks under such a regulation will be but an equivocal and uncertain symptom of good ; whereas without such a regulation every step would tell, every fresh deposition would prove, the growth of a desire to become indepen- dent of parish assistance ; and both the great extension of the friendly societies, and the success of the saving- banks in proportion to the time they have been establish- ed, clearly shew that much progress might be expected in these institutions under favorable circumstance* with- out resorting to a measure which is evidently calculated to sacrifice the end to the means. With regard to the plans which have been talked of for reducing and limiting the poor's rates, they are cer- tainly of a kind to apply to the root of the evil ; but they would be obviously unjust without a formal retraction of the right of the poor to support ; and for many years they would unquestionably be much more harsh in their ope- ration than the plan of abolition which I have ventured to propose in a preceding chapter. At the same time, if it be thought that this country cannot entirely get rid of a system which has been so long interwoven in its frame. 20a ESSAY ON POPULATION Book. IV. Different plans of improving the Condition, &c. a limitation of the amount of the poor's rates, or rather of their proportion to the wealth and population of the country, which would be more rational and just, accom- panied with a very full and fair notice of the nature of the change to be made, might be productive of essential benefit, and do much towards improving the habits and happiness of the poor. APPENDIX. 1817. Since the publication of the last edition of this Essay in 1807, two Works have appeared, the avowed objects of which are directly to oppose its principles and conclusi- ons. These are the Principles of Population and Produc- tion by Mr. Wayland : and an Inquiry into tlie Principle of Population^ by Mr. James Grahame. I would willingly leave the question as it at present stands to the judgment of the public, without any attempt on my part to influence it further by a more particular reply ; but as I professed my readiness to enter into the discussion of any serious objections to my principles and conclusions, which were brought forward in a spirit of candour and truth ; and as one at least of the publica- tious above mentioned may be so characterized, and the other is by no means deficient in personal respect ; I am induced shortly to notice them. I should not however have thought it necessary to ar?- vert to Mr. Grahame's publication, which is a slight work without any very distinct object in view, if it did not af- ford some strange specimens of misrepresentation, which it may be useful to point out. Mr. Grahnme in his second chapter, speaking of the tendency exhibited by the law of human increase to a re- dundance of population, observes, that some pliilosophers 202 APPENDIX. have considered this tendency as a mark of the foresight of nature, which has thus provided a ready supply for the waste of life occasioned by human vices and pas- sions, while " others, of whom Mr, Malthus is the lea- " der, regard the vices and follies of human nature, and " their various products, famine disease and war, as be- " nevolent remedies by which nature has enabled human " beings to correct the disorders that would arise from " that redundance of population which the unrestrained " operation of her laws would create."* These are the opinions imputed to me and the philoso- phers with whom I am associated. If the imputation were just, we have certainly on many accounts great rea- son to be ashamed of ourselves. For what are we made to say ? In the first place, we are stated to assert that/a- mine is a benevolent remedy for want of food^ as redun- dance of population admits of no other interpretation than that of a people ill supplied with the means of sub- sistence, and consequently the benevolent remedy of fa- mine here noticed can only apply to the disorders arising from scarcity of food. Secondly ; we are said to affirm that nature enables human beings by means of diseases to correct the disorders that would arise from a redundance of popula- tion; — that is, that mankind willingly and purposely create diseases, with a view to prevent those diseases which are the necessary consequence of a redundant population, and are not worse or more mortal than the means of preven- tion. And thirdly, it is imputed to us generally, that we con- sider the vices and follies of mankind as benevolent reme- *Pas:e. 100. APPENDIX. 203 dies for the disorders arising from a redundant population; and it follows as a matter of course that these vices ought to be encouraged rather than reprobated. It would not be easy to compress in so small a coinpass ft greater quantity of absurdity, inconsistency, and un- founded assertion. The two first imputations may perhaps be peculiar to Mr. Grahame; and protection from them may be found in their gross absurdity and inconsistency. With regard to the third, it must be allowed that it has not the merit of novelty. Although it is scarcely less absurd than the two others, and has been shewn to be an opinion no where to be found in the Essay, nor legitimately to be in- ferred from any part of it, it has been continually repeat- ed in various quarters for fourteen years, and now appears in the pages of Mr. Grahame. For the last time I will now notice it; and should it still continue to be brought forward, I think I may be fairly excused from paying the slightest further attention either to the imputa- tion itself, or to those who advance it. If I had merely stated that the tendency of the human race to increase faster than the means of subsistence, was kept to a level with these means by some or other of 4,he forms of vice and misery, and that these evils were absolutely unavoidable, and incapable of being diminished byjany human efforts; still I could not with any semblance of justice be accused of considering vice and misery as the remedies of these evils, instead of the very evils them- selves As well nearly might I be open to Mr. Gra- hame's imputations of considering the famme and disease necessarily arising from a scarcity of food as a benevo- lent remedy for the evils which this scarcity occasions. But I have not so stated the proposition. I have not ^04 APPENDIX, considered the evils of vice and misery arising from a redundant population as unavoidable, and incapable of be ing^diminished. On the contrary I have pointed out a mode by which these evils may be removed or mitigated by re- moving or mitigating their cause. I have endeavoured to shew that this may be done consistently with human vir- tue and happiness, I have never considered any possible increase of population as an evil, except as far as it might increase the proportion of vice and misery. Vice and mis- ery, and these alone, are the evils wJ»ich it has been my great object to contend against, I have expressly pro- posed moral restraint as their rational and proper remedy and whether the remedy be good or bad, inadequate or inad- equate, the proposal itself, and the stress which [ have laid upon it, is an incontrovertible proof that I never can have considered vice and misery as themselves remedies. But not only does the general tenour of my work, and the specific object of the latter pan of it, clearly shew that I do no consider vice and misery as remedies ; but particular passages in various parts of it are so distinct on the subject, as not to admit of being misunderstood but by the most perverse blindness. It is therefore quite inconceivable that any writer with the slightest pretension to respectability should venture to bring forward such imputations ; and it must be allow- ed to shew either such a degree of ignorance, or su<,rh a total want of candoi^r, as utterly; to disqualify him for the discussion of such subjects. But Mr. Grahame's misrepresentations are not confined to the passage above referred to. In his Introduction he observes that, in order to check a redundant population, the evils of which I consider as much nearer than Mr. Wallacej I '<• recommend immediate recourse to human APPENDIX. 505 eftbrts, to the restraints prescribed by Condorcet, for the correction or mitigation of the evil."* This is an assert io» entircl}' without foundation. 1 hav^e never adverted to the clieck suggested by Condorcet without the most mark- ed disapprobation. Indeed I sl>ould always particularly reprobate any artificial and unnatural modes of checkin«»- ))Opulation, both on account of their immorality and their tendency to remove a necessary stimulus to industry. If it were possible for each married couple to limit by a wish the mumber of their-childrcn, there is certainly reason to fear that the indolence of the human race would be very greatly increased ; and that neither the population of in- dividual countries, nor of the whole earth, would exet leach its natural and proper extent. But the restraints whicli 1 have recommended are quite of a different char- acter. They are not only ]iointed out by reason and sanc- tioned by religion, but tend in the most marked manner to stimulate industry. It is not easy to conceive a more powerful encouragement to exertion and good conduct than the looking lorward to marriage as a state peculiarly desirable ; but only to be enjoyed in comfort, by the ac- quisition of habits of industry, economy and prudence. And it is in this light that I have always wished to place it.t In speaking of the poor-laAvs in this country, and of their tendency (particularly as they have been lately ad- ministered) to eradicate jail remaining spirit of indepen- dence among our peasantry, I observed that, "hard as it " may appear in individual instances, dependent poverty *P. IS. t See vol. ii., p. 241, of 4th. edit; p. 493 of the qaarto edit.; and yol. ii., p 241, edition of 1807. Eb 206 APPENDIX. " ought to be held dsigraceful ;" by which of course f only riiean that such a proper degree of pride as will induce a labouring man to make great exertions, as in Scotland, in order to prevent himself or his nearest rt la- tions from falhng upon the parish, is very desirable, with a view to the happiness of the lower classes of society. The interpretation which Mr. Grahame gives to this pas- sage is, that the rich " are so to imbitter the pressure of " indigence by the stings of contumely, that men may be '^ driven by their pride to prefer even the refuge of des- " pair to the condition of dependence ! ! "* — a curious specimen of misrepresentation and exaggeration. I have written a chapter expressly on the practical di- rection of our charity ; and in detached passages else- where have paid a just tribute to the exalted virtue of be- nevolence. To those who have read these parts of my work, and have attended to the general tone and spirit of the whole, I willingly appeal, if they are but tolera- bly candid, against these charges of Mr. Grahame, which intimate that I would root out the virtues of charity and benevolence, vvithout regard to the exaltation which they bestow on the moral dignity of our nature ; and that in my view the " rich are required only to harden their hearts against calamity, and to prevent the charitable Visitings of their nature from keeping alive in them that virtue which is often the only moral link between them and their fellow-mortals, "t It is not easy to suppose that Mr. Grahame can have read the chapter to which I al- lude, as both the letter and spirit of it contradict, in the most express and remarkable manner, the imputations conveyed in the above passages. ' ' ■- *P. 236 llbiiJ APPENDIX. 201 These are a iew specimens of Mr. Grahame's misre- presentations, which might easily be multiplied; but on this subject I will only further remark that it shews no inconsiderable want of candour to continue attacking and dwelling upon passages^ which have ceased to form a part of the work controverted. And this Mr. Grahame has done in more instances than one, although he could hardy fail to know that he was combating expressions and passages which I have seen reason to alter or ex- puiige. I really should not have thought it worth Avhile to no- tice these misrepresentations o( Mr. Grahame, if in spite of them, the style and tone of kis publication had not ap- peared to me to be entitled to more respect than most of my opponents. With regard to the substance and aim of Mr. Grahame's work, it seems to be intended to shew that emigration is the remedy provided by nature for a redundant population; and that if this remedy cannot be adequately applied, there is no other that can be proposed which will not lead to consequences worse than the evil itself. These are two points which I have considered at length in the Essay and it cannot be necessary to repeat any of the arguments here. Emigration if it could be freely used, has been shewn to be a resource, which could not be of long duration. It cannot therefore under any circumstances be consider- ed as an adequate remedy. The latter position is a matter of opinion, and may rationally be held by any person who sees reason to think it well founded. It ap- pears to me, I confess, that experience most decidedly contradicts it ; but to those who think otherwise, there is nothing more to be said, than that they are bound in con- sistency to acquiesce in the necessary consequences of their opinion. These consequences are, that the peverty 208 APPENDIX and wretchedness arising from a redundant population, or, in other words, from very low wages and want of em- ployment, are absolutely irremediable, and must be con- tinually increasing as the population of the earth proceeds; and that all the efforts of legislative wisdom and private charity, though they may afford a wholesome and benefi- cial exercise of human virtue and may occasionally alter the distribution and vary the pressure of human misery can do absolutely nothing towards diminishing the general amount or checking the increasing weight of this pres- sure. Mr. Weyland's work is of a much more^elaborate descrip iion than that of Mr. Grahame. It has also a very difinite object in view : and although, when he enters into the de- tails of his subject, he is compelled entirely to agree with me respecting the checks which practically keep down population to the level of the means of subsistence, and has not in fact given a single reason for the slow progress of population, in the advanced stages of society, that does not clearly and incontrovertibly come under the heads of moral restraint, vice or misery ; yet it must be allowed that he sets out with a bold and distinct denial of my pre- mises, aiid finishes, as he ought to do from such a be- ginning, by drawing the most opposite conclusions. After stating fairly my main propositions and adverting to the conclusion which I have drawn from them, Mr. Weyland says, " Granting the premises, it is indeed ob- ** vious thai this conclusion is undeniable."* I desire no other concession than this ; and if my pre- mises can be shewn to rest on unsolid foundations, I will •Principles of Population and Production, p. IJ. APPENDIX. iOQ most readily give up the inferences I have drawn from them. To determine the point here at issue it cannot be neces- sary for me to repeat the proofs of these premises de- rived botli from theory and experience, which have al- ready so fully been brought forward. It has been allowed that they have been stated with tolerable clearness; and it is known that many persons have considered them as unas- sailable, who still refuse to admit the consequences to which they appeal^ to lead. All that can be required therefore on the present occasion is to examine the vali- dity of the objections to these premises brought forward by Mr. Weyland. Mr. Weyland observes, " that the origin of what are " conceived to be the mistakes and false reasonings, " with respect to the pnnciple of population, appears " to be the assumption of a tendency to increase in the " human species, the quickest that can be proved possible " in any particular state of society, as that which is na- " tural and theoretically possible in all; and the charac- " terizing of every cause which tends to prevent such '' quickest possible rate as checks to the natural and spon- " taneous tendency of population to increase ; but as " checks evidently insufficient to stem the progress of an " overwhelming torrent. This seems as eligible a mode " of reasoning, as if one were to assume the height of the " Irish giant as the natural standard of the stature of man *' and to call every reason, which may be suggested as •' likely to prevent the generality of men from reaching " it, checks to their growth."* Mr. Weyland has here most unhappily chosen his 11- T. 17, tli APPENDIX. lustratioTi, as it is in no respect applicable to tlie case.—-. In order to illustrate the different rates at which popula- tion increases in different countries, by the different heights of men, the following comparison and inference, would be much more to the purpose. If in a particular country we observed that all the peo- ple had weights of different sizes upon their heads, and that invariably each individual was tall or short in propor- tion to the smallness or greatness of the pressure upon him; that every person was observed to grow when the weight he carried was either removed or diminished, and that the few among the whole people, who were exempt- ed from this burden, were very decidedly taller than the rest; would it not be be quite justifiable to infer, that the weights which the people carried were the cause of their being in general so short ; and that the height of those without weight might fairly be considered as the standard to whicK it might be expected that the great mass would arrive, if their growth were unrestricted ? For what is it in fact, which we really observe with regard to the different rates of increase in different coun- tries ? Do we not see that, in almost every state to which we can direct our attention, the natural tendency to in- crease is repressed by the difficulty which the mass of the people find in procuring an ample portion of the ne- cessaries of life, which shews itself more immediately in some or other of the forms of moral restraint, vice and misery ? Do we not see that invariably the rates of increase are fast or slow, according as the pressure of these checks is light or heavy ; and that in consequencB Spain increases at one rate, France at another, England at a third, Ireland at a fourth, parts of R ussia at a fifth, parts of Spanish America at a sixth, and the United States APPENDIX. «lt of North America at a seventh ? Do we not see that 1 whenever the resources of any country increase, so as to create a great demand for labour and give the lower clas- ses of society a greater command over the necessaries of life, the population of such country, though it might be- fore have been stationary or proceeding very slowly, be- gins immediately to make a start forwards ? And do we not see that in those few countries or districts of coun- tries, where the pressure arising from the difficulty of procuring the necessaries and conveniences of life is al- most entirely removed, and where in consequence the checks to early marriages are very few, and large fami- lies are maintained with perfect facility, the rate at which the population increases is always the greatest? And when to these broad and glaring facts we add, that neither theory nor experience will justify us in be- lieving, either that the passion between the sexes, or the natural prolificness of women, diminishes in the progress of society ; when we further consider that the climate of the United States of America is not particularly healthy, and that the qualities which mainly distinguish it from other countries, are its rapid production and distribution of the means of subsistence; is not the induction as le- gitimate and correct as possible, that the varying weight of the difficulties attending the maintenance of families, and the moral restraint, vice and misery which these dif- ficulties necessarily generate, are the causes of the vary- ing rates of increase observable in different countries ; and that so far from having any reason to consider the American rate of increase as peculiar, unnatural and gi- gantic, we are bound by every law of induction and ana- logy to conclude that there is scarcely a state in Europe where, if the marriages were as early, the meaas o( 212 APPENDIX. maintaining large families as ample, and the employments of the labouring classes as healthy, the rate ^f increase would not be as rapid, and in some cases, I havie no doubt, even more rapid, than in the United States of America? Another of Mr. Weyland's curious illustrations is the following : — He says that the physical teiidency of a peo- ple in a comn^ercial and manufacturing state to double their number in twenty-five years is "as absolutely gone " as the tendency of a bean to shoot up further into the " air after it has arrived at its full growth ;" and that to assume such a tendency is to build a theory upon a mere shadow, "which when brought to the test, is directly at " variance with experience of the fact ; and as unsafe to *' act upon, as would be that of a general who should as- " sume the force of a musket shot to be double its actual " range, and then should calculate uponihe death of all " his enemies as soon as he had drawn up his own men " for battle within this line of assumed efficiency."* Now I am not in the least aware who it is that has as- sumed the actual range of the shot, or the actual progress of population in different countries, as very different from Avhat it is observed to be ; and therefore cannot see how the illustration, as brought forward by Mr. Weyland, applies, or how I can be said to resemble his miscalcula- ting general. What I have really done is this, (if he will allow me the use of his own metaphor) having observed that the range of musket balls, projected from similar barrels and with the same quantity of powder of the same strength, was, under different circumstances, very differ- ent, I applied myself to consider what these circumstan- ces were ; and having found that tlie range of each ball p. 126. APPENDIX. aas was greater or less in proportion to the smaller or greater number of the obstacles which it met with in its course, or the rarity or density of the medium through which it passed* I was led to infer tliat the variety of range observed was owing to these obstacles ; and I consequently thought it a more correct and legitimate conclusion, and one more consonant both to theory and experience, to say that the natural tendency to a range of a certain extent, or the force impressed upon the hall, was always the same, and the actual range, whether long or short, only altered by external resistance ; than to conclude that the different distances to which the balls reach must proceed from some mysterious change in the natural tendency of each bullet at different times, although no observable difference could be noticed either in the barrel or the charge. I leave Mr. Weyland to determine which would be the conclusion of the natural philosopher, who was observ- ing the different velocities and ranges of projectiles pas- sing through resisting media ; and I do not se e why the moral and political philosopher should proceed upon principles so totally opposite. But the only arguments of Mr. Weyland against the natural tendency of the human race to increase faster than the means of subsistence, are a few of these illustrations which he has so unhappily applied, together with the acknowledged fact, that countries under different circum- stances and in different stages of their progress, do really increase at very different rates. Without dwelling therefore longer on such illustrations, it may be observed, with regard to the fact of the differ- ent rates of increase in different countries, that as long as it is a law of our nature that man cannot live without food, these different rates are as absolutely and strictly Cc 2U APPENDIX. s of the country supply the demands of the towns and manufactories. In looking over them, the reader, without other information, would be disposed to ieel coHsiderable alarm at the prospect of depopulation ai6 APPENDIX. impending over the country ; or at least he would be coD" vinced that we were within a hair's breadth of that for- midable point of non-reproduction, at which, according to Mr. Weyland, the population naturally comes to a full stop before the means of subsistence cease to be pro- gressive. These calculations were certainly as applicable twen- ty years ago as they are now ; and indeed they are chief- ly founded on observations which were made at a great- er distance of time than the period here noticed. But what has happened since .'' In spite of the enlargement of all our towns ; in spite of the most rapid increase of manufactories, and of the proportion of people employed in them ; in spite of the most extraordinary and unusual demands for the army and navy ; in short, in spite of a state of things which according to Mr. Weyland's theory, ought to have brought us long since to the point of non- reproduction, the population of the country has advanc- ed at a rate more rapid than was ever known at any peri- od of its history. During the ten years from 1800 to 1811 as I have mentioned in a former part of this work, the population of this country (even after making an allow- ance for the presumed deficiency of the returns in the first enumeration) increased at a rate which would double its number in fifty-five years. This fact appears to me at once a full and complete re- futation of the doctrine, that, as society advances, the in- creased indisposition to marriage and increased mortality in great towns and manufactories always overcome the prin- ciple of increase ; and that in the language of Mr. Wey- land, " population, so far from having an inconvenient " tendency uniformly to press against the means of sub- " sistence becomes by degrees very slow in overtaking^ " those means." APPENDIX. 217 With this acknowledged and glaring fact before him, and with the most striking evidences staring him in the face, that even, during this period of rapid increase, thou- sands both in the country and towns were prevented from marrying so early as they would have done, if they had possessed sufficient means of supporting a family indepen- dently of parish relief, it is quite inconceivable how a man of sense could bewilder himself m such a maze of futile calculations, and come to a conclusion so diametri- cally opposite to experience. The fact already noticed, as it applies to the most ad- vanced stage of society known in Europe, and proves incontrovertibly, that the actual checks to population, even in the most improved countries, arise principally from an insufficiency of subsistenc*", and soon yield to in- creased resources, notwithstanding the increase of towns and manufactories, may I think fairly be considered as quite decisive of the question at issue. But in treating of so general and extensive a subject as the Principle of Population, it would surely not be just to take our examples and illustrations only from a sin- gle state. And in looking at the other countries Mr. Weyland's doctrine on population is if possible, still more completely contradicted. Where, I would ask, are the great towns and manufactories in Switzerland, Norway and Sweden, which are to act as the graves of mankind y and to prevent the possibility of a redundant population ? In Sweden the proportion of the people living in the country is to those who live in town as 13 to 1 ; in En- gland this proportion is ab6ut 2 to 1 ; and yet England increases much faster than Sweden. How is this to be reconciled with the doctrine that the progress of civiliza- iion and improvement is always accompanied by a corres- ms APPENDIX. pondent abatemeet in the natural tendency of population to increase ? Norway Sweden and Switzerland have not on the whole been ill governed ; but where are the neces- sary " anticipating alterations," which according to Mr. Weyland, arise in every society as the powers ot the soil diminish, and " render so many persons miwilling to *^ marry, and so many more, who do marry, incapable of *' reproducing their own numbers, and of replacing ihe " deficiency in the remainder?"* What is it ihat in these countries indisposes people to marry, but the abso- lute hoplessness of being able to support their families • What is it that renders many more who do marry incapa- pable of reproducing their own numbers^ by the diseases generated by excessive poverty — by an insufficient supply of the necessaries of life ? Can any man of reflection look at these and many of the other countries of Europe, and then venture to state that there is no moral reason for re- pressing the inclination to early marriages ; when it can- not be denied that the alternative of not repressing it must necessarily and unavoidably be premature mortality from excessive poverty ? And is it possible to know that in few or none of the countries of Europe the wages of labour, determined in the common way by the supply and demand, can support in health large families ; and yet assert that population does not press against the means of subsistence, and that "the evils of a redundant popula- *'• tion can never be necessarily felt by a country till it is *' actually peopled up to the full capacity of its resour- «' ces?"t Mr. Weyland really appears to have dictated his book with his eyes blindfolded and his ears stopped. I have a •P. 124. tP- 123. APPENDIX. 219 great respect for his character and intentions ; but I must say thai it has never been my fortune to meet with a the«- ory so uniforaily contradicted by experience. The very slightest glance at the difiercnt countries of Europe shews with a force amounting to demonstration, that to all practi- cal purposes the wa^rai tendency of population to increase may be considered as a given quantity ; and that the ac- tual increase is regulated by the varying resources of each country for the employment and maintenance of la^ hour, in whatever stage of its progress it may be, whe- ther it is agricultural or manufacturing, whether it has few or many towns. Of course this actual increase, of the actual limits of population, must always be far short of the utmost powers of the earth to produce food-, first because we never can rationally suppose that the human skill and industry actually exerted are directed in ihe best possible manner towards the production of food; and secondly, because as 1 have stated more particularly in a former part of this work, the greatest production of food which the powers of the earth would admit cannot possi- bly take place under a system of private property. But this acknowledged truth obviously affects only the actual quantity of food and the actual number of people, and has not the most distant relation to the question respect- ing the natural tendency o( population to increase beyond the power of the earth to produce food for it. The observations already made are sufficient to shew that the four main propositions of Mr. Weyland, which de- pend upon the first, are quite unsupported by any appear- ances in the state of human society, as it is known to us in the countries with which we are acquainted. The last of these four propositions is the following : — "This tenden- cy" (meaning the natural tendency of population to keep 220 APPENDIX. within the powers of' the soil to aflford it subsistence) " will have its complete operation so as constantly to " maintain the people in comfort and plenty in propor- " tion as religion, morality, rational liberty and security " of person and property approach the attainment of a *' perfect influence."* In the morality here noticed, moral or prudential re- straint from marriage is not included ; and so understood, I have no hesitation in saying that this proposition appears to me more directly to contradict the observed laws of nature than to assert that Norway might easily grow food for a thousand millions of inhabitants. I trust that I am disposed to attach as much importance to the effects of morality and religion on the happiness of society, even as Mr. Weyland ; but among the moral duties, I certainly include a restraint upon the inclination to an early mar- riage when there is no reasonable prospect of mainte- nance for a family ; and unless this species of virtuous self-denial be included in morality, I am quite at issue with Mr. Weyland ; and so distinctly deny his proposi- tion as to say that no degree of religion and morality, no degree oi rational liberty and security of person and pro- perty, can, under the existing laws of nature, place the lower classes of society in a state of comfort and plen- ty. With regard to Mr. Weyland's fifth and last proposi- tion,t I have already answered it in a note which I have added in the present edition, to the last chapter of the third book,| and will only observe here that an illustra- tion to shew the precedence of population to food, which *C. iii. p. 21. tld. p. 22. {P. 245 et seq. APPENDIX. 221 I believe was first brought forward by an anonymous writer, and appears so to have pleased Mr. Grahame as to induce him to repeat it twice, is one which I would willingly take to prove the very opposite doctrine to (hat which it was meant to support. The apprehension that an increasing population would starve* unless a previous increase of food were procured for it, has been ridiculed by comparing it with the apprehension that in- creasing numbers would be obliged to go naked unless a previous increase of clothes sffould precede their births. Now however well or ill-founded may be our apprehen- sions in the former case, they are certainly quite justifia- ble in the4atter; at least society has always acted as if it thought so. In the course of the next twentv-four hours there will be about 800 children born in England and Wales; and I will venture to say that there are not ten out of the whole number that come at the expected time, for whom cloths are not prepared before their births. It is said to be dangerous to meddle with edged tools which we do not know how to handle ; and it is equally dangerous to meddle with illustrations which we do not know how to apply, and which may^tend to prove exactly the reverse of what we wish. On Mr. Weyland's theory it will not be necessary fur- ther to enlarge. With regard to the practical conclusions which he has drawn from it in our own country, they are such as might be expected from the nature of the premi- ses. If population, instead of having a tendency to pressi against the means of subsistence, becomes by degrees very slow in overtaking them, Mr. Weyland's inference •This I have never said; I have only said that their condition would be deteriorated, which is strictly true. Dr» g22 APPENDIX. that we ought to encourage the increase of the labouring classes by abundant parochial assistence to families, might perhaps be maintainefl. But if his premises be entirely wrong, while his conclusions are still acted upon, the con- sequence must be, that universal system of unnecessary pauperism and dependence which we now so much de-t plore. Already above I ot the population of England and Wales are regularly dependent upon parish relief; and if the system which Mr. Weyland recommends, and which has been so fbnerally adopted in the midland counties, should extend itself over the whole kingdoiii, :there is really no saying to what height the level of pau- perism may rise. While the system of making an allow- ance from the parish for every child above two is confin- ed to the labourers in agriculture, whom Mr. Weyland con- siders as the breeders of the country, it is essentially un- just, as it lowers without compensation the wages of the manufacturer and artificer: and when it shall become just by including the whole of the working classes, what a dreadful picture does it present ! what a scene of equal- ity, indolence, rags and dependence, among one-half or three-fourths of the society ! Under such a system to ex- pect any essential benefit from saving hanks or any other institutions to promote industry and economy is perfectly preposterous, W hen the wages of labour are reduced to the level to which this system tends, there will be nei- ther power nor motive to save. Mr. Weyland strangely attributes much of the wealth and prosperity of England to the cheap population which it raises by means of the poor-laws ; and seems to think that, if labour had been allowed to settle at its natural rate, and all workmen had been paid in proportion to their skill and industry, whether with or without families. APPENDIX. 9,2a we slioukl never have attained that commercial and man- ufacturing ascendency by which we have been so emi- nently distinguished. A practical refutation of so ill-founded an opinion may be seen ia the state of Scotland, which in prop4)rtion to its naiuial resources has certainly increased in agriculture manufactures and commerce, during the last fifty years, still more rapidly than England although it may fairly be said to have been essentially without poor-laws. It is not easy to determine what is the price of labour most favourable to the progress of wealth. It is certain- ly conceivable that it mny be too high for tlie prosperity of foreign commerce. But I believe it is much more frequently too low, and I doubt if there has ever been an instance in any country of very great prosperity in foreign commerce, where the working classes have not had good money wages. It is impossible to sell very largely with- out being able to buy very largely ; and no country can buy very largely in which the working classes are not in such a state as to be able to purchase foreign commo- dities. But nothing tends to place the lower classes of society in this state so much as a demand for labour which is al- lowed to take its natural course, and which therefore pays the unmarried man and the man with a family at the same rate ; and consequently gives at once to a very large mass of the working classes the power of purchasing foreign articles of consumption, and of paying taxes on luxuries to no inconsiderable extent. While, on the other band, nothing would tend so effectually to destroy the power of the working classes of society to purchase either home manufactures or foreign articles of consumption, or to pay taxes on luxuries^ as the practice of doling out to m.4: APPENDIX. each member of a family an allowance, m the shape of wages and parish relief combined, just sufficient, or only a very little more than to furnish them with the merp food necessary for their maintenance. To shew that in looking forward to such an increas- ed operation of prudential restraint as would greatly improve the condition of the poor, it is not necessary to suppose extravagant and impossible wages as Mr. Weyland seems to think, I will refer to the proposition of a practical man on the subject of the price of labour; and certainly much would bfe done, if this proposition could be realized, though it must be effected in a very different way from that which he has proposed. It has been recommended by Mr. Arthur Young so to adjust the wages of day-labour as to make them at all times equivalent to the purchase of a peck of wheat. This quantity, he says, was earned by country labourers during a considerable period of the last century, when the poor-rates were low, and not granted to assist in the maintenance of those who were able to work. And he goes on to observe that, "as the labourer would (in this case) receive 70 bushels of wheat for 47 weeks' labour, exclusive of five weeks of harvest: and as a family of^six person t on^umes in a year no more than 48 bushels ; it is clear that such wages of labour would cut off" every pre- tence of parochial assistance; and of necessity the conclu- sion would follow, that all right to it in men thus paid should be annihilated for ever."* An adjustment of this kind, either enforced by law or used as a guide in the distribution of parish assistance *Annals of Agriculture, No. 270, p. 91, not^ APPENDIX. 2*25 as' suggested by Mr. Young, would be open to insuper- able objections. At particular times it might be the means of converting a dearth into a famine. And in its general operation, and supposing no change of habits among the labouring classes, it vvoul'd be tantamount to saying that, under all circumstances, whether the affairs of the country were prosperous or adverse; whether its resources in iand were still great, or nearly exhaust- ed; the population ought to increase exactly at the same rate, — a conclusion which involves an impossibility. If however this adjustment instead of being enforced by law, were produced by the increasing operation of the prudential check to marriage, the effect would be to- tally different, and in the highest degree beneficial to so- ciety. A gradual change in the habits of the labouring classes would then effect the necessary retardation in the rate of increase, and would proportion the supply of la- bour to the effective demand, as society continued to ad- vance, not only without the pressure of a diminishing quantity of food, but under the enjoyment of an increas- ed quantity of conveniences and comforts ; and in the progress of cultivation and wealth the condition of the lower classes of society would be in a state of constant improvement. A peck of wheat a day cannot be considered in any light as excessive wages. In the early periods of cultiva- tion, indeed when corn is low in exchangeable value, much more is frequently earned ; but in such a country as England, where the price of corn, compared with manufactures and foreign commodities, is high, it would do much towards placing the great mass of the labour* ing classes in a state of comparative comfort and inde- pendence ; and it would be extremely desirable, with a. 226 APPENDIX view to tlie virtue and happiness of human society, that no land should he taken into cultivation that could not pay the labouerr employed upon it to this amount. With these wages as the average murimum, all those who were unmarried, or being- married, had small fami- lies, would be extremely well ofF; ivhile those who had large families, though they would unquestionably be sub- jected sontetimes to a severe pressure, would in 2:eneral be able by the sacrifice of conveniences and comforts, to support themselves without parish assistance. And not only would the amount and distribution of the wages of labour greatly increase the stimulus to industry and econ- omy throughout all the working classes of the society, and place the great body of them in a very superior situ- ation, but it would furnish them with the means of mak- ing an effectual demand for a great amount of foreign com- modities and domestic manufactures, and thus at the same time that it would promote individual and general happi- ness, would advance the mei-cantile and manufacturing prosperity of the country.* Mr. Weyland, however, finds it utterly impossible to reconcile the necessity of moral restraint, either with the nature of man, or the plain dictates of religion on the subject of marriage. Whether the check to population, which he would substitute for it, is more consistent with the nature of a rational being, the precepts of revelation, *The merchants and manufacturers who so loudly clamour fo^ dieap corn and low money wages, think only of selling their commo- dities abroad, and often forget that they have to find a market for their returns at home, which they can never do to any great extent, when the money wages of the working classes, and monied incomes in gene- ral, are low. One of the principal causes of the check which foreign commerce has experienced during the last two or three years, has been the great diminution of the home market for foreign produce. APPENDIX. 227 and the benevolence of the Deity, must be letl to the judgment of the reader. This check, it is ah'eady known, is no other than the unhealthiness and mortality of towns and manufactories.* And though [ have never felt any difficulty in reconciling to the goodness of the Deity the necessity of practising the virtue of moral restraint in a state allowed to be a state of discipline and trial ; yet I confess that I could make no attempt to reason on the subject, if I were obliged to believe, with Mr. Weyland,, that a large proportion of the human race was doomed by the inscrutable ordinations of Providence to\ premature death in large towns. If indeed such peculiar unhealthiness and mortality were the proper and natural check to the progress of population in the advanced stages of society, we should justly have reason to apprehend that, by improving the healthiness of our towns and manufactories, as we have done in England during the last twenty years, we might really defeat the designs of Providence. And though I have too much respect for Mr. Weyland to suppose that he would deprecate all attempts to*diminish the mortality of towns, and render manufactories less destructive to the health of the children employed in them ; yet cer- tainly his principles lead to this conclusion, since his the- ory has been completely destroyed by those laudable ef- forts which have made the m.ortality of England, a coun- try abounding in towns and manufactories, less than tlie mortality of Sweden, a country in a state almost purely agricultural. *With regard to the indisposition to marriage in towns, I do not be'cve tliat it is greater than in the country, excejit as far as it arises bo L. the greater expense of mjiintaioing a family, and the greater la- <*ility of illicit intercourse 2EB APPENDIX. It was my object in the two chapters on Moral Re^, siraint, and its Effects on Society, to shew that the evils arising from the principle of population were exactly of the same nature" as the evils arising from the excessive or irregular gratification of the human passions in general ; and that from the existence of these evils we had no more reason to conclude that the principle of increase was too strong for the purpose intended by the Creator, than to infer, from the existence of the vices arising from the hu- man passions, that these passions required diminution or extinction, instead of regulation and direction. If this view of the snbject be allowed to be correct, it will naturally follow that, notwithstanding the acknow- ledged evils occasioned by the principle of pppulation, the advantages derived from it under the present consti- tution of things "may very greatly overbalance them. A slight sketch of the nature of these advantages, as far as the main object of the Essay would allow, was gi- ven in the two chapters to which I have alluded ; but the subject has lately been pursued with considerable ability in the Work of Mr. Sumner on the Records of the Crea- tion ; and I am happy to refer to it as containing a mas- terly developement and completion of views, of which only an intimation could be given in the Essay. I fully agree with Mr, Sumner as to the beneficial ef- fects which result from the principle of popalation, and feel entirely convinced that the natural tendency of the human race to increase faster than the possible increase of the means of subsistence could not be either destroy- ed or essentially diminished without diminishing that hope of rising and fear of falling in society, so necessa- ry to the improvement of the human faculties and the ad- vancement of human happineag. But with this convic» APPENDIX. 229 tion OH my mind, I feel no wish to alter the view which I have given of the evils arising from the principle of pop- ulation. These evils do not lose their name or nature be- cause they are overbalanced by good : and to consider them in a different light on this account, and cease to call them evils, would be as irrational as the objecting to call the irregular indalgences of pa sio . vicious, and to affirm that they lead to misery, because our passions are the main sources of human virtue and happiness. I have always considered the principle of population as a law peculiarly suited to a state of discipline and tri- al. Indeed I believe that, in the whole range of the laws of nature with which we are acquainted, not one can be pointed out, which in so remarkable a manner tends to strengihen and confirm this scriptural view of the state of man on earth. And as each individual has the power of avoiding the evil consequences to himself and society resulting from the principle of population by the practice of a virtue clearly dictated to him by the light of nature, and sanctioned by revealed religion, it must be allowed that the ways of God to man with regard to this great law of nature are completely vindicated. I have, therefore, certainly felt surprise, as well as re- gret, that no inconsiderable part of the objections which have been made to the principles and conclusions of the Essay on Population has come from persons for whose moral and religious character I have so high a respect, that it would have been particularly gratifying to me to obtain their approbation and sanction This eifect has been attributed to some expressions used in the course of the work which have been thought too harsh, and not suf- ficiently indulgent to the weaknesses of human nature, and the feelings of Christian charity. Ee 23a APPENDIX, It is probable; that having found the bow bent loo much one way, I was induced to bend it too much the other, m order to make it straight. But I shall always be quite ready to blot out any part of the work which is considered by a competent tribunal as having a tendency to prevent the bow from becoming finally straight, and to impede the progress of truth. In deference to this tri- bunal I have already expunged the passages which have been most objected to, and I have made some few further corrections of the same kind in the present edition. By these alterations I hope and believe that the work has been improved without impairing its principles. But I still trust that whether it is read with or without these aiieiations, every reader of candor must acknowledge that the practical design uppermost m the mind ot the writer, with whatever want of judgment it may have been ex'^cuted, is to improve the condition and increase the htjjp.ness of the lower classes of society. THE END