Return this book on or before the Latest Date stamped below. University of Illinois Library L161—H41 CAMBRIDGE ECONOMIC HANDBOOKS.—V GENERAL EDITOR: J. M. KEYNES, M.A., C.B. POPULATION POPULATION BY HAROLD WRIGHT M.A. PEMBROKE COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE WITH A PREFACE BY J. M. KEYNES M.A., C.B. FELLOW OF KING’S COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGH NEW YORK HARCOURT, BRACE AND COMPANY COPYRIGHT, 1923, BY HARCOURT, BRACE AND COMPANY, INC. Printed in the U.S. A. 44. Foam 4 PREFACE _A BELIEF in the material progress of mankind is not . old. During the greater part of history such a belief “ was neither compatible with experience nor encour- ~ aged by religion. It is doubtful whether, taking one - century with another, there was much variation in the lot of the unskilled laborer at the centers of civilization in the two thousand years from the Greece of Solon to the England of Charles II or the France of Louis XIV. Paganism placed the Golden Age behind us; Chris- tianity raised Heaven above us; and anyone, before the middle of the eighteenth century, who had expected a progressive improvement in material welfare here, as a result of the division of labor, the discoveries of sci- ence and the boundless fecundity of the species, would have been thought very eccentric. In the eighteenth century, for obscure reasons which economic historians have not yet sufficiently explored, material progress commenced over wide areas in a de- cided and cumulative fashion not previously experi- enced. Philosophers were ready with an appropriate Z| _. superstition, and before the century was out Priestley’s view was becoming fashionable, that, by the further <> division of labor,—‘‘ Nature, including both its materi- als and its laws, will be more at our command; men will make their situation in this world abundantly more easy and comfortable; they will prolong their exist- ence in it and will grow daily more happy.” _. It was against the philosophers of this school that v v1 PREFACE Malthus directed his Essay. Its arguments impressed his reasonable contemporaries, and the interruption to progress by the Napoleonic wars supplied a favor- able atmosphere. But as the nineteenth century pro- ceeded, the tendency to material progress reasserted itself. Malthus was forgotten or discredited. The cloud was lifted; the classical Economists dethroned; and the opinions of the Vicar of Wakefield, who “was ever of opinion that the honest man who married and brought up a large family did more service than he who continued single and only talked of population,’ and of Adam Smith, who held that ‘‘the most decisive mark of the prosperity of any country is the increase of the number of its inhabitants,”’ almost recovered their sway. Nevertheless, the interruption to prosperity by the war, corresponding to the similar interruption a hun- dred years before, has again encouraged an atmos- phere of doubt; and there are some who have a care. The most interesting question in the world (of those at least to which time will bring us an answer) is whether, after a short interval of recovery, material progress will be resumed, or whether, on the other hand, the magnificent episode of the nineteenth cen- tury is over. In this volume of the Cambridge Economic Hand- books Mr. Harold Wright summarizes the data, and outlines the main features of the Problem of Popula- tion. It is no part of the purpose of this Series to pre- sent ready-made conclusions. Our object is to aid and stimulate study. The topic of this particular volume is one about which it is difficult, for anyone who has given much thought to it, not to feel strongly. PREFACE vil But Mr. Wright has avoided propagandism and has _ been concerned to display in a calm spirit the extraor- _ dinary interest, difficulty and importance of his sub- ject, rather than to advocate any definite policies. His object will have been accomplished if he can do some- thing to direct the thoughts of a few more students to what is going to be not merely an economist’s prob- lem, but, in the near future, the greatest of all social questions,—a question which will arouse some of the deepest instincts and emotions of men, and about which feeling may run as passionately as in earlier struggles between religions. A great transition in human his- tory will have begun when civilized man endeavors to assume conscious control in his own hands, away from the blind instinct of mere predominant survival. J. M. KEYNES. CONTENTS CHAPTER I EARLY POPULATION THEORIES . INTRODUCTORY . GREEK AND RoMAN Porn Caner . Tue INFLUENCE OF THE EARLY CHRISTIANS . SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY WRITERS ON POPULATION PROBLEMS . . THE INTRODUCTION OF VITAL STATISTICS . THe FORERUNNERS OF MALTHUS CHAPTER II MALTHUS . AN ESSAY ON THE PRINCIPLE OF POPULATION . THe MALTHUSIAN ARGUMENT . . THe Law or DIMINISHING RETURNS . THE RELEVANCE OF THE MALTHUSIAN ence TO PRESENT CIRCUMSTANCES . AN IMporRTANT DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER III CIRCUMSTANCES . WHY MALTHUS HAD MANY DISCIPLES i . How DriminisHiInG Returns REVEALED Peiaatae . REACTION AGAINST MaLTHUS AND RICARDO . J. S. Miiw’s View or PorpuLATION PROBLEMS . A Criticism or Miiu’s VIEw . . THE REeTuRN TO MALTHUS ix 20 22 28 32 36 POPULATION THEORIES IN CHANGING 40 43 45 48 51 54 CONTENTS CHAPTER IV FOOD AND RAW MATERIALS . ANALOGY BETWEEN A SHRINKING EARTH AND A GROW- ING POPULATION . THe TRANSFERENCE OF Reiscncna IN Wane . THE PRESSURE OF POPULATION UPON SUBSISTENCE . Tar Economic ADVANTAGES OF A GROWING PopvU- LATION . THE SUPPLY OF nee Connon . THe Suppty oF Woou . FISHERIES CHAPTER V COAL AND IRON . JEVONS AND THE COAL QUESTION . THe MEANING oF “‘ EXHAUSTION” . THE INFLUENCE OF PROTECTION . Tot Worwpd’s Coat RESERVES . THE Export TRADE IN COAL . . SUBSTITUTES FOR COAL . : : : : . IRon .. : : : : SUNG: a) . GREAT BRITAIN’S Pager CHAPTER VI THE GROWTH OF POPULATION . CHANGES IN THE BIRTH-RATE . CHANGES IN THE DEATH-RATE . Tae RevativE INFLUENCE OF Bisee wae AND DEATH-RATE UPON THE GROWTH OF POPULATION . PREVENTIVE CHECKS TO POPULATION . UNDER-POPULATION . A FanuinG BIRTH-RATE . . Some EXPLANATIONS OF THE usta IN THE Binaet RATE PAGE 99 102 103 106 107 108 111 § 8. ~ § 9. § 10. Tor IMPORTANCE OF THE DECLINE IN THE BIRTH- CONTENTS VARIATIONS IN THE BIRTH-RATE BETWEEN DIFFER- ENT CLASSES OTHER FACTORS Taridancine THE eypcetanllnaie RATE CHAPTER VII xl PAGE 113 115 117 INTERNATIONAL POPULATION PROBLEMS CO? COrn (Or — it he bn = © CO? COP (CO? CO? tO? 46? tO? 6? OM OONAMARWNH ee THE INFLUENCE OF NATIONALITY . . JAPAN AND INDIA . THe Bie Four . Tae UNITED STATES . Tue British EMPIRE FRANCE . GERMANY . RUSSIA WaR AND Paeatacae é . WAR AND SUBSISTENCE . EMIGRATION . THEt DANGER TO Civiiseinion CHAPTER VIII THE QUALITY OF POPULATION . INTRODUCTORY . WHY THERE ARE MORE Wenn THAN itn . Tae FEertTiLity or DIFFERENT CLASSES . A Caus& or THE Hicu BIRTH-RATE AMONG THE Poor . EUGENIC CONSIDERATIONS : . PRESENT LIMITATIONS OF EUGENICS . . Toe RevativeE IMporRTANCE OF HEREDITY AND Tin VIRONMENT . THE RELATION BETWEEN + Quanrrry AND Quatrry OF POPULATION 119 120 123 123 124 125 127 129 130 134 140 146 148 148 150 153 154 158 159 160 CONTENTS CHAPTER IX SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION . RECAPITULATORY . A Forecast By MALTHUS . THE Wor.Lp’s RESOURCES . Toe Way Out F : R . POSSIBLE SCIENTIFIC DEVELOPMENTS . THE VALUE oF DISCUSSION PAGE 165 167 168 169 170 173 POPULATION CHAPTER I EARLY POPULATION THEORIES “Ts there anything whereof it may be said, See, this is new? It hath been already of old time, which was before us.” Ecclesiastes 1. 10. § 1. Introductory. “The view once widely held that the principle of population must inevitably keep the mass of the people close to the verge of the bare means of subsistence was no statement of a desirable ideal. It was a nightmare; a nightmare none the less, though it may haunt us yet.’”’ So wrote Mr. Henderson in the first volume of this series; and it is the purpose of this, the fifth volume, to explain what is meant by “the prin- ciple of population’’; to examine its validity as a uni- versal economic law, and to inquire how far the truth in this matter is a menace to the progress of mankind; a nightmare which must haunt us yet. Economists have often been accused of being too little guided by the actual experience of mankind. Sometimes, no doubt, they have been guilty of this fault. At other times, however, the tendency has been to err in the other direction and to mistake the pecul- iar conditions of a particular period in the evolution of human society for the permanent and inevitable results of the working of economic laws. This latter 1 2 POPULATION tendency has always been very much in evidence with regard to questions about population. When small communities have sought to maintain exclusive possession of large and fertile lands, their learned men have naturally taught them that an increasing pop- ulation was an unmixed blessing, since it provided more hands to till the soil and more soldiers to defend the fields. When, on the other hand, a community found itself confined to a certain definite area, and that area was well supplied with human beings, a wise man would arise and point out that the means of subsist- ence were limited and that a further increase in the population must inevitably involve hunger and mis- ery, unless an outlet could be found in other lands. Both doctrines were perfectly sound in their applica- tion to the circumstances of the particular peoples to whom they were addressed; but the doctrines were frequently couched in general terms, as though they must neccessarily apply to all nations at all times, which they certainly do not. Even T. R. Malthus, whose essay on The Principle of Population, first pub- lished in 1798, still holds the field as the classic expo- sition of this subject, owed much of his early fame to the special economic circumstances of Great Britain in the early years of the nineteenth century, and suffered a partial eclipse owing to changes which did not in any way invalidate his main argument. § 2. Greek and Roman Population Theories. The an- cient Greeks characteristically approached the popula- tion question from the point of view of the ideal City State. They made up their minds first as to the num- ber of citizens that would produce the most satisfac- EARLY POPULATION THEORIES 3 tory political and social unit, and then took steps to keep the population up to the desired level and to pre- vent it from increasing beyond it. They took account of the quality as well as of citizens, and endeav- ored to eliminate the unfit from their societies. In Sparta there seems to have been little fear of over- population, except in regard to the slaves, whose num- bers were kept in check by such devices as infanticide. Frequent wars took their toll of young freemen, and created an urgent demand for more. ‘Thus, in Sparta, the State regulations respecting marriage and pro- creation were mainly directed towards a high birth- rate of healthy children. Every Spartan was expected to marry for the good of the State. Bachelors were subjected to social indignities as well as to legal and political disabilities. Marriages were supervised with a view to the production of children sound in body and mind, and the fathers of three or more sons were publicly rewarded. In Athens, the regulation of marriage was less rigid than in Sparta. There, too, laws existed against cel- ibacy; but in times of peace these were not enforced, and late marriages were advocated. The Athenian remedy for over-population was emigration, but in- fanticide was also a recognized custom. Malthus re- marks that “when Solon permitted the exposing of _ children, it is probable that he only gave the sanction of law to a custom already prevalent’’; adding with characteristic shrewdness: “Tn this permission he had without doubt two ends in view. First, that which is most obvious, the prevention of such an excessive population as would cause universal pov- erty and discontent; and, secondly, that of keeving the pop- 4 - POPULATION ulation up to the level of what the territory could support, by removing the terrors of too numerous a family and conse- quently the principal obstacle to marriage.”’ In addition to those two motives, the Greeks were inclined to look favorably upon infanticide as a eugen- nic device; for weakly or deformed children were ex- posed in Sparta by order of the State, a practice which Plato and Aristotle both approved. Malthus was clearly justified in saying that infan- ticide was frequently adopted among primitive peo- © ples as a means of keeping the population within the means of subsistence. In Polynesia, for instance, the © islands being small though the climate is favorable to the production of food, the custom was generally observed. In the Hawaiian Islands all children after © the third or fourth were strangled or buried alive. At Tahiti, fathers had the right (and used it) of suffo- cating their newly born children. The Areois, in the Society Islands, imposed infanticide upon the women members by oath. In fact, although a religious sanc- tion is often given to the slaughter of infants among — savage tribes, this practice or others restricting in- crease seem to be generally prevalent among those peoples who have reason to fear that their food supply may prove insufficient for their support, while in some countries infants are destroyed in times of scarcity only. It is therefore reasonable to suppose that some fear of over-population played a part in originating this cus- tom among the ancient Greeks. Infanticide was prevalent among the Romans also, but it is improbable that the practice was encouraged by their rulers. As a conquering race they were always EARLY POPULATION THEORIES 5 obsessed with the need for soldiers and colonists. Their legislation respecting marriage and parenthood was therefore directed towards an increase in population. As in Sparta, rewards were given to the fathers of fam- ilies and penalties imposed upon bachelors. Plutarch says of Camillus that ‘‘as the wars had made many _ widows, he obliged such of the men as lived single, partly by persuasion and partly by. threatening them with fines, to marry the widows.’’ Whether any Ro- man Weller stood out against this terrifying edict is not recorded! In the early days of the Empire, the popula- tion question appears to have caused considerable anxiety. Augustus resorted to elaborate legislation. He enacted that men and women must be married and have children before the men were twenty-five and women twenty. Those who disobeyed this law by re- maining unmarried were disqualified from becoming heirs or receiving legacies. ‘Those who married but had no children could receive only half of any property left to them, and could bequeath only one-tenth of their property to their widows. On the other hand, honors and privileges were bestowed upon prolific par- ents. | The object of this legislation seems, however, to have been the preservation of the patrician families rather than the increase of the numbers of the whole people. If this was the intention, it was defeated by the luxury and vice that prevailed among the upper classes in imperial Rome. §3. The Influence of the Early Christians. Harly Chris- tian morality was in its nature a reaction from the im- morality of Rome, and by its insistence upon the vir- 6 POPULATION tues of chastity and virginity it treated marriage as an inferior state, to be tolerated but not to be encouraged. There were slight differences between the various sects and preachers as to the degree to which marriage fell off from perfection, but all agreed in regarding it as a concession to human frailty. Political and economic considerations were completely disregarded by the Fathers, some of whom did not desire the human race to continue on the earth. Thus Methodius writing On Virginity says: “For the world, while still unfilled with men, was like a child, and it was necessary that it should first be filled with these, and so grow to manhood. But when thereafter it was colonised from end to end, the race of man spreading to a boundless extent, God no longer allowed man to remain in the same ways, considering how they might now proceed from one point to another and advance nearer heaven, until ° having attained to the greatest and most exalted lesson of virginity they should reach to perfection; that first they should abandon the intermarriage of brothers and sisters and marry wives from other families; and then that they should no longer have many wives, like brute beasts as though born for the mere propagation of the species; and then that they should not be adulterers; and then again that they should go on to continence, and from continence to virginity, when, having trained themselves to despise the flesh, they sail fear- lessly into the peaceful haven of immortality.” The effect of the early Christian view of marriage and procreation upon imperial policy is shown by the fifth-century church historian Sozomen, who says that the Emperor (Constantine): “deeming it absurd to attempt the multiplication of the hu- man species by the care and zeal of man (since nature always EARLY POPULATION THEORIES 7 receives increase or decrease according to the fiat from on high), made a law enjoining that the unmarried and childless _should have the same advantages as the married. He even bestowed. peculiar privileges on those who embraced a life of continence and virginity.” § 4. Sixteenth and Seventeenth-Century Writers on Pop- ulation Problems. From this brief survey of the atti- tude of the ancient world towards population problems, we must now jump to modern Europe and take an equally hasty glance at the views of those writers who ‘preceded Malthus in the consideration of these matters. In Sir Thomas More’s Utopia, as in the ideal com- monwealths of the ancient Greeks, it 1s considered im- portant to maintain a constant population: “Lest any city should become either too great or by any accident be dispeopled, provision is made that none of their cities may contain more than six thousand persons besides those of the country round. No family may have less than ten or more than sixteen children, but there can be no deter- mined numbers of children under age. This rule is easily observed by removing.some of a more fruitful couple to any other family that does not so abound in them. By the same rule they supply cities that do not increase so fast from others that breed faster; and if there is any increase over the whole island they draw out a number of their citizens from the sev- eral towns, and send them over to a neighbouring continent, where ... they fixa colony. . . . Such care is taken of the soil that it becomes fruitful enough to supply provisions for all, though it might otherwise be too narrow and barren.” If the influence of Plato, or his own insight, led Sir Thomas More to regard excessive population as an evil, no such calculation was sanctioned by his con- temporary, Luther, whose views on this subject had 8 POPULATION a profound influence on the Protestant world, an in- fluence which is not yet exhausted. “God,” said Luther, ‘‘has shown how sufficiently He cares for us, when He created heaven and earth, all animals and plants, before He created man. He shows us thus that He will always provide food and shelter sufficient for our needs. It is only necessary that we work and do not remain idle; we shall assuredly be both clothed and fed. . . . From all this we draw the conclusion that whoever finds himself unfitted to remain chaste should make arrangements betimes and get some work and then dare, in God’s name, to enter into matrimony. A youth should marry not later than his twen- tieth year, and a maiden when she is between fifteen and eighteen years old. Then they should remain upright and serious and let God provide the way and means by which their children shall be nourished.” This pronouncement has shared the fate of many another striking utterance. It has been stripped of its qualifying phrases and used as a substitute for com- mon sense. How many careless parents have cried, “Let God provide!”’ without first taking the precau- tion of “making arrangements betimes and getting some work,’’ or even remembering to “remain upright and serious.” English writers of the early seventeenth century, seeing destitution and poverty around them, regarded over-population as a very real thing and a potent cause of international strife. Thus, Sir Walter Raleigh in his Discourse of War in General, said: ‘““When any country is overlaid by the multitude which live upon it, there is a natural necessity compelling it to dis- burden itself and lay the load: upon others, by right or wrong, for (to omit the danger of pestilence, often visiting them that EARLY POPULATION THEORIES 9 live in throngs) there is no misery that urgeth men so vio- lently unto desperate courses and contempt of death as the _ torments and threats of famine. Wherefore, the war that is grounded on general remediless necessity, may be termed the general and remediless or necessary war.’ Elsewhere he wrote that the earth would not only be full, but overflowing with human beings, were it not for the effect of hunger, pestilence, crime and war, and of abstinence and artificial sterility. Bacon and other writers of the period also express the view that wars are caused by the pressure of popu- lation on the means of subsistence. When we come to the next great period in economic history, however, we find almost every writer on the subject dwelling upon the advantages of large and growing populations. The growth of large States, in- creasing in power and the love of power, developing an industrial and commercial life which made the main- tenance of a larger population possible, and indulging in wars which required a constant supply of wealth and life to feed them, led inevitably to the revival of the Roman view that marriage and procreation were duties which the citizen owed to the State. This view was emphasized by the fact that the Thirty Years War, in which practically the whole of Europe had been in- - volved during the early part of the seventeenth cen- tury, had depleted the population to an appalling ex- tent. In Bohemia it is said that only about 6000 vil- lages out of 35,000 escaped destruction; Moravia and Silesia suffered a similar fate; Bavaria, Franconia and Swabia were desolated by famine and disease, while the rest of Germany and Austria fared little better. “During more than a generation after the conclusion 10 POPULATION of the war a full third of the land in northern Ger- many was left uncultivated. Cattle and sheep dimin- ished to an extraordinary extent, and many once fertile districts became forests inhabited by wolves and other savage beasts.’ } In the course of this war the population of the Em- pire is believed to have diminished by at least two- thirds—from over sixteen to under six millions. In the Lower Palatinate only one-tenth and in Wiirttemberg only one-sixth survived. - Under these circumstances it is not surprising that Mr. Stangeland should find in his study of German literature on the subject that “the opinions on population from the end of the Thirty Years War to the beginning of the eighteenth century were unan- imously favourable to the greatest possible increase.” 2 Thus Leibnitz thought that the State should encour- age marriage because “the true power of a kingdom consists in the number of men. Where there are men, there is substance and strength. Where men are most — diligent and laborious and saving of their goods, there all are safest; and manufacturing especially is to be considered the most useful occupation in accomplishing this result.”’” Christian Wolff (1679-1754), a disciple of Leibnitz, who is said to have been one of the first to “teach philosophy to speak German,” expressed a crudely militarist point of view about population prob- lems. Power, he said, consists in money, in the army which a state is able to keep, and in the greatest amount of employment; but above all in a rich and populous state; but ‘wealth is superior to numbers of 1 Cambridge Modern History, Vol. IV, p. 419. 2 Pre-Malthustan Doctrines of Population, by C. E. Stangeland. EARLY POPULATION THEORIES 11 subjects; for where there is enough money an army can always be maintained, and when necessary foreign mercenaries can be hired to defend the country. If there is no money with which to support an army, a multitude of people is of small service.” § 5. The Introduction of Vital Statistics. Johann Peter Siissmilch (1707-1767), one of Frederick the Great’s military chaplains, was the first writer to deduce a principle of population from the study of vital statistics which had been collected by various English and Ger- man writers during the latter half of the seventeenth century. His investigation made him optimistic con- cerning both the desirability and the possibility of increase. Improvements in the methods of production, especially in agriculture, would, he thought, greatly increase the food supply. With more intensive cultiva- tion, the yield of land could be increased an hundred- fold. God regulated population according to the sup- plies He had given. It was the duty of statesmen to encourage population, because it was the means of hap- piness, security, power and wealth. Siissmilch detected four great natural checks to the increase of mankind: (a) Pestilence, which often carried off half the pop- ulation, not only of cities, but of whole provinces. (6) War, “a real monster, a disgraceful blot on rea- son and humanity, and especially on Christian- ity,’ which robbed the State of many of its best citizens and also diminished the means of sub- sistence. (c) Famine. (d) Earthquakes and floods. 12 POPULATION This notable contribution towards a true theory of population was rendered possible by the Polttical Arithmetic of Graunt (1620-1674) and Petty (1623- 1687), who first attempted to collect statistics of births, deaths and marriages in the city of London. Gregory King, Lancaster Herald, whom Macaulay describes as ‘‘a political arithmetician of great acuteness and judgment,” carried this work a step further when he compiled his Natural and Political Observations and Conclusions upon the State and Condition of England, 1696. Basing his calculations mainly upon the num- ber of houses returned in 1690 by the officers who made the last collection of the hearth money, he arrived at the conclusion that the population of England was nearly five millions and a half, an estimate that has since received confirmation from independent sources. From this figure and the information he collected about the birth and death-rates, King made the following in- genious deductions, which are worth reproducing, both for their intrinsic interest and as an indication of the. pitfalls of political arithmetic.: “That, Anno 1260, or about 200 years after the Norman Conquest, the kingdom had 2,750,000 people,! or half the present number; so that the people of England have doubled in about 435 years last past; “That in probability the next doubling of the people of England will be in anout 600 years to come, or by the year of our Lord 2300; at which time it will have 11 millions of people; but that the next doubling after that will not be (in all probability) in less than 1200 or 1300 years more, or by the year of our Lord 3500 or 3600; at which time the king- dom will have 22 millions of souls, or four times its present number, in case the world should last so long; EARLY POPULATION THEORIES 13 “Now, the kingdom containing but 39 millions of acres, it will then have less than two acres to each head, and con- _ sequently will not then be capable of any further increase. ¢, . Whereby it appears that the increase of the king- dom being 880,000 people in the last 100 years, and 920,000 in the next succeeding 100 years, the annual increase at this time is about 9000 souls per annum. But, whereas the yearly burials of the kingdom are about 1 in 32, or 170,000 souls; and the yearly births 1 in 28, or 190,000 souls, “Whereby the yearly increase should be 20,000 souls; “Tt is to noted, per annum. 1. That the allowance for plagues and great mor- talities comes to, ata medium . : . 4000 2. Foreign or civil wars, at a medium . : . 38500 3. The sea, constantly employing about 40,000, pre- cipitates the death of about : ( . 2500 4, The plantations (over and above the accession of foreigners) carry away . ; f . 1000 In all . : : " ; 11,000 Whereby the neat annual increase is but. . 9000 Inall . : t : : 20,000” It will be seen that, if he was rather rash in his spec- ulations, Gregory King gave us some useful statistics for comparison with more recent times. We shall re- turn to these in a later chapter, devoting the rest of this to a glance at eighteenth-century population theories and the controversy which provoked Malthus to write his essay in 1798 § 6. The Forerunners of Malthus. Montesquieu made some shrewd observations on our subject in the twenty- 14 POPULATION .| third book of L’Esprit des Lois, from which the follow- ing are extracted: “The females of brutes have an almost constant fecundity; but in the human species, the manner of thinking, the char- acter, the passions, the humour, the caprice, the idea of pre- serving beauty, the pain of childbearing and the fatigue of a too numerous family obstruct propagation in a thousand different ways.” On the other hand: “Wherever a place is found in which two persons can live commodiously, there they enter into marriage. Nature has a sufficient propensity to it, when unrestrained by the diffi- culty of subsistence. ... “A rising people increase and multiply extremely. This is because with them it would be a great inconvenience to live in celibacy and not to have many children; the contrary of which is the case when a nation is formed.” The possibility of over-population was clearly in- dicated by Montesquieu in the following passage: “There are countries in which nature does all; the legis- lator then has nothing to do. What need is there of inducing men by laws to propagation when a fruitful climate yields a sufficient number of inhabitants? Sometimes the climate is more favourable than the soil; the people multiply and are destroyed by famine; this is the casein China. Hencea father sells his daughter and exposes his children.” The Physiocrats, concentrating their attention upon the means by which the abject poverty of the French peasants could be alleviated, naturally rejected the “more the merrier”? doctrine which the courtiers of ambitious monarchs had as naturally adopted. In the EARLY POPULATION THEORIES 15 latter half of the eighteenth century, therefore, the French economists were generally inclined to empha- _ size the dependence of the population upon the food supply, and to point out that improvements in the methods of agriculture must necessarily precede any healthy increase in the numbers of the people. This point of view was shared by various writers in Italy and Germany, but seems to have made so little impression in England that it came with the shock of novelty from the pen of Malthus. America was in ad- vance of England in this respect, for Benjamin Franklin, who was much influenced by the Physiocrats, published in 1751 his short Observations concerning the Increase of Mankind and the Peopling of Countries, in which some fundamental principles were clearly expounded. Europe, he said, was almost fully peopled and could therefore increase but little and slowly, but in America _ Jand was so cheap and plentiful that a laborer could in a short time accumulate enough to support and pro- vide for a family. Therefore ‘‘if it be reckoned there {in Europe] that there is but one marriage per annum among one hundred persons, perhaps we may reckon two; and if in Europe they have four births to a mar- riage (many of their marriages being late) we may reckon eight, of which, if one-half grow up, and our mar- rlages are made, reckoning one with another, at twenty years of age, our people must at least be doubled every twenty years.” ‘There is no bound,” said Franklin, “to the prolific nature of plants or animals, but what is made by their crowding and interfering with each other’s means of subsistence. Was the face of the earth vacant of other plants, it might be gradually sowed with one kind only, as, for instance, with fennel; 16 POPULATION and were it empty of other inhabitants, it might in a few ages be replenished from one nation only, as, for instance, with Englishmen.” Not more than eighty thousand Englishmen had been taken to America, but by natural increase they amounted to more than a million in the middle of the eighteenth century. By doubling every twenty-five years—a, moderate estimate, Franklin thought, of the rate of increase—this million would in another entury result in a greater number of Englishmen in America than in the mother county. What an accession of power to the British Empire by sea as well as by land!”’ English writers were engaged at this time in a learned controversy concerning the relative density of popula- tion in ancient and modern times. Dr. Robert Wallace maintained the ‘‘superior populousness of antiquity” in a work published in 1753. David Hume replied to this in a Discourse concerning the populousness of An- tient Nations. Wallace rejoined in an appendix to his own book, but, according to M’Culloch, though he ‘‘suc- ceeded in pointing out a few errors in Hume’s state- ments, which were rectified in subsequent editions of the essay, he wholly failed to shake its foundations. or to prove in opposition to Hume that Europe was more populous in ancient than in modern times.”’ Other writers also took part in this discussion, and although the point at issue appears to be one of purely academic interest, it was mainly from these writings of Hume and Wallace that Malthus deduced his prin- ciple of population. In 1776 occurred the revolution in economic thought occasioned by the publication of The Wealth of Nations. Adam Smith did not deal systematically with popula- EARLY POPULATION THEORIES 17 tion problems, but his references to them are very suggestive, and there is no doubt that he, too, helped ‘.to inspire Malthus. In his chapter on the wages of labor he says: “Tt is not the actual greatness of national wealth, but its continual increase, which occasions a rise in the wages of labour. . . . The most decisive mark of the prosperity of any country is the increase of the number of its inhabitants. In Great Britain and most other European countries they are not supposed to double in less than five hundred years. In the British colonies in North America it has been found that they double in twenty or five-and-twenty years. Nor in the present times is this increase principally owing to the contin- ual importation of new inhabitants, but to the great multi- plication of the species. Those who live to an old age, it is said, frequently see there from fifty to a hundred, and some- times many more, descendants from their own body... . “Poverty, though it no doubt discourages, does not always prevent marriage. It seems even to be favourable to genera- tion. A half-starved Highland woman frequently bears more than twenty children, while a pampered fine lady is often incapable of bearing any, and is generally exhausted by two or three. ... “But poverty, though it does not prevent the generation, is extremely unfavourable to the rearing of children. The tender plant is produced; but in so cold a soil, and so severe - a climate, soon withers and dies. It is not uncommon, I have - been frequently told, in the Highlands of Scotland, for a mother who has borne twenty children not to have two alive. “Hivery species of animals naturally multiplies in propor- tion to the means of their subsistence, and no species can ever multiply beyond it. But in civilised society it is only among the inferior ranks of people that the scantiness of sub- sistence can set limits to the further multiplication of the human species; and it can do so in no other way than by de- is POPULATION stroying a great part of the children which their fruitful mar- riages produce.” In discussing the rent of land, Adam Smith observes that: “Countries are populous, not in proportion to the number of people whom their produce can clothe and lodge, but in proportion to that of those whom it can feed. When food is provided, it is easy to find the necessary clothing and lodging. But though these are at hand, it may often be difficult to find food. ... “But when, by the improvement and cultivation of land, the labour of one family can provide food for two, the la- bour of half the society becomes sufficient to provide food for the whole. The other half, therefore, or at least the greater part of them, can be employed in providing other things, or in satisfying the other wants and fancies of man- kind.” If Hume, Wallace and Adam Smith supplied Mal- thus with the materials from which he evolved his essay, William Godwin, the father-in-law of Shelley, performed the equally important service of provok- ing him to write it. Godwin was a philosophical Rad- ical, whose great work on political science, The Inquiry concerning Political Justice, and its Influence on Gen- eral Virtue and Happiness, had a considerable influence upon the advanced politicians of his day. The French Revolution, the ideas which caused it and the ideas which were caused by it, had produced a school of op- timism that was entirely new. A belief in progress, in the practicability of transforming men into angels and the world into a paradise, spread rapidly from France to England. Those who resisted the new idea seemed to do so because they clung to old privileges and abuses EARLY POPULATION THEORIES 19 rather than through honest doubt. Wisdom and en- lightenment were apparently on the side of the Radi- cals. Godwin was a disciple of Condorcet and. believed in the perfectibility of man. The characters of men were blanks, he held, which their external cir- cumstances. and, above ail, political institutions, filled in. Government was a necessary evil, perpetuated “by the infantine and uninstructed confidence of the many.” Private property in the labor of others was un- just; the goal must be complete equality of conditions. This belief in equality and perfectibility brought Godwin, as it had brought Condorcet, to consider whether the pressure of population upon the means of subsistence might not prove an insurmountable obstacle. He rashly answered with the conjecture that passion between the sexes may one day be extin- guished, and that, anyway, ‘‘to reason thus is to foresee difficulties at a great distance. Three-fourths of the habitable globe is now uncultivated. The parts already cultivated are capable of immeasurable improvement. Myriads of centuries of still increasing population may pass away, and the earth be still found sufficient for - the subsistence of its inhabitants.”’ This utterance sealed the fate of Wiliam Godwin. “Malthus,” wrote Sydney Smith, a few years later, _ “took the trouble of refuting him, and we hear no more ~ of Mr. Godwin.” An account of the restrictive practices of primitive com- munities is given in The Population Problem by A. M. Carr- Saunders. Early population theories are collected and summarized in Pre-Malthusian Doctrines of Population by C. E. Stangeland. CHAPTER II MALTHUS ‘When goods increase, they are increased that eat them.’ Ecclestastes v. 11. § 1. An Essay on the Principle of Population. Thomas Robert Malthus was the son of an English country gentleman who had been the friend and executor of Rousseau and held advanced political opinions. God- win’s utopian communism inspired the elder Mal- thus with all the enthusiasm that a kindly man can feel for a doctrine which promises untold happiness to future generations without in the least interfer- ing with his own present comfort. The son, however, though he was not lacking in sympathy for the ideals which accompanied the French Revolution, had not, he said, “acquired that command over his understand- ing, which would enable him to believe what he wishes, without evidence, or to refuse his assent to what might be unpleasing, when accompanied with evidence.” There was thus a difference in point of view between the father and the son which led to endless arguments, or perhaps to the repetition of one unending argument in various disguises. The publication by William Godwin of a book called The Enquirer supplied fresh fuel to the fire, and the debate blazed up, in 1797, so that Malthus found it necessary to resort to pen and ink in order to state his thoughts in a clearer manner 20 MALTHUS 21 than he could do in conversation. “But as the sub- ject opened upon him, some ideas occurred which he did not recollect to have met with before; and as he conceived that every, the least light, on a topic so gen- erally interesting, might be received with candour, he determined to put his thoughts in a form for publica- tion.’’.* ) The result of this determination was An Essay on the Principle of Population as it affects the future im- provement of society, with remarks on the speculations of Mr. Godwin, M. Condorcet and other writers, published anonymously in 1798. The book had a splendid reception. Within five years more than twenty replies to it had appeared in print, and the matter had been fully argued in periodicals and parliamentary speeches. Pitt dropped his Bill to amend the Poor Law in defer- ence to the objections of ‘‘those whose opinions he was bound to respect,”’ meaning Bentham and Malthus. In short, Malthus found himself in the center of a tre- mendous controversy, and he determined to go more deeply into the subject, in order to support his argu- ment by a formidable array of illustrations, drawn from ‘‘the best authenticated accounts that we have of the state of other countries.’”’ Thus the second edi- tion of the Essay, published in 1803, differed in many respects from the first edition. The essence of the ar- ‘gument remained unchanged, except m one respect, which will be mentioned later, but it was very differ- ently dressed. The version published in 1798 was a tour de force, full of striking metaphors and original thought; the later version was a scientific treatise, 1 Malthus. Preface to first edition of the Essay. 22 POPULATION four times the length, infinitely duller, and “‘one of the most crushing answers that patient and hard-working science has ever given to the reckless assertions of its adversaries.” The root of the matter will be found in the first two chapters of the Essay, which everyone should read for himself. § 2. The Malthusian Argument. The argument may be summarized as follows: 2“Through the animal and vegetable kingdoms Na- ture has scattered the seeds of life abroad with the most profuse and liberal hand; but has been comparatively sparing in the room and nourishment necessary to rear them... . The race of plants and the race of ani- mals shrink under this great restrictive law; and man cannot by any efforts of reason escape from it.”’ Thus, population has a constant tendency to increase be- yond the means of subsistence. If the supply of food were unlimited, the number of human beings would double in less than twenty-five years (as the popula- tion of North America had actually done apart from immigration, for a century and a half), and go on dou- bling itself four times in each century, or in other words, increase In a geometrical ratio. On the other hand, the produce of this island could hardly be doubled in — the next twenty-five years and it certainly could not be quadrupled in fifty years. ‘‘Let us suppose that the yearly additions which might be made to the for- mer produce, instead of decreasing, which they cer- tainly would do, were to remain the same; and that 1 Marshall, The Economics of Industry, 1879, p. 30. 2 The passages in inverted commas are quoted verbatim from Malthus. MALTHUS 23 the produce of this island might be increased every twenty-five years by a quantity equal to what it at present produces. The most enthusiastic speculator cannot suppose a greater increase than this. In a few centuries it would make every acre of land in the is- land like a garden.”’ It is clear, then, that “‘the means of subsistence . . . could not possibly be made to in- crease faster than in an arithmetical ratio. .. . “The necessary effects of these two different rates of increase when brought together will be very strik- ing. ...’ Taking the whole earth, and thereby, of course, excluding emigration, ‘‘the human _ species would increase as the numbers 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256, and subsistence as 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9. In-two centuries the population would be to the means of subsistence as 256 to 9; in three centuries as 4096 to 13, and in two thousand years the difference would be almost incalculable. “In this supposition no limits whatever are placed to the produce of the earth. It may increase for ever and be greater than any assignable quantity; yet still the power of population being in every period so much superior, the increase of the human species can only be kept down to the level of the means of subsistence by the constant operation of the strong law of necessity, acting as a check upon the greater power. “The ultimate check to population appears then to be a want of food, arising necessarily from the differ- ent ratios according to which population and food in- crease. But this ultimate check is never the immedi- ate check, except in cases of actual famine. “The immediate check may be stated to consist in all those customs, and all those diseases, which seem 24 POPULATION to be generated by a scarcity of the means of subsist- ence; and all those causes, independent of this scar- city, whether of a moral or physical nature, which tend prematurely to weaken and destroy the human frame. ‘“These checks to population, which are constantly operating with more or less force in every society .. . may be classed under two general heads—the prevent- - ive and the positive checks. “The preventive check, as far as it is voluntary, is peculiar to man.”’ Unlike plants and animals, man is apt to consider whether he will be able to support his offspring before he brings them into the world. ‘In a state of equality, if such can exist, this would be the simple question. In the present state of society, other considerations occur. Will he not lower his rank in life, and be obliged to give up in great measure his former habits? . . . Will he not at any rate subject him- self to greater difficulties and more severe labor, than in his single state? Will he not be unable to transmit to his children the same advantages of education and improvement that he had himself possessed?’”’ May he not even be reduced to poverty “and obliged to the sparing hand of Charity for support? “These considerations are calculated to prevent, and certainly do prevent, a great number of persons in all civilized nations from pursuing the dictate of nature in an early attachment to one woman. If this restraint do not produce vice, it is undoubtedly the least evil that can arise from the principle of popula- tion. .. . When this restraint produces vice, the evils which follow are but too conspicuous... . “The positive checks to population include... all MALTHUS 25 unwholesome occupations, severe labor and exposure to the seasons, extreme poverty, bad nursing of chil- ‘dren, great towns, excesses of all kinds, the whole train of common diseases and epidemics, wars, plague and famine... .” These checks to population, both preventive and posi- tive, are “all resolvable into moral restraint, vice and misery.” (The addition of ‘moral restraint” to the two other factors of “‘vice’”’ and ‘‘misery”’ constituted the one important change in the argument of the essay when it developed into the weighty second edition. It transformed the “principle of population’’ from an inexorable decree of unending misery for the human race into a danger which man could avoid altogether by the exercise of a proper sense of his responsibility for his actions.) “Of the preventive checks, the restraint from mar- riage which is not followed by irregular gratifications may properly be termed moral restraint. ... Of the positive checks, those which appear to arise unavoid- ably from the laws of nature, may be called exclusively misery; and those which we obviously bring upon our- selves, such as wars, excesses and many others which it would be in our power to avoid, are of a mixed na- ture. They are brought upon us by vice, and their - consequences are misery.... “The preventive and positive checks must vary inversely as each other; that is, in countries either naturally unhealthy or subject to a great mortality, from whatever cause it may arise, the preventive check will prevail very little. In those countries, on the contrary, which are naturally healthy, and where the preventive check is found to prevail with considerable 26 POPULATION force, the positive check will prevail very little, or the mortality be very small. “In every country some of these checks are in con- stant operation, yet... there are few states in which there is not a constant effort in the population to in- crease beyond the means of subsistence,’”’ which ‘‘tends to subject the lower classes of society to distress, and to prevent any great permanent melioration of their condition.” To sum up: “1. Population is necessarily limited by the means of subsistence. ‘2. Population invariably increases where the means of subsistence increase, unless prevented by some very powerful and obvious checks. “*3. These checks, and the checks which repress the superior power of population, and keep its effects on a level with the means of subsistence, are all resolvable into moral restraint, vice and misery.” “The first of these propositions,’’ said Malthus, “scarcely needs illustration. ‘The second and third will sufficiently be established by a review of the im- mediate checks to population in the past and present state of society.” This review occupies the remainder of the first, and the whole of the second, of the four books into which the essay is divided. In the light of the facts revealed therein, Malthus then resumes his general argument with a pointed question: ‘‘ Whatever was the original number of British emigrants which increased so fast in North America, let us ask, Why does not an equal MALTHUS 27 number produce an equal increase in the same time in Great Britain?”’ ‘The obvious reason,” he answers, “is the want of food; and that this want is the most efficient cause of the three immediate checks to pop- ulation, which have been observed to prevail in all so- cieties, is evident from the rapidity with which even old states recover from the desolations of war, pesti- lence, famine and the convulsions of nature.’’ “Other circumstances being the same,” he adds, a few pages later, “it may be affirmed that countries are populous according to the quantity of human food which they produce or can acquire; and happy according to the liberality with which this food is divided, or the quantity which a day’s la- bour will purchase. Corn countries are more populous than pasture countries, and rice countries more populous than corn countries. But their happiness does not depend either upon their being thinly or fully inhabited, upon their poverty or their riches, their youth or their age; but on the proportion which the population and the food bear to each other... . “Tt is probable that the food of Great Britain is divided in more liberal shares to her inhabitants at the present pe- riod than it was two thousand, three thousand, or four thou- sand years ago. And it has appeared that the poor and thinly- inhabited tracts of the Scotch Highlands are more distressed by a redundant population than the most populous parts of Europe.” This was Malthus’s Principle of Population. What did it add to the sum of human knowledge? The idea that human beings might become so numerous that the earth could not produce sufficient food for their support had been familiar, as we have seen in Chapter I, to various writers at different periods in history. In- deed, it is self-evident. I do not much see,” said Haz- ee 28 POPULATION litt, “‘what there is to discover on the subject, after reading the genealogical table of Noah’s descendants, and knowing that the world is round.” Malthus ad- mitted that the subject had been ably treated by earlier writers, but he claimed to have made the comparison be- tween the increase of population and food with greater — force and precision. The precision, however, was more apparent than real. When he said that popula- tion, if unchecked, would increase in a geometrical ratio, whereas subsistence cannot increase in more than an arithmetical ratio, Malthus appeared to be making effective use of his mathematical knowledge. (He was ninth wrangler at Cambridge.) In fact, he was stating his case badly. ‘For every mouth, God sends a pair of hands,” and if, as Malthus supposed, ‘‘the human species would, if unchecked, increase as the numbers 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256, and subsistence as the numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9”’ it would fol- low that an addition of 128 workers in the period 2000- 2025 would have a total productive value equal to that of only one additional worker in the period 1800-1825. This in spite of all the improvements in the methods of cultivation which might have been evolved in 175 years! There is nothing in the essay, except an ap- peal to “the known qualities of land”’ to establish the truth of this statement, or indeed to show conclusively that the hands which normally accompany each mouth could not make the earth yield the subsistence for an indefinite increase in population. § 3. The Law of Diminishing Returns.. Unfortunately for the human race, the essential validity of the Mal- thusian principle of population is not destroyed by the MALTHUS 29 substitution of an accurate account of the growth of the food supply for the fallacious arithmetical ratio. - Turgot stated the truth of this matter quite clearly when Malthus was two years old; Malthus himself showed that he understood it in his later writings, and Ricardo and Mill elaborated it in what is called The Law of Diminishing Returns. This law arises out of the peculiarity of land from an economic standpoint, to which attention was called in the first volume of this series. It is unlike capital or labor in that its supply is, broadly speaking, fixed and unalterable. An increase in population implies an in- crease in the supply of labor. The supply of capital will probably expand at least proportionately to the increase in population. But the supply of land remains unchanged. At certain periods in history this characteristic of _ land was probably unimportant to mankind. Nobody wanted to increase the supply of land when there was room enough and to spare for all. When ‘‘ Abram was very rich in cattle. .. . And Lot also, which went with Abram, had flocks, and herds, and tents. ... And the land was not able to bear them that they might dwell together: for their substance was great so that they could not dwell together,” they had only to walk off in different directions and all was well, unless they chanced to come in conflict with other tribes. But in the modern world, the herdsman and the shep- herd have to compete for land, not only with other herdsmen and shepherds, but, in many places, with the grower of wheat and other crops, and even with the builder of houses and factories. Thus, as the population increases the demand for land increases, 30 POPULATION and, the supply being fixed, men are obliged to study the means by which they can bring new and presum- ably inferior land into cultivation, or get an ever-in- creasing quantity of produce from the same quantity of land. There are two ways in which this can be done. The first is by discovering and applying improved methods of production. The second is by using in- creasing quantities of the other agents of production; capital and labor. The discovery of better methods of production is obviously a variable and incalculable factor in the problem; but experience has shown that certain definite results may be anticipated from the application, in any given stage of agricultural knowl- edge and skill, of steadily increasing quantities of cap- ital and labor to the unexpanding earth. Turgot said: “Seed thrown on a soil naturally fertile but totally un- prepared would be expenditure almost entirely wasted. If the ground were once tilled the produce would be greater; tilling it a second and a third time, might not merely double and triple, but quadruple or decuple the produce, which will thus augment in a much larger proportion than the expendi- ture, and that up to a certain point, at which the produce will be as great as possible compared with the expenditure. Past this point, if the expenditure be still increased, the prod- uce will still increase, but less and less, and always less and less, until the fecundity of the earth being exhausted, and art being unable to do anything further, an addition to the expenditure will add nothing whatever to the produce.” 4 On the basis of this experience, which is confirmed by every farmer, it is customary to say that when suc- cessive doses of capital and labor are applied to land, 1 Quoted by Cannan, Wealth, p. 60. MALTHUS ol increasing returns to each dose are first obtained, but that after a certain point has been reached, diminish- ing returns to each subsequent dose inevitably fol- low, unless an improvement is made in the methods of agriculture. Moreover, in old countries, practically all the land has been worked at least as thoroughly as is necessary in order to reach the point at which the max- imum returns are obtained; and it is therefore broadly true to say that, unless better methods of cultivation are used an increase in the cayrial and labor applied an the cultivation of land causes a less than proportionate ancrease in the amount of produce raised. This state- ment is called the Law of Diminishing Returns. If we now substitute the Law of Diminishing Re- turns in agriculture for the arithmetical ratio of Mal- thus’s Essay, we shall see that the conclusion remains unchanged. “It is vain to say that all mouths which the increase of mankind calls into existence bring with them hands. The new mouths require as much food as the old ones, and the hands do not produce as much.” ? . Population must still press upon the means of subsistence unless the checks of vice, misery or moral restraint intervene. Reconsidering the Principle of Population in the light of Diminishing Returns, it is important to note the emphasis which Malthus placed upon the constant operation of the checks to population which arise out of a want of food. This was perhaps his most solid contribution towards an understanding of factors which limit the number of human beings upon the earth. Hume, Wallace, Condorcet and even Godwin had 1J.S. Mill, Principles, Book I, Chap. XIII, § 2. . 32 POPULATION written of the danger of over-population, but they had regarded it as an evil which might arise in a more or less remote future. Malthus pointed out that the population was constantly held in check, at all times and in all countries, by the evils which arose, directly or indirectly, from pressure upon the food supply. If people refrained from having children because they had insufficient means to support a family, or if chil- dren died in infancy from diseases caused by mal-nu- trition, the population was being kept down by want of food, though no one might die of starvation. “A man who is locked up in a room,” said Malthus, ‘‘may fairly be said to be confined by the walls of it, though he may never touch them.’’ Even so was the human race confined to the numbers which the world’s produce would support at any given time. Unless we deliber- ately restricted our numbers, they would be kept down by the powerful checks which he described. This was the point that Hazlitt overlooked when he made his joke about ‘‘the genealogical table of Noah’s descend- ants,’ and it is not infrequently overlooked by more serious critics of the Malthusian doctrine. § 4. The Relevance of the Malthusian Argument to pres- ent Circumstances. In the days of Malthus each coun- try was practically a self-contained and self-supporting community. In England the Industrial Revolution had begun. Its disturbing influence contributed to the misery and discontent which Malthus saw around him. The spinning jenny came into use in the same year in which the essay was first published. Cart- wright’s loom began to be used in 1801. But it was not until 1838 that the first commercial steamer crossed MALTHUS Ae BS the Atlantic, and not until about 1870 that the full effect of inventions and international trade had worked itself out in the world-wide division of labor. Goods can now be brought from the most distant countries more cheaply and almost as quickly as they could be carried from London to Cornwall in the time of Mal- thus. The population of Great Britain and Ireland was 16,000,000 in 1801, and 41,500,000 in 1901. Total Brit- ish imports and exports were £37,000,000 in 1791, and £870,000,000 in 1901. The population problem with which Malthus was especially concerned, the problem of feeding a rapidly increasing number of Englishmen on the produce of an island which re- mained the same size, was solved, for a hundred years at least, by an immense increase in the pro- duction of manufactures and the exchange of these for food and raw materials from new continents. As numbers increased food actually became cheaper; more emigrants were available to grow food abroad, and more workmen were absorbed. in Europe in the production of the agricultural machinery, steamers and railways which enabled the food to be produced and carried home for their consumption. During the latter half of the nineteenth century, a unit of labor applied to industry in Europe could be exchanged for a steadily increasing quantity of food. -_ It would’seem, at first sight, that the teaching of Malthus could have little relevance to the problems of the twentieth century. Fundamentally, however, the issue remains the same. How is the population of the world to be restrained from increasing faster than the world’s food supply, except by the evil checks enumerated by Malthus? 34 POPULATION The teeming population of Europe does not produce nearly as much food as it consumes; it is dependent upon the resources of the New World. But the New World is no longer wholly dependent upon Europe for its manufactures. It produces them itself in increas- ing quantities. Population is growing in the food-producing coun- tries. The United States, which is one of the chief sources from which Europe draws her food, now con- sumes more than three-fourths of the wheat she pro- duces. It is true that the food-producing area of the world may still be greatly extended; but this will only be done under the stimulus of a rise in the price of prod- uce. This means that, in all probability, diminishing returns in food will in future be obtained for each successive dose of capital and labor applied in industry. The position with regard to the raw materials of European industry, in so far as these are products of the soil, is very like that of the food supply. The pro- duction of cotton, for instance, has not kept pace with the world’s requirements. Since about 1900 a consid- erable increase in price has been needed to enable the supply of cotton to equal the demand for it, and it is anticipated that a further rise in price will be neces- sary to call forth any substantial increase in the quantity produced. Here, again, we may see the Law of Diminishing Returns at work. Other raw materials of industry, such as coal and iron, are in a different category. These minerals are in the nature of stored-up capital. The yield from mines is like the yield from lands which have been for some time under cultivation, in that each additional dose of capital and labor applied to the extraction of min- MALTHUS 30 -erals will produce a smaller proportionate return than the last preceding dose, unless some improvement _ takes place in the arts of mining. But the produce of a mine is part of a fixed stock. Once a vein has given up its treasure, it can produce no more; whereas a properly cultivated field retains its fertility, and yields a constantly recurring income. When, therefore, a country like Great Britain finds itself, by the inter- national division of labor, in the position of exchanging minerals, and the goods manufactured from minerals, for the raw products of distant lands, an anxious ques- tion arises as to whether the process can indefinitely continue. A country which possessed a monopoly of an absolutely indispensable mineral would no doubt be in a strong position. By husbanding her resources she might extract an enormous tribute from the rest of the world. But even a unique commodity like Welsh steam coal has to compete in the world’s markets with other fuels such as oil. It is not indispensable. From the point of view of the human race as a whole, it is comforting to know that science is perfecting other devices, such as water-power, to carry on the work of the world when the coal supply is exhausted. Man- kind may not be forced to return to the primitive meth- ods of hand-labor. Particular nations, however, which have built up great industries and become densely populated through a differential advantage over other nations in the possession of mineral wealth, are faced by the possibility of losing that advantage, and being - forced to compete for their share of the world’s food supply with the handicap against them. The law of diminishing returns is not, of course, a force which exerts itself suddenly with catastrophic 36 POPULATION effects. The period of abundant supplies, resulting from the development of vast food-producing areas, fades almost imperceptibly into a period of relative ' searcity. Ifthe organization of European life had not been torn asunder by the war, the tendencies out- lined in the preceding paragraphs, vaguely menacing the future well-being of Europe’s population, would not yet have been noticed by practical men. Improve- ments in the organization of industry in Europe may so increase productive power that no falling off in the general well-being need result from an increase in the cost of food. It is even possible that improvements in the arts of agriculture may still for a time keep pace with the growth of population, and that food may re- main as cheap and plentiful in the immediate future as it has been in the last fifty years. Nevertheless, the tendency for population to outrun the means of sub- sistence is a potent fact in the life of humanity. The number of people in the world has increased greatly during an exceptional period in economic history. Some of the factors which made that increase pos- sible appear to bave run their course; others are be- ginning to show signs of exhaustion. If population continues to increase ‘‘in geometrical ratio,”’ a decline in the general standard of life seems well-nigh inevita- ble. Buta decline in the general standard of life means want and misery and suffering for the majority of human beings. Is there no other hope? Let us turn again to Malthus and see what light he can throw upon the matter. § 5. An Important Development. On the evidence be- fore him, it was natural that Malthus should take a MALTHUS ~ 37 gloomy view of the prospects of mankind. The infor- mation he collected seemed to show that in all coun- tries at all times population rapidly increased up to the means of subsistence, and that the lower classes were consequently always living on the verge of des- titution. In England, at the time when he was writ- ing, a number of causes had combined “to bring the working classes into the greatest misery they have ever suffered, at all events since the beginning of trust- worthy records of English social history.’? + And their pastors and masters were still exhorting them to “in- crease and multiply’?! Nevertheless, Malthus was not without hope that conditions might be improved: “The object of those who really wish to better the condi- tion of the lower classes of society,”’ he said, ‘‘must be to raise the relative proportion between the price of labour and the price of provisions, so as to enable the labourer to com- mand a larger share of the necessaries and comforts of life. In an endeavour to raise the proportion of the quantity of provisions to the number of consumers in any country, our attention would naturally be first directed to the increasing of the absolute quantity of provisions; but finding that, as fast as we did this, the number of consumers more than kept: pace with it, and that with all our exertions we were still as far as ever behind, we should be convinced that our efforts directed only in this way would never succeed. It would ap- - pear to be setting the tortoise to catch the hare. Finding, therefore, that from the laws of nature we could not propor- tion the food to the population, our next attempt should nat- urally be to proportion the population to the food. If we can persuade the hare to go to sleep, the tortoise may. have some chance of overtaking her. “We are not, however, to relax our efforts in increasing 1 Marshall, Principles of Economics, Book IV, Chap. IV, § 2. 38 POPULATION the quantity of provisions, but to combine another effort with it; that of keeping the population, when once it has been overtaken, at such a distance behind as to effect the relative proportion which we desire; and thus unite the two grand desiderata, a greet actual population and a state of society in which abject poverty and dependence are com- paratively but little known; two objects which are far from being incompatible.” 1 There is more reason now than there was when the above passage was written to think that the hare may be persuaded to go to sleep. Malthus firmly refused to entertain mere conjectures: “A writer may tell me,” he said, ‘‘that he thinks man will ultimately become an ostrich. I cannot properly contradict him. But before he can expect to bring any reasonable per- son over to his opinion, he ought to show that the necks of mankind have been gradually elongating; that the lips have grown harder, and more prominent; that the legs and feet are daily altering their shape; and that the hair is beginning to change into stubs of feathers. And till the probability of so wonderful a conversion can be shown, it is surely lost time and lost eloquence to expatiate on the happiness of man in such a state... .’2 Well, we have evidence to-day, of the kind that Mal- thus properly demanded, that there is a tendency for men deliberately to restrict the number of their chil- dren, with a view to maintaining a certain standard of well-being and happiness. It is only a tendency at present, but it is a significant tendency. In France, the population is stationary. In Great Britain the 1 Hssay, Book IV, Chap. III. 2 Hssay, first edition, Chap. I. MALTHUS 39 birth-rate has rapidly declined during the last half century, and a similar tendency has manifested itself in most Western countries. There is no doubt that this change is mainly due to what is called “birth control,’ the conscious limitation by married people of the size of their families. So far, the colored races, with the possible exception of Japan, have not adopted birth control. Moreover, in those countries where its influence is already perceptible, the richer classes are at present more affected by it than their poorer neighbors. Thus this new check to population may be said to be beginning at the wrong end of hu- man society, and restricting the families of those who could best afford to multiply. The importance of this aspect of the subject will be discussed in a later chapter. Here it is only necessary to note a new development which may enable the population to adjust itself to changing circumstances without suffering the degrad- ing miseries of privation. CHAPTER III POPULATION THEORIES IN CHANGING CIR- CUMSTANCES “For man also knoweth not his time: as the fishes that are taken in an evil net, and as the birds that are caught in the snare; so are the sons of men snared in an evil time, when it falleth suddenly upon them.” 3 Ecclestastes ix, 12. §1. Why Malthus had many Disciples. Very few books have the distinction of being so fully discussed at the time they are first published as was Malthus’s Essay. Tories like Southey vied with Radicals like Godwin and Hazlitt, and revolutionaries like Cobbett, in the vio- lence of their attacks upon the book and its author. It was said by the same critics that the doctrine was obvious, that it wasn’t true, and that Malthus didn’t discover it. The Tory opposition was based on the feeling that the ordering of the universe by Providence was being criticised. But it was Godwin, the Free- thinker, who quoted texts from the Bible against “ Par- son Malthus,”’ and Cobbett who invented that name for him. In spite of, or perhaps because of these attacks, the Essay was very widely accepted among the Whigs and Utilitarians. Pitt, as we have seen, was much im- pressed by it. Paley was a distinguished convert. Senior, Ricardo and Whitbread all supported Mal- thus. So did James Mill, of whom Leslie Stephen 40 POPULATION THEORIES 4] says that “he ultimately became the father of nine children, an oversight for which his eldest son apol- —ogises.”’ On the whole it may be said that the Principle of Population received the assent, during the lifetime of its author, of most reasonable men, with some ad- ditional support from men of property who were glad to throw upon the poor the whole responsibility for their poverty, and to be satisfied that nothing could be done for them while they remained so improvi- dent as to marry and beget children. How, then, are we to account for the fact that this doctrine which achieved such prominence at the be- ginning of the nineteenth century, gradually slipped out of men’s minds and, without being superseded or controverted, was almost forgotten a hundred years later? The answer to this question is to be found in the economic developments of the period. We saw in the first chapter of this handbook that population theories, not only the ignorant prejudices of the ordinary man, but the considered opinions of philosophers and statesmen, could generally be asso- ciated with the temporary circumstances of the coun- tries in which the theorists lived. Plato and Aristotle approached the question from the point of view of the City State, and consequently recommended a station- ary population; the Romans, with the world at their feet, desired an ever-increasing supply of citizens; the Elizabethans, face to face with an immense problem _ of poverty and destitution, the result of many causes— the inclosing of land for pasture, the dissolution of monasteries, the debasing of the currency and the de-. cay of the guilds—were fully alive to the dangers of over-population; while the Mercantilist writers of the 42 POPULATION seventeenth and eighteenth centuries all favored the greatest possible numbers as a means to national power; their cry was “ Population, population! Population at all events!” ? This relation between doctrines of population and the conditions under which they are formulated can — be traced in more recent controversies at least as clearly as in earlier times. F.S. Nitti contrasting ? the optimism of Adam Smith with the pessimism of Malthus, attrib- utes the difference in outlook between the two to the events which took place in the twenty years which intervened between the publication of The Wealth of Nations in 1776 and that of Malthus’s Essay. In that period, England experienced a succession of bad har- vests, the effects of which were aggravated by an ex- hausting war and the dislocating influence of the in- dustrial revolution. The average price of wheat in the decade 1771-1780 was 34/7; in 1781-1790 it was 37/1; in 1791-1800 it was 63/6; in 1801-1810 it was 83/11; and in 1811-1820 it was 87/6. Moreover, as in the crowded days of Elizabeth, the inclosing of common land and a disastrous Poor Law vastly in- creased the number of the destitute. Malthus has told us that he wrote his book because he had an argument with his father about Godwin’s views on the perfectibility of man. ‘The first edition of the Essay was indeed manifestly designed to com- bat the theories, which became so popular during the French Revolution, as to the infinite potentialities of the human race. By the time he reached his second edition, however, Malthus was more concerned to 1 Joseph Townsend, Dissertation on the Poor Laws, 1786. 2 Population and the Social System. POPULATION THEORIES 43 throw light upon the cause of the poverty and distress of his fellow-countrymen than to pursue an abstract argument. Moreover, if it had not in fact dealt with a problem about which all thoughtful men were agi- tated, it is probable that the first anonymous essay would have passed unnoticed, and that the later tome would never have been written. So we may take it that the Malthusian Principle of Population was enunciated because England was (at least in a narrow sense) over-populated at the end of the eighteenth century. § 2. How Diminishing Returns revealed themselves. The formulation of the tendency to diminishing returns arose even more directly out of the social and political conditions of England at the end of the Napoleonic Wars. The high price of corn had given rise to a great extension of cultivation and to improved methods. The Corn Laws probably had very little to do with the high prices, but landlords and farmers of course desired the high prices to continue, and urged Parlia-~ ment to restrict imports. ‘The Commons and the Lords both appointed Committees which reported in favor of a protectionist policy, and it was in the course of criticizing these Reports that Edward West, Malthus ? and Ricardo stated the tendency to diminishing re- turns and drew inferences from it: To them the case was perfectly clear. They had seen the tendency at work. 1 Malthus was a protectionist, but he could not swallow all the arguments of the landlords. There is an excellent account of the controversy in Cannan’s Theories of Production and Distribu- tion, Chap. V. 44 POPULATION “With every increase of capital and population,’ wrote Ricardo, “food will generally rise, on account of its being more difficult to produce.” “The division of labour and application of machinery,” said Edward West, “‘render labour more and more produc- tive in manufactures, in the progress of improvement; the same causes tend also to make labour more and more pro- ductive in agriculture in the progress of improvement. But another cause, namely, the necessity of having recourse to land inferior to that already in tillage, or of cultivating the same land more expensively, tends to make labour in agri- culture less productive in the progress of improvement. And the latter cause more than counteracts the effects of machin- ery and the division of labour in agriculture.” Thus, there are two opposing tendencies in produc- tion. On the one hand, there is the tendency for each successive dose of capital and labor to facilitate im- provements in organization and so to yield increasing returns. On the other hand, there is the tendency, discussed in the last chapter, for nature to yield dimin- ishing returns. Both these tendencies showed them- selves very clearly in England during the first half of the nineteenth century. By 1815 the power loom was coming into general use, enabling the weavers to keep pace with the spinners, whose jenny had been worked by water-power for some years before that date. In 1740, about a million and a half pounds of cotton was imported, in 1815 nearly one hundred millions. In 1742, about 100,000 pieces of cloth were milled in Yorkshire, in 1815 the number had risen to 500,000, and each piece was double the former length. Coal, iron and transport developed in an equally amazing way; while the population, fully justifying the faith of POPULATION THEORIES 45 Malthus, increased in the industrial North by 75 per cent between 1801 and 1821. The very magnitude of these developments involved the working classes in misery and discontent. The population of England was on the move, and the proc- ess created an ‘economic friction” of a very painful _ kind. The price of food rose alarmingly, and wages lagged drearily behind. Adult labor was displaced to a considerable extent by child-labor in the factories and mines; and the misapplication of the lazssez-faire doc- trine aggravated the distress and fomented the dis- content. § 3. Reaction against Malthus and Ricardo. By degrees, however, England recovered its equilibrium, and voices began’ to make themselves heard, saying that there was, after all, no tendency to diminishing returns. James Mill, M’Culloch and J. 8. Mill adhered to the teaching of Malthus and Ricardo, but Senior, Chalmers and the American economist, Carey, attacked it. “Any given quantity of labor,” said Carey, ‘will “ now command a much larger quantity of food than at any former time, and the tendency is to a constant increase... .” This bold statement he supported by comparing the productiveness of agriculture in 1840 with the miserable returns obtained in 1389, as recorded in Eden’s His- tory of the Poor: “Tt is entirely impossible,” he said, “to read any book treating of the people of England of past times, without be- ing struck with the extraordinary improvement of the means of living—with the increased facility of obtaining food, cloth- ing and shelter, and with the improved quality of all—en- AG POPULATION | abling the common labourer now to indulge in numerous lux- uries that in former times were unknown to people who might be deemed wealthy.” Carey was, of course, quite right as to the facts. The fertile lands of the New World in which he lived were in the early stages of cultivation, yielding in- creasing returns, and the people of England were now begining to reap the benefit of that development combined with some share in the fruits of their own industrial activity. The tendency of that time was to a constant increase, and many a wiser man than Carey has treated that extraordinary boom in world production as the normal return to human efforts which would increase at the same rate for ever. The changes of the Industrial Revolution caused a double reaction against the doctrines of Malthus and Ricardo. The growth of industry and wealth, on the one hand, gave rise to an optimism which rejected the notion that the bulk of mankind must always live upon the brink of destitution. The distress which accom- panied the great redistribution of labor, on the other hand, led to a demand for a more even distribution of wealth, which seemed equally to conflict with the teaching of the economists. “In every experimental science,’”” wrote Macaulay, in 1848, “there is a tendency towards perfection. In every human being there is a wish to ameliorate his own condition. These two principles have often sufficed, even when counteracted by great public calamities and by bad institutions, to carry civilization rapidly forward. No ordinary misfortune, no ordinary misgovernment, will do so much to make a nation wretched, as the constant progress of physical knowledge, and the constant effort of every man to better himself will POPULATION THEORIES 47 do to make a nation prosperous. . . . It can easily be proved that, in our own land, the national wealth has, during at least six centuries, been almost uninterruptedly increasing; that it was greater under the Tudors than under the Plan- tagenets; that it was greater under the Stuarts then under the Tudors; that, in spite of battles, sieges and confiscations, it was greater on the day of the Restoration than on the day when the Long Parliament met; that, in spite of maladmin- istration, of extravagance, of public bankruptcy, of two costly and unsuccessful wars, of the pestilence and of the fire, it was greater on the day of the death of Charles the Second than on the day of his Restoration. This progress, having continued during many ages, became at length, about the middle of the eighteenth century, portentously rapid, and has proceeded, during the nineteenth, with accelerated veloc- ity. In consequence partly of our geographical and partly of our moral position, we have, during several generations, been exempt from evils which have elsewhere impeded the efforts and destroyed the fruits of industry. . . . The con- ‘sequence is that a change to which the history of the old. world furnishes no parallel has taken place in our country,”’? Nine years later, Macaulay added: “During the interval which has elapsed since this chapter was written, England has continued to advance rapidly in material prosperity. . . . There is scarcely a district which is not more populous, or a source of wealth which is not more productive, at present than in 1848.” 2 This was the intellectual atmosphere in England in the middle of the nineteenth century. The formal accuracy of the statement about diminishing returns was not generally denied, but there seemed to be little significance in a tendency which was continuously 1 History of England, Chap. III. 2 Ibid. (note). 48 POPULATION counteracted by more powerful opposing tendencies. The history of civilization seemed to show that man- kind always had, from the days when human co-op- eration first began, risen superior to the tendencies to which Malthus and Ricardo called attention. Prim- itive savages were limited in numbers by the means of subsistence which they found within their reach; but as soon as men learned to combine together and to fashion implements, they began to harness wild nature and to make her yield more and more food and warmth and shelter for their satisfaction. Therein lay the difference between human beings and brute beasts; the former could learn to exercise a constantly increasing control over their environment, and the latter could not. It was not true to say that popula- tion invariably increased up to the limits of the avail- able subsistence. On the contrary, every increase in the numbers of the people brought with it a more than proportionate increase in human wealth, so that the standard of life had been steadily improving and every additional worker put more into the common stock than he drew out of it. Hence the most densely populated districts offered the greatest and most varied supply of the amenities of life. Thus, ‘‘the tendency of every experimental science towards perfection,’”’ and “the wish of every human being to ameliorate his own condition’? were seen by Macaulay and his contemporaries to carry civilization rapidly forward in spite of the tendency to diminishing returns and all other obstacles. § 4. J. S. Mill’s view of Population Problems. John Stuart Mill, however, adhered firmly to the general POPULATION THEORIES 49 teaching of Malthus and Ricardo, which he restated in a more complete and scientific form. Professor Cannan says he did this because ‘‘he was never able to shake off completely the effects of the gloomy theo- ries .. . with which his father had indoctrinated him,” and that ‘‘if he had done so he would have had to find a new way of accounting for the historical fall of profits and also to change most of his views with regard to the whole question of economic progress.” ! Another possible explanation of Miull’s attitude is, however, that he had too well-disciplined a mind to be deflected from a permanent truth by the special circumstances of the century in which he lived, however astonishing and overwhelming those circumstances might be. “Tt is but rarely,” said Mill, ‘that improvements in the condition of the labouring classes do anything more than give a temporary margin, speedily filled up by an increase in their numbers. The use they commonly choose to make of any advantageous change in their circumstances, is to take it out in the form which, by augmenting the population, deprives the succeeding generation of the benefit. Unless, either by their general improvement in intellectual and moral culture, or at least by raising their habitual standard of comfortable living, they can be taught to make a better use of favourable circumstances, nothing permanent can be done for them; the most promising schemes end only in having a “more numerous, but not a happier people.” 2 By their habitual standard, Mill meant the stand- ard below which the people would not multiply, and he noticed with satisfaction that every advance in ed- 1 Theories of Production and Distribution, Chap. V, § 5. 2 Principles, Book I, Chap. X, § 3. 50 POPULATION ucation, civilization and social improvement tends to raise this standard. “Subsistence and employment in England,” he said, “have never increased more rapidly than in the last forty years, but every census since 1821 showed a smaller propor-— tional increase of population than that of the period preced- ing; and the produce of French agriculture and industry is increasing in a progressive ratio, while the population ex- hibits, in every quinquennial census, a smaller proportion of births to the population.”’ 1 Mill was fully alive to the fact that “there is another agency, in habitual antagonism to the law of dimin- ishing return from land... . It is no other,” he said, “than the progress of civilization. I use this general and somewhat vague expression, because the things to be included are so various, that hardly any term of a more restricted signification would comprehend them rN Bi In “the progress of civilization’’ Mill included, first, the progress of agricultural knowledge, skill and inven- tion. A development such as the introduction of ro- tation of crops, or the irrigation of a barren plain, may make a great permanent change in the yielding capacity of land, altering the point at which maximum. | returns are obtained. Secondly, he included improved | means of communication. Thirdly, mechanical im- provements which have apparently no connection with agriculture; such as a better method of melting iron, which would cheapen agricultural implements and transport; or the use of power in grinding corn, 1 Principles, Book I, Chap. X, § 3. 2 Ibid., Chap. XII, § 8. POPULATION THEORIES 51 which would tend to cheapen bread. Fourthly, inven- ~ tions which facilitate the production of manufactures and so compensate the poorest class for the increased cost of food by supplying them with, for instance, cheaper clothing. Fifthly, improvements in govern- ment, and almost every kind of moral and social ad- vancement, which react upon the ene of agricul- tural labor. When all these factors are outstripped by the growth of numbers, there are still two expedients, noted by Mill, by which a country may hope to lessen the pres- sure of its population upon its food supply. One of these expedients is the importation of food from abroad. The other is emigration. § 5. A criticism of Mill’s View. Throughout the nine- teenth century the tide of civilization, flowing through all the channels indicated by Mill, continued to rise, easily overcoming the tendency to diminishing returns. Hence it became fashionable to speak of this ‘‘ pseudo- - scientific law,’’ and even so acute a critic as Professor Cannan asked, in 1903, why: “Mill should be at the trouble of developing a law which 1. does not come into operation at a very early date in the history of society; 2. is liable to temporary supersessions; and 3. has been made head against by an antagonizing prin- ciple, namely, the progress of civilization, throughout the known history of England.” As against this view it may be urged that if we were to ignore all those scientific laws which are counteracted by other laws, we should not get very far in our inter- 52 | POPULATION pretation of phenomena; that, in fact, the tendency to diminishing returns had already played an impor- tant part in economic history; and, finally, that at the very time when Professor Cannan was writing, the tendency was, as we have seen, “‘making head” against ‘the progress of civilization,” and was perhaps prepar- ing the way for great and painful changes in the wel- fare of the inhabitants of the Old World. Thirteen years later, Professor Cannan was quoting, with approval, the following passage: “The conditions which made possible the unprecedented expansion of the European peoples in the last fifty years are passing away. The agricultural development which came as a result of rapid transportation, the invention of labour- saving farm machinery, and the abundance of new and fer- tile lands cannot be duplicated. The system of transporta- tion can be greatly improved, but no revolution such as came with the development of the steam engine seems likely to take place again. The efficiency of agricultural implements will probably be greatly increased, but they have already reached the limit of practicability for extensive farming, not because the implements might not be improved upon, but because the days of extensive farming are rapidly passing as the new countries become more thickly settled. Fertile land is no longer to be had for the asking in the United States, and will soon be taken up in the other places where Europeans can thrive.’’ 1 “T should like to suggest,’”? comments Mill’s critic, “that the next bishop who proposes to recommend unreasoning multiplication as a universal rule of human conduct should take this passage from Dr. Thompson’s 1 Population: A study in Malthusianism, by Warren S. Thomp- son, Pu. D. (New York). POPULATION THEORIES 53 book as his text. The predictions which it contains may be premature, but they cannot be erroneous in any other sense. This little planet is getting filled up; if we go on increasing our numbers indefinitely, we must eventually make it too full, in spite of that steady progress in material equipment and knowledge which tend to set the limits of desirable density farther Oni The limits of desirable density are indeed difficult to determine. Even if we could say for certain that the average worker in a country is better off to-day than he has ever been before, we must still admit that he might be even richer if the population were smaller. On the other hand, while it is safe to say that the de- velopments in agriculture and industry have a causal connection with the growth of population, no one can gauge to what extent the one would have taken place without the other. These are matters upon which there is room for the widest difference of opinion. Moreover, even if we could say precisely what number of people would at any given moment obtain the maximum wealth per head, we should still be very far from deter- mining the limits of desirable density. For who will measure the value of human life? How much material wealth shall we be willing to forego in order to have chil- dren of our own? What proportion of national wealth per head will the statesman sacrifice in order to obtain more soldiers and colonists for the enhancement of national prestige? Malthus assumed that it was undesirable for popu- lation to press upon the means of subsistance up to the point at which the checks of vice and misery begin to 1 economic Journal, Vol. XXVI, No. 102, June, 1916. 54. POPULATION operate. So far, perhaps, there may be general agree- ment. But, as Mill pointed out, the standard of liv- ing below which the people will not multiply varies from time to time and in different countries and among the classes and occupations within each country. The tragedy of vice and misery is most apparent when any class is forced to lower its standard of living. That is the catastrophe which has befallen large sections of the population of Europe during the years immediately succeeding the war. Is it a temporary product of the great upheaval, from which a recovery may be expected when the statesmen have at last put their houses in or- der? Or has the war merely accelerated an inevitable decline in European prosperity; the result of the chang- ing ratios of raw products and manufactured goods? Are we witnessing a world-wide manifestation of the tendency to diminishing returns? It will be the prin- cipal object of the following chapters to indicate some of-the factors which must be taken into account in answering that question. § 6. The Return to Malthus. Whatever the causes may have been, the Wheel of Things to which, in the lama’s philosophy, the human race is bound, has turned full circle. Again, as in the days of Malthus, Europe has been exhausted by a great war; famine and disease ravage large tracts of Russia and the Balkans; inter- national trade is dislocated, and Britain is struggling once more with the dual problem of unemployment and doles. Opinion has swung round with the tide of events. Far more striking than the contrast between Adam Smith and Malthus is that between the passage from POPULATION THEORIES 50 Macaulay quoted above! and the following extracts from a book published in the year 1919: “Before the eighteenth century mankind entertained no false hopes. To lay the illusions which grew popular at that age’s latter end Malthus disclosed a Devil. For half a cen- tury all serious economical writings held that Devil in clear prospect. For the next half century he was chained up and out of sight. Now perhaps we have loosed him again. . . “The prosperity of Europe was based on the facts that, owing to the large exportable surplus of foodstuffs in Amer- ica, She was able to purchase food at a cheap rate measured in terms of the labour required to produce her own exports, and that, as a result of her previous investments of capital, she was entitled to a substantial amount annually without any payment in return at all. The second of these factors then seemed out of danger, but, as a result of the growth of population overseas, chiefly in the United States, the first was not secure. ... “In short, Europe’s claim on the resources of the New World was becoming precarious; the Law of Diminishing Returns was at last reasserting itself, and was making it nec- essary year by year for Europe to offer a greater quantity of other commodities to obtain the same amount of bread; and Europe, therefore, could by no means afford the disor- ganization of any of her principal sources of supply. . . .? “The essential facts of the situation, as I see them, are expressed simply. Europe consists of the densest aggregation of population in the history of the world. This population is accustomed to a relatively high standard of life, in which, even now, some sections of it anticipate improvement rather than deterioration. In relation to other continents Europe is not self-sufficient; in particular it cannot feed itself. ... 1See pages 47 and 48. 2 The Economic Consequences of the Peace, by J. M. Keynes, Chap. II. 56 POPULATION The danger confronting us, therefore, is the rapid depression of the standard of life of the European populations to a point which will mean actual starvation for some (a point already reached in Russia and approximately reached in Austria). Men will not always die quietly. ... “Some of the catastrophes of past history, which have — thrown back human progress for centuries, have been due to the reactions following on the sudden termination, whether in the course of Nature or by the act of man, of temporarily favourable conditions which have permitted the growth of - population beyond what could be provided for when the fa- vourable conditions were at an end.” 1 ; The view-pomt from which the foregoing passages were written is not adopted only by economists. In a somewhat different vein, but equally significant of the trend of opinion, is the follewing sketch of British economic history, also written in 1919: “Tt was not till the accession of George III that the in- crease in our numbers became rapid. . . . The Industrial Revolution came upon us suddenly; it changed the whole face of the country and the apparent character of the people. In the far future our descendants may look back upon the period in which we are living as a strange episode which dis- turbed the natural habits of our race. . . . The basis of our industrial supremacy was, and is, our coal. ... We were no longer able to grow our own food; but we made masses of goods which the manufacturers were eager to exchange for it; and the population grew like crops on a newly irrigated — desert. During the nineteenth century the numbers were nearly quadrupled. Let those who think that the popula- tion of a country can be increased at will reflect whether it is likely that any physical, moral or psychological change came over the nation coincidently with the inventions of the spin- 1 The Economic Consequences of the Peace, Chap. VI. POPULATION THEORIES 57 ning jenny and the steam engine. It is too obvious for dis- pute that it was the possession of capital wanting employ- ment, and of natural advantages for using it, that called these multitudes of human beings into existence, to eat the food which they paid for by their labour. And it should be equally obvious that the existence of forty-six millions of people upon 121,000 square miles of territory depends en- tirely upon our finding a market for our manufactures abroad, for so only are we able to pay for the food of the people. It is most unfortunate that these exports must, with our pres- ent population, include coal, which, if we had any thought for posterity, we should guard jealously and use sparingly; for in five hundred years at the outside our stock will be gone, and we shall sink to a third-rate Power at once. We are sacrificing the future in order to provide for an excessive and discontented population in the present.” 4 It may be that the writers of these passages are not so representative of the general opinion of their time as Macaulay was of nineteenth-century culture. Per- haps there is to-day no general opinion upon broad social issues which we can compare with the coherent formularies of the Early Victorians. Here, at any rate, we have definite opinions, clearly expressed by writers who are widely read and discussed in Europe and America. By them we are brought face to face with the most fundamental of all economic problems; the - relation of the number of human beings to the supply of the necessaries of life. They tell us, in effect, that we are living, and that our parents have been living, for fifty years, in a fool’s paradise; believing that they were building up our economic life upon solid foundations, and preparing the way for a happier posterity, whereas, 1W. R. Inge, Outspoken Essays, pp. 91 and 92. 58 POPULATION in reality, they were squandering our family estates and wasting the gains of civilization on a mere increase in numbers. ; This is a very different story from Macaulay’s vision of a world in which the tendency to perfection over- comes all obstacles. It demands instant and thorough © investigation. Thus far we have been mainly concerned with the history of a controversy. This was necessary if only to account for the neglect of population prob- lems by the pre-war world. However pardonable that neglect may have been hitherto, it is clear that it must not and cannot continue. We must face the facts. CHAPTER IV | FOOD AND RAW MATERIALS ‘‘ All the labour of man is for his mouth, and yet the appe- tite is not filled.” . Ecclesiastes vi, 7. § 1. Analogy between a Shrinking Earth and a Grow- ing Population. If the world were gradually growing smaller and population remaining constant, the effect upon human beings would be very like that produced by the growth of population in a world which remains the same size. It has been estimated that if the popula- tion of the world continued to increase at the rate at which it was growing between 1906 and 1911, it would double in sixty years. Let us imagine, therefore, that the world is shrinking at such a rate that it will be half its present size in sixty years. The suggestion seems rather an alarming one as it stands, but to make the analogy more accurate we must assume that the shrink- age is all taking place in the food-producing areas. We should rightly regard such a state of things as more serious than that which actually faces us. For, in the - first place, the growth of population carries with it an opportunity for increased efficiency in production, which must be set off against the increased demand _ for food. Other things being equal, a thousand million people on half the earth would not, therefore, be so well off as two thousand millions on the whole earth. In the second place, we know from experience that, 59 60 POPULATION unless some new discovery enables us to produce food more easily, the population will not, in fact, continue to increase at its present rate. Though the analogy is not complete, however, it may serve to bring out a few points which would other- wise remain somewhat obscure. It illustrates the Law of Diminishing Returns. If the returns to agriculture remained constant, we should have no economic reason for alarm at the shrinking of the earth. The same quantity of capital and labor would be available and would yield the same amount of food when it was ap- plied to a smaller quantity of land. Even a single field would then suffice to maintain the whole population at their present standard of living! Such a supposition is obviously absurd; but it is no more absurd than it © would be to deny the tendency to diminishing returns. Recognizing then, as we should, that the shrinking earth would yield a smaller return of food to each suc- cessive dose of capital and labor applied to it, we should be forced to tackle the problem of maintaining the pop- ulation on the food produced from a smaller acreage. The price of food would rise. Increasing quantities of capital and labor would be transferred from the pro- duction of other articles, such as clothes and houses, to the production of food. Some land, which is now more profitably used for other purposes, would also be ploughed up and put under cultivation. Thus, by a considerable transference of resources from the pro- duction of less essential commodities, the primary need of human beings for food would be supplied and the whole population might continue to exist on a lower standard of comfort and well-being. In all probability no actual famine would result from FOOD AND RAW MATERIALS 61 such a decrease in the size of the earth as we have sup- posed; no one need die of starvation; it is possible that no one need eat less food than before; but food would be dearer and many other things would also be dearer and scarcer, because capital and labor would be diverted from making them in order to keep up the food supply. A unit of labor applied in industry would consequently yield a purchasing power over a smaller quantity of commodities of all kinds. § 2. The Transference of Resources in War-time. It is in this way that the pressure of population on the food supply makes itself felt. Those who were in England during the war will remember how tennis lawns were turned into potato patches and public parks divided - up into allotments. It is impossible to say what loss of satisfaction was Involved in this change. We only know that before and after the special food-shortage - caused by the war, people preferred to take this part of their income in the form of games and flowers, but that when the pressure on subsistence reached a cer- tain pitch they sacrificed these enjoyments in order to obtain fresh vegetables. A similar transference of re- sources was taking place on a much greater scale in the food-producing parts of the world. India, the first country to have a sowing time after the outbreak of war, immediately increased her wheat-growing area by 4,000,000 acres. In North America, 12,000,000 acres more wheat were sown in the spring of 1915. Australia added 3,000,000 acres, about 30 per cent, to her wheat area. Altogether, therefore, the area of the world’s surface devoted to the growing of wheat was increased during the first year of war by about 19,000,000 acres. 62 POPULATION These figures indicate considerable elasticity in the world’s food supply. American and Canadian farmers had to decide whether to increase their acreage before they knew how far prices would rise or even whether they would be able to get their wheat to the European markets. They were therefore willng to make a con- siderable extension for a speculative return. In fact, they rather over-estimated the demand, or the excep- tional harvests of 1915-16 upset their calculations; prices did not reach the expected level and the acreage under wheat decreased a little during the later years of the war. The farmers had shown, however, what they could do in a single year if more food were required. Moreover, there is still land in Canada uncultivated, and the possibilities of intensive cultivation there are enormous. The average yield of wheat in Canada is under 19 bushels an acre, while in the United Kingdom it is 32 bushels. In the Argentine, also, there has been during the last thirty years a tremendous extension of the area under wheat, and the application of intensive methods there may be expected to produce huge sup- plies. The United States bad 71,500,000 acres under wheat in 1919, or 11,000,000 more than in any previous year; and 6,600,000 acres under rye, or three times the area under the crop in 1912.1 This great extension of cultivation took place under the stimulus of Mr. Hoover’s guaranteed price and, though very unlikely to be maintained, it shows what can be done. “Why all this fuss, then, about the Law of Dimin- ishing Returns and the pressure of population on the means of subsistence?”’ the reader, reassured by the foregoing paragraph may ask. Why, dear sir, do you 1Sir R. Henry Rew, Food Supplies in Peace and War. FOOD AND RAW MATERIALS — 63 walk, or take a bus in the City of London, when there are taxis about and a Rolls-Royce to be bought _round the corner? The question is whether the world, and more particularly Europe, can afford to go on in- creasing its population and paying the price required to extract these potential food supplies from the soil. ~ Why have so many city clerks given up their allot- ments since the war ended? Their reasons are in- structive. One will tell you that he found “it didn’t pay.”’ He was tired when he returned from the office in the evening and did not feel inclined to go in for hard manual labor; and if he rose early in the morn- ing to dig, he found himself sleepy and inefficient later in the day. Another would have liked to keep on his allotment, but the land was unfortunately required for other purposes. A third has changed his main occupation and no longer has time for cultivating the sou. A fourth is “fed up” with the disappointments due to drought, or insect pests, or some of the other obstacles which impede the cultivator, especially if he is not equipped with the most scientific knowledge and implements. All these reasons illustrate the tendency for resources to be diverted into those occupations in which they can contribute the maximum net product. If food again became as scarce in Britain as it was during the war, these clerks would resume their agricultural efforts. If it became still scarcer, they might even be induced to give up their city jobs and devote themselves to food - production. It is the same in the world as a whole. The growth of population increases the demand for food. The Law of Diminishing Returns shows itself in an increasing difficulty in extracting further food 64 POPULATION supplies from the soil. More and more capital and labor are required for each proportionate increase in the supply, and consequently, more and more human effort must be put into the making of other things that we ask the farmer to take in exchange for his produce. Otherwise, he will not think it worth while to culti- vate his land more intensively. He will be content to grow the same quantity each year, unless he sees a prospect of making a profit out of the application of more capital and labor to his land. Thus, as the city clerk gave up his leisure or his tennis for potatoes, so every one may have to sacrifice various things from which he derives satisfaction in order to obtain a sufficient share of the food produced under these cir- cumstances of increasing difficulty. § 3. The Pressure of Population upon Subsistence. It has already been indicated that the growth of popula- tion is not likely to be the cause of famine. ‘The pres- sure upon the food supply produced by numbers alone is sufficiently gradual to allow an adjustment to be made in the allocation of resources before any danger of starvation occurs. People will give up luxuries of all kinds, and even necessities like fuel and shelter, before they will go without food. It is this gradual depression of the standard of life, rather than actual famine, that is likely to result from an excessive growth of population. For when the standard of life has been reduced to any considerable extent, the death-rate will rise, children and old people succumbing to pri- vation; and, even if the birth-rate remain unchanged, numbers will be kept within the bare means of sub- sistence. It is obvious, however, that a community FOOD AND RAW MATERIALS 65 which is thus reduced to the lowest necessities of life will suffer much more severely from a sudden dearth than one which has a margin of resources to draw upon. In this way over-population may be the main, though not the immediate, cause of famine. The popu- lation of European Russia increased from less than 100,000,000 in 1890 to about 150,000,000 at the out- break of war; and the excess of births over deaths in Russia as a whole was at the rate of 2,000,000 per annum in the years immediately preceding 1914. This tremendous increase must have contributed greatly to the magnitude of the catastrophe before which the world now stands in horrified impotence. In India, too, the population has been increasing with disquiet- ing rapidity owing to-the removal by British rule of many of the checks to population which formerly pre- vailed; and it is probable that the recurrence of famines in that country is partly attributable to this increase. In large parts of India people are entirely dependent on agriculture, and the harvest is so completely de- stroyed by a single monsoon failure that the laborer is thrown out of work for a whole year. If he has no savings, he and his family must starve, or be kept alive by relief work, even though food may be ob- tainable from neighboring districts. It is clear, there- fore, that an increase in population which absorbs the whole surplus of a normal harvest may transform the effect of a monsoon failure from unemployment into famine. Certainly the Indian Government has taken energetic steps to grapple with the famine problem, both in the way of prevention, by transport and 1rri- gation schemes, and by the organization of relief when famines occur. No criticism of British rule is therefore 66 POPULATION. implied here. It is only suggested that the growth of population may account for the fact that famines still occur in India, in spite of the measures which have been taken to avert them. The preceding argument might be thought to im- ply that an increase in the number of the inhabitants of a country must always lower the standard of life which has hitherto prevailed there. That is not so. The factors that Mull grouped together under the comprehensive title of “the progress of civilization” make a certain increase in numbers frequently desirable. Some of these factors, indeed, depend upon an increase in numbers to enable them to come into action. If, therefore, we do not dwell so much, upon the need for a certain increase as upon the disadvantages of an excessive increase, it is only because that ‘‘power of population,” to which Malthus called attention, is so great that the former is always forthcoming when it is required. A multitude of the unborn are always crowding round the door of life. Open it a little way and they squeeze through in such numbers that you will have much ado to close it again! §4. The Economic Advantages of a Growing Popula- tion. In comparing the growth of population with a shrinkage of the earth, it was remarked that the for- mer would be less alarming than the latter, because an increase in population carries with it an opportunity for increased efficiency in production. It will be worth while to examine that statement more closely. The raw materials of manufactures are all either agri- cultural or mineral products and the Law of Dimin- ishing Returns applies, as we saw in Chapter II, to FOOD AND RAW MATERIALS 67 these as well as to food. The cost of raw materials, however, is often a very small part of the total cost of © ~ production in manufactures, and all the other costs tend to decrease as the amount of production increases. Manufactures are much more susceptible than agri- culture to improvements in mechanical skill. Mass production enables very great economies to be made, and facilitates that world-wide division of labor which has contributed so enormously to the general wealth. In manufactures, therefore, the causes which tend to diminish costs as the amount produced increases have generally preponderated greatly over the tendency of the raw materials to increase in costs, and it is prob- able that in most industries the balance will remain tilted in a favorable direction for a long time to come. Moreover, the growth of population has facilitated that development of the means of transport both by land and sea, which, as we have seen, enables the prod- ucts of distant lands to be exchanged at trifling costs. The actual proximity of large numbers of human be- ings to one another, objectionable as it may be to those who love solitude and country scenes, enables great economies to be made in the distribution of goods, and renders possible some amenities of civilization, such as picture-palaces and picture galleries, which could - not be provided in a sparsely populated world. This gathering together of multitudes also has some effect in counteracting the tendency to diminishing returns in agriculture, by introducing an economy in the dis- tribution of food. It is clear that British agriculture could not be profitably carried on so much more inten- sively than that of Canada unless proximity to the con- sumers exercised a powerful influence on costs. It is 68 POPULATION equally clear that if much smaller quantities of Cana- dian wheat were required in this country, the cost of bringing them to market would be increased. Taking all these factors together it will be seen that the growth of population may under certain circum- _ stances actually increase the amount of wealth per head, even though food may be getting dearer. Diminish- ing returns to agriculture and the diversion of an ever- increasing proportion of the total supply of capital and labor into the production of food and raw materials may be outweighed by the increasing returns obtained in manufactures. A smaller proportion of the total population employed in manufacturing industries may thus supply the aggregate wants of the community more fully than before. Houses and clothing may be so plentiful as to more than compensate for the com- parative scarcity of food. To put the same point in another way, let us assume that owing to improved machinery and business organ- ization the Lancashire cotton industry is yielding in- creasing returns, in spite of some increase in the price of raw cotton. The wages of the cotton operative will tend to rise and the price of cotton goods to fall. He may therefore be able to buy as much food as be- fore at a higher price and still have more money to spend on other things; and these other things—boots and gramophones and rides on motor-coaches—may also be getting cheaper through economies obtained in their production on a large scale. His real income may thus be considerably increased. It would be very interesting if we could distinguish between those economies in production which depend upon an increase in numbers and those which would ~ FOOD AND RAW MATERIALS 69 take place if the population remained stationary. Un- fortunately they are inextricably mixed up together. Many discoveries and inventions which depend upon the brain-work of a few men working in seclusion would certainly be made in any civilized society, whether the population was increasing or not. Some of these could be profitably applied under any circumstances. Others, however, like the discovery of steam and electricity, require a dense population if their po- tentialities are to be fully developed in such enter- prises as railways and telegraphs. Probably an in- creasing population was necessary to call forth the capital for the great railway systems which were created throughout the world towards the end of last century. Manufacturers, again, certainly require a considerable density of population in order to obtain those econ- omies of mass production and the division of labor which lead to such astonishing supplies of cheap and sometimes nasty goods. It is true that many people would rather have one suit of hand-made cloth than twenty suits of the stuff which is turned out by ma- chinery, but it is clear, at any rate, that much larger quantities of clothing, per head, are available in a densely populated world than could be produced by a scattered community. Finally, as we have already seen, there are economies in distribution which depend entirely upon a large population being congregated in a relatively small area, and many developments of civilization, some wholly good and others of more ques- tionable intrinsic value, but all sought after by the modern town-dweller, which could not have been in- troduced into a less populous world. It is not possible, then, to say with any precision 70 POPULATION how far the progress of civilization and the accumula- tion of wealth depend upon an increasing population. Up to a point, the growth of numbers has certainly contributed largely to the growth of wealth. There are indications, however, that the most sweeping econ- omies which result from increasing numbers have al- ready been secured in the industrial areas of Europe and the United States. It is probable that the wealth of civilized countries was still growing faster than the population, that the wealth per head was still increas- ing in the years immediately preceding the war. But it is probable also that the wealth per head would have been increasing faster still, if the population had not been growing so rapidly. From the economic point of view, at all events, there seems no reason to bemoan that slowing down of the rate of growth of the popula- tion of the Western world which has alarmed some English bishops and French patriots in recent years. Taking a somewhat longer view, we may indeed see good reason to strengthen this tentative opinion. For if it appears to be somewhat undesirable for numbers to continue to multiply rapidly when we are consid- ering the immediate effect upon the welfare of the people, it will appear much less desirable when we look to the future. The main raw materials of European industry are either imported from other continents or raised from mines. ‘Those which are imported are chiefly agri- cultural products, like cotton and wool, which are subject to the Law of Diminishing Returns. $5. The Supply of Raw Cotton. Now the production of cotton, as we saw in Chapter II, is not keeping pace FOOD AND RAW MATERIALS 71 with the demand for it. Between 1875 and 1895 the quantity of cotton produced in the United States in- ~ creased so much that the price fell 54 per cent. Thus in a period of falling prices, cotton fell more than almost any other commodity. Between 1895 and 1910, however, when the average price of raw materials rose 25 per cent, the price of cotton rose 71 per cent, while wheat rose only 17 per cent. The American cotton belt had been invaded by wheat and other crops. The Western extension of the belt had been prevented by a shortage of negro labor. For the picking of cotton is disagreeable work, which must be done by hand, and it is practically confined in the United States to negro labor. Moreover, the growing demand of Amer- ican mills had limited the amount of American cotton available for Lancashire, and though there are several other parts of the world in which cotton can be grown, there are few where labor conditions and climate are both favorable. Fully 60 per cent of the world’s to- tal supplies of cotton are grown in the United States, and about 73 per cent of British imports of raw cotton come from that source. In the years immediately preceding the war the acreage under cotton in America was considerably extended, but the yield per acre was reduced by the ravages of a very serious insect pest, the boll weevil, and the price continued to rise. That this rise in price was due to the increased cost of production was shown by the fluctuations in supply. A good crop caused a sharp fall in prices, and so much of the cotton was pro- duced near the margin of profitable production that a fall in prices caused a restriction of the acreage in the following year; and this restriction of acreage naturally 72 POPULATION led, in a normal year, to a reduced crop, a rise in prices and an extended acreage again. In the language of economics, the supply showed great elasticity. The war caused a great decrease in the demand for cotton; and the supply, under the conditions indicated, inevitably shrank correspondingly. Meanwhile, the boll weevil invaded new territories and annexed great areas of the American cotton belt, sadly reducing the yield of the crop. The result of the depredations of this enemy is that it is doubtful whether the American cotton crop will ever again reach its pre-war magnitude, unless improved methods of production, including the defeat of the boll weevil, are devised, or a great permanent rise in prices makes it profitable to increase supplies under the present adverse conditions. When it is re- membered that the pre-war supply was not keeping pace with the world’s demand, it will be obvious that the position is an anxious one for the manufacturers of cotton goods. There are, no doubt, many countries— India, Egypt, the Sudan, Mesopotamia, China—which are potentially capable of growing all the cotton which the manufacturing countries may need. Unfortunately, the essential condition upon which the development. of these sources of supply depends is the same as that demanded by the American producers; a rise in prices, to compensate for the Law of Diminishing Returns operating, in this case, through the extension of production into less favorable localities. §6. The Supply of Wool. Wool, like cotton, fell in price very heavily between 1875 and 1895, but owing to the great development of Australian production, it only rose the average 25 per cent during the years FOOD AND RAW MATERIALS 73 between 1895 and 1910. The war caused a serious diminution in the supply, but there is little doubt that, when the world at last recovers from the paralyzing effects of concussion, the pre-war production of wool will be restored. If a great increase of supply is required, it is probable that a tendency to diminishing returns will necessitate a rise in the price of this commodity also. But readers of the first volume in this series will remember that wool is a joint product, subject to special conditions of supply. When Charles Lamb was asked by an agricultural travelling companion what he thought of the prospects of turnips, he replied, “That must depend on boiled mutton.’ He was think- ing of joint demand; but on the supply side, wool de- pends, even more intimately than turnips, upon mutton. The proportions of the two commodities to one another can be considerably varied by cross-breeding, and it is therefore probable that a small rise in the price of wool will cause a considerable increase in the quantity pro- duced. The prospects of the wool supply during, say, the next fifty years, are not therefore so disquieting as those of cotton. Nevertheless, we must remember that the production of this commodity requires great open spaces. The growth of population and transport facilities mevitably lead to the transference of land from pasture to arable and dairy farming. We are concerned with the ebb and flow of the great tides in human progress and must not be deceived by the little waves which advance and recede continually on the fringe of the ocean. Civilization is always encroach- ing on the pasture lands and driving the shepherds into remoter areas. The River Plate Republics and the 74 POPULATION United States are reducing their production of wool. Only Australia is still to a small extent on the up-grade. The question arises as to how long it will be before Australia, and even Siberia, grows too populous and accessible for sheep-farming, on anything like its pres- ent terms, to remain its most profitable industry. Nobody wants to hold back these countries. We look to them to help to maintain the necessary supply of wheat and other food for human consumption. We want to see them developing and supporting flourish- ing communities of their own. But the European textile industries are faced by the uncomfortable fact that the food they need for their operatives is compet- ing with the raw material upon which they work, for room to grow in sufficient quantities to satisfy their demand for each of them. ‘The fertile places on the earth, which have not already been made to contrib- ute something towards the maintenance of human life, are hard to find. This planet is fillmg up, and un- less mankind makes some sudden leap forward in knowledge and power, it will not be long before a steady permanent fall in real wages warns us that world-population is increasing faster than the world’s produce. The conditions which govern the supply of the other kind of raw materials—those which are raised from mines—will be discussed in the next chapter, and it will be convenient to reserve further consideration of the relations between raw products and population - until we are able to lump all the former together. § 7. Fisheries. Before we pass on from vegetables and animals to minerals, however, mention should be made FOOD AND RAW MATERIALS 75 - of a food which has played an important part in his- tory and may become still more influential in the fu- ~ ture. This food is ‘‘neither flesh nor fowl,’ but ‘‘good | red herring.”’ In years gone by the fisheries were regarded by both Holland and England as ‘“‘the chiefest trade and gold- mine” and “the way to winne wealth.”’ British fish- eries were nursed by kings and statesmen, not only for the food they produced, but because the fishing fleets supplied the finest seamen for the Navy, and because “he that hath the trade of fishing becomes mightier than all the world besides in number of ships.” River-fisheries are undoubtedly subject to the Law of Diminishing Returns, though the English salmon rivers might with a little care be made to yield an in- creasing return to considerable doses of capital and labor at the present time. As to the sea, opinions differ. A herring produces about 30,000 eggs and a plaice may lay as many as half a million. A very large proportion of these eggs are destroyed, and probably only a small minority of little fishes grow to maturity. It is there- fore arguable that the capture of grown fishes merely releases space and food for others to replace them. On the other hand, experience seems to show that the stock of plaice in the North Sea has actually been di- minished by vigorous fishing operations. Very little is at present known about fish and their way of life, but the question is an important one for, whether they are subject to diminishing returns or not, they consti- tute an immense self-replenishing reservoir of human food. In the words of an old “Fisher’s Song”’: 76 POPULATION “The husbandman has rent to pay (Blow, winds, blow) And seed to purchase every day (Row, boys, row), But he who farms the rolling deeps, Though never sowing, always reaps; The ocean’s fields are fair and free, There are no rent days on the sea.” CHAPTER V COAL AND IRON “Took unto the rock whence ye were hewn, and to the hole of the pit whence ye were digged.”’ Isaiah li, 1. §1. Jevons and the Coal Question. Another distinguished Englishman, besides John Stuart Mill, realized the temporary character of the great boom in wealth and trade which intoxicated the world in the nineteenth cen- tury. In 1865 W. Stanley Jevons gave a shock to British complacency and even, it is said, startled Mr. Gladstone, then Chancellor of the Exchequer, by publishing his book on The Coal Question: An Inquiry Concerning the Progress of the Nation, and the Probable Exhaustion of our Coal-mines. The book is a classic. Other people, including Jev- ons’s own son, have written more exhaustively on the subject, in the light of fuller statistical data. Two Royal Commissions, one appointed especially to in- vestigate the allegations made by Jevons, have sat upon the subject. Subsequent events have confirmed some and falsified other of the prophecies contained in the book. But it still remains the best and most disturbing exposition of the Coal Question and it still seizes the reader’s attention as only a work of genius can. Even a work of genius, however, if it deals with a 77 78 POPULATION practical question, must be ruthlessly handled, and Jevons’s argument can be summarized as follows: * If Britain at present possesses a certain leading and worldwide influence, it is not due to any general in- tellectual superiority, but to “the union of certain happy mental qualities with material resources of an altogether peculiar character.”’ We must apply the Malthusian principle of popula- tion to the consumption of coal. ‘Our subsistence no longer depends upon our produce of corn. The mo- mentous repeal of the Corn Laws throws us from corn upon coal. It marks, at any rate, the epoch when coal was finally recognized as the staple produce of the coun- try; it marks the ascendency of the manufacturing interest, which is only another name for the develop- ment of the use of coal.” By virtue of our possession of coal we have made the several quarters of the globe our willing tributaries. “The plains of North America and Russia are our cornfields; Chicago and Odessa our granaries; Canada and the Baltic are our timber-forests; Australasia con- tains our sheep-farms, and in Argentina and on the western prairies of North America are our herds of oxen; Peru sends her silver, and the gold of South Africa and Australia flows to London; the Hindus and the Chin- ese grow tea for us, and our coffee, sugar and spice plan- tations are in all the Indies. Spain and France are our vineyards, and the Mediterranean our fruit-gar- den; and our cotton grounds, which for long have oc- cupied the Southern United States, are now being ex- tended everywhere in the warm regions of the earth.” 1The passages between inverted commas are quoted verbatim from Jevons. COAL AND IRON 79 This is what coal has done for us, and “those per- sons very much mistake the power of coal and steam, and iron, who think that it is now fully felt and ex- hibited; it will be almost indefinitely greater in future years than it now is. Science points to this conclu- sion, and common observation confirms it.”? But “we © should be hasty in assuming that the growth of gen- eral commerce ensures for this island everlasting riches and industrial supremacy.” We have to remember that, “while other countries mostly subsist upon the annual and ceaseless income of the harvest, we are drawing more and more upon a capital which yields no annual interest, but. once turned into light and heat and motive power, is gone for ever into space. “Rather more than a century of our present prog- ress would exhaust our mines to the depth of 4000 feet, or 1500 feet deeper than our present deepest mine.” If all our coal were brought from an average depth of some 2000 feet, our manufacturers would have to con- tend with a doubled price of fuel. If the average depth were increased to 4000 feet, a further great but un- known rise in the cost of fuel must be the consequence. “But I am far from asserting, from these figures, that our coal-fields will be wrought to a depth of 4000 feet in little more than a century. “T draw the conclusion that I think anyone would draw, that we cannot long maintain our present rate » of increase of consumption; that we can never advance to the higher amounts of consumption supposed. But this only means that the check to our progress must become perceptible within a century from the present time; that the cost of fuel must rise, perhaps within a lifetime, to a rate injurious to our commercial and man- 80 POPULATION ufacturing supremacy; and the conclusion is inevitable, that our present happy progressive condition is a thing of limited duration.” The public seems unaware that ‘‘a sudden check to the expansion of our supply would be the very mani- festation of exhaustion we dread. It would at once bring on us the rising price, the transference of industry, and the general reverse of prosperity, which we may hope not to witness in our days.” Economy in the use of fuel offers no way out of our difficulty. Economy in the domestic consumption of coal would be a good thing but would only affect a small portion of the total consumption. ‘But the economy of coal in manufactures is a different matter. It is wholly a confusion of ideas to suppose that the economical use of fuel is equivalent to a diminished consumption. ‘The very contrary is the truth.” The whole history of the steam engine is one of economy, and ‘‘the reduction of the consumption of coal, per ton of iron, to less than one-third of its former amount, was followed, in Scotland, by a tenfold total consump- tion, between the years 1830 and 1863, not to speak of the indirect effect of cheap iron in accelerating other coal-consuming branches of industry.” ‘ “The addition to our population in four years now (1865) is as great as the whole increase of the cen- tury 1651-1751, and the increase of coal consumption between 1859 and 1862 is equal to the probable annual consumption at the beginning of this cen- tury. It is on this account that I attach less im- portance than might be thought right to an exact es- timate of the coal existing in Great Britain. ... The absolute amount of coal in the country rather affects COAL AND IRON 81 the height to which we shall rise than the time for which we shall enjoy the happy prosperity of progress. “It has been suggested by many random thinkers that when our coal is done here, we may import it as we import so many other raw materials from abroad. ...1 am sorry to say that the least acquaintance with the principles of trade, and the particular circum- stances of our trade, furnishes a complete negative to all such notions. While the export of coal is a great and growing branch of our trade, a reversal of the trade, and a future return current of coal, is a commercial impossibility and absurdity. . . . No one will properly understand the trade in coal who forgets that coal is the most bulky and weighty of all commodities. .. . The cost of carriage is the main element of price every- where except in the coal-field, or its close neighbour- hood.’’ If our supplies were imported from America, about 1200 vessels would be required to maintain our present supplies only. “Our industry would then have to contend with fuel, its all-important food, three or four times as dear, as it now is in England and America. “But it is asked, How is a large export trade of coal possible, if an import trade is commercially impossible? ... It is mainly due to the fact that coal is carried as ballast, or makeweight, and is subject to the low rates of back-carriage. ... Our imports consist of bulky raw materials and food. ... A large part of our ship- ping would thus have to leave our ports half empty, or in ballast, unless there were some makeweight or natural supply of bulky cargo as back-carriage.... To import coal as well as other raw materials would be against the essentially reciprocal nature of trade. The weight of our inward cargoes would be multiplied 82 POPULATION many times, and but little weight left for outward carriage; almost every influence which now acts, and for centuries has acted, in favour of our maritime and manufacturing success would then act against it, and it would be arrogance and folly indeed to suppose that even Britain can carry forward her industry in spite of nature, and in the want of every material condi- tion. In our successes hitherto it is to nature we owe at least as much as to our own energies.”’ It is impossible to do justice to Jevons’s closely knit argument in a brief summary, but the foregoing sen- tences from his book may serve the double purpose of conveying some notion of the drift of his thought and at the same time introducing the subject to the reader of this handbook. If anyone is thereby encouraged to read Jevons for himself, he will be amply rewarded. § 2. The Meaning of ‘Exhaustion.’”’ Although he was a singularly clear writer, Jevons was misunderstood. There seems to be a deeply rooted human instinct to resist a disagreeable truth and to misrepresent its ex- ponents if they cannot be ignored. Just as Malthus was accused of having said that population would in- crease beyond the means of subsistence, when, in fact, he said that it couldn’t; so Jevons was supposed by many people, including both the Royal Commissions appointed to investigate the question, to have said that the coal consumption of the United Kingdom would reach certain very large amounts, whereas his whole point was that the rate of growth in coal consumption would inevitably be checked. One of the most vital points to grasp in the study of the rise and fall of human welfare is that put forward COAL AND IRON 83 by Malthus when he said: ‘‘A man who is locked up in a room may fairly be said to be confined by the walls of it, though he may never touch them.’ This was what Jevons was driving at in connection with the coal supply. ‘Many people,’ he wrote, “perhaps entertain a vague notion that some day our coal seams will be found emptied to the bottom, and swept clean like a coal-cellar. Our fires and furnaces, they think, will then be suddenly extinguished, and cold and dark- ness will be left to reign over a depopulated country. It is almost needless to say, however, that our mines are literally mexhaustible. We cannot get to the bottom of them; and though we may some day have to pay dear for fuel, it will never be positively wanting.” When he discussed the inevitable ‘‘exhaustion of our coal-mines,” therefore, Jevons meant their deple- tion to a point at which we could no longer maintain our extraordinary rate of progress. The average an- nual rate of growth of our coal consumption, at the time when Jevons wrote, was 34 per cent. If our consumption of coal had continued to multiply at that rate for 110 years, the total amount consumed in that period would have been one hundred thousand million tons. Now the most reliable estimate that Jevons could obtain of the available coal in Britain showed eighty-three thousand million tons within a depth of 4000 feet. He naturally concluded, therefore, as we have seen, that we could not long maintain that rate of progress. Within twenty years the rate of growth began to diminish. The average rate of increase during the last forty years has been about 2 per cent perannum. Jev- 84 POPULATION ons’s anticipation has thus been justified. On the other hand, the estimate, which he adopted, of the available coal in Great Britian has been rejected as too low by later authorities. The Royal Commission which issued its final report in 1905, taking, as Jevons had done, the limit of practicable depth as 4000 feet, estimated the available quantity of coal in the proved coal-fields of the United Kingdom as just over one hundred thousand million tons. Although about six thousand million tons had been raised in the interval, this estimate was nearly elghteen thousand million tons higher than that used by Jevons. The coal-fields — of Ireland, which are included in the later estimate and not in the earlier one, are thought to contain less than two hundred million tons, but the excess is ac- counted for partly by the difference in the areas re- garded as productive and partly by new discoveries and more accurate knowledge. If after another forty years of diligent coal-getting we could hope for a similar increase in the quantity remaining in the earth, we should conclude that we were the happy owners of a widow’s cruse and could regard Jevons as a discredited prophet. As, however, that is a supposition which, as Malthus would have said, ‘‘cannot be inferred upon any just philosophical erounds,’?’ we must remember that Jevons himself did not attribute much importance to the accuracy of the estimate in question. ‘‘Were our coal half as abundant again,’’ he wrote, ‘fas Mr. Hull (the au- | _ thor of the estimate) states, the effect would only be to defer the climax of our growth perhaps for one gen- eration. And I repeat, the absolute amount of coal in the country rather affects the height to which we shall rise COAL AND IRON 85 than the time for which we shall enjoy the happy pros- perity of progress.” § 3. The Influence of Protection. It is probable that the competition of other countries, especially Ger- many, has caused British coal production to take a somewhat different course from that anticipated by Jevons. He seems to have expected that the rate of growth would be continued and perhaps accelerated until a sharp rise in price warned the blindest manu- facturer that the point of exhaustion was approach- ing. Germany’s coal-fields he passed over as negli- gible, and though he tended to the other extreme with reference to the United States, over-estimating the coal resources of that country, he regarded her rather as the inevitable successor to Great Britain in the in- dustrial leadership of the world than as an immediate - competitor. He could scarcely bring himself to be- lieve that America would persist in a protectionist policy, which he regarded as idiotic. “Its effect upon America,” he said, ‘‘is to cut it off from intercourse with the rest of the civilized world, to destroy its maritime influence, and to arrest, as far as human interference can arrest, the development of a great state. No doubt it enables a manufacturing interest to grow half a century or more before its time; but just so much as one interest is forcibly promoted so much are other interests forcibly held back.” This, no doubt, is an extreme expression of the Free Trade view. But there is more in it than most Amer- icans, or even twentieth-century Englishmen, gen- erally suppose. The protection of manufactures in America has starved the country for the benefit of 86 POPULATION the towns. Everything that the farmer buys is taxed, while the great bulk of his produce is necessarily open to free competition. The result is that capital and labor are diverted from the production of food and cotton and wool to the production of manufactured articles, and the evils which the world and, in the long run, America too, has to fear through the Law of Diminish- ing Returns are artificially accelerated by state action.? Though Jevons, like the other Free-traders of his time, expected other countries to follow the example of Britain and abolish their import taxes, he recog- nized that this was by no means certain; and he made a forecast of the effect which the opposite policy would have upon our welfare. “The rate of our progress and exhaustion,’ he said, ‘‘must depend greatly upon the legislation of colonies and foreign States. Should France avert to a less enlightened commer- cial policy; should Europe maintain or extend a prohibitory system; should the Northern States succeed in erecting a per- nanent Morrill tariff for the benefit of Pennsylvanian manu- 1Jn 1921 an extraordinary twist has been given to American’ tariff policy by the growing political power of the farmers. The support of the “agricultural block”’ in Congress for a protectionist policy has been bought by high protective taxes upon wheat, cotton, fruits, wool and practically all the other farm products. As, however, America still exports the more important of these commodities, the import taxes upon them are purely make- believe, and the effect of this development is not, at present, great. The important fact is that American farming interests are making themselves felt in Federal politics and claiming, not free trade, but protection! Thus the manufacturing industry which has been forced into rapid growth in the protectionist hothouse may be checked and hampered by artificial restrictions upon the supply of food and raw materials. COAL AND IRON 87 facturers; and should the tendency of all our colonies to- wards Protection increase, the progress of trade may indeed be vastly retarded. Under these circumstances the present rapid rate of our growth may soon be somewhat checked. The introduction of railways, the repeal of the Corn Laws, the sudden settlement of our Australian colonies, may prove exceptional events. Then, after a period of somewhat pain- ful depression, we may fall into a lower rate of progress, that can be maintained for a lengthened period, passing out of sight. There is something almost uncanny in the fore- sight exhibited in this passage. Europe, America and the British Dominions have, as we know, persisted in their policy of protection for manufactures and the result has corresponded closely with that anticipated by Jevons. The lower rate of increase in the consump- tion of British coal is at present attributable to the competition of other industrial communities, rather than to the approaching exhaustion of.our coal-mines. § 4. The World’s Coal Reserves. At the end of last century the world production of coal averaged about six hundred millions of tons a year. By 19138, the out- put had doubled. Of the twelve hundred millions of tons produced in that year, over 40 per cent were raised in the United States, about 24 per cent in Great Britain and about 15 per cent in Germany. The world’s total reserves of hard coal are estimated at about four billions (4,000,000,000,000) of tons; enough for more than three thousand years at the present rate of con- sumption. About half of these reserves are attributed to the United States; a quarter to China, and rather more than a fifth to Europe. Within Europe, pre-war 88 POPULATION Germany claimed more than half, and Britain a quar- ter of the reserves of available coal. It is said that American coal-fields would last, at the present. rate of production (not, be it noted, on Jevons’s basis of the rate of zncrease), for twelve to fifteen centuries. The great bulk of China’s coal is in the Shansi field in the far interior; this has only been scratched as yet, but it may become vastly important in years to come. Her more accessible mines, nearer the coast, are not expected to last very long, if they are thoroughly worked. On the basis of the production of coal in 1900, a German expert expressed the opinion that “in 100 to 200 years the coal-fields of central France, Central Bohemia, the Kingdom of Saxony, and the North of England would be exhausted; in 250 years the other British coal-fields, the Waldenburg-Schalzlar coal-field, and that of the North of France; in 600 to 800 years the coal-fields of Saarbrucken, Belgium, Aachen and Westphalia; and in more than 1000 years the coal-fields of Upper Silesia.’’ ? A more recent estimate is that ‘‘at the rate of pro- duction of 1913, Britain had supplies only for five or six centuries, Germany for eighteen to twenty.” ” The divergence between these estimates need not detain us. The figures have no significance except as a broad indication of the magnitude of the supplies available in different parts of the world. No one would venture to predict the rate at which coal will be raised and consumed during the next fifty years. But a 1P, Frech, quoted in Part XI of Appendices to the Final Report of the Royal Commission of 1901. 2 Prof. A. J. Sargent, Coal in International Trade, p. 16. COAL AND IRON 89 - variation in the rate, of course, makes all the difference to the length of time that the reserves will last. In the fifteen years before the war the world’s output of coal doubled. If it doubled every fifteen years until 1995, the consumption in that year would be at a rate which, if continued, would exhaust the world’s sup- posed reserves in about one hundred years, instead of spreading them over three thousand years! It is obvious, therefore, that the rate of increase in the consumption of coal must decline before many years have passed, not only in Great Britain, but in America also, and in the world as a whole. The spirit of man is so competitive that this fact is likely to be received quite calmly, if not with jubilation, while the relative decline of one’s own country would give rise to alarm. Progress is measured not by any absolute standard of well-being, but by a relative superiority over other countries. There is perhaps some justifi- cation for this method of calculation in the mechan- ism of international trade. | Even from this point of view, however, the posi- tion of Europe in general and of Great Britain in par- ticular is a disquieting one. For, while it is quite pos- sible that the mines of America may be exhausted as rapidly as those of Europe, the “height to which she may rise’’ (to use Jevons’s phrase) greatly exceeds that which can beattained by the Old World. She is thought to possess at least half the reserves of hard coal, and over 90 per cent of the reserves of lignite. She is already responsible for nearly half the world’s produc- tion of the former commodity. A large part of her supplies are easily raised; so that just before the war the output per person employed in the coal-mining 90 POPULATION industry was nearly 680 tons in a year in the United States, as against 260 tons in Great Britain and 270 in Germany. The war increased this advantage con- siderably; Germany’s coal production being, of course, completely disorganized by the Peace Treaty, while British costs quadrupled and American costs only doubled, between 1913 and 1921. § 5. The Export Trade in Coal. Since American coal can at present be raised so much more cheaply than British coal, it might be supposed that America was now in a position to capture the whole of the export trade in coal. This, however, does not necessarily -follow. The question of shipping freights is extremely important with respect to so bulky a commodity. The distance of America from European markets thus places a handicap upon that country in competing with Great Britain there, which may counterbalance her advantage in initial costs; while other markets, such as those of South America and the Far East, may be preserved to Great Britain by another factor upon which Jevons laid much emphasis. Great Brit- ain still imports large quantities of bulky commodi- ties—food-stuffs and raw materials—and, as the world settles down, shipowners are again finding it necessary to carry British coal abroad at low freights, as make- weight or back-carriage. Even if Great Britian retains the world of her pre- war export of coal in bulk, however, she must still feel the competition of American coal very keenly through its use in industry. If coal is in future to be as important a factor in the production of manufac- tured articles as it has been in the past, it will be diffi- COAL AND IRON OL cult for Europe to hold its own against the New World. But it is sometimes said that the influence of coal in the world is waning. Rival sources of energy are coming into prominence. What, then, are the known substitutes for coal? How will these affect the distribution of the world’s wealth? ‘These are ques- tions which will naturally occur to the reader, and they must be answered as far as our present knowl- edge permits. § 6. Substitutes for Coal. Oil and water are the two sources of power most talked about nowadays. In 1873 the world production of crude oil was less than 1,500,000 tons; in 1918 it was rather over fifty millions of tons; in 1920 it was well over ninety mil- lions of tons. The United States produced 64 per cent of the world’s supply in 1920 and Mexico 22 per cent. The actual exhaustion of America’s oil-fields is said to be in sight. An official estimate gives them twenty years of life. The reserves of coal are esti- ~ mated in centuries. The life of an oil-well is reckoned in months. While, therefore, there are no reliable data as to the world’s oil resources, it seems likely that we may be reduced to the use of shale-oil long before our coal reserves are seriously depleted. Mean- while, the United States have the temporary advan- tage in this fuel also, and Mexico, her near neighbor, will be able to supplement her supplies. In water-power America has not so great an advan- tage over Europe. An official estimate for the United States in 1912 gives a maximum of over sixty mil- lion horse-power and a minimum of over thirty mil- lions. The horse-power of Niagara is about six millions, 92 POPULATION and this is the equivalent of about thirty millions: of tons of coal a year. The total water-power that the States claim to possess would, therefore, be the equiv- alent of from 300 to 150 millions of tons of coal a year. It is thought by some British authorities that this estimate is very excessive. The most conservative, — however, would allow that North America as a whole has effective reserves of water-power equivalent to the saving of 100 to 150 millions of tons of coal a year on the present basis of consumption. This represents no more than a quarter of the present annual pro- duction of coal by the United States; and when we remember that a large part of the water-power is in the far west and that it cannot be economically dis- tributed far from its source, it will appear that even America’s great rivers and waterfalls do not provide a satisfactory substitute for coal. The whole of Central and Western Europe together has probably from twenty to thirty million horse-power available in water energy; the equivalent of at least a hundred million tons of coal a year. The Alps and the mountains of Norway and Sweden are the chief sources of power. Germany is said to possess only a million and a half and Great Britain only one million horse-power. As in America, so in Europe, the water-power is mainly located at long distances from the coal-fields and therefore from the present centres of industry. These distances, are, however, much greater in Amer- ica than in Kurope, and the countries which converge upon the Alps have therefore a potential source of power which may partly compensate them for their inferiority in reserves of coal. 1 Prof A. J. Sargent, Coal in International Trade, p. 64. COAL AND IRON 93 No consolation of this kind is open to Great Britain, whose insignificant reserves of water-power are scat- tered about in the least accessible parts of the island; unless, indeed, a way is found of harnessing the tides which ebb and flow unceasingly around her shores. In general, it may be said that the resources of science and industry are not likely to be defeated by the problem of devising some adequate substitute for coal to carry on the business of the world when that good workman is at last exhausted by his labors. Jevons saw no prospect of prolonging the life of coal by econ- omies in the use of fuel, because the fruits of such economies were invariably taken out at once in the ex- tension of industry. No doubt he was right in the cir- cumstances of his own period. As coal grows scarcer, however, and its price rises, economies will be forced upon us. Industries which would otherwise have to close down through inability to meet the increasing cost of coal will be maintained by electricity. Coal will still, no doubt, have to be used to generate the electricity, where water-power is not available; but a considerable saving in coal will be effected by such means; ? and it will be a real saving, by which the date of ultimate exhaustion may be indefinitely postponed. Though, however, it would be silly to be much dis- turbed by the fear that the world may one day be de- prived of fuel, the problems raised by the relative dis- 1 “Tf power supply in the United Kingdom were dealt with on comprehensive lines and advantage taken of the most modern engineering development, the saving in coal throughout the country would, in the near future, amount to 55,000,000 tons per annum on the present output of manufactured products.” ‘Final Report of the Coal Conservation Committee to the Min- istry of Reconstruction,” Cd. 9084 (1918). 94 POPULATION advantage of Europe in regard to fuel at the present time are very real and pressing. In order that we may see this disadvantage in its true proportions, it is necessary to take account of another mineral, coal’s great ally in the domination of the world—iron. § 7. Iron. It used to be thought by large numbers of Englishmen that the presence of coal and iron near to- gether in various parts of Britain was specially arranged by Providence for the convenience of the inhabitants. Certainly this proximity gave the iron trade of Great Britain a good start and helped to build the railways and ships which now carry the ore to the fuel from comparatively distant places. At present, however, Providence seems to be on the side of the United States. About 85 per cent of the ore mined in that country comes from the shores of Lake Superior and is carried in steamers down to Lake Erie, where it is either met by the coal or forwarded by rail to Pittsburg. In 1913 the United States produced over 40 per cent of the world’s pig-iron. Between 1900 and 1913 her output. rose from fourteen to over thirty millions of tons, while that of Germany rose from eight to twenty millions and that of Great Britain from nine to a little over ten millions. Pre-war Germany obtained most of her iron-ore from Lorraine and the rest from Luxemburg, the Briey district in France, Sweden and Spain. Great Britain produced two-thirds of the ore she consumed and imported the rest from Sweden and Spain. Americans claim that they have about seventy-five thousand millions of tons of high-grade ores in the Lake Superior district, and three or four times that quantity of lower-grade ores. At the present rate of COAL AND IRON 95 consumption these would last for three or four thou- sand years. In Europe, the geologists estimate that there are over fifty thousand millions of tons of workable ore. Most of this, however, is not of high grade. It is, of course, the richest and most easily worked deposits which are exhausted first. There are, for instance, very large reserves of low-grade ores in Great Britain, which we may fall back upon when the richer ores of Sweden and Spain are so far exhausted that their price becomes prohibitive. The fact that we at present import a large part of our supply shows that the difference in quality is sufficiently important to out- weigh the cost of carrying a very heavy freight. It will be seen that in respect to iron, as well as coal, America has natural advantages over Europe which are likely to increase in the years to come. It is in- . evitable that in the production of manufactured arti- cles in which these two minerals are both important factors, the teeming population of the Old World should feel the difficulty of competing against the immense resources of the New for the food and raw materials upon which life itself depends. § 8. Great Britain’s Problem. Central Europe is for the time being submerged in the mire of post-war difficulties; no one can foresee what the future of those populous districts may be. But Great Britain is struggling back to her normal economic life. Let us then consider how Great Britain stands in relation to the supplies of food, fuel and raw material upon which she depends in a unique degree for the support of her great population. 96 POPULATION For nearly two-thirds of our food we depend upon 6ther countries. The supply, however, is elastic, that is to say, a slight increase in the price is likely to call forth considerably increased supplies. For these great imports of food we have to pay by our exports, which consist mainly of manufactured goods, coal and services (shipping, banking, insurance, etc.). For our manufactures we require raw materials, most of which we have to import. The most essential of these are cotton, which is rising in price and inelastic in supply; wool, which is fairly plentiful at present but depends upon great open spaces in the world and is subject to encroachments by arable and dairy farming; iron ore, of which we import from a third to a half of our supply, though we have great deposits of low-grade ores in our own soil; and coal, which we produce ourselves and export largely in bulk in addition to using it as a most important ingredient in our manufactures. The question which we have to consider is whether a rapidly increasing population can be supported by industries which depend upon imported raw mate- rials at rising prices, and coal produced at home with increasing difficulty, in competition with similar in- dustries in America which have greater natural ad- vantages. Before we can answer that question, we must com- prehend the nature of international trade. Two coun- tries trade with one another when they have different comparative advantages in producing goods. Tf a given quantity of capital and labor could produce just twice as much wheat and twice as much pig-iron in America as in England, there would be no point in trading in those two commodities between the two COAL AND IRON 97 countries. But if the same quantities of capital and labor produced twice as much wheat and only one and ~ a half times as much pig-iron in America, it would be profitable to both countries to exchange American wheat for British pig-iron. This is a simple illustration of what is called the Law of Comparative Costs. The important point is that a country may, and often does, export goods in the production of which it is at an ab- solute disadvantage as compared with the country to which it sends them. International trade is, in practice, a complex series of operations in which many nations are involved. The simple case that we have taken will, however, enable us to tackle the question with which we are now con- cerned. The answer is that Great Britain can continue to compete with America on certain terms. Hitherto, as we have seen, her international trade has been carried on in comparatively favorable circumstances. The rapid development of new sources of food and raw materials has enabled her industries to expand and at the same time to exchange their products on increas- ingly advantageous terms, with agricultural countries. Now there are signs of a change, and Great Britain may have to adjust herself to new conditions. If she cannot maintain her trade by superior skill or greater energy and enterprise, she must do so by cutting costs, including labor costs. It serves no good purpose to ignore unpleasant facts. A fall in the standard of liv- ing is one of the greatest calamities which a nation may have to face. But the less it is foreseen the greater is the misery to which it gives rise. The danger is that the population of Europe in general and of Great 98 POPULATION Britain in particular may go on increasing almost automatically when the field for employment on a decent level of subsistence is contracting. Emigration, as we shall see in the next chapter, offers a very poor measure of relief under such circumstances. But a well-organized nation that looks ahead and lays its plans well should be able to adjust itself to changing circumstances with the minimum of suffering and hardship. Jevons put upon his title-page the following quota- tion from Adam Smith: “The progressive state is in reality the cheerful and the hearty state to all the different orders of the so- ciety; the stationary is dull; the declining melancholy.’’ No doubt there is a measure of truth in the state- ment. But the progressive state is also one of dis- content and inequality, when the rich tend to grow richer and the poor relatively, if not absolutely, poorer. We have been so busy accumulating wealth and rush- ing about the earth in vehicles of increasing velocity that we have paid too little attention to the wise use of the things we have acquired. The stationary state, if it is to that we are coming, may prove to be not dull, but tranquil; a state in which we may for the first time taste the pleasures of a true civilization. ‘There is plenty of hope for the future, if we face the situation in which we find ourselves with courage and wisdom. But one thing is essential if a stationary state is to be tolerable—it must be accompanied by a stationary population. CHAPTER VI THE GROWTH OF POPULATION “Desire not a multitude of unprofitable children.” Ecclesvasticus xvi, 1. § 1. Changes in the Birth-rate. ‘Russia being mentioned as likely to become a great empire, by the rapid increase of population: Johnson, ‘Why, Sir, I see no prospect of their pro- pagating more. They can have no more children than they can get. I know of no way to make them breed more than they do. It is not from reason and prudence that. people marry, but from inclination. A man is poor; he thinks, “T cannot be worse, and so I’ll e’en take Peggy.” ’ Boswell, ‘But have not nations been more populous at one period than another?’ . Johnson, ‘Yes, Sir; but that has been owing to the people being less thinned at one period than another, whether by emigrations, war, or pestilence, not by their being more or less prolifick. Births at all times bear the same proportion to the same number of people.’”’ Hazlitt put this quotation in the forefront of his Reply to Malthus. How he thought it damaged the Malthusian doctrine is not clear, but he evidently regarded it as an example of the highest wisdom. Mr. G. Udny Yule, the statistician, on the other hand, says that to him ‘‘this remarkable dictum appears to be contradicted by the experience of every nation for 99 100 POPULATION — which we have records over a sufficient period of time and of sufficient accuracy.” } Now statistics, especially ‘vital statistics,’ as the figures about births, deaths and marriages, are called— are full of pitfalls; and the present writer is by no means anxious to challenge a statistician upon his own ground. No doubt Mr. Yule is right in denying the accuracy of Dr. Johnson’s statement. Nevertheless, it seems to have been inspired by the robust common sense for which the speaker was conspicuous, and, allowing for that exaggeration which is permissible in conversation, to have been broadly true. Since about 1880 it has ceased to be true of countries under the influence of Western civilization. That is a fact of the greatest importance which we shall consider in the latter part of this chapter. The change is due to influences of which Dr. Johnson knew nothing, and it is hardly ad- missible as evidence against him. Going back for a moment to Gregory King, the in- genious Lancaster Herald, from whose observations upon the state of England in 1696 some extracts were given in Chapter I, we may note that his estimate of the yearly births of the kingdom amounted to one in twenty-eight of the total population. In order to bring it into comparison with more recent figures, we may translate this estimate into 35.75 per 1000. Now the civil registration of births was not estab- lished until 1837, and registration was not compulsory until 1874, but the following figures are likely to be more accurate than those of Gregory King. ‘These are the annual birth-rates recorded for England and Wales: 1 The Fall of the Birth-rate by G. Udny Yule, M. A. THE GROWTH OF POPULATION 101 Births per bask living Period : at all ages. 1841-50 . : } . 84.6 1851-55 : : . 33.9 1856-60. z ; . 84.4 1861-65. , : La ws F 1866-70 . : ; . 89.3 1871-75. : AH een th fa97 3) 1876-80 . : i ilies 8a 1881-85 . ‘ : . 33.9 1886-90. : ‘ . dla 1891-95... ; ; . 30.5 1896-00 . ; , Pe Ry at Bs 1901-05. ; { . 28.2 1906-10 . : d ZO 1911-15); : : wh 20.0 Statisticians warn us against attaching too much importance to the rise in the birth-rate before 1876, as it is uncertain how far it may be due be to increas- ing completeness of registration. With the fall after 1880 we shall be concerned later. The point to which the reader’s attention should be given at present is the remarkable correspondence between the estimate of Gregory King of the birth-rate in 1696 with the rates actually recorded between 1841 and 1880. ' It is true, of course, that small changes in the num- ber of births per 1000 of the population make a very considerable difference in the total population. Be- tween 1861 and 1871 the number of persons in Great Britain increased from twenty-three millions to twenty- six millions. If, therefore, one more baby was born each year to every thousand people living, the addi- tional births in those ten years amounted to about a 102 POPULATION quarter of a million. Nevertheless, when compared with the change in the death-rate this possible varia- tion in the birth-rate is slight, and we are cautioned not to assume that it actually took place. § 2. Changes in the Death-rate. Gregory King said that the annual burials in his time were about one in thirty- two, and to these he added another ten thousand deaths per annum as an allowance for plagues, wars and shipwrecks. This addition makes the estimate of deaths about one in thirty, or 33.3 per 1000, nearly equal to the birth-rate during the nineteenth century! Compare this with the annual death-rate since 1851: Deaths per 1000 Deaths of Infants under Period living at all ages one year per 1000 births 1851-55. ey cit fn tie . 156 1856-60. aly 2 Les ANE fy Wa b2 1861-65. Oa Nt tie ne asa 1866-70. 2 ona 2 Ais yi ey cted aay, ISFIS 154, He, eeuk) ane . 1538 1876-80 kh ee AOS a ek a 1881-85. » ADA Se. hoe 1886-90. Rd Bae Soa . 145 1891-95. mo he Re om PME NED LS8Q6—00 7 it RN Gis i da Nun 1901-05 . PAIS AS Ree 1 188 1906-10. ma C. Miy aa PE Ly: 1911-15, ee a a eden ORE It will be seen that if King’s estimate was approxi- mately correct, there was a fall of one-third in the death-rate between 1696 and 1851, and that it has de- THE GROWTH OF POPULATION 103 clined continuously since 1861-65, making altogether another fall of over one-third. The figures for the deaths of infants under one year are also given, be- cause it is among these that the highest mortality occurs. It is remarkable that there was no great improvement in this respect until the turn of the century. § 3. The Relative Influence of Birth-rate and Death- rate upon the Growth of Population. Now it is possible that Gregory King’s estimates may have been hope- lessly wrong. He may have grossly overestimated both the birth-rate and the death-rate. If, indeed, he erred in one, he must have erred in both, for the growth of population in the seventeenth and eighteenth cen- turies corresponds roughly with the rate of increase which would result from his figures. In 1600 the pop- ulation of England and Wales is thought to have been about five millions; in 1700 about five and a half mil- lions; in 1750 about six and a half millions; in 1800 eight million nine hundred thousand; in 1901 thirty- two and a half millions. It is clear that the birth- rate and death-rate must have been nearly equal throughout the seventeenth century, and that since 1750 there must have been a great increase in the -birth-rate or a great decline in the death-rate, or both. Sweden is the only country that has kept reliable vital statistics for a long period. It will be useful therefore to look at the evidence which that country can give respecting variations in the birth-rate. The following are the legitimate births per 1000 married women aged 15 to 50 in Sweden: 104 POPULATION 1756-65. NOE 1836-45. . 235 1766-75. . 240 1846-55. . 241 1110-8004), . 242 1856-65. ; 248 1786-95. . 245 1866-75. . 235 1796-05. es 1876-85. . 240 1806-15. . 232 1886-95. yatisaeea 1816-25. . 253 1896-05. , aa 1826-35 . . 240 It will be seen that though the figures are not con- stant, the variations are irregular and inconsiderable until the sudden drop in the last period. Sweden being a peaceful and established country, with a large emigration may reasonably be expected to have a steady birth-rate. Let us, therefore, take Aus-’ tralasia as a final illustration on this point. Here are the birth-rate and death-rate for forty years: Period Birth-rate Death-rate Natural Increase 1861-65 41.92 16.75 25.17 1866-70 39.84 15.62 24.22 1871-75 37.34 15.26 22.08 1876-80 36.38 15.04 21.34 1881-85 30.21 14.79 20.42 1886-90 34.43 13.95 20.48 1891-95) 3152 12.74 18.78 1896-99 27 .35 12.39 14.96 1901-09 26.35 — — Here it will be seen that the birth-rate has declined more rapidly and to a greater extent than the death- rate. Dr. Johnson’s dictum ceases apparently to have any validity whatever when Australasia is considered. There are, however, special circumstances to account THE GROWTH OF POPULATION 105 for the high level of this birth-rate in the years 1861 to _ 1875, which justify us in regarding it as abnormal. There was a wave of immigration into Australia in the fifties and ’sixties, and it is undeniable that healthy immigrants cause a temporary increase in the birth- rate and decrease in the death-rate. This result is due to a change in the composition of the population. The birth-rate Jumps up because a larger proportion of the people are at the child-producing ages. The death-rate declines because the population as a whole is younger than in established countries. It will be observed that between 1880 and 1890, when the effect of the great immigration had worked itself out, the birth- rate became comparable to that of England and Wales. It is much to be regretted that America has not re- corded its vital statistics until quite recently, since they might have thrown a flood of light upon that ereat boom in population which impressed Malthus and his contemporaries at the end of the eighteenth century. Without going further into the evidence, it may be tentatively asserted that the tremendous increase in the population of Europe and America during the last century and a half is attributable far more to a diminished death-rate than to a change in the birth- rate. ‘Poverty,’ said Adam Smith, in a passage quoted above (in Chapter I), “. . . seems even to be favorable to generation.