CHAPTER X.

REVIEW.-MR. SENIOR.-DR. CHALMERS, AND OTHERS.

MR. SENIOR.

WE now proceed to give the views of Mr. Senior, which in some respects agree with those of the writers previously noticed.

The law of population is thus stated

"We have already stated that, as a general rule, additional labour employed in the cultivation of the land within a given district, produces a less proportionate return. And it has appeared that such is the power of reproduction and duration of life in mankind, that the population of a given district is capable of doubling itself at least every twenty-five years. It is clear, therefore, that the rate at which the production of food is capable of being increased, and that at which population, if unchecked, would increase, are totally different. Every addition made to the quantity of food periodically produced, makes in general a further periodical addition more difficult. Every addition to the existing population diffuses wider the means of still further addition. If neither evil, nor the fear of evil, checked the population of England, it would amount in a century to above two hundred millions. Suppose it possible that we might be able to raise or to import the subsistence of two hundred millions of people: is it possible that, one hundred and twenty-five years hence we should be able to support four hundred millions? or, in one hundred and fifty years, eight hundred millions? It is clear, however, that long before the first century had elapsed, long before the period at which, if unchecked, we should have attained two hundred millions, no excellence in our institutions, or salubrity of climate, or unremitting industry, could have saved us from being arrested in our progress by a constantly increasing want of subsistence. If all other moral and physical checks could be got rid of; if we had neither wars nor libertinism; if our habitations, and

employments, and habits were all wholesome, and no fears of indigence or loss of station prevented or retarded our marriages, famine would soon exercise her prerogative of controlling, in the last resort, the multiplication of mankind.

"But though it be certain that the absence of all other checks would only give room for the irresistible influence of famine, it is equally certain that such a state of things never has existed and never will exist."*

The cause of error here, is to be found in Mr. Senior's limiting himself to the consideration of the operations of "a given district." There can be no doubt that, if the people of England went on to double in every 25 years, they would in time find only standing-room; and the time may come when the world will be so fully peopled that each man may have but half a dozen square feet upon which to rest his feet; but this is a question that is not now important. All that is now desired is to ascertain what are the circumstances which attend the gradual increase of population now going on in most parts of the world.

When the ark rested on Mount Ararat, Noah and his family had the world before them where to choose, and from his family was a world to be peopled. Such again was the case with the early settlers of the United States. In tracing the course of the latter, we find them gradually extending themselves over the surface, and at the same time descending into the inferior soils, obtaining in both cases a constantly increasing return to labour. No evil, nor fear of evil, checks their growth. They find universally that increase of population is accompanied by increase of capital, by aid of which the increase in the means of subsistence is greater than is the number of mouths for its consumption. The people of New England now overflow, as the people of England have done in time past, and as they now do, and the tendency thereto increases with improvement in the means of cultivation, because the greater the productiveness of labour, the greater is the power of the people to change their condition with advantage to themselves. The United States are to England what a new Devonshire or Lin

*Outline of Political Economy, p. 141.

colnshire would be, and the transfer thereto is attended with little more trouble or expense than is daily incurred by the inhabitants of New England, New York, and Pennsylvania, in removing to the West. Where population least presses on the means of subsistence, there is emigration greatest, and there population increases with the greatest rapidity, because there the people are most able to improve their condition, morally and physically.

Such has been and such must continue to be the case, as certainly as the base of a structure will widen with every increase of its height, when the materials are permitted to find the place assigned to them by the laws of gravitation. With the increase of the base of the human pyramid, the apex will obtain increase of elevation. The tendency to emigration is in the ratio of wealth, and of physical, moral, and intellectual development.

Mr. Senior sees, however, but little benefit likely to result from increase of territory. He believes there is a constant tendency to over-population, and thus, although, "if a new Devonshire, or a new Lincolnshire, fit for immediate cultivation, were now suddenly added to our shores, the immediate consequences would be, an increased supply of provisions, and a fall in their price," yet "if this accession to our territory were followed by no change in our habits and institutions, the comparative cheapness, which would be its immediate consequence, would gradually disappear as our population rose with the increased supply of subsistence, and, ultimately, we should be just where we are now, excepting that we should be rather more numerous. So, if tithes were suddenly commuted, and their interference, such as it is, with agricultural improvement, got rid of, the same consequences would follow as if the extent of our territory, or its fertility, were suddenly augmented. And, supposing no improvement to take place in our institutions and habits, the consequent increase of our population would bring us back, as far as the price of provisions is concerned, to the point at which we are

now."*

• Outline of Political Economy, p. 180 VOL. III.-10*

The disadvantages resulting from the theory now under consideration, are here made obvious. Whatever improvements may be made, so irrepressible is the tendency to over-population, that man is supposed to fall back in a short period to the point from which he started. It is therefore almost useless to attempt them. In opposition to this, however, is the fact that, for centuries past, every year has seen large quantities of waste land brought into cultivation-the "immediate consequence" of which has been "an increase in the supply of provisions," and a fall in the labour price: there has been "no change of habits or institutions," except that with improvement of physical and moral condition, people marry more readily now than in any past time; and yet with every extension of cultivation and increase of population, the labourer finds increased facility of obtaining the means of subsistence.

As population becomes more dense in the immediate vicinity of London it extends itself over lands more distant, bringing into activity those which but recently were deemed valueless at home, and those from which the people were separated by the Ocean, the passage of which is daily rendered more easy, while they are daily becoming more able to meet the expenditure incident to the removal. In this manner are trans-Atlantic Devonshires and Lincolnshires annually added to England, and the power of further adding new countries and states exists to an almost unlimited extent. Lands "fit for cultivation," but wanting value because labour has not been expended upon them, are daily brought into activity and obtaining value, affording a constantly increasing return to both labour and capital, and producing constant improvement of condition.

That improvement has been accompanied by a vast increase of population, and the more rapid that increase, the greater has been, throughout the world, the improvement of condition. Population has so increased, because the means of living have been more easily obtained, and the duration of life has increased with the increased comfort of living. Increased health and prolonged life have tended to improve the means of production and the ability to accumulate, and thus capital, population, and wages, have increased together. Many of the countries of Europe labour under the disadvantage of a scattered popu

lation, which renders it difficult to exchange the articles they produce for those which they require, and thus the people on the Vistula are obliged to send their grain to Dantzic, on its way to Holland or England, whereas an increase of population and of capital would enable them to make their exchanges at the place of production. They want population, and they want capital. Any reduction of the former must increase the difficulty in making their exchanges, and yet Mr. Senior is of onion

"That there are few portions of Europe, the inhabitants of which would not now be richer, if their numbers were fewer, and would not be richer hereafter, if they were now to retard the rate at which their population is increasing."*

Their numbers can be retarded by the same causes that have heretofore kept them down-insecurity-absence of freedom-and heavy taxation. It can be increased by no other means than those that will give them security-freedom of action-freedom of trade-and the power of retaining the produce of their labour-enabling them to increase their capital, to improve their modes of cultivation, and their facilities of exchanging their products with others who require them. We see that,

"At present, among civilized nations, the cultivation of the land employs only a portion of its inhabitants, and, generally speaking, as a nation increases in wealth, a smaller and smaller proportion; in England, not one-third; and a great part of the labourers so employed are the producers of luxuries."† Every increase in the proportion which the producers of conveniences and luxuries bear to the producers of the necessaries of life, is accompanied by an increase in the quantity of all commodities that may be obtained in return for a given amount of labour. Thus Mr. Senior says of England, that much as the population "has increased within the last five centuries, it yet bears a far less ratio to subsistence (though still a much greater than could be wished) than it did 500 years ago."

The increase that has taken place in England, in the ratio of subsistence to population, has been nearly in the ratio of the

*Outline of Political Economy, p. 146. + Ibid., p. 144. + Ibid., p. 148.