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RELATION OF PRODUCE TO POPULATION.

195

LECTURE VII.

VII.

THE doctrines of Adam Smith, as set forth in his LECTURE "Inquiry into the Causes of the Wealth of Nations". recommended themselves at once to the acceptance of his contemporaries, and obtained a ready reception among economists in all countries, in respect of the groundwork of the science. The labour of man was henceforth recognised as the primary productive agent; exchangeable value was referred to its true source, and the functions of capital, in its ancillary relation to labour, were more clearly appreciated. In a word, the phenomena of the production of wealth were satisfactorily explained; but the circumstances which determine its distribution, demanded a further and fuller investigation than Adam Smith had bestowed upon them, whose views in this branch of the subject, were not so happy and exempt from question, as in the earlier analysis.

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1 “The annual labour of every nation is the fund which originally supplies it with all the necessaries and conveniences of life which it annually consumes. Such were the opening words of the "Wealth of Nations," and the truth of the statement cannot be impugned. It has, however, formed the groundwork of a common error, according to which, an augmentation of national wealth accompanies every multiplication of the number of labourers, or, in other words, the productive power of a state bears an in- Relation of variable proportion to its population.

produce to population.

196

LECTURE

VII.

Notions of antiquity.

NOTIONS OF ANTIQUITY.

Such an opinion had even received countenance from Adam Smith, when he laid it down in treating of the wages of labour (B. I. c. viii.), that "the most decisive mark of the prosperity of any country is the increase of the number of its inhabitants." Such also had been the general notion of antiquity, as we may gather from its laws and its philosophy. Still further, with the exception indeed of a few states, we find in the ages which connect antiquity with the modern order of ideas, national encouragements universally held out to stimulate a more rapid increase of num-. bers. "Ανδρες γὰρ πόλεις καὶ οὐ τείχη, are the well known words of Demosthenes, and the historian of the Peloponnesian war places the same sentiment in the mouth of the greatest of Athenian states

men.

The privileges which were awarded under the Spartan system to the fathers of three and four children respectively (Aristot. Pol. II. c. 6.), had their counterpart in Western Europe, at a subsequent period, in the ordinances of the "Lex Papia Poppaa (anno 762), which established the jus trium liberorum in the capital, the jus quatuor liberorum in Italy itself, and the jus quinque liberorum throughout the provinces of the Roman empire. The exemptions which this law awarded to fathers of families, were still further enlarged by the emperors Arcadius and Honorius, and that which had hitherto been a privilege dependent upon an imperial grant, became ultimately a matter of general right. Cod. viii. tit. 59. c. 1.: "Nemo posthac a nobis jus liberorum petat; quod simul hac lege omnibus concedimus." It is true that Justinian subsequently modified the harshness of the law as far as the civil disabilities inflicted upon celibacy were concerned (Cod. vi. tit. 51. c. 1. de caducis tollendis), but the civil immunities attendant on marriage were main

MODERN LEGISLATION.

197

tained, and the spirit which dictated them pervades LECTURE the legislature of subsequent ages.

VII.

Not to diverge too widely from the main object of our inquiry, we must refrain from tracing the operation of this spirit in foreign codes, and may content ourselves with directing our attention to our own statute law, whereby, as by 46 G. III. c. 56, exemptions from taxes were specifically granted to the fathers of more than two children, born in lawful wedlock. This statute, indeed, has been repealed by Legislation 56 G. III. c. 66; but it serves to illustrate the spirit times. of British legislation in the early part of the present century.

To a similar effect the laws of France and Italy accorded exemptions from military service or pecuniary contributions, not indeed to the industrious and careful father of a family, who had reared up one or two sons physically and morally well qualified to do good service to the state, but to him whose wife had brought forth the greatest number of children, irrespectively of their being weak or strong, well or badly brought up, able to earn their livelihood, or dependent on others for their support. The father, who had trained up two brave and industrious sons, his only offspring, to advance their country's best interests, met with no favour from the legislator, whilst he who had ten idle children loitering at home, and consuming what others had toiled to produce, was treated with the greatest consideration. Such was the legacy which Rome in her degeneracy had bequeathed to succeeding ages.

of modern

· The idea which gave birth to such institutions, identified the population with the power of a country. It may be beyond dispute, that a powerful country Popular will be a well peopled country; but it would be to confound a necessary condition with a cause, if it should be imagined that the power of a country is

error.

198

· POPULAR ERROR.

LECTURE augmented pari passu with its population. Yet no VII. aphorisms were so unquestioned, as those which

nation of

the subject.

Contrast

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affirmed this fact.

Events, however, occurred in the latter part of the last century, which arrested the attention of obserRe-exami- vant minds, and led to a re-examination of the data, upon which the received opinions on this subject had been founded. The British colonies in North America were the scene of phenomena altogether at variance with the experience of the Old World. The "Wealth of Nations" was published in 1776, and in the 8th chapter of that work, the author observes, "that in Great Britain and most other European countries, the inhabitants are not supposed to double in less than 500 years. In the British colonies in North America, it has been found that they double in 20 or 25 years. Nor in the present times is the increase principally owing to the continual importation of new inhabitants, but to the great multiplication of the species. Those who live to an old age, it is said, frequently see there from 50 to 100, and sometimes many more descendants." It thus appeared that under other circumstances than those which existed in the Old World, the advance of population was so much accelerated, as to baffle all the received rules of calculation. The term of doubling, which in Europe was supposed to correspond to a period co-extensive with the Magnus Annus of Egyptian Astronomy, being found in America to be shorter even than that usually assigned to a single generation of mankind.

between the two hemispheres.

About the same time that these facts were awakening surprise by the strong contrast which the conditions of human life presented in the two hemispheres, an event occurred in Europe which threatened to shake to pieces the established foundations of society, and gave an unlooked-for importance to cer

FRENCH REVOLUTION.

199

tain questions connected with the distribution of LECTURE wealth.

VII.

Revolution.

It can hardly be disputed that the revolution of The French 1789 was an attempt on the part of the French people to find a political remedy for great social evils: although it cannot be denied, that there were simultaneously great political evils, that called for political remedies. But it was the social misery of the French people that rendered such a revolution possible, and the experiment was made by men who had faith in the efficacy of political institutions to influence the material as well, as the moral welfare of a population.

That most mysterious yet most important social problem, "Why are the conditions of life so unequal?" was now submitted to a rigorous investigation. Why are the means of subsistence so unequally distributed? Why is there so much misery amongst mankind? These and such like questions were now mooted on all sides, and the boldest essays were made to solve them by actual experiment. It was natural for minds that referred the social evils of the ancient régime to political causes, to seek for a remedy in the operation of opposite institutions, and thus we find the remnant of feudal privileges and feudal obligations swept bodily away, and replaced by a system of equal political rights, whilst the free disposal of property as well as the rights of primogeniture were abolished, and an equal parcelling of estates substituted for the ancient feudal entirety. These were the chief permanent measures, but a host of temporary expedients were adopted as occasion seemed to call for them, in contradiction to the experience of past ages. To meet the demands of the consumers, a maximum of prices was established in 1793, which was attended with the inevitable result of an enhancement of prices. A paper currency was forced into circulation by arbitrary enactments only to become

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