its consequences. Could we suppose it possible that, by an increase of taxes, wheat might be imported at a less expense than that at which it can be raised, on how precarious a foundation would the grandeur of this empire rest!

It affords some consolation, under the impression of these gloomy ideas, to reflect, that the discouragements to agriculture, and the checks to agricultural population, are consequences, not of the natural progression of things, but of those accidental causes which have produced our public burdens; and that, therefore, if we could indulge the prospect of a short respite from the calamities of war, a reduction of taxes might gradually operate in placing agriculture more upon a level with the other branches of national industry.

[SUBSECT. III. Is the Density of Population in Proportion to the Extent of Country, a certain Index of National Prosperity?]

In the course of the foregoing Lectures, I have repeatedly intimated my dissent from a very common opinion, that the number of a people compared with the extent of their territory, furnishes the most unequivocal of all the tests that can be appealed to, in our inquiries concerning national prosperity. That in order to ascertain in how far a country is flourishing, nothing more is necessary than to examine this proportion, is by many writers assumed as a fundamental maxim; and yet the slightest consideration may satisfy us, that it is the industrious alone who constitute the strength of a nation, and that a population composed of the idle and the indigent is to be dreaded as one of the greatest of political evils.*

(Interpolation from Notes.)-One of the first writers who seems to have become aware of this important truth, was Sir James Steuart, who clearly pointed out the essential differences

* [In the manuscript Lectures several blank pages are here left, and there is subjoined the following memorandum : -"See Volume marked POL.-Paley, vol. ii. p. 348; Townsend; Arthur Young; Sir James Steuart." There is

no volume in my possession marked POL; and I have endeavoured to supply the lacuna here left from the notes taken of the course in 1809 by Mr. Bridges, and by the late Mr. Bonar.]

between a population of industrious citizens, and a population of idle men and of beggars.* The same distinction was taken about the same time by several French writers, and from them was adopted by Mr. Arthur Young. In his Survey of the Agriculture of France, he states it explicitly as his opinion, that the population of that country was too great, in consequence of the excessive subdivision of land in many districts, and that the prosperity of the nation would be greatly enhanced if the inhabitants could be reduced by five or six millions at least. He founds particularly on the remarks made in an excellent Report on Beggary, drawn up by M. de la Rochefoucauld Liancourt.†

In some other countries of Europe, we find population forced beyond its natural limit, by expedients expressly and avowedly intended for this purpose. Such was the policy which induced the Spanish Government to establish a colony of Germans in the Sierra Morena, though every province in Spain swarmed with vagrants, who owed their support to the hierarchy and monasteries. Of this attempt and its ill success, a very interesting account is given by Mr. Townsend. The failure of the whole project might indeed have been anticipated. Where a country has already a greater population than the State can govern well, public evils are not to be remedied by the introduction of new settlers. A cure for these must be found nearer home, in a melioration of the government and of the condition and circumstances of the people.

The policy adopted in some nations, of increasing population by holding out inducements to marriage, has been suggested by the same views as the expedient of inviting foreign settlers. No maxim can be more certain than this,—that marriages will take place in every instance where they ought to do so. There is no example of a country furnishing regular employment to industry where these are not entered into. The policy, therefore, is at best useless; but it can scarcely fail to be hurtful. In

[Political Economy, Book I. chap. xiv.; Works, Vol. I. p. 117, et alibi.] t[Travels in France, p. 409.]

[Journey through Spain in the years 1786, 1787, &c. Vol. II. p. 266, seq., first edition.]

Spain such an expedient was tried by Charles IV., who extended the privileges of nobility to married men for a certain number of years, and to the father of six children, for life; whilst, on the contrary, those nobles who continued bachelors after twenty-five years of age, were deprived of all the immunities of their order. This edict was without effect; and it was in vain that attempts were made to enforce it.—(End of interpolation from Notes.)

In all such cases as have now been under consideration, where the numbers of a people have increased steadily for a length of time, without a proportional increase in the means of subsistence, alarming consequences may be apprehended to follow sooner or later: and although this might be the ultimate result of the most perfect model of human policy, (were it possible to realize it,) at least in so great a degree as ought to lower the pride of philosophical speculation, yet if it appear that the same evil may be produced without adding, in the meantime, to the sum of national happiness, the political arrangements in which it originates cannot be too anxiously avoided as sources of an unmixed accumulation of mischiefs. In China, where population has been forced by a variety of unnatural expedients, by the permission which parents have to expose their children, by the singularly abstemious habits of the people, and by the indiscriminate use they are led to make of everything through which life can be supported,—the fatal effects of a policy, artificially contrived to extend the multiplication of the race beyond its just limits, are seen in all their magnitude. In such circumstances, any deficiency in the ordinary produce, arising from an unfavourable season, cannot fail to be followed by the horrors of famine. The miseries which have so often been experienced from this in Hindostan are, in like manner, the obvious consequences of a population pushed to its utmost possible limit, relatively to the means of subsistence. The ordinary habits of frugality to which the people are accustomed, leave no superfluities to be retrenched in a year of scarcity.

The conclusion to which these considerations lead is manifest, that the only equitable and beneficial means which can be

employed for the advancement of population, suppose a corresponding increase in the funds necessary to support it; and that every project to encourage it in any other way, can only add to the number of human creatures born to poverty, to vice, and to wretchedness. To consider population merely in the narrow commercial view, of producing men who are to be subservient to the fortunes of the opulent, and who, by their increasing numbers, are to lower the reward of labour, and to favour the competition of our manufacturers in foreign markets, is a policy not only inexpedient, but unjust and inhuman, and dictated by the same spirit which has led men, in so many other instances, to overlook, in the eagerness of mercantile speculation, the rights, the feelings, and the morals of those who are doomed to be the instruments of their avarice.

This general principle furnishes an infallible criterion for adjusting the relative claims of Agriculture and of Manufactures to the attention of the statesman. The powerful stimulus which manufactures give to agriculture has been already illustrated; and in so far as this operates without any check from adventitious causes, their tendency is wholly beneficial, inasmuch as they at once multiply the numbers of the people and provide the additional food by which they are to be supported. It must however be remembered, that although this is a natural effect, it is not the necessary effect of manufactures, and that it is possible for them to advance population in a far greater degree than that in which they add to the produce of the earth. It has been shewn, that in the actual history of modern Europe, the spirit of the prevailing systems of legislation has obstructed, in a variety of ways, the natural and salutary operation of manufacturing upon agricultural industry, more particularly by the encouragement which they have given to the labour of towns in preference to that of the country; and wherever this has been the case, although the lower orders may have multiplied, and may even, in consequence of collateral circumstances, have increased the sum of their enjoyments, yet a large proportion of them must have been deprived of their full share of those progressive advantages which Nature, if not thwarted by human

policy, would not fail to distribute, with an equitable hand, among all her industrious children.

The legal provision which is made for the poor in the other part of the island, although originating in motives which reflect the highest honour on the benevolence of our countrymen, is obviously liable to this objection, that while it tends to increase population by encouraging marriage, it has no tendency to provide additional food for the people. Nor is this all: the population it increases is chiefly that of idle consumers; and, therefore, it not only diminishes the quantity of provisions which the labour of the industrious man can command, but abridges his share of the comforts of life, to feed those who are a burden on the community. The evils occasioned by all such expedients cannot fail to be progressive; for whatever depresses the condition of the labouring classes must eventually multiply the objects of charity. But of this subject I shall have occasion to treat afterwards.

The agricultural improvements of which this country is susceptible, present immense resources both for meliorating the state of the lower orders, and for adding to the numbers of the most valuable part of its inhabitants. That its produce might be easily doubled, or even trebled, has been affirmed by very competent judges;2 but without aiming at arithmetical precision on this point, it may be confidently asserted, that the present population of our island is far short of what the territory, if properly cultivated, would be able to maintain. It is not merely the commons and the waste lands, (the extent of which in Great Britain has been computed to amount to twenty-two millions of acres,—that is, to more than one-fourth of the whole

1 Essay on the Principle of Population. [In 1798, by Malthus.]

2 Bell's Pamphlet, p. 119. [According to the notes of the later Courses of Political Economy, Mr. Stewart quotes Mr. Benjamin Bell by name, and with approbation; and in Watt's Bibliotheca there are given to him, as author,1o. Three Essays; on Taxation of In

come, &c., Edin., 1799-2°. Essays on Agriculture, &c., Edin., 1802.]

3 Essential Principles of Wealth of Nations, [1797, by Grey,] p. 130. In the Report of the Committee on Waste Lands, it is stated that there are throughout the kingdom no less than 7,800,000 acres in a perfectly uncultivated condition.— Lord Carrington's Speech in the House of Lords, July 3, 1800.