CHAPTER XI.

OF THE MODE IN WHICH THE QUANTITY OF THE PRODUCT AFFECTS POPULATION.

SECTION I.

Of Population, as connected with Political Economy. (1)

HAVING, in Book I, investigated the production of the articles necessary to the satisfaction of human wants, and in the present Book, traced their distribution among the different members of the community, let us now further extend our observations to the influence those products exercise upon the number of individuals, of which the community is composed; that is to say, upon popula tion.

In her treatment of all organic bodies, nature seems to despise the individual, and afford protection only to the species. Natural history presents very curious examples of her extraordinary care to perpetuate the species; but the most powerful means she adopts for that purpose, is the multiplication of germs in such vast profusion, that notwithstanding the immense variety of accidents occurring to prevent their early developement, or destroy them in the progress to maturity, there are always left more than sufficient to perpetuate the species. Did not accident, destruction, or failure of the means of developement check the multiplication of organic existence, there is no animal or plant that might not cover the face of the globe in a very few years.

This faculty of infinite increase is common to man, with all other organic bodies; and although his superior intelligence continually enlarges his own means of existence he must sooner or later arrive at the ultimum.

Animal existence depends upon the gratification of one sole and immediate want, that of food and sustenance; but man is enabled, by the faculty of communication with his species, to barter one product for another, and to regard the value, rather than the nature, of the product. The producer and owner of a piece of furniture of 100 fr. value may consider himself as possessing as much human food, as may be procurable for that price. And with respect to the relative price of products, it is in all cases determined by the intensity of the desire, the degree of

(1) [In the original the title of this section is made the title of the chapter, and the title of the chapter the title of the section.] AMERICAN EDITOR.

utility in each product for the time being. We may safely take it for granted, that mankind in general will not barter an object of more, for one of less urgent necessity. In a season of agricultural scarcity, a larger quantity of furniture will be given for a smaller quantity of human aliment; but it is invariably true, that whenever barter takes place, the object given on one side is worth that given on the other, and that the one is procurable for the other.*

Trade and barter, as we have seen above, adapt the products to the general nature of the demand. The objects, whether, of food, of raiment, or of habitation, for which the strongest desire is felt, are of course the most in request; and the wants of each family or individual, are more or less fully satisfied, in proportion to the ability to purchase these objects; which ability depends upon the productive means and exertion of each respectively; in plain terms, upon the revenue of each respectively. Thus, in the end, if we sift this matter to the bottom, we shall find, that families and nations, which are but aggregations of families, subsist wholly on their own products; and that the amount of product in each case necessarily limits the numbers of those who can subsist upon it.

Such animals as are incapable of providing for future exigencies after they are engendered, if they do not fall a prey to man, or some of their fellow brutes, perish the moment they experience an imperative want, which they have not the means of gratifying. But man has so many future wants to provide for, that he could not answer the end of his creation, without a certain degree of providence and forethought: and this provident turn can alone preserve the human species from part of the evils it would necessarily endure, if its numbers were to be perpetually reduced by the process of destructive violence.†

Although all products are necessary to the social existence of man, the necessity of food being of all others most urgent and unceasing, and of most frequent recurrence, objects of aliment are justly placed first in the cata. logue of the means of human existence. They are not all, however, the produce of the national territorial surface; but are procurable by commerce as well as by internal agriculture; and many countries contain a greater number of inhabitants, than could subsist upon the produce of their land. Nay, the importation of another commodity may be equivalent to an im portation of an article of food. The export of wines and brandies to the north of Europe is almost equivalent to an export of bread; for wine and brandy, in great measure, supply the place of beer and spirits distilled from grain, and thus allow the grain, which would otherwise be employed in the preparation of bear or spirits, to be reserved for that of bread.

The practice of infanticide in China proves, that the local prejudices of custom and of religion there counteract the foresight which tends to check the increase of population; and one can not but deplore such prejudices; for the human misery resulting from the destruction is great, in proportion as its object is more fully developed, and more capable of sensation. For this reason it would be still more barbarous and irrational policy to multiply wars, and other means of human destruction, in order to in

Yet notwithstanding the forethought ascribed to man, and the restraints imposed on him by reason, legislation, and social habits, the increase of population is always evidently co-extensive, and even something more than co-extensive, with the means of subsistence: It is a melancholy but an undoubted fact, that, even in the most thriving countries, part of the population annually dies of mere want. Not that all who perish from want absolutely die of hunger; though this calamity is of more frequent occurrence than is generally supposed.* I mean only that they have not at command all the necessaries of life, and die for want of some part of those articles of necessity. A sick or disabled person may, perhaps, require nothing more than a little rest, or medical advice, together with, perhaps, some simple remedy to set him up again; but the requisite rest, or advice or remedy, are denied, or not afforded. A child may require the attentions of the mother, but the mother perhaps may be taken away to labour, by the imperious calls of necessity; and the child perish, through accident, neglect, or disease. It is a fact well established by the researches of all who have turned their attention to statisties, that out of an equal number of children of wealthy and of indigent parents, at least twice as many of the latter die in in

crease the enjoyments of the survivors; because the destructive scourge would affect human beings in a state more perfect, more susceptible of feeling and suffering, and arrived at a period of life, when the mature display of his faculties renders man more valuable to himself and to others.

*The Hospice de Bicétre, near Paris, contains, on the average, five or six thousand poor. In the scarcity of the year 1795, the governors could not afford thein food, either so good or so abundant as usual; and I am assured by the house-steward of the establishment, that at that period almost all the inmates died.

It would appear from the returns given in a tract entitled “Observations on the Condition of the Labouring Classes," by J. Barton, that the average of deaths, in seven distinct manufacturing districts of England has been proportionate to the dearness, or, in other words, the scarcity of subsistence. I subjoin an extract from his statements.

From the same returns it appears, that the scarcity occasioned less mortality in the agricultural districts. The reason is manifest: the labourer is there more commonly paid in kind, and the high sale-price of the product enabled the farmer to give a high purchase-price for labour. (a)

(a) The latter reason is not very satisfactory: for the total receipts of the corn growers are probably not larger in years of scarcity, than in those of abundance. T.

fancy as of the former. In short, scanty or unwholesome diet, the insufficient change of linen, the want of warm and dry clothing, or of fuel, ruin the health, undermine the constitution, and sooner or later bring multitudes of human beings to an untimely end; and all, that perish in consequence of want beyond their means to supply, may be said to die of want.

Thus, to man, particularly in a forward state of civilization, a variety of products, some of them in the class of what have been denominated immaterial products, are necessaries of existence; these are multiplied in a degree proportionate to the desire for them, respectively, because its intensity causes a proportionate elevation of their price: and it may be laid down as a general maxim, that the population of a state is always proportionate to the sum of its production in every kind.* This is a truth acknowledged by most writers on political economy, however various and discordant their opinions on most other points.†

It appears to me, however, that one very natural consequence, deducible from this maxim, has escaped their observation; which is, that nothing can permanently increase population, except the

*Not but that accidental causes may sometimes qualify these general rules. A country, where property is very unequally distributed, and where a few individuals consume produce enough for the maintenance of numbers, will doubtless subsist a smaller population, than a country of equal production, where wealth is more equally diffused. The very opulent are notoriously averse to the burthen of a family; and the very indigent are unable to rear

one.

Gar

+ Vide Stewart, On Political Economy, book i. c. 4. Quesnay Encyclopédie, art. Grains. Montesquieu, Esprit des Lois, liv. 18. c. 10. and liv. 23. c. 10. Buffon. ed. de Bernard, tom. iv. p. 266. Forbonnais, principes et Observations, p. 39, 45, Hume, Essays, part 2, Ess. 2. Œuvres de Poivre, p. 145, 146. Condillac, Le Commerce et le Gouvernement, part 1. chap. 24, 25. Verri, Reflezions sur l'Economie Politique, c. 210. Mirabeau, Ami des Hommes, tom. i. p. 40. Raynal, Historie de l'Establissement, liv. 21. s. 23. Chastellux, De la Félicité Publique, tom. ii. p. 205. Necker, Administration, des Finances de France, c. 9. and Notes sur l'Eloge de Colbert. Condorcet, Notes sur Voltaire, ed. de Kepl. tom. xlv. p. 60. Smith, Wealth of Nations, book i. c. 8, 11 nier, Abrégé Elémentaire, part 1. c. 3. and Preface de sa Traduction de Smith. Canard, Principes d'Economie Politique, p. 133. Godwin, (a) On Political Justice, book. viii. c. 3. Clavière, De la France et des Etats Unis. ed. 2. p. 60, 315. Brown-Duignan; Essay on the Principles of National Economy, p. 97. Lond. 1776. Beccaria, Elementi di Economia Publica, par. prim. c. 2. 3. Gorani, Recherches sur la Science du Gouvernement, tom. ii. c. 7. Sismondi, Nouv. Prin. d'Econ. Pol. liv. vii. c. 1. et seq. Vide also, more especially, Malthus, Essay on Population, a work of considerable research; the sound and powerful arguments of which would put this matter beyond dispute, if it indeed had been doubted.

(a) This writer has lately adventured a refutation of the work of Malthus; but his arguments, though urged with sufficient ingenuity and confidence, have made but few converts to his opinions. T.

encouragement and advance of production; and that nothing can occasion its permanent diminution, but such circumstances as attack production in its sources.

The Romans were for ever making regulations to repair the loss of population, occasioned by their state of perpetual external warfare. (a) Their censors preached up matrimony; their laws offered premiums and honours to plurality of children; but these measures were fruitless. There is no difficulty in getting children; the difficulty lies in maintaining them. They should have enlarged their internal production, instead of spreading devastation amongst their neighbours. All their boasted regulations did not prevent the effectual depopulation of Italy and Greece, even long before the inroads of the barbarous northern hordes.*

The edict of Louis XVI. in favour of marriage, awarding pensions to those parents, who should have ten, and larger ones to those, who should have twelve children, was attended with no better success. The premiums that monarch held out in a thousand ways to indolence and uselessness, were much more adverse, than such poor encouragements could be conducive, to the increase of population.

It is the fashion to assert, that the discovery of the new world has tended to depopulate old Spain; whereas her depopulation has resulted from the vicious institutions of her government, and the small amount of her internal product, in proportion to her territorial extent. The most effectual encouragement to population is, the activity of industry, and the consequent multiplication of the national products. It abounds in all industrious districts, and, when a virgin soil happens to co-operate with the exertions of a community, whence idleness is altogether discarded, its rapid increase is truly astonishing. In the United States of America, population has been doubling in the course of twenty years.

For the same reasons, although temporary calamities may sweep off multitudes, yet, if they leave untainted the sources of reproduction, they are sure to prove more afflicting to humanity, than fatal to population. It soon trenches again upon the limit, assigned by the aggregate of annual production. Messance has given some very curious calculations, whereby it appears, that, after the ravages occasioned by the famous plague of Marseilles in 1720, marriages throughout Provence were more fruitful than

Vide Livii Hist. lib. vi. Plutarchi Moralia, xxx. De defectu oraculorum. Strabonis, lib. vii.

Ustariz has remarked, that the most populous provinces of Spain are those, from which there has been the greatest emigration to America.

(a) The examples of England, France, and the old states of the American union, prove, that, neither war nor emigration can cause any permanent reduction of a national population. T.