there is not capital to employ them; and the reason that there is not capital available for that purpose, is, that the production has ceased to yield an adequate profit to the capitalist.

To represent the population as excessive in relation to the productive powers of the territory, is one of the most stupid fallacies that ever obtained currency. Were this the fact, the first measures which the Legislature ought to adopt, would be, to enclose for cultivation all the arable soil now occupied by parks and pleasure-grounds, and to order a general destruction of all grain-consuming, unproductive animals. But how comes it to pass that Holland, one of the most barren regions of the globe, is at the same time one of the most populous? And how is it that the price of provisions there, has always been lower and steadier than in almost any other part of Europe? There can be no excess of population, where there is no want of employment; and there will be no want of employment so long as labour can be rendered adequately productive. The population of Massachusetts is at present about seventy-one to the square league: that of the Middle States of the Union averages thirty-three to the square league. Yet, the manufacturers of the interior of New England are able to obtain the grain of the Middle States at a less cost than that 'for which the cultivators in their neighbourhood raise their own upon the spot. So far is it from being true, that the supply of the means of subsistence at the disposal of a community, is limited to the produce of the soil they occupy. Yet, this is one of our Author's fundamental positions. And thus he argues.

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There is a necessary limit to agricultural produce, or, in other words, to the maintenance of labour, without which there can be no effective demand for it. Consequent to this, or, rather, almost identical with this, there is a limit to that employment, for the produce of which there might be obtained in return the subsistence of the labourers. There is a limit to the extension of that capital, the accumulation of which has been regarded by many as the grand specific for the indefinite employment and maintenance of the labouring classes. There is a limit to the extension of foreign trade, which has been imagined to afford a field for the profitable industry of our workmen, as unbounded as are the resources and magnitude of the globe.'

And what is this necessary limit? A limitation of produce!

It is because the rate of advancing population may outstrip the rate of enlargement in any one of the resources now specified, or in all of them put together, that, in every stage of the progress of society, there might be felt a continued pressure on the means of subsistence.

It is this increase in the supply of labour, up to, and often

*North American Review, No. LXXII. p. 5.

beyond the increase in its demand; it is this rapid occupation, or rather overflow by the one, of every enlargement that is made by the other; it is this which sustains, under every possible advancement in the resources of the land, the pressure of the population on the food, and makes the problem of their secure and permanent comfort so very baffling, and as yet so very hopeless.' pp. 441, 2.

And it is this gloomy, repulsive, and, God be praised, most false view of the social constitution, which has converted the science of political economy into a problem of the same character as that of the North-west passage,-placing all who essay a solution of its difficulties in a region of icy horrors, without outlet, and whence they can bring home nothing but a message of despair. Yes, we are shut up', Dr. Chalmers tells us,-the Moral Governor of the world, He who said, "Increase and Multiply", has shut us up' to this, as our only refuge' from a deluge of our kind,— a diminution of the supply of labour', by counteracting this mischievous tendency to multiply. Emigration, home colonization, any extension of the demand for labour, are impotent or injurious expedients. The only plan is, to prevent the formation of a redundancy' by the encouragement of celibacy or late marriages.

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In the whole round of expedients, we are persuaded,' says our Professor of Divinity, that this is the only one, which, however obnoxious to sentimentalists, can avail for the solution of a problem otherwise irreducible. It has been the theme, sometimes of ridicule, and sometimes even of a virtuous, though, surely, a misplaced indignation; its distinctive excellence being, that it harmonizes the moral and economic interests of a community, and, indeed, can only take effect in proportion to the worth and wisdom of our people.' p. 443.

Or, it ought to have been added, in proportion to their callousness and profligacy; expedients quite as effectual for preventing the formation of a redundant population, as worth and wisdom, especially when aided by disease and infanticide. What wise and worthy people are the Ottomans, who have so completely succeeded in preventing the increase of population in the countries they occupy,-where, under the most genial climate, and on the most fertile soil, the human race,' as Burke expressed it, itself 'melts away and perishes under the eye of the observer'!

On this point, we are content to rank with sentimentalists, rather than with speculatists. For the whole is a baseless speculation, a spectral hypothesis. Except in cases of accidental scarcity, population never is, never has been checked by a deficiency of the means of subsistence. The poor have been sometimes known to be on the point of starvation in countries that have largely exported wheat; but never has depopulation been the actual result of a pressure upon the means of subsistence as de

rivable from the soil. For such a case, if it really occurred, emigration would be the obvious and available remedy; and emigration is not an effectual remedy for the evil of a redundant population in this country, precisely because that redundance has no relation whatever to the productive powers of the soil. If there is a necessary limit to agricultural produce,' it is a limit which exists only as an abstraction; a limit to which there may be an indefinite approximation without the possibility of reaching it while the world endures. There is no actual limit to agricultural produce; no other, at least, than the existence of agricultural producers. Scarcity is the result of depopulation, not its cause. In countries which were once the granaries of the surrounding region, a scattered population now obtain a bare subsistence. Yet, the soil, in most cases, is as fertile as ever. The scarcity of produce there, results from the absence of population; while an increase of population is found to be every where followed by an increased abundance of the necessaries and comforts of life. With these incontestable facts before us, are we to suffer ourselves to be shut up into the most cheerless predicament that imagination can conceive, by a geometrical calculation which has obtruded itself into a science of practical induction, to which it bears much the same relation that the doctrine of metaphysical necessity does to the science of law? That a person of Dr. Chalmers's acuteness and philanthropy should have adopted, in all its naked hideousness, the fallacious theory of Malthus, we deeply regret; especially as this cardinal fallacy pervades and vitiates all his reasonings.

Suppose the case were as he puts it, the situation of the labourer would be indeed hopeless. For, granting the efficiency of the preventive moral check in certain circumstances, and to a certain degree, it obviously affords no remedy under an existing pressure, nor any prospect of relief to the existing generation. And how, then, are the labouring classes to be made heroically to deny themselves the immediate benefits and enjoyments of marriage, for the sake of a reversionary benefit to the next generation? Were the subject less grave, the terms in which the learned Professor speaks from the Divinity chair to the lower classes on this subject, would be very diverting.

'Let labourers on the one hand, make a stand for higher wages; and this they can only do effectively, by refraining from over-population. And let capitalists, on the other, make a stand for higher profit; and this they can only do effectively, by refraining from over-speculation. And, just by the position which they might voluntarily unite in keeping up, may they both lower the rent of land, and somewhat limit its cultivation.' pp. 515, 16.

Refrain from over-population! The next thing we may expect

to hear of, is the formation of a new sort of Temperance Society for the discouragement of over-population,―a Glasgow Celibacy Association for the purpose of raising wages. But what security will be possessed by the combining parties who should make this stand, that when they have seemingly succeeded in lessening their own population, the rise of wages shall not attract an influx of new hands from some foreign quarter? What will be the use

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of their refraining from over-population', if other nations, not equally enlightened, go on in the way of natural increase? sides, if the labourers come to understand that it rests with themselves to make a stand for higher wages in this way,-a very slow method at all events, is it not probable that they may conceive it right to combine for the same end in other measures? Nor do we feel sure that they would be wrong in so doing. If they can by any means withhold from the market a portion of that existing supply of labour which is said to be in excess, such a step must certainly be as legitimate and feasible a mode of raising wages, as the refraining from over-population.'

But after all, we fear it would prove, under any circumstances, out of the collective power of labourers, to sustain their wages at a high level, for the reasons already hinted at, and which we will briefly recapitulate. First, because the money price of labour bears a very variable relation to the real value of labour as measured in commodities; and the situation of the labourer is liable to be materially affected by changes in the currency, or in the value of money, over which he has no control. In the attempt to accommodate the money price to an acknowledged change in the real value of labour, the weaker party in the bargain is always a sufferer. Secondly, the demand for every species of labour is subject to fluctuations, while the supply of labour is required to be adequate to the greatest demand at any season, and must therefore always be liable to become excessive at the ebbtide of the demand. Thirdly, the productiveness of labour in combination with capital, depends upon circumstances wholly beyond the calculation of the labourer; and as the capital which maintains the demand for labour, will continue to flow only in the channels of profitable production, the demand may undergo a sudden contraction, producing a fall of wages in that branch of productive industry, not the less ruinous to the labourer, because that capital may find other employment. The demand for agricultural labour is limited by the capital employed in its cultivation. The farmer would often employ more hands upon the same soil, as the manufacturer would set more hands in motion, if he had more capital; and capital would soon be drawn towards the land, as towards the manufacture, if a superior rate of profit were obtainable in that branch of employment. Now over the causes that determine the rate of profit, and ultimately regulate the demand for

labour, the labourer has no control; and all that he could do by making a stand for higher wages, would be, to hasten the withdrawment of capital from unprofitable branches of productive industry. But his refraining from over-population' would not enable him to make any stand whatever under circumstances against which no foresight could enable him to provide. The moral preventive check, when held out as a remedy, is a cruel mockery of his helplessness.

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But we must proceed with our Author's synopsis, from which we have so long digressed. His eighth position is: That no 'trade or manufacture contributes to the good of society, more ‘than the use or enjoyment which is afforded by its own com'modities; nor bears any creative part in augmenting the 'public revenue.' 9. That the extinction of any given branch of trade or manufacture would not sensibly throw back the agriculture. 10. That the destruction of a manufacture does not involve the destruction of the maintenance now expended on ́ manufacturers ;' the whole mischief incurred by such an event being a change of employment. 11. That they are chiefly the ⚫ holders of the first necessaries of life, or landed proprietors, who impress, by their taste and demand, any direction which seemeth unto them good, on the labours of the disposable population.' 12. That capital, duly protected, has as great an increasing ' and restorative power as population has,' and 'can no more 'increase beyond a certain limit than population can. 13. That the diminution of capital occasioned by excessive expenditure, whether public or private, is not repaired so much by parsimony, as by the action of a diminished capital on profits; and that the extravagance of Government, or of individuals, which raises 'prices by the amount of that extravagance, produces only a rotation of property. 14. That trade is liable to gluts, both general and partial. 15. That the rate of profit is determined by the collective will of capitalists, by the command which they have, through their greater or less expenditure, over the amount of capital.' 16. That when the agricultural produce of a country is equal to the subsistence of its population, its foreign trade is 'as much directed by the taste, and upheld by the ability, of its landed proprietors, as the home trade is.' 17. That it is not 'desirable that the commerce of Britain should greatly overlap its agricultural basis; and that the excrescent population, 'subsisted on corn from abroad, yield a very insignificant fraction 'to the public revenue.' 18, 19, 20. That nevertheless there should be a free corn trade, which would not be injurious to the British landlords, and, probably, not burden the country with a 'large excrescent population.' 21.That Britain has nothing 'to apprehend from the loss of her colonies and commerce, but 'that a change of employment to the disposable population, and

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