CHAPTER V.

Of the mischievous Pressure of Population, caused by depressing the productive Energies of the Soil considerably below its natural Powers.

IT is obviously true, that the natural powers of the soil to afford a further supply of produce vary with every advance of a country in the progress of society. In the agricultural state, that is, before all the rich lands are appropriated and brought into cultivation, the powers of the soil are great, and capable of affording a considerable supply of produce at a comparatively small expense in cultivation. In the commercial and manufacturing state, that is, when the lands remaining unappropriated and waste are of inferior staple, and commerce and manufactures are consequently the most profitable employment of capital, the natural powers of the soil are gradually contracted, and can only afford a further supply of produce at a continually increasing expense in cultivation.

That the expense of bringing waste land under cultivation continually increases with the advance of society and population, will be evident if we consider the gradation as to quality, in which lands, generally speaking, are reclaimed. Those of superior staple, which will pay best, are of course reclaimed the first, and so on, in succession of inferiority, till at last none but the most barren and ungrateful spots are left waste. Municipal laws, and the rights of property, will of course introduce trifling irregularities in the

march of this system, but as men may usually be depended upon for following their own temporal interests, it may be argued upon in general as regular and unremitting. The necessary consequence then of this progressive recurrence to inferior soil is that, at each succeeding step, the cultivator has to grapple with a more ungrateful subject, and must therefore incur an increased expense in rendering it productive; and that nothing but the certain prospect of being remunerated for that expense in the price of the produce will induce him to undertake the task.

It follows from these facts, that the very same circumstances, which in the first case may afford ample encouragement to the productive energies of the soil, may in the last depress them very considerably below their natural powers; for as the only encouragement to produce any article is to be found in the profit accruing from it, after all the expenses of production are paid, it is obvious that, when these expenses are high, they cannot be compensated by the same encouragements which may have proved fully sufficient while the expenses continued low.

It is obviously true also that, where the public institutions of a country are of a liberal and expensive nature, and the land and its products are highly taxed to support them, these expenses must also be added to that more immediately incidental to cultivation, before we can determine what will actually encourage or depress the productive energies of the soil. A community, for example, which from the profits expected from its agriculture engages to support establishments for the religious instruction, the moral education, and when necessary for the charitable support of its people, or which has entered

into an agreement with monied capitalists to pay them a portion of produce by way of interest for capital advanced, will of course discover that all these expenses must be added to those arising from the natural condition of the soil before a fair balance can be struck. What may constitute a fair encouragement therefore to the agriculture of a country shrinking from any of these undoubted and imperative duties or necessary engagements, may yet considerably depress that of another which performs them, even although both countries may be found to have reached, in other respects, the same point in the progress of society.

Again, it is obviously true that where the condition of a country is found to be on the expensive side of all these alternatives; that is, where it has both advanced far into the commercial and manufacturing systems, has incurred a public debt, and has also established liberal and expensive institutions for the comfort, happiness, and morality of its people, to be defrayed from the produce of its soil, the foundations of its agricultural prosperity are completely different from those of other countries, where no such conditions of society exist. Still greater encouragement will be necessary, in such a country, to prevent the depression of the natural powers of the soil, than where only one or two of those extraordinary sources of expense exist: and this is perfectly fair. It is impossible for a nation, any more than for an individual, to enjoy the advantages of an expensive establishment without defraying the cost. It is dishonest to set up such an establishment without the means of paying for it; and it is equally unmanly and inconsistent, having once established it upon a fair esti

mate of means, and reaped the expected advantages, to shrink from the necessary payments, or to envy those nations who have been willing to forego the comforts, or to desert the duties, in consideration of escaping the expense. In short, it is as vain as it is childish, at once to grasp at the advantages of riches, and to long for the disincumbrance of poverty.

If these reflections are just, we shall at once pérceive that, to avoid the evils arising from depressing the productive energies of the soil below its natural powers, the application of general principles will scarcely be sufficient. A particular inquiry into the state of society, in which the country in question may happen to exist, is as necessary here as in estimating the force of the principle of population: and in the adoption of any practical measures a knowledge of the state of surrounding countries is equally important. For, practically speaking, it cannot be doubted that in a large society of nations it is impossible to rely upon each individual nation, or even upon a majority of them, for a constant adherence to general principles; especially on questions of vital interest to their neighbours, who are, I fear, almost necessarily their rivals. No man can be more ready than myself to admit, that general principles, when universally adhered to, are the best foundations of individual policy, because they constitute the best security of individual as well as of general prosperity: but, as I have elsewhere taken the liberty to remark," the science of political economy, being a set of conclusions drawn from general principles, is of course intended for general application. It is presupposed that all the nations concerned in any question involving those principles will fully act up to them, because it is their interest

to do so; or if any particular nation refuse so to act, that it will suffer for the deviation to the advantage of the rest. This supposition, in ordinary times and cases, or in times the same as when the principles of the science were laid down, is perhaps correct, and may often have been justified by the event; but the case is very much altered when the ordinary systems of policy are completely overthrown by extraordinary causes." Now I think it will be found in practice, that the prospect of ruining or materially injuring a rival nation has always been considered a cause suf ficiently extraordinary to justify a departure from general principles, even under a full acknowledgment of their use and advantage in ordinary times: at least, I am sure that any nation which should venture to rest the fundamental principles of its political system upon a contrary expectation would wilfully place itself in great and imminent jeopardy.

Fully admitting therefore the theoretical expediency of general principles on the subject before us, and that, according to every fair conclusion to be drawn from them, population would not necessarily press to a mischievous degree against the means of subsistence, although the natural powers of the domestic soil were insufficient to afford those means, because food might be purchased by the products of the people's industry from other countries where the powers of the soil are sufficient; yet this admission is by no means conclusive of the question: for the reasons above mentioned, the temptations which such a state would afford to the hostility of rival nations is so great, the effects which would be actually produced by depriving any considerable portion of the people of their accustomed means of subsistence, are in truth