BOOK IV. stood to hold only on the basis of the prices at the time: much error has arisen from losing sight of this limitation.

CH. III.

In the case of land cultivated on a system of rotating crops, we must take the whole period of rotation together, reckoning for the land being in the same condition at the beginning and the end of the rotation, and counting on the one hand all the capital and labour applied during the whole period, and on the other the aggregate returns of all the crops.

It must be remembered that the return due to a dose of capital and labour is not here taken to include the value of the capital itself. For instance, if part of the capital on a farm consists of two year old oxen, then the returns to a year's capital and labour will include not the full weight of these oxen at the end of the year, but only the addition that has been made to it during the year. Again, when a farmer is said to work with a capital of £10 to the acre, this includes the value of everything that he has on the farm. As has been already explained, however, a dose of capital and labour applied to a farm, does not include the whole value of the fixed capital, such as machinery and horses, but only the value of their use after allowing for depreciation and repairs; though it does include the whole value of the circulating capital, such as seed.

But although this is the method of measuring capital which is most generally adopted by economists, and the one which is to be taken for granted if nothing is said to the contrary; there are yet some exceptional cases in which it is best to adopt another. Sometimes it is convenient to speak as though all the capital applied were circulating capital applied at the beginning of the year or during it: and in that case everything that is on the farm at the end of the year is part of the produce. Thus, young cattle are regarded as a sort of raw material which is worked up in the course of time into fat cattle ready for the butcher. The farm implements may even be treated in the same way, their value at the beginning of the year being taken as so much circulating capital applied to the farm, and at the end of the year as so much produce. This plan enables us to avoid a good deal of repetition of conditioning clauses as to depreciation, etc., and to save the use of words in many ways. It is often the best plan for general reasonings of an abstract character, particularly if they are expressed in a mathematical form.

CHAPTER IV.

THE SUPPLY OF LABOUR. THE GROWTH OF NUMBERS.

CH. IV.

of numbers

mal and

is affected

present

§ 1.IN the animal and vegetable world the growth of BOOK IV. numbers is governed simply by the tendency of individuals to propagate their species on the one hand, and on the other The growth hand by the struggle for life which thins out vast numbers in the aniof the young before they arrive at maturity. In the human vegetable race alone the conflict of these two opposing forces is com- kingdoms plicated by other influences. On the one hand regard for only by the future induces many individuals to control their natural conditions; impulses; sometimes with the purpose of worthily discharging their duties as parents; sometimes, as for instance at Rome is affected under the Empire, for mean motives. And on the other ditions of hand society exercises pressure on the individual by religious, and foremoral and legal sanctions, sometimes with the object of quickening, and sometimes with that of retarding, the growth of population.

in the hu

man race it

also by tra

the past

casts of the

future.

blems of

are as old

as civiliza

even older.

The study of the growth of population is often spoken of The proas though it were a modern one. But in a more or less population vague form it has occupied the attention of thoughtful men in all ages of the world. To its influence often unavowed, tion, and sometimes not even clearly recognized, we can trace a great part of the rules, customs and ceremonies that have been enjoined in the Eastern and Western world by law-givers, by moralists, and those nameless thinkers, whose far-seeing wisdom has left its impress on national habits. Among vigorous races, and in times of great military conflict, they aimed at increasing the supply of males capable of bearing arms; and in the higher stages of progress they have inculcated a great respect for the sanctity of human life: but in

CH. IV.

BOOK IV. the lower stages, they have encouraged and even compelled the ruthless slaughter of the infirm and the aged, and sometimes of a certain proportion of the female children.

There has been a fre

and flow of

opinion on

the ques

tion whether the State

should en

growth of

In ancient Greece and Rome, with the safety valve of the quent ebb power of planting colonies, and in the presence of constant war, an increase in the number of citizens was regarded as a source of public strength; and marriage was encouraged by public opinion, and in many cases even by legislation: though thoughtful men were even then aware that action in the courage the contrary sense might be necessary if the responsibilities of numbers. parentage should ever cease to be burdensome'. In later times there may be observed, as Roscher says, a regular ebb and flow of the opinion that the State should encourage the growth of numbers. It was in full flow in England under the first two Tudors, but in the course of the sixteenth century it slackened and turned; and it began to ebb, when the abolition of the celibacy of the religious orders, and the more settled state of the country had had time to give a perceptible impetus to population; the effective demand for labour having meanwhile been diminished by the increase of sheep runs, and by the collapse of that part of the industrial system which had been organized by the monastic establishments. Later on the growth of population was checked by that rise in the standard of comfort which took effect in the general adoption of wheat as the staple food of Englishmen during the first half of the eighteenth century. At that time there were even fears, which later inquiries showed to be unfounded, that the population was actually diminishing. Petty had

1 Thus Aristotle (Politics, n. 6) objects to Plato's scheme for equalizing property and abolishing poverty on the ground that it would be unworkable unless the State exercised a firm control over the growth of numbers. And as Professor Jowett points out, Plato himself was aware of this; (see Laws v. 740: also Aristotle, Politics, vII. 16). The population of Greece is said to have declined from the seventh century B.C., and that of Rome from the third. (See Zumpt, Bevölkerung im Alterthum quoted by Rümelin in Schönberg's Handbuch. Comp. also Hume's essay on The populousness of ancient nations.)

2 Political Economy, § 254.

3 He argues that Holland is richer than it appears to be relatively to France, because its fertile land enables its people to have access to many advantages that cannot be had by those who live on poorer land and are therefore more scattered. "Rich land is better than coarse land of the same Rent." Political Arithmetick, Ch. I.

HISTORY OF THE DOCTRINE OF POPULATION.

231

CH. IV.

forestalled some of Carey's and Wakefield's arguments as to BOOK IV. the advantages of a dense population. Child had argued that "whatever tends to the depopulating of a country tends to the impoverishment of it;" and that "most nations in the civilized parts of the world, are more or less rich or poor proportionably to the paucity or plenty of their people, and not to the sterility or fruitfulness of their land'." And by the time that the world-struggle with France had attained its height, when the demands for more and more troops were ever growing, and when manufacturers were wanting more men for their new machinery; the bias of the ruling classes was strongly flowing in favour of an increase of population. So far did this movement of opinion reach that in 1796 Pitt declared that a man who had enriched his country with a number of children had a claim on its assistance to educate them. An act, passed amid the military anxieties of 1806, which granted exemption from taxes to the fathers of more than two children born in wedlock, was repealed as soon as Napoleon had been safely lodged in St Helena2.

trines of

The Phy

§ 2. But during all this time there had been a growing The docfeeling among those who thought most seriously on social recent ecoproblems, that an inordinate increase of numbers, whether nomists. it strengthened the State or not, must necessarily cause siocrats. great misery and that the rulers of the State had no right to subordinate individual happiness to the aggrandizement of the State. In France in particular a reaction was caused, as we have seen, by the cynical selfishness with which the Court and its adherents sacrificed the well-being of the people for the sake of their own luxury and military glory.

1 Discourse on Trade, Chap. x.

2 See Twiss, Progress of Political Economy, Lect. vII. Napoleon the First had offered to take under his own charge one member of any family which contained seven male children: and Louis XIV., his predecessor in the slaughter of men, had exempted from public taxes all those who married before the age of 20 or had more than ten legitimate children. (See Garnier's article on Population in the Dictionnaire de l'Économie Politique.) A comparison of the rapid increase in the population of Germany with that of France was a chief motive of the order of the French Chamber in 1885 that education and board should be provided at the public expense for every seventh child in all necessitous families. In 1890 the Académie des Sciences was much occupied with similar proposals, of which one may be noted as characteristic of our Age: it would give to the father of a family two, three, or four votes according to its size.

CH. IV.

BOOK IV. If the humane sympathies of the Physiocrats had been able to overcome the frivolity and harshness of the privileged classes of France, the eighteenth century would probably not have ended in tumult and bloodshed, the march of freedom in England would not have been arrested, and the dial of progress would have been more forward than it is by the space of at least a generation. As it was, but little attention was paid to Quesnay's guarded but forcible protest :-" one should aim less at augmenting the population than at increasing the national income, for the condition of greater comfort which is derived from a good income, is preferable to that in which a population exceeds its income and is ever in urgent need of the means of subsistence."

Adam
Smith.

The Physiocratic doctrine with regard to the tendency of population to increase up to the margin of subsistence may be given in Turgot's words:-the employer " since he always has his choice of a great number of working men, will choose that one who will work most cheaply. Thus then the workers are compelled by mutual competition to lower their price; and with regard to every kind of labour the result is bound to be reached-and it is reached as a matter of fact-that the wages of the worker are limited to that which is necessary to procure his subsistence","

say

Adam Smith said but little on the question of population, for indeed he wrote at one of the culminating points of the prosperity of the English working classes; but what he does is wise and well balanced and modern in tone. Accepting 1 Sur la formation et la distribution des richesses, § VI. Similarly Sir James Steuart says, Inquiry (Bk. 1. Ch. II.), "The generative faculty resembles a spring loaded with a weight, which always exerts itself in proportion to the diminution of resistance: when food has remained some time without augmentation or diminution, generation will carry numbers as high as possible; if then food comes to be diminished the spring is overpowered; the force of it becomes less than nothing, inhabitants will diminish at least in proportion to the overcharge. If on the other hand, food be increased, the spring which stood at 0, will begin to exert itself in proportion as the resistance diminishes; people will begin to be better fed; they will multiply, and in proportion as they increase in numbers the food will become scarce again." Sir James Steuart was much under the influence of the Physiocrats, and was indeed in some respects imbued with Continental rather than English notions of government: and his artificial schemes for regulating population seem very far off from us now. See his Inquiry, Bk. 1. Ch. XII., “Of the great advantage of combining a well digested Theory and a perfect Knowledge of Facts with the practical Part of Government in order to make a People multiply."