Mr Malthus published the first edition of his book in 1798. Since that period, (or if you please, since the conquest,) which has augmented most, population, or the means of subsistence? Which have done most, -the mouths that have come into the world, in diminishing food, or the hands that have come with them, in augmenting the means of producing it?

Protectionists tell us, that in the article of food alone, our means of producing, even within the narrow boundary of the British islands, are yet unlimited. There are many millions of uncultivated acres, of fertility till lately unsuspected. The resources of drainage and improved cultivation are but beginning to be opened up. Agricultural chemistry is in its infancy. The elements of fertility have but just begun to be scientifically understood. You have yet to spread the manure and sewerage of your cities on the soil. You have yet to witness the boundless gratitude of your mother earth, when you plant her now starving and naked children on the waste. They point to your colonies in both hemispheres, where the precious grain of the Anglo-Saxon race is sown and germinating. There you have, not petty territories, like France or Spain, but vast continents preparing to receive your productions, to pour back in return their food and other natural riches, and if need be, to receive more people than you can send. They add that steam has, since, the days of Malthus, laid these colonies of yours with their boundless fields, alongside your coasts.

The free-traders on their part, bid you look to the valley of the Mississippi, able to supply all Europe with food. They tell you that you could, and ought, to draw your supplies from that and many other inexhaustible foreign sources.

We have not now to discuss which of these two counsel the true policy. But both protectionists and free-traders agree in this, that since the days of Malthus, however the population may have augmented, the means of producing and acquiring food have been augmented not only in an equal, but in an infinitely greater degree.

Now look at all other material things besides food. The difficulty is not to produce, but the difficulty seems now to be, not to over-produce. Steam, and mechanical powers, with chemical agencies, have laid the riches of all nature at our feet in inexhaustible profusion.

The means of subsistence therefore have not been wanting to population. There was in 1798, no real danger of too great an increase of men and women. Providence had gifts in store, not suspected by those who distrusted its prescience and bounty.

Indeed it has been truly observed by Paley and by M. Thiers, that there never yet has been a nation which even fully cultivated its own soil; and if we are to judge of the future by the past, there never will be.

But how often has population been wanting to the

means of subsistence! Where are the dense populations that anciently lined the banks of the Nile, the Indus, the Tigris, and the Euphrates? The fertile land remains in Asia Minor, Arabia, Syria, Egypt, Persia, and Northern India, but the huge cities and the myriads of human creatures with which, under their ancient monarchies, they once swarmed, are gone!

But the second position, that the rate of wages governs the rate of increase, and that the increase of a population is therefore always in proportion to its comfortable circumstances, is quite as irreconciliable with established facts.

Comfort, and a station in life, we find beget prudence. Poverty produces recklessness. The middle and upper classes do not breed like the lowest. Few populations have ever multiplied like the most wretched Irish.

There is nothing therefore in a true theory of population to scare either governments or benevolent individuals from persevering endeavours to better the condition, and raise the remuneration of the lowest class. On the contrary there is everything to encourage such philanthropical endeavours. It is the truest, soundest policy.

In the wynds of Glasgow, and cellars of Liverpool, population multiplies as fast as any where else. And what a population! The moral degradation, deep as

it is, is not deeper than the physical deterioration of the fathers and mothers of the coming race.

nequiores mox daturos

Progeniem vitiosiorem.

We have thought it worth while to improve the breed of oxen, sheep, and pigs. Our sleek and comely animals seem another race from the lean and long-legged creatures of France. But there is reason to fear that the reverse operation as to human creatures, is proceeding in the great cities of both countries. Compare the swarms of fragile women, of slight, delicate, and halfbegotten men in London, Paris, Lyons and Manchester, with the men and women now living in the country districts of Normandy, and frequenting the markets of Dieppe or Caen, and you will see what is going on.

There is no reason to fear an increase of population. But there is great reason to fear the increase of a population morally depraved, and physically deteriorated.

CHAPTER XXI.

"Beware of having recourse to inferior soils."

If the domestic production of food could but be made to keep pace with other industry, why should any increase of population be excessive?

A parish, we will suppose, contains one farmer, one miller, one baker, one butcher, one carpenter, one blacksmith, one doctor, one lawyer, one draper and grocer, and so on of other trades, and a certain number of laborers in each occupation.

Now if the population be doubled, and there be two of a trade all round, and two laborers where there was formerly but one, the proportion being undisturbed, there is no more excess of population than there was before. Each new comer adds, it is true, a new pair of hands to do the work, but then he also brings with him a new proportionate demand for the work of every body else. Every body is as busy as before.

But here comes the difficulty;-you can easily have two millers, and two bakers, and two of every trade and occupation except one. But how can you get two farmers? Where are the new farms to be had? Here we see at once the difficulty in which old and