before. Capital or produce might be increasing with immense rapidity, and yet the condition of mankind getting worse, if population were allowed to advance still more rapidly, as it could so easily do, if not checked. On the contrary, even though capital were not increasing at all: in other words, although a country had reached what political economists call the stationary state; yet if due care were taken proportionally to repress population, the condition of every one might be improving. It is not the absolute amount of wealth which a nation possesses, but the relative amount in proportion to the number of its inhabitants, and the satisfactory distribution of that wealth, which constitutes it a truly prosperous nation. A rapid increase of capital, to which the old political economists attached such importance, is no proof of national prosperity.

In the ordinary course of industrial progress, namely where as we see among ourselves, the working classes remain pretty much as they were, Mr. Mill shows, that, of the three great classes into which our society may be divided-landlords, labourers, and capitalists--the landlords are the only sharers who are really benefited, while the capitalists are losers; for population, by increasing, raises the demand for, and therefore the price of, food, more quickly than the improvements in production can lower it. Thus the landlords gain, and the profits of the capitalists, unless the labourers submit to a reduction of their standard of comfort, must fall. Hence the aim of the most eminent political economists of our day, is no longer the delusive one of an increase of capital and improvements in production merely, which tends only to benefit the landlord, to injure the capitalist, and to leave the labourer where he was, but that there should be a better distribution of the produce, which is only obtainable by checking the increase of population, so that there may be fewer people to share the increasing produce. Their aim thus is twofold; to increase produce on the one hand, and to repress population on the other; and the latter aim is beyond all comparison the more important of the two, for it is so little generally understood, and is also so much more influential in human destiny. "It is only in the backward countries of the world," says Mr. Mill, "that increase of production is an important object; in those more advanced, what is economically needed, is a better distribution, of which one indispensable means is a stricter restraint on population." Only when, in addition to just institutions," he says again, "the increase of mankind shall be under the deliberate guidance of a judicious foresight, can the conquests made from the powers of Nature by the intellect and energy of scientific discoverers, become the common property of the species, and the means of improving and elevating the universal lot."

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The discovery of the principle of population has thus made a thorough revolution in the doctrines and aims of Political Economy: and it must before long make a similar revolution in Medical and Moral Science, whose efforts at present are exactly as delusive as were those of the economists before Mr. Malthus wrote, namely, to increase the virtue and health of mankind, without attending to the increase of the species. Political Economy is as yet the only science concerning man and society, which rests upon a sound basis, and whose aim is a true one; the other are radically delusive, and attempt impossibilities.

How little the Census-Reporter has studied the science whose fundamental principles he so recklessly denies, is shown by the following comparison between the increase of capital and that of population. Capital," ne says, "increases, it is always assumed, when terms of years are considered, in a geometrical progression, and, at compound interest, the increase is much more rapid than the increase of population in any European state. The interest of money, indicating the annual increase of value, is the produce of property, and bears a rather close analogy to the increase of the means of subsistence. At three per cent per annum, compound interest, the value of capital is doubled in twenty-four years; and a population increasing at three per cent, which is near the natural rate, doubles in the same time; while actually the British population has increased at the rate of 1.3 per cent. annually for the fifty years, 1801-51, and has doubled in fifty-three years. Thus-if we take this indication-the means of subsistence have increased faster than the numbers of the people; for, while the population has doubled, the valu of capital under investment, at three per cent. compound interest, has quadrupled." These statements are full of the greatest errors. In the first place, it is not assumed by political economists that capital increases in a geometrical progression: on the contrary, Mr. Mill shows in the most masterly manner, in the first chapters of his fourth bock, that the Law which governs Profits is that they are constantly tending to fall, and to reach a minimum, in the progress of industry. The reason of this, as has just been stated, is, that when population increases, (if the labourer does not people down to a lower standard of comfort, and, as the standard is already so low, this could have but little effect,) more food is required, and this, according to the fundamental law of agricultural industry, is procurable only at a greater proportional cost: and therefore profits must fall. The tendency of profits to fall in the course of industrial progress was always noticed by political economists, for instance Adam Smith; but it is only lately that the true reason of this has been seen, namely, the want of fertile land, which makes food be produced at a greater proportional cost. Thus then, the Law of Profits, depending on the Law of Wages, and the Law of Agricultural Industry, is that they tend to fall, in the progress of civilization. But when profits fall, the increase of capital is much interfered with, because people have less inducement to save from their annual income in the hope of growing richer; and, were this fall of profits not counteracted by several circumstances, it would soon reach what Mr. Mill calls the minimum of profit, namely, the smallest profit which would tempt people to save from their incomes, and employ their savings productively, in order to grow richer; and when this minimum (which varies in each country, according to the saving habits of the inhabitants and the security of industrial enterprizes) was reached, no further increase of capital could for the time take place. Therefore, instead of increasing naturally in a geometrical progression, capital always tends to increase more and more slowly, and would ultimately reach the point where it would not increase at all, (called by political economists the stationary state), were the fall of profits not retarded by several circumstances. "When a country," says Mr. Mill,“ has

long possessed a large production, and a large net income to make saringi from, and when, therefore, the means have long existed of making a great annual addition to capital; (the country not having, like America, a large reserve of fertile land still unused); it is one of the characteristics of such a country, that the rate of profits is always close to the minimum, and therefore the country on the verge of the stationary state." The chief causes which check the fall of profits in such a case, and thus allow of further increase of capital are, he says, first, the waste of capital, by ov r-trading and rash speculations. These constitute the commercial crises, that so frequently occur among us, and are in a great measure eaused by this tendency of profits to fall: for this makes men engage in rash speculations, to gain a larger profit. In the stagnation which follows these crises, moreover, much capital is consumed unproductively. But this is not the principal cause which arrests the fall of profits, otherwise capital would not increase; while it does increase, and very rapidly. The second cause, is the introduction of agricultural or industrial improvements, which cheapen corn, or other articles consumed by the labourers, and thus raise profits; for the labourer soon loses the advantage of the cheapness and transfers it to the capitalist, by peopling down to his old standard of comfort again the only use, which our labourers ever make of any advantage, being, as Mr. Mill says, "to convert it into food for so many more children." The third cause is inereased facilities of getting food or other necessaries from abroad, which comes to the same thing as the preceding. But, as additional food is not obtainable in the countries from which we get it, except by increase of agricultural skill, which is of slow growth and diffusion, or by increase of capital, which, in the corn-exporting countries of Europe, increases slowly, and in America not more rapidly than their own population --English capital must be sent abroad to procure it for our increasing population; and this, namely, the overflow of English capital into other countries, where profits are still high, is the fourth great cause, which retards the fall of profits, and therefore permits a further increase of capital. It is one of the chief causes which keep up profits in a country, whose capital increases faster than its neighbours', and therefore whose profits are nearest the minimum. "This perpetual overflow of capital into colonies and foreign countries to seek higher profits, than can be got at home, I believe," says Mr. Mill, "to have been for many years one of the chief causes, by which the fall of profits in England has been checked." Thus then, the chief causes, which check the fall of profits in England, are these four-waste of capital, improvements in production, facilities of importation, and overflow of capital into foreign countries. But by the first of these, a large amount of capital is destroyed, or transferred to foreigners; and by the last also, it is sent into other countries, so that it supports their labourers, not ours, except in so far as their increased production cheapens our food. Therefore the increased capital in this country is only in part shared among our own labourers, and it is a great error to compare it with our own population. Were the capital indeed to be employed in this country and among our own people alone, its increase would very soon be arrested, because profits would fall so low; or

at least it would slacken so much as no longer to outstrip the comparatively slow march of agricultural improvements in our own country. It is because a great part of the increasing capital is sent abroad, that the rate of profits in all old and well-peopled countries, is prevented from falling in a very few years, to the minimum point, at which all increase of capital must for the time cease.

To say that the interest of money bears a rather close analogy to the increase of the means of subsistence," is another great error. The rate

of interest depends upon many other elements, besides the profits of capital or increase of the means of subsistence; which moreover, as we have just seen, is by no means divided among our own people alone. It depends on the proportion between those who are ready to lend, and those who are ready to borrow money, and thus is greatly influenced by the desire to save, and to use savings productively, in each country. If the rate of interest were a true index of the increase of capital, the latter would increase most rapidly, where the interest is highest; and thus would be increasing much faster in the Oriental countries, where money brings 20 or 30 per cent, than in England. In many European countries the rate of interest is higher, I believe, than it is in England, and therefore a sum would double much more rapidly at compound interest in them; but their capital is not increasing nearly so fast.

As for some other misapprehensions of Mr. Malthus's writings, such as that "he attempts to reconcile us to the loss of lives by shipwreck, small-pox, close habitations, or low sites;" that he made the assertion that "the disappearance of small-pox, cholera, or of other epidemics, must be followed immediately by famine or other diseases ;" and some vain wit on "the absurdity of applying the law of population to civilized man though it may hold of rabbits," they are scarcely worthy of notice. Had the author of the Report been satisfied with arranging the statistical facts of the Census in the admirable manner in which he has done it, he would have discharged a most valuable duty; but as he has gone out of his way to deny the terrible law, which alone explains our society or the Census itself, nay, has endeavoured to make it a subject of thoughtless ridicule. his work must be regarded as one of the most dangerous to the sexual morality and social welfare of this country. There is nothing which is so inevitably destructive to the working classes, to the sexual sufferers-nay to married people themselves, as to deny or ignore the law of population; and the statesman, who in ignorance or contempt of this law, encourages rapid multiplication, deserves, as Mr. Malthus said, the title of the destroyer of his people." Without its guidance, society is a chaos, and poverty, celibacy, hard work, prostitution, are totally unintelligible, and therefore irremediable.

The time will come yet, when the law of population will be viewed in a very different light: when it will be universally accepted as beyond all comparison the most important truth, which was ever revealed to our race; as the solution, made for us by Mr. Malthus, of the sphynx-riddle or paradox of Nature, which mankind have had ever since the birth of history, to solve, or to die; the truth, which will form the boundary-line betweer ancient and modern society; which, so far from being ignored or laugha

at, will be jealously guarded and steadily kept in mind by all, as the bulwark of their liberty and happiness, the sacred principle of action on which alone a true social fabric can be based.

While preventive intercourse is the only direct means which will avail in the least to remedy poverty, there are many guzikary measures, which should be adopted, to enable the working classes to escape from it as soon as possible. These are most admirably explained by Mr. Mill. The two measures which he lays most stress upon are emigration and national education. He proposes that an extensive and liberal scheme of emigration should be undertaken by the government, so as to carry off at once a large number of the surplus population; and thus raise in a sudden and striking manner the wages of those left at home. By this means the working classes would become accustomed to a higher standard of comfort, as was the case in France after the Revolution, and would refuse to people down to a lower standard again. Even though this should not be done, individual emigration should be promoted as much as possible, so as to aid in reducing the numbers. It is to be remarked, that means of relieving poverty which are of little or no use without preventive intercourse, may be of great service in accelerating its extinction, when its fountain head is at the same time stopped up. Thus Charity, which does almost more harm than good at present, would, if preventive intercourse were once generally adopted, be a most useful auxiliary in raising as quickly as possible the condition of the poor; and might be freely given, without the sickening consciousness, that it was perhaps rather injuring than benefiting its unhappy objects, and could do the poor no possible permanent good. A broad scheme of national education would also be of great service, both for the general enlightenment, and as preparing the poor to understand the law of population, and the remedy for the evils that surround them.

Besides these, there is another admirable auxiliary in the cure of poverty and the elevation of the working classes, on which Mr. Mill lays great stress. It is the change from the present system of Employers and Employed to that of Independent and Associated Industry. Mr. Mill (from whose great work I cannot refrain from quoting a few more passages, in order to show more fully that the distinguished expounders of the law of population, instead of being, as they have been so often represented, inimical to the interests of the working classes, are in reality their truest friends) says, "I cannot think it possible, that the labouring classes will be permanently contented with the condition of labouring for wages as their ultimate state. To work at the bidding and for the profit of another, without any interest in the work-the price of their labour being adjusted by hostile competition, one side demanding as much, and the other paying as little, as possible-is not, even when wages are high, a satisfactory state to human beings of educated intelligence, who have ceased to think themselves naturally inferior to those whom they serve." He says moreover, "as the general status of the labouring people, the condition of a workman for bire is almost peculiar to Great Britain. In other parts of Europe