BOOK I. OF POPULATION AND AGRICULTURE. (continued 3)

Prop. V. It is out of this number of 8,250, that all our losses are to be deduced. If the colonies, wars, and navigation, carry off from us annually 8,000 men, the British isles cannot augment in people: if we lose more, numbers must diminish.

Prop. VI. By calculations, such as they are, our author finds, that, upon an average of 66 years, from 1690 to 1756, this number of 8000 have been annually lost, that is, have died abroad in the colonies, in war, or on the account of navigation.

Prop. VII. That, since the inhabitants of Britain and Ireland are about 8,000,000, and that the augmentation is annually about 8000, we may conclude in general for all Europe, that, for every million of inhabitants, there is an annual augmentation of 1000; consequently, every thousand men slain in war must destroy all the augmentation of a million of inhabitants during a year. Consequently France, which contains 14 millions, according to Sir William Petty, having lost above 14,000 men a-year, during the same 66 years, cannot have augmented in population.

Prop. VIII. That the progress of trade and navigation augmenting the loss of people by sea, must consequently have diminished population over all Europe.

97Prop. IX. The exportation of our corn proves what the above propositions have demonstrated. For supposing the progress of agriculture to compensate the additional quantity distilled of late years, there is still ¹⁄₆ of the crop exported, which proves that our numbers are small, and that they do not augment.

From these propositions our author concludes, that what stops multiplication in the British isles is, 1st, That living in celibacy is become a-la-mode: 2dly, That wars have been carried on beyond the nation’s force: 3dly, That the use of spirituous liquors destroys great numbers of inhabitants.

I shall now shortly apply the principles I have been laying down, in order to resolve every phenomenon here described, as to the population of Great Britain. These I shall willingly take for granted, as it is of no consequence to my reasoning, whether they be exact or not: it is enough that they may be so; and the question here is only to account for them.

England, says he, would diminish in numbers, were it not recruited from Scotland and Ireland. This, I say, is a contingent, not a certain consequence: for did those grown-up adventurers cease to come in, the inhabitants of England themselves would undoubtedly multiply, provided an additional number of breeders could be found, able to bring up their children. Now the importation of grown men into a country in so far resembles the importation of slaves into our colonies, that the one and the other diminishes the price of labour, and thereby prevents marriage among certain classes of the natives, whose profits are not sufficient for bringing up a family: and when any such do marry notwithstanding, they do not multiply, as has been said. Now were the Scots and Irish to come no more into England, the price of labour would rise; those who now cannot bring up children, might then be enabled to do it, and this would make the English multiply themselves; that is, it would augment the number of their own breeders. On the other hand, did the price of labour continue too low to prove a sufficient encouragement for an additional 98number of English breeders, the contingent consequence would take place; that is, numbers would diminish, according to our author’s supposition, and the exportation of grain would increase, in proportion to that diminution; and did foreign demand for grain also diminish, then agriculture would suffer, and every thing would decline: but of this more as we go along.

The representation he gives of the state of population in these countries, is one modification of what I have called a moral incapacity of a people’s increasing in numbers. It is just so in Africa, where the inhabitants are sold; just so in Switzerland, and in many mountainous countries, where inhabitants desert, in order to seek their fortunes elsewhere. The national stock remains at an equal standard, and the augmentation upon births above burials is constantly in proportion to the exportation of inhabitants. Let this proportion rise ever so high, an increase of national population is noways essentially to be implied from this phenomenon alone, but must proceed from other causes.

I can find nothing advanced by our author to prove, or even to induce one to believe, that had the lives of those eight thousands been yearly preserved from extraordinary dangers, numbers would have augmented. England enjoyed in a manner 26 years peace after the treaty of Utrecht. For many years before, a very destructive war had been carried on. Had the bills of births been produced from 1701 to 1713, had they been compared with those from this last period to 1739, when the Spanish war began, had we seen a gradual augmentation from year to year during those last 26 years, such as might be expected from the preservation of a considerable number at least of the 8,250 able healthy men, just in the period of life fit for propagation, one might be tempted to conclude, that the preceding war had done hurt to population, by interrupting the propagation of the species. But if, by comparing the bills of births for a considerable number of years, in war and in peace, one can discover no sensible difference, it is very natural to conclude, either that those wars did not destroy many breeders, 99or that others must have slipt in directly, and bred in the place of those who had been killed. What otherwise can be the reason why the number which our author supposes to have been destroyed abroad, should so exactly compensate the annual augmentation, but only that those nations are stocked to the full proportion of their subsistence: and what is the reason why, after a destructive war, which, by the suddenness of the revolution, sweeps off numbers of the grown men, and diminishes the original stock, numbers should in a few years get up to the former standard, and then stop a-new.

From our author’s representation of the bills of births and deaths, I should be apt to suspect, in consequence of my principles, that upon a proper examination it would be found, that, in those years of war, the proportion of births to deaths had been higher than in years of peace, because more had died abroad. And, had the slaughter of the inhabitants gone gradually on, increasing every year beyond the 8,250, I am of opinion, that the proportion of births might very possibly have kept pace with it. On the contrary, during the years of peace, the proportion should have diminished, and had nobody died out of the country at all, the births and deaths would have become exactly equal.

From what I have here said, the reader may perceive, that it is not without reason that I have treated the principles relating to my subject in general, and that I avoid as much as possible to reason from facts alledged as to the state of particular countries. Those our author builds upon may be true, and may be false: the proportion of births and deaths in one place is no rule for another; we know nothing exactly about the state of this question in the British isles; and it may even daily vary, from a thousand circumstances. War may destroy population as well as agriculture, and it may not, according to circumstances. When the calamity falls upon the breeders, and when these are supposed the only people in the country in a capacity of bringing up their children, births will soon diminish. When it destroys the indigent, who cannot 100bring up their children, or who do not marry, births will remain the same. The killing the wethers of a flock of sheep does not diminish the brood of lambs next year; the killing of old pigeons makes a pigeon-house thrive. When the calamity falls upon the farmers, who make our lands produce, agriculture is hurt, no doubt: does it fall upon the superfluities of cities, and other classes of the free hands, it may diminish manufacturers, but agriculture will go on, while there is a demand for its produce; and if a diminution of consumption at home be a consequence of the war, the augmentation upon exportation will more than compensate it. I do not find that war diminishes the demand for subsistence.

The long wars in Flanders in the beginning of this century interrupted agriculture now and then, but did not destroy it. That in the Palatinate in the end of the last ruined the country so, that it has hardly as yet recovered it. War has different effects, according to circumstances.

Obj. The population of the British isles is not stopt for want of food, because one-sixth part of the crop is annually exported. I answer, That it is still stopt for want of food, for the exportation only marks that the home demand is satisfied; but this does not prove that the inhabitants are full fed, although they can buy no more at the exportation-price. Those who cannot buy, are exactly those who I say die for want of subsistence: could they buy, they would live and multiply, and no grain perhaps would be exported. This is a plain consequence of my reasoning; and my principal point in view throughout this whole book, is to find out a method for enabling those to buy who at present cannot, and who therefore do not multiply; because they can give no equivalent to the farmers for their superfluity, which consequently they export. By this application of our principles, I have no occasion to call in question our author’s facts. It is no matter what be the state of the case: if the principles I lay down be just, they must resolve every phenomenon.

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CHAP. XVI. Why are some Countries found very populous in respect of others, equally well calculated for Improvement?

This question comes immediately under the influence of the principles already laid down, and must be resolved in consequence of them. It is with a view to make the application of these, that I have proposed it; and, in the examination, we shall prove their justness, or discover their defects.

It may be answered in general, that every such difference must proceed from what I call the spirit of the government and of the people, which will not only decide as to numbers, but as to many other things. I must however observe, that the question in itself is of little importance, if nothing but numbers be considered; for of what consequence is it to know how many people are in a country, when the employment of them does not enter into the inquiry? Besides, it is only by examining the employment of a people, that I can form any judgment as to this particular. But as the numbers of mankind have been thought a point worthy of examination, I have chosen this title for a chapter, which might perhaps have more properly stood under another.

While slavery prevailed, I see no reason to conclude against the numbers of mankind, as I have said already: when slavery was abolished, and before industry took place, if my principles be true that period I think should mark the time of the thinnest population in Europe; for I believe it will be found, that there never was an example of a country, however fertile by nature, where every one was absolutely free; where there was little or no industry, nor labour, but in agriculture; and where, at the same time, there were many inhabitants, not beggars, nor living upon charity. I have mentioned this so often, that I am afraid of tiring 102my reader with useless repetitions. I have brought it in here, only to give him an opportunity of applying this principle to the solution of the question before us.

I shall begin my inquiry by asking what is understood by a country’s being populous; for that term presents different ideas, if circumstances are not attended to. I have heard it said, that France was a desert, and that there was nobody found in it but in towns; while in England one cannot travel half a mile without finding a farm, perhaps two together; and in looking round, one sees the whole country divided into small possessions. The difference here found, I apprehend, decides nothing in favour of, or against the real populousness of the one or the other, but proceeds entirely from circumstances relative to agriculture, and to the distribution of free hands. These circumstances will be better understood from the examination of facts, than from the best theory in the world. Let one consider the state of agriculture in Picardy and in Beauce, and then compare it with the practice in many provinces in England, and the contrast will appear striking. Were there more forest in England, to supply the inhabitants with fuel, I imagine many inclosures, useful at first for improving the grounds, would be taken away, and the country laid more open; were wolves less common in France, there would be found more scattered farms. Cattle there must be shut up in the night, and cannot be left in the fields; this is a great discouragement to inclosing. Where there are no inclosures, there are few advantages to be found from establishing the farm-house exactly upon the spot of ground to be laboured; and then the advantages which result to certain classes of inhabitants, from being gathered together, the farmers with the tradesmen, are found to preponderate. Thus the French farmers are gathered into villages, and the English remain upon their fields. But farther, in Picardy and Beauce agriculture has been long established, and, I imagine, that, at the time when lands were first broken up, or rather improved, their habitations must have been closer together.

103This drawing together of inhabitants must leave many ruinous possessions, and this, by the by, is one reason why people cry out upon the desolation of France, because ruinous houses (which may often times be a mark of improvement, not of desertion) are found in different places in the country. Paris has grown considerably in bulk, and from this it naturally happens, that the country round is purged of idle mouths. If this makes labour dear in the country, it is the city alone which suffers by it, the country must certainly be the gainers. So much for two species of population in two of the best inhabited countries of Europe. I now come to another in one of the worst.

In some countries you find every farm-house surrounded with small huts, possessed by numbers of people, supposed to be useful to the farmer. These in Scotland are called cottars, (cottagers) because they live in cottages. If you consider them in a political light, they will appear to be inhabitants appropriated for agriculture. In one sense they are so, if by that you understand the gathering in of the fruits; in another they are not, if by agriculture you understand the turning up the surface. I bring in this example, and shall enlarge a little upon it, because I imagine it to be, less or more, the picture of Europe 400 years ago.

The Scotch farmer must have hands to gather in a scanty produce, spread over a large extent of ground. He has six cottars, I shall suppose; but these cottars must have wives, and these wives will have children, and all must be fed before the master’s rent can be paid. It never comes into the cottar’s head to suppose that his children can gain money by their labour; the farmer never supposes that it is possible for him to pay his rent without the assistance of his cottars to tend his cattle, and gather in his crop; and the master cannot go against the custom of the country, without laying his land waste. All these children are ready at the farmer’s disposal; he can, without any expence, send what parcels of sheep he pleases, to different distances of half a mile or more, to feed upon spots of ground which, without the conveniency of these children, 104would be entirely lost. By this plan of farming, landlords who have a great extent of country which they are not able to improve, can let the whole in a very few farms, and at the same time all the spontaneous produce of the earth is gathered in and consumed. If you compare the rent of these lands with the extent, it appears very small; if you compare it with the numbers fed upon the farm, you will find that an estate in the highlands maintains, perhaps, ten times as many people as another of the same value in a good and fertile province. Thus it is in some estates as in some convents of the begging order, the more mouths the better cheer.

I shall now suppose our modern policy to inspire an ingenious or public spirited lady to set up a weaver or two at a farm-house. The cottars begin to spin; they will be a long time in attaining to a dexterity sufficient to appear at the weaver’s house, in competition with others who are accustomed to the trade; consequently this manufacture will be long in a languishing condition; but if the undertaking is supported with patience, these obstacles will be got the better of. Those who tended herds of cattle for a poor maintenance, will turn themselves to a more profitable occupation; the farmer will find more difficulty in getting hands, he will complain, perhaps give way; the master will lose a year’s rent, and no body will take so extensive a farm; it must be divided, then it must be improved, and then it produces more grain upon one tenth, than perhaps formerly was produced upon the whole. This grain is bought with the price of spinning; the parents divide with the children, who are fed, and spin in their turn. When this is accomplished, what is the revolution? Why, formerly the earth fed all the inhabitants with her spontaneous productions, as I may call them; now more labour is exercised upon turning up her surface, this she pays in grain, which belongs to the strong man for his labour and toil; women and children have no direct share, because they have not contributed thereto, as they did in feeding cattle. But they spin, and have money to buy what they have not force to produce; 105consequently they live; but as they become useless as cottars, they remove from their mother earth, and gather into villages. When this change is effected the lands appear less inhabited; ruinous huts (nay, villages I may call them) are found frequently, and many would be apt to conclude, that the country is depopulated; but this is by no means found to be the case, when the whole is taken together.

The spirit therefore of the principal people of a country determines the employment of the lower classes; the employment of these determines their usefulness to the state, and their usefulness, their multiplication. The more they are useful, the more they gain, according to the definition of the contract of society; the more they gain, the more they can feed; and consequently the more they will marry and divide with their children. This increases useful population, and encourages agriculture. Compare the former with the present situation, as to numbers, as to ease, as to happiness!

Is it not plain, that when the earth is not improved it cannot produce so much nourishment for man as when it is? On the other hand, if industry does not draw into the hands of the indigent, wherewith to purchase this additional nourishment, no body will be at a considerable first expence to break up grounds in order to produce it. The withdrawing therefore a number of hands from a trifling agriculture forces, in a manner, the husbandman to work the harder; and by hard labour upon a small spot, the same effect is produced as with slight labour upon a great extent.

I have said, that I imagined the state of agriculture in the Scotch farm, was a pretty just representation of the general state of Europe about 400 years ago: if not in every province of every country, at least in every country for the most part. Several reasons induce me to think so: first, where there is no industry, nothing but the earth directly can feed her children, little alienation of her fruits can take place. Next, because I find a wonderful analogy between the way of living in some provinces of different countries with what I have been describing. Pipers, blue bonnets, and oat meal, are 106known in Swabia, Auvergne, Limousin, and Catalonia, as well as in Lochaber: numbers of idle, poor, useless hands, multitudes of children, whom I have found to be fed, no body knows how, doing nothing at the age of fourteen, keeping of cattle and going to school, the only occupations supposed possible for them. If you ask why they are not employed, they tell you because commerce is not in the country: they talk of commerce as if it was a man, who comes to reside in some countries in order to feed the inhabitants. The truth is, it is not the fault of these poor people, but of those whose business it is to find out employment for them.

Another reason I derive from the nature of the old tenures, where we find lands which now produce large quantities of grain, granted for a mere trifle, when at the same time others in the neighbourhood of cities and abbies are found charged with considerable prestations. This I attribute to the bad cultivation of lands at that time, From which I infer, a small population. In those days of trouble and confusion, confiscations were very frequent, large tracts of lands were granted to the great lords upon different revolutions, and these finding them often deserted, as is mentioned in history, (the vassals of the former, being either destroyed or driven out to make place for the new comers) used to parcel them out for small returns in every thing but personal service. Such sudden and violent revolutions must dispeople a country; and nothing but tranquillity, security, order and industry, for ages together, can render it populous.

Besides these natural causes of population and depopulation (which proceed, as we have observed, from a certain turn given to the spirit of a people) there are others which operate with irresistible force, by sudden and violent revolutions. The King of Prussia, for example, attempted to people a country all at once, by profiting of the desertion of the Saltzburgers. America is become very poorly peopled in some spots upon the coast, and in some islands, at the expence of the exportation of millions from Europe and from Africa; such methods never can succeed in proportion to the attempt. Spain, 107on the other hand, was depopulated by the expulsion of its anti-christian inhabitants. These causes work evident effects, which there is little occasion to explain, although the more remote consequences of them may deserve observation. I shall, in another place, have occasion to examine the manner of our peopling America. In this place, I shall make a few observations upon the depopulation of Spain, and finish my chapter.

That country is said to have been antiently very populous under the government of the Moors. I am not sufficiently versed in the politics, oeconomy and manners of that people, to judge how far these might be favourable to population: what seems, however, to confirm what we are told, is, the large repositories they used for preserving grain, which still remain entire, though never once made use of. They watered the kingdoms of Valencia, Murcia and Granada. They gathered themselves into cities of which we still can discover the extent. The country which they now possess (though drier than Spain) furnishes Europe with considerable quantities of grain. The palace of the Moorish King at Granada, shews a taste for luxury. The mosque of Cordoua speaks a larger capital. All these are symptoms of population, but they only help one to guess. The numbers which history mentions to have been driven out, is a better way still of judging, if the fidelity of historians could be depended upon, when there is any question about numbers.

Here was an example of a country depopulated in a very extraordinary manner: yet I am of opinion, that the scarcity of inhabitants complained of in that country, for a long time after the expulsion, did not so much proceed from the effects of the loss sustained, as from the contract between the spirit of those christians who remained after the expulsion, and their catholic deliverers. The christians who lived among the Moors, were really Moors as to manners, though not as to religion. Had they adopted the spirit of the subjects of Castile, or had they been governed according to their own, numbers would soon have risen to the former standard. But as 108the christian lord governed his Murcian, Andalousian, and Granada subjects, according to the principles of christian policy, was it any wonder that in such an age of ignorance, prejudice, and superstition, the country (one of the finest in the world) should be long in recovering? Recover, however, it did; and sooner perhaps than is commonly believed: for I say it was recovered so soon as all the flat and watered lands were brought into cultivation; because I have reason to believe that the Moors never carried their agriculture farther in these southern provinces.

From this I still conclude, that no destruction of inhabitants by expulsion, captivity, war, pestilence or famine, is so permanently hurtful to population, as a revolution in that spirit which is necessary for the increase and support of numbers. Let that spirit be kept up, and let mankind be well governed, numbers will quickly increase to their former standard, after the greatest reduction possible: and while they are upon the augmenting hand, the state will be found in more heart and more vigour, than when arrived even at the former height; for so soon as a state ceases to grow in prosperity, I apprehend it begins to decay both in health and vigour.

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CHAP. XVII. In what Manner and according to what Proportion do Plenty and Scarcity affect a People?

In a former chapter I have examined this question, relatively to mankind fed by the hand of nature: I now come nearer home, and shall keep close to modern times, considering circumstances and effects which by daily experience we see and feel.

I have often said, that numbers are in proportion to the produce of the earth. I now say, that in most countries of Europe, the food produced in the country is nearly consumed by the inhabitants: and by nearly I understand, that the part exported bears a small proportion to the home-consumption. I do by no means establish this as an universal proposition; but I say it is true for the most part: and the intention of this chapter is to enable us to judge how far these limitations should extend. I allow, for example, that Holland, not producing food for its inhabitants, must draw it from some country which produces a superfluity, regularly: but let it be observed that Poland, Germany, Flanders, and England, with many other countries, contribute their contingents to supply the demand of the Dutch; and of several large trading towns which have small territories. This being the case, the quota furnished by each country, must be in a small proportion to the respective quantity growing in it. But these are general conclusions upon vague suppositions, which throw no light on the question. I shall therefore endeavour to apply our reasoning to facts, and then examine consequences.

There are few countries, I believe, in Europe more abounding in grain than England: I shall therefore keep that kingdom in my eye while I examine this matter. Nothing is more common than to hear that an abundant crop furnishes more than three years subsistence: 110nay, I have found it advanced by an author of consideration, (Advantages and disadvantages of France and Great Britain, &c. article Grain) that a plentiful year produces five years nourishment for the inhabitants. If this be a mistake, it may prove a very hurtful one in many respects. I am, on the contrary, apt to believe, that no annual produce of grain ever was so great in England as to supply its inhabitants fifteen months, in that abundance with which they feed themselves in a year of plenty. If this be the case, at what may we compute the surplus in ordinary good years? I believe it will be thought a very good year which produces full subsistence for fifteen months; and crops which much exceed this are, I believe, very rare. Here follow my reasons for differing so widely from the gentleman whom I have cited. If I am in the wrong, I shall have the most sensible pleasure in being set right; and nothing will be so easy to any one who has access to be better informed as to facts than I can pretend to be.

I consider all the yearly crop of grain in England as consumed at home, except what is exported; for I cannot admit that any considerable quantity is lost: that it may be abused, misapplied, drank when it should be eat, I do not deny. These are questions which do not regard the present inquiry. Whether therefore it be consumed in bread, beer, spirits, or by animals, I reckon it consumed; and in a year when the greatest consumption is made at home, this I call the abundance with which the inhabitants feed themselves in years of plenty. Now I find in the performance above cited, a state of exportations for five years, from 1746 to 1750 inclusive, where the quantity exported amounts in all to 5,289,847 quarters of all sorts of grain. This is not one year’s provision, according to Sir William Petty’s calculation, of which we have made mention above. The bounties upon corn (continues the author abovementioned) have amounted in one year to 500,000l. sterling. He does not mention the year, and I am little able to dispute that matter with him. I suppose it to be true; and still farther, let it be understood that the whole exportation was made out of the produce of one crop. I do not find that this sum 111answers to the bounty upon 3,000,000 of quarters, which, according to Sir William Petty, make six months provision. I calculate thus. The bounty upon wheat is 5s. a quarter, that upon rye 3s. 6d. that upon barley 2s. 6d. these are the species of grain commonly exported: cast the three premiums together, and divide by three, the bounty will come to 3s. 8d. at a medium; at which rate 500,000l. sterling will pay the bounty of 2,727,272 quarters of grain. An immense quantity to be exported! but a very inconsiderable part of a crop supposed capable to maintain England for five years. It may be answered, that the great abundance of a plentiful year is considerably diminished when a scanty crop happens to preceed it, or to follow upon it. In the first case, it is sooner begun upon; in the last, it supplies the consumption in the year of scarcity, considerably. This I allow to be just; but as it is not uncommon to see a course of good years follow one another, the state of exportation at such times must certainly be the best, nay, the only method of judging of the real extent of superfluity.

On the other hand, I am apt to believe, that there never was a year of such scarcity as that the lands of England did not produce greatly above six months subsistence, such as the people are used to take in years of scarcity. Were six months of the most slender subsistence to fail, I imagine all Europe together might perhaps be at a loss to supply a quantity sufficient to prevent the greatest desolation by famine.

As I have no access to look into records, I content myself with less authentic documents. I find then by the London news-papers, that, from the 9th of April to the 13th of August 1757, while great scarcity was felt in England, there were declared in the port of London no more than 71,728 quarters of wheat, of which 15,529 were not then arrived. So that the whole quantity there imported to relieve the scarcity, was 56,199 quarters. Not one month’s provision for the inhabitants of that city, reckoning them at 800,000 souls! One who has access to look into the registers of the trade in grain, might in a moment determine this question.

112Another reason which induces me to believe what the above arguments seem to prove, I draw from what I see at present passing in Germany; I mean the universal complaints of scarcity in those armies which are now assembled, [1757] When we compare the numbers of an army, let it be of a hundred thousand men, suppose the suite of it to be as many more, and forty thousand horses, all strangers, (for the others I reckon nothing extraordinary) what an inconsiderable number does this appear, in proportion to the inhabitants of this vast country of Germany! Yet let us observe the quantity of provisions of all sorts constantly coming down the Rhine, the Moselle, and many other rivers, collected from foreign provinces on all hands; the numbers of cattle coming from Hungary; the loads of corn from Poland; and all this in a year which has produced what at any other time would have been called an excellent crop. After these foreign supplies, must not one be astonished to find scarcity complained of in the provinces where the war is carried on, and high prices every where else. From such circumstances I must conclude, that people are generally very much deceived in their estimation of plenty and scarcity, when they talk of two or three years subsistence for a country being found upon their lands at once. I may indeed be mistaken in my conclusions; but the more I have reflected upon this subject, the more I find myself confirmed in them, even from the familiar examples of the sudden rise of markets from very inconsiderable monopolies, and of their sudden fall by inconsiderable quantities imported. I could cite many examples of these vicissitudes, were it necessary, to prove what every one must observe.

I come now to resolve a difficulty which naturally results from this doctrine, and with which I shall close the chapter.

If it be true, that a crop in the most plentiful year is nearly consumed by the inhabitants, what becomes of them in years of scarcity; for nobody can deny, that there is a great difference between one crop and another. To this I answer, first, That I believe there is also a very great deceit, or common mistake, as to 113the difference between crops: a good year for one soil, is a bad one for another. But I shall not enlarge on this; because I have no sufficient proof of my opinion. The principal reason upon which I found it, is, that it is far from being true, that the same number of people consume always the same quantity of food. In years of plenty every one is well fed; the price of the lowest industry can procure subsistence sufficient to bear a division; food is not so frugally managed; a quantity of animals are fatted for use; all sorts of cattle are kept in good heart; and people drink more largely, because all is cheap. A year of scarcity comes, the people are ill fed, and when the lower classes come to divide with their children, the portions are brought to be very small; there is great oeconomy upon consumption, few animals are fatted for use, cattle look miserably, and a poor man cannot indulge himself with a cup of generous ale. Add to all these circumstances, that in England the produce of pasture is very considerable, and it commonly happens, that a bad year for grain, which proceeds from rains, is for the same reason a good year for pasture; and in the estimation of a crop, every circumstance must be allowed to enter.

From what has been said I must conclude in general, that the best corn country in the world, provided slavery be not established, does not produce wherewithal fully to maintain, as in years of plenty, one third more than its own inhabitants; for if this should be the case, all the policy of man would not be able to prevent the multiplication of them, until they arose nearly up to the mean proportion of the produce in ordinary years, and it is only what exceeds this standard, and proceeds from unusual plenty, which can be exported. Were plentiful years more common, mankind would be more numerous; were scarcity more frequent, numbers would be less. Numbers therefore must ever be, in my humble opinion, in the ratio of food, and multiplication will never stop until the balance comes to be nearly even.

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CHAP. XVIII. Of the Causes and Consequences of a Country’s being fully peopled.

In the titles of my chapters, I rather seek to communicate a rough idea of the subject than a correct one. In truth and in reason, there is no such thing as a country actually peopled to the full, if by this term numbers only are meant, without considering the proportion they bear to the consumption they make of the productions of their country. I have in a former chapter established a distinction between the physical and moral impossibility of increasing numbers. As to the physical impossibility, the case can hardly exist, because means of procuring subsistence from other countries, when the soil refuses to give more, seem, if not inexhaustible, at least very extensive. A country therefore fully peopled, that is, in a physical impossibility of increasing their numbers, is a chimerical and useless supposition. The subject here under consideration is, the situation of a people, who find it their interest to seek for subsistence from abroad. This may happen, and commonly does, long before the country itself is fully improved: it decides nothing as to the intrinsic fertility of the soil, and proves no more, than that the industry of the free hands has made a quicker progress in multiplying mouths, than that of the farmers in providing subsistence. To illustrate this idea, let me propose the following question.

Is multiplication the efficient cause of agriculture, or is agriculture that of multiplication?

I answer, that multiplication is the efficient cause of agriculture, though I allow, that, in the infancy of society, the spontaneous fruits of the earth, which are free to all, are the efficient cause of a multiplication, which may rise to the exact proportion of them; as has been said above. This must be explained.

115I have already distinguished the fruits of agriculture from the earth’s spontaneous production: I must farther take notice, that when I employ the term agriculture in treating of modern policy, I always consider it to be exercised as a trade, and producing a surplus, and not as the direct means of subsisting, where all is consumed by the husbandman, as has been fully explained above. We have said, that it is the surplus produced from it, which proves a fund for multiplying inhabitants. Now there must be a demand for this surplus. Every person who is hungry will make a demand, but every such demand will not be answered, and will consequently have no effect. The demander must have an equivalent to give: it is this equivalent which is the spring of the whole machine; for without that the farmer will not produce any surplus, and consequently he will dwindle down to the class of those who labour for actual subsistence. The poor, who produce children, make an ineffectual demand, and when they cannot increase the equivalent, they divide the food they have with the new comers, and prove no encouragement to agriculture. By dividing, the whole become ill fed, miserable, and thus extinguish. Now because it is the effectual demand, as I may call it, which makes the husbandman labour for the sake of the equivalent, and because this demand increases, by the multiplication of those who have an equivalent to give, therefore I say that multiplication is the cause, and agriculture the effect. On the other hand, I think the spontaneous fruits of the earth, as in the supposition, may be considered as the cause of a certain limited multiplication; because in that case there is no equivalent demanded. The earth produces, whether her fruits be consumed or not: mankind are fed upon these gratuitously, and without labour, and the existence of the fruits is anterior to the production of those who are to consume them. Those who are first fed, draw their vigour from their food, and their multiplication from their vigour. Those who are produced, live freely upon their parent earth, and multiply until all the produce be consumed: then multiplication stops, as we have said; but establish agriculture, and multiplication will go on a-new. 116Consequently, my reader will say, agriculture is as much the cause of this new multiplication, as the spontaneous fruits were of the first. Here is a very natural conclusion, which seems directly to contradict what we have been endeavouring to prove; but the knot is easily untied. We have seen how the existence of agriculture must depend upon the industry of man; that is, on the only means of establishing agriculture: now, as this industry is chiefly promoted by the motive of providing for our children, the procreation of them must be considered as the first, or at least the most palpable political cause of setting mankind to work, and therefore may be considered as anterior to agriculture; whereas, on the other hand, the earth’s spontaneous productionsspontaneous productions being in small quantity, and quite independent of man, appear, as it were, to be furnished by nature, in the same way as a small sum is given to a young man, in order to put him in a way of industry, and of making his fortune. The small sum sets him a-going, but it is his industry which makes the fortune. From this illustration it appears, that if the demand for food can be more readily supplied from abroad than from home, it will be the foreign subsistence, which will preserve numbers, produced from industry, not from domestic agriculture; and these numbers will, in their turn, produce an advancement of it at home, by inspiring a desire in the husbandman to acquire the equivalent which their countrymen give to strangers.

Such nations, whose statesmen have not the talent to engage the husbandmen to wish for the equivalent, which the labour of their fellow-citizens can produce; or, in other words, who cannot create reciprocal wants and dependencies among their subjects, must stand in a moral incapacity of augmenting in numbers. Of such states we have no occasion to treat in this chapter, any more than of those who are supposed to be in the physical incapacity of multiplying: our point of view is, to examine the natural consequences resulting from a demand for subsistence extending itself to foreign countries. This I take to be the mother of industry at home, as well as of trade abroad; two objects which come to be treated of in the second book.

117A country may be fully peopled (in the sense we understand this term) in several different ways. It may be fully stocked at one time with six millions, and at another may maintain perhaps eight or even nine millions with ease, without the soil’s being better cultivated or improved. On the other hand, a country may maintain twenty millions with ease, and by being improved as to the soil, become overstocked with fifteen millions. These two assertions must be explained.

The more frugal a people are, and the more they feed upon the plentiful productions of the earth, the more they may increase in numbers.

Were the people of England to come more into the use of living upon bread, and give over consuming so much animal food, inhabitants would certainly increase, and many rich grass fields would be thrown into tillage. Were the French to give over eating so much bread, the Dutch so much fish, the Flemish so much garden stuff, and the Germans so much sourkraut, and all take to the English diet of pork, beef, and mutton, their respective numbers would soon decay, let them improve their grounds to the utmost. These are but reflections, by the by, which the reader may enlarge upon at pleasure. The point in hand is, to know what are the consequences of a country’s being so peopled, no matter from what cause, that the soil, in its actual state of fertility, refuses to supply a sufficient quantity of such food as the inhabitants incline to live upon. These are different according to the diversity of spirit in the people.

If they be of an indolent disposition, directed in their political oeconomy by established habits and old prejudices, which prevent innovations, although a change of circumstances may demand them, the effect will be to put a stop to population; which cannot augment without an increase of food on one hand, and of industry on the other, to make the first circulate. These must go hand in hand: the precedence between them is a matter of mere curiosity and speculation.

118If, on the contrary, a spirit of industry has brought the country to a certain degree of population, this spirit will not be stopt by the want of food; it will be brought from foreign countries, and this new demand, by diminishing among them the quantity usually produced for their own subsistence, will prompt the industrious to improve their lands, in order to supply the new demand without any hurt to themselves. Thus trade has an evident tendency towards the improvement of the world in general, by rendering the inhabitants of one country industrious, in order to supply the wants of another, without any prejudice to themselves. Let us make a step further.

The country fully stocked can offer in exchange for this food, nothing but the superfluity of the industry of the free hands, for that of the farmers is supposed to be consumed by the society; except indeed some species of nourishment or productions, which, being esteemed at a higher value in other countries than in those which produce them, bring a more considerable return than the value of what is exported, as when raw silk and delicate wines, &c. are given in exchange for grain and other provisions.

The superfluity of industry must, therefore, form the principal part of exportation, and if the nation fully stocked be surrounded by others which abound in grain and articles of subsistence, where the inhabitants have a taste for elegance, and are eager of acquiring the manufactures and improvements of their industrious neighbours; it is certain, that a trade with such nations will very considerably increase the inhabitants of the other, though fully stocked, relatively to the production of their own soil; and the additional numbers will only increase that of manufacturers, not of husbandmen. This is the case with Holland, and with many large trading cities which are free and have but a small territory.

If, on the contrary, the nation fully stocked be in the neighbourhood of others who take the same spirit as itself, this supply of food will become in time more difficult to be had, in proportion as their neighbours come to supply their own wants. They must 119therefore seek for it at a greater distance, and as soon as the expence of procuring it comes to exceed the value of the labour of the free hands employed in producing the equivalent, their work will cease to be exported, and the number of inhabitants will be diminished to the proportion of the remaining food.

I do not say that trade will cease on this account; by no means. Trade may still go on, and even be more considerable than before; but it will be a trade which never can increase inhabitants, because for this purpose there must be subsistence. It may have however numberless and great advantages: it may greatly advance the wealth of the state, and this will purchase even power and strength. A trading nation may live in profound peace at home, and send war and confusion among her enemies, without even employing her own subjects. Thus trade without increasing the inhabitants of a country can greatly add to its force, by arming those hands which she has not fed, and employing them for her service.

CHAP. XIX. Is the Introduction of Machines into Manufactures prejudicial to the Interest of a State, or hurtful to Population?

This I find has been made a question in modern times. The antients held in great veneration the inventors of the saw, of the lathe, of the wimble, of the potters wheel; but some moderns find an abuse in bringing mechanism to perfection: (see Les Interets de la France mal entendus, p. 272. 313.) the great Montesquieu finds fault with water mills, though I do not find that he has made any objection against the use of the plow.

Did people understand one another, it would be impossible that such points could suffer a dispute among men of sense; but the circumstances 120referred to, or presupposed, which authors almost always keep in their eye, though they seldom express them, render the most evident truths susceptible of opposition.

It is hardly possible suddenly to introduce the smallest innovation into the political oeconomy of a state, let it be ever so reasonable, nay ever so profitable, without incurring some inconveniencies. A room cannot be swept without raising dust, one cannot walk abroad without dirtying one’s shoes; neither can a machine, which abridges the labour of men, be introduced all at once into an extensive manufacture, without throwing many people into idleness.

In treating every question of political oeconomy, I constantly suppose a statesman at the head of government, systematically conducting every part of it, so as to prevent the vicissitudes of manners, and innovations, from hurting any interest within the commonwealth, by their natural and immediate effects or consequences. When a house within a city becomes crazy, it is taken down; this I call systematical ruin: were it allowed to fall, the consequences might be fatal in many respects. In like manner, if a number of machines are all at once introduced into the manufactures of an industrious nation, (in consequence of that freedom which must necessarily be indulged to all sorts of improvement, and without which a state cannot thrive) it becomes the business of the statesman to interest himself so far in the consequences, as to provide a remedy for the inconveniencies resulting from the sudden alteration. It is farther his duty to make every exercise even of liberty and refinement an object of government and administration; not so as to discourage or to check them, but to prevent the revolution from affecting the interests of the different classes of the people, whose welfare he is particularly bound to take care of.

The introduction of machines can, I think, in no other way prove hurtful by making people idle, than by the suddenness of it: and I have frequently observed, that all sudden revolutions, let them be ever so advantageous, must be accompanied with inconveniencies. A safe, honourable, and lasting peace, after a long, dangerous, and expensive war, forces a number of hands to be idle, and deprives 121them of bread. Peace then may be considered as a machine for defending a nation, at the political loss of making an army idle; yet no body, I believe, will alledge that in order to give bread to soldiers, sutlers, and undertakers, the war should be continued. But here I must observe, that it seems to be a palpable defect in policy, if a statesman shall neglect to find out a proper expedient (at whatever first expence it may be procured) for giving bread to those who, at the risk of their lives, have gone through so many fatigues for the service of their country. This expence should be charged to the account of the war, and a state ought to consider, that as their safety required that numbers should be taken out of the way of securing to themselves a lasting fund of subsistence, which would have rendered them independent of every body, (supposing that to have been the case) she becomes bound by the contract of society, which ties all together, to find them employment. Let me seek for another illustration concerning this matter.

I want to make a rampart cross a river, in order to establish a bridge, a mill, a sluice, &c. For this purpose, I must turn off the water, that is, stop the river; would it be a good objection against my improvement to say, that the water would overflow the neighbouring lands, as if I could be supposed so improvident as not to have prepared a new channel for it? Machines stop the river; it is the business of the state to make the new channel, as it is the public which is to reap the benefit of the sluice: I imagine what I have said will naturally suggest an answer to all possible objections against the introduction of machines; as for the advantages of them, they are so palpable that I need not insist upon them. There is however one case in which I think they may be disapproved of; but it seems a chimerical supposition, and is brought in here for no other purpose than to point out and illustrate the principle which, influences this branch of our subject.

If you can imagine a country peopled to the utmost extent of the fertility of the soil, and absolutely cut off from any communication with other nations; all the inhabitants fully employed in 122supplying the wants of one another, the circulation of money going forward regularly, proportionally, and uniformly through every vein, as I may call it, of the political body; no hidden or extraordinary demand at any time for any branch of industry; no redundancy of any employment; no possibility of increasing either circulation, industry, or consumption. In such a situation as that I should disapprove of the introduction of machines, as I disapprove of taking physic in an established state of perfect health. I disapprove of a machine only because it is an innovation in a state absolutely perfect in these branches of its political oeconomy; and where there is perfection there can be no improvement. I farther disapprove of it because it might force a man to be idle, who would be found thereby in a physical impossibility of getting his bread, in any other way than that in which he is supposed to be actually employed.

The present situation of every country in Europe, is so infinitely distant from this degree of perfection, that I must consider the introduction of machines, and of every method of augmenting the produce or facilitating the labour and ingenuity of man, as of the greatest utility. Why do people wish to augment population, but in order to compass these ends? Wherein does the effect of a machine differ from that of new inhabitants?

As agriculture, exercised as a trade, purges the land of idle mouths, and pushes them to a new industry which the state may turn to her own advantage; so does a machine introduced into a manufacture, purge off hands which then become superfluous in that branch, and which may quickly be employed in another.

If therefore the machine proves hurtful, it can only be because it presents the state with an additional number of hands bred to labour; consequently, if these are afterwards found without bread, it must proceed from a want of attention in the statesman: for an industrious man made idle, may constantly be employed to advantage, and with profit to him who employs him. What could an act of naturalization do more, than furnish industrious hands forced 123to be idle, and demanding employment? Machines therefore I consider as a method of augmenting (virtually) the number of the industrious, without the expence of feeding an additional number: this by no means obstructs natural and useful population, for the most obvious reasons.

We have shewn how population must go on, in proportion to subsistence, and in proportion to industry: now the machine eats nothing, so does not diminish subsistence, and industry (in our age at least) is in no danger of being overstocked in any well governed state; for let all the world copy your improvements, they still will be the scholars. And if, on the contrary, in the introduction of machines you are found to be the scholars of other nations, in that case you are brought to the dilemma of accepting the invention with all its inconveniencies, or of renouncing every foreign communication.

In speculations of this kind, one ought not, I think, to conclude, that experience must of necessity prove what we imagine our reasoning has pointed out.

The consequences of innovations in political oeconomy, admit of an infinite variety, because of the infinite variety of circumstances which attend them: no reasoning, therefore, however refined, can point out a priori, what upon such occasions must indispensably follow. The experiment must be made, circumstances must be allowed to operate; inconveniencies must be prevented or rectified as far as possible; and when these prove too many, or too great to be removed, the most rational, the best concerted scheme in theory must be laid aside, until preparatory steps be taken for rendring it practicable.

Upon the whole, daily experience shews the advantage and improvement acquired by the introduction of machines. Let the inconveniencies complained of be ever so sensibly felt, let a statesman be ever so careless in relieving those who are forced to be idle, all these inconveniencies are only temporary; the advantage is permanent, 124and the necessity of introducing every method of abridging labour and expence, in order to supply the wants of luxurious mankind, is absolutely indispensable, according to modern policy, according to experience, and according to reason.

CHAP. XX. Miscellaneous Observations upon Agriculture and Population.

I have hitherto considered the object of agriculture, as no more than the raising of grain; the food of mankind has been estimated by the quantity they consume of that production; and husbandmen have been supposed to have their residence in the country. As my subject has but an indirect connection with the science of agriculture, I have simplified many things complex in themselves, the better to adapt them to the principal object of my inquiry, and the better to keep my attention fixed upon one idea at a time. I am now going to return to some parts of my subject, which I think I have treated too superficially; and to examine, as I go along, some miscellaneous questions which will naturally arise from what is to be said.

Quest. I.

Almost every one who has writ upon population, and upon agriculture, considered as an essential concomitant of it, has recommended the equal distribution of the property of lands as useful to both: a few reflections upon this question, after what has been thrown out in the course of the foregoing chapters, may not be improper; more in order to examine and apply the principles laid down, than with a view to combat the opinion of others.

I have already, upon several occasions, taken notice of the great difference between the political oeconomy of the antients, and that 125of modern times; for this reason, among others, that I perceive the sentiments of the antients, which were founded upon reason and common sense, relative to their situation, have been adopted by some moderns, who have not perhaps sufficiently attended to the change of our manners, and to the effects which this change must operate upon every thing relative to our oeconomy. The antients recommended strongly an equal distribution of lands as the best security for liberty, and the best method, not only to preserve an equality among the citizens, but also to increase their number.

In those days, the citizens did not compose one half of the state relatively to numbers; and there was almost no such thing as an established monied interest, which can no where be founded but upon trade, and an extensive industry. In those days there was no solid income but in land: and that being equally divided among the citizens, was favourable to their multiplication and produced equality. But in our days, riches do not consist in lands only; nay we sometimes find the most considerable proprietor of these in very indifferent circumstances; loaded with debts, and depending upon the indulgence of men who have not an acre, and who are their creditors. Let us therefore divide our lands as we please, we shall never produce equality by it. This is an essential difference between us and the antients, with respect to one point. Now as to the other, population.

The equal division of lands, no doubt, greatly tends to increase the numbers of one class of inhabitants, to wit, the landlords. In antient times, as has been observed, the chief attention was to increase the citizens, that is the higher classes of the state; and the equal division of property so effectually produced this effect, that the Greek states were obliged to allow the exposition of children; and Aristotle looked upon it as a thing indispensably necessary, as M. de Montesquieu has very judiciously observed. The multiplication of the lowest classes, that is of the slaves, never entered into the consideration of the public, but remained purely a matter of 126private concern; and we find it was a question with some, whether or not it was worth while to breed from them at all. But in our days the principal object is to support the lower classes from their own multiplication, and for this purpose, an unequal division of property seems to me the more favourable scheme; because the wealth of the rich falls naturally into the pockets of the industrious poor; whereas the produce of a very middling fortune, does no more than feed the children of the proprietor, who in course become very commonly and very naturally an useless burthen upon the land. Let me apply this to an example. Do we not familiarly observe, that the consolidation of small estates, and the diminution of gentlemens families of middling fortunes, do little harm to a modern state. There are always abundance of this class of inhabitants to be found whenever there is occasion for them. When a great man buys up the lands of the neighbouring gentry, or small proprietors, all the complaints which are heard, turn upon the distress which thence result to the lower classes, from the loss of their masters and protectors; but never one word is heard of that made by the state, from the extinction of the former proprietor’s family. This abundantly shews that the object of modern attention is the multiplication of the lower classes, consequently it must be an inconsistency to adopt the practice of the antients, when our oeconomy is entirely opposite to theirs.

Quest. II.

Let this suffice to point out how far the difference of our manners should influence the division of our lands. I shall now examine a question relative to the science of agriculture, not considered as a method of improving the soil, (this will come in more naturally afterwards) but of making it produce to the best advantage, supposing it to be already improved.

In treating of the productions of the earth, in consequence of agriculture, I have all along distinguished them from those which spontaneously proceed from the force of nature: these are the immediate gift of God, those are the return of the labour of his creatures. Every one knows that the labour of mankind is not in proportion 127to their numbers, but to their industry. The produce therefore of agriculture must be estimated, not according to the quantity of fruits only, but also according to the labour employed to produce them. These things premised, the question here proposed to be examined arises, viz. Which species of agriculture is the most advantageous to a modern society, that which produces the greatest quantity of fruits absolutely taken, or that which produces the greatest quantity relatively taken, I mean to the labour employed?

This question might easily be resolved, in general, by the application of principles already deduced; although it cannot admit of a direct answer, in the manner I have put it. One, therefore, may say indeterminately, that species is the best which produces a surplus the best proportioned to the industry, and to the demands of all the free hands of the state. But as this solution would not lead me to the object I have in view, I have thrown in an alternative in order to gain attention to the principles which I am going to examine, and which influence and determine the establishment of the one or the other species of agriculture.

The principal difficulty I find in the examination of this question, is to distinguish the effects of agriculture from those of the spontaneous production of the earth. The returns from pasture, for example, relatively taken, are, as we have observed, both from reason and from experience, far greater than those of corn fields, (vid. supra, chap. 8.) though I little doubt but that, absolutely taken, the case is quite otherwise; that is to say, that an acre of the finest corn land will produce more nourishment for man, than an equal portion of the finest pasture: but here we are following the proportion of space and produce, not of labour; for if the produce of both acres be considered relatively to the labour necessary for the cultivation, as well as to the extent; the produce of pasture will be found far greater: this however I ascribe to the spontaneous operation of nature, and not to the superior utility of this kind of agriculture.

128Since therefore it is impossible, rightly to separate the effects of nature from those of art and industry, in this species of improvement, let us confine our speculations to those only which have for their object the turning up the surface, and the sowing or cultivating annual vegetables. For the better conveying our ideas, let us take an example, and reason from a supposition.

Let me suppose an island of a small extent and fruitful soil, sufficiently improved, and cultivated after the manner of the best lands of England, in the ordinary method of farming.

In that case we may infer, from what was laid down in the 8th chapter, that the number of people employed about farming may be nearly about one half of the whole society. Let the whole inhabitants of the island be called 1000, that is 500 farmers, and as many free hands. The 500 farmers must then feed 1000; the 500 free hands must provide for all the other wants of 1000. By this supposition, and allowing that there is an equal degree of industry in these two classes, the providing of food will appear to be an occupation just equal to that of providing for all other wants. From this let me draw a few consequences, by the by, before I proceed.

Experience shews that in all countries there are found many who are here understood to be included in the class of free hands, who consumed infinitely more of other things than of food; consequently we must conclude, that as the wants of some do far exceed the proportion of their food, so in order to bring the balance even, the wants of others must fall far below it. That this is the case, I believe, will be found by experience. Let me follow this thought a little farther.

In proportion as a greater number than one half of the people becomes employed in agriculture, must it not follow, that all other work must come to bear a smaller proportion than formerly to the food consumed; consequently the manner of living must become more simple. Now we have shewn that what we call wants, in contradistinction to food, can only be supplied by the free hands, and that these again can only be fed from the surplus of the farmers; 129consequently the fewer wants, and the fewer free hands, the less surplus, which of course infers an agriculture less productive, relatively to the number of farmers. Were, therefore, a whole society employed in agriculture, carried on as a direct method of subsisting, there would be no surplus, consequently no free hands; consequently no work for supplying any want but food. This may be thought an impossible supposition. If you suppose agriculture exercised as a trade, I allow it to be so, but not if it be carried on as a method of subsisting only; and if you throw away the idea of labour altogether, and suppose mankind in its infancy, that is in paradise, living upon the spontaneous fruits of the earth, and quite naked, you will find the case not only supposable, but exactly so. It is exactly so among the cattle: every one of them may be considered in a parallel situation with a husbandman who works for his own nourishment. They feed upon the spontaneous fruits of the earth, and have no surplus; and having no other want, they are freed from every other care. Let me return now to the island.

The 500 farmers feed 1000; and we suppose the lands laboured as in a good English farm. One of the society proposes to augment the number of inhabitants by introducing a more operose species of agriculture, the produce of which may be absolutely greater, though relatively less.

The first question the statesman would naturally put to this reformer would be, What is your view in increasing the number of our inhabitants, is it to defend us against our enemies, is it to supply the wants of strangers, and thereby to enrich ourselves, is it to supply our own wants with more abundance, or is it to provide us more abundantly with food? I can hardly find out any other rational view in wishing for an additional number of people in any country whatsoever. Let it be answered, that all these ends may be thereby obtained: and now let us examine how far this reformation upon agriculture will have the effect of increasing inhabitants, how far such increase will procure the ends proposed, and how far the execution 130of such a plan is a practicable scheme to an industrious people.

If the inhabitants be not sufficiently fed, which is the only thing that can prevent their multiplication, it must proceed from one of two causes. Either first, that those do procreate who cannot produce an equivalent for the food of their children; or secondly, that industry making a quicker progress than agriculture, the industrious come too strongly in competition with one another, for the surplus of food to be found; which has the effect of raising the prices of it, and reducing the portions too low to suffer a division; and thereby of preventing marriage and multiplication in the lower classes of the free hands.

In the first case, it is to no purpose to increase the produce of agriculture, by rendering it more expensive; for those who have no equivalent to give when food is cheap, will still be in greater necessity when it rises in the price. In the second case, it is to no purpose to diminish the surplus of the farmers, because the supposition proves that the balance is already too heavy upon the side of the free hands, that is, that the surplus of the farmers is already become insufficient fully to feed them.

Two remedies may be proposed for this inconveniency, the one tending to population, the other to depopulation; and as the end to be compassed is to set the balance even between husbandmen and free hands, I shall explain both, and point out how far from principles it appears, that in either way the end may be attained.

That tending to increase population is the remedy proposed, and, no doubt, was it possible to introduce a new system of agriculture of a larger absolute production, although the relative production should be less, the inhabitants of the state becoming thereby better fed, though at a greater cost, would infallibly multiply. Let me therefore examine this first part before I say any thing of the other; and for the greater distinctness I shall return to my example, and examine both the consequences and the possibility of putting such a plan in execution.

131Let me suppose, that by using the spade and rake, instead of the plow and harrow, the lands of our island might be brought to produce with more abundance; this is a method of increasing the expence of agriculture, which would require an additional number of husbandmen.

Now, by the supposition, 500 farmers fed, though scantily, the whole of the inhabitants, that is 1000 persons. If therefore 100 of the free hands can be engaged to become farmers, the end may be attained: more nourishment will be produced; the people will be better fed; they will multiply; that is, their number will rise above 1000. Let us next endeavour to form a judgment of this increase, and of the consequence of the revolution.

The society will now be composed of 600 farmers and 400 free hands. The 600 will certainly produce more fruits than formerly; but as their labour is relatively less productive by the supposition, it will be impossible for them to furnish surplus equal to their own consumption; consequently, the free hands never will be able to rise to a number equal to theirs; that is, the society will never get up to 1200. But we supposed, that the other wants of the society required the industry of one half of the inhabitants to supply them; that is, of all the 500 free hands; and, as the number of these has been already reduced, and can never more rise to that proportion, as has been said, must not either the people voluntarily adopt a more simple way of living; or must not the demand for work rise very considerably? Let me consider the consequences in both cases. In the first, you perceive, that if the inhabitants themselves are obliged to simplify their way of living, for want of hands to supply what they formerly consumed, three of the four objects proposed by the reformation become impossible to be attained; to wit, the defending themselves against their enemies, the supplying the wants of strangers, and the supplying their own with more abundance. And with regard to the fourth, the being better fed, that must cease to be the case, the moment the end is obtained; that is, the moment the inhabitants are multiplied up to the proportion of additional food. Consequently, by simplifying their way of life, 132and allowing farming to stand upon the new footing, they compass not any one of the ends they proposed.

Next, if we suppose, that the inhabitants do not incline to simplify their way of life, but that the wealthy among them insist upon purchasing all the instruments of luxury which they formerly were used to enjoy, must not demand for work greatly rise, and must not, of consequence, an additional encouragement be given to that species of labour which had been diminished, in taking 100 persons from industry, to throw them into the class of farmers? Will not this make them quickly desert their spade, and the rather, as they have taken to an employment less lucrative than that of farming, according to the former systems?

So much for the consequences which would follow, in case the plan proposed was found practicable; that is, supposing it to be a thing possible to transport into agriculture a part of an industrious society, already otherwise employed, and to change all at once the relative proportion between those who supply food, and those who purchase it with their industry. We have begun, by taking that first step for granted; and now I am to shew what obstacles will be found in the execution.

We have said, that it is the multiplicity and complexity of wants which give an encouragement to agriculture, and not agriculture, or an abundance of food, which inspires mankind with a disposition to labour. Now, if this principle be true, the supposition we have proceeded upon is absurd. I am afraid, both reason and experience will abundantly prove that it is so.

The natural and necessary effect of industry, in trades and manufactures, is to promote the increase of relative husbandry; which, by augmenting the surplus, tends of course to increase the proportion of the free hands relatively to the farmers. A river may as easily ascend to its source, as a people voluntarily adopt a more operose agriculture than that already established, supposing the lands to be fully improved, the spirit of industry to prevail on one hand, and the farmers to have profit only in view on the other.

133What farmer could sell the surplus of an expensive agriculture in competition with another who exercised a species relatively more productive?

When lands are improved, the simplification of agriculture is a necessary concomitant of industry, because diminishing expence is the only method of gaining a preference at market.

Quest. III.

Whether industry has done hurt to population, by augmenting the relative, and diminishing the absolute produce of agriculture; or whether it has done good to it, by encouraging the science in general, and extending the exercise of it over the face of the earth, is a matter of fact which I shall leave to others, better informed than I am, to determine. For my own part, I believe that thousands of examples may be found of the one and the other. I know corn fields, where villages formerly stood, the inhabitants of which fed themselves with the pure produce of absolute agriculture; that is, with a bit of garden ground, and the milk of a cow: there surely is depopulation: but, at a small distance from the place where those villages stood, I see corn fields, where nothing but heath was to be met with; this marks population. I seek no more than to explain from facts the principles I am endeavouring to discover, and shall leave general conclusions to others, as I have already said.

There is a maxim in law, which may be extended almost to every thing in this world, unum quodque eodem modo solvitur quo colligatum est. Industry forms this species of absolute agriculture; industry destroys it. A military force raised the Roman greatness; a military force destroyed it. A spirit of liberty may form a noble constitution, and a spirit of liberty may break the same to pieces. The States of Denmark restrained the royal power and established a free government; the same States rendered that very power unlimited, and established there the purest monarchy in Christendom. But these reflections are foreign to our subject: Ne sutor ultra crepidam. I return.

134When industry is set on foot, it gives encouragement to agriculture exercised as a trade: and by the allurements of ease, which a large surplus procures to the farmers, it does hurt to that species which is exercised as a method of subsistence. Lands become more generally and less thoroughly laboured. In some countries tillage is set on foot and encouraged; this is an operose agriculture. While industry goes forward, and while a people can remain satisfied with a nourishment consisting chiefly of bread, this system of agriculture will subsist, and will carry numbers very high. If wealth increases, and if those who have it begin to demand a much greater proportion of work than formerly, while they consume no more food, then I believe numbers may diminish from the principles I am now going in quest of.

I return to the council of the island where the proposition laid down upon the carpet is, The scanty subsistence of the inhabitants requires redress.

A Machiavelian stands up (of such there are some in every country) and proposes, in place of multiplying the inhabitants, by rendering agriculture more operose, to diminish their number, by throwing a quantity of corn fields into grass. What is the intention of agriculture, says he, but to nourish a state? By our operose method of plowing and sowing, one half of the whole produce is consumed by those who raise it; whereas by having a great part of our island in pasture, one half of the husbandmen may be saved. Pray what do you propose to do with those whom you intend to make idle? replies a citizen. Let them betake themselves to industry. But industry is sufficiently, nay more than sufficiently stocked already. If, says Machiavel, the supernumerary husbandmen be thrown out of a way of living, they may go where they please; we have no occasion for them, nor for any one who lives only to feed himself. But you diminish the number of your people, replies the citizen, and consequently your strength; and if afterwards you come to be attacked by your enemies, you will wish to have those back again for your defence, whom in your security you despised. 135To this the other makes answer: there you trust to the Egyptian reed. If they be necessary for feeding us at present, how shall we be able to live while we employ them as soldiers? We may live without many things, but not without the labour of our husbandmen. Whether we have our grounds in tillage or in pasture, if that class be rightly proportioned to the labour required, we never can take any from it. In those countries where we see princes have recourse to the land to recruit their armies, we may safely conclude, that there the land is overstocked; and that industry has not as yet been able to purge off all the superfluous mouths: but with us the case is different, where agriculture is justly proportioned to the number of husbandmen. If I propose a reform, it is only to augment the surplus, upon which all the state, except the husbandmen, are fed; if the surplus after the reform is greater than at present, the plan is good, although 250 of our farmers should thereby be forced to starve for hunger.

Though no man is, I believe, capable to reason in so inhuman a style, and though the revolution here proposed be an impossible supposition, if meant to be executed all at once, the same effects however must be produced, in every country where we see corn fields by degrees turned into pasture; only the change is gradual, industry is not overstocked any where, and subsistence may be drawn from other countries, where the operose species of agriculture can be carried on with profit.

Familiar experience proves the truth of this. I have a corn farm, where I maintain ten horses and four servants for the cultivation alone: at the end of the year I find my surplus equal to 40l. sterling. If, by throwing my grounds into grass, I can dismiss three servants and eight horses, and at the end of the year raise my surplus to 50l. sterling, who doubts of my doing it? Is not this following the doctrine above laid down? But there is nothing odious in this; because I do not see these three servants die for hunger, nor is it a consequence they should, as states are formed. They turn themselves to industry, and food comes from abroad, in proportion as 136the country itself produces a less quantity. Fact and experience prove this assertion, and I cite Holland as an example, where every branch of operose agriculture is exploded, except for such productions as cannot be brought from other countries. I introduced the rough Machiavelian only to set principles in a strong light, and particularly that concerning the recruiting of armies from the land, which I take to be both a true one, and one necessary to be attended to, to wit, that those who must labour for the subsistence of the society, can be of little use for the defence of a state, in case of any emergency. Princes have found out the truth of this, and in proportion as industry has extended itself, regular armies have been found necessary to be kept up in times of peace, in order to be had in times of war. A militia composed of people truly industrious, I take to be far better in speculation than in practice. How would a militia do in Holland? how admirable was it not formerly in Scotland, Poland, and Catalonia? And how admirably does it still succeed in the armies of the house of Austria? I may however be mistaken; for a military and an industrious spirit may be found compatible with one another in some particular nations: time perhaps will clear up this matter. Thus much with regard to a militia. Now as to recruiting a regular army.

The more they are recruited from the land, the less they desert. The army of the Russians, for example, now assembled (1758) hardly knows desertion, those of the house of Austria, taken from certain provinces where there is almost no industry, are in the same case, also the militia of France which I consider as regular troops. On the other hand, those armies which are raised in the countries where industry has taken root are chiefly composed of loose fellows, the excrements of populous cities, the sons of vice and idleness, who have neither domicil nor attachment. These are soldiers truly by trade, and make a trade of it; how many thousands of such are now to be found? they come to market every season, and the best bidder has them while he can hold them. Some princes make a point not to receive their own deserters back, but accept of those 137who have committed the same infidelity to others; while others content themselves with punishing those who fail in their attempt to desert, but receive them back when they return of their own accord, after having accomplished their desertion. All is now become commerce, and seems to be regulated by the principles of it. I return to our agriculture.

Does not the exposition we have now given of these principles tend to cast a light upon the first question dismissed in this chapter, to wit, the effects of an equal and an unequal distribution of the property of lands?

When these are once well cultivated and improved, it is of no consequence to whom the property belongs; for by the property of such lands I only can mean the surplus, as we have abundantly explained elsewhere. Let therefore the property of all the lands of a kingdom, fully improved, belong to the state, or to any number of individuals, however few, there is no question of improvement; no difference as to agricultureagriculture, no difference as to population, according to modern policy. So long as the whole is well cultivated and made to produce, by a set of men I call farmers, the end is fully obtained; and according to the nature of the agriculture, which many different circumstances of taste and manner of living has introduced, larger or smaller portions of land must be allotted to each of them.

If you suppose a country not as yet improved, as many are, then, the case becomes quite different, and small possessions are necessary, both for multiplying the inhabitants and for improving the soil. In this supposition the most operose agriculture may be carried on in competition with the most lucrative; because when there is a question of improvement, there is frequently a considerable outgoing instead of any surplus after paying the labour.

Agriculture for improvement can be carried on by none but those who have wealth and superfluity, and is prosecuted with a view to future, not to present advantage: of this we shall treat in another place. For I consider it as a quite different operation, influenced by 138different principles, and no ways to be confounded with the present subject of inquiry. But I have insensibly been wandering through an extensive subject, and it is now time to return.

I have said above that a river might as easily ascend to its source, as an industrious people voluntarily adopt a more operose system of agriculture than that already established, while the spirit of industry prevails on one hand, and while farmers have profit only in view on the other. In consequence of this position, I have treated the plan proposed for augmenting the inhabitants of the island, by the introduction of a more operose agriculture as absurd, and so it certainly is: but let me throw in a circumstance which affects the spirit of that people, and the plan becomes plausible and easy.

Let a part of the wealthy proprietors of the lands take a taste for agriculture. Let a Tull, a Du Hamel turn agriculture into an object of luxury, of amusement. Let this science be turned into a Missisippi, or South Sea scheme. Let the rich be made to believe that treasures are to be found at a small expence, laid at first out upon farming, and you will soon see the most operose species of the science go forward, and the produce of it come to market and be sold, in spite of all competition. My Lady Duchess’s knotting may be sold at so much a pound, as well as that performed by a girl who does not spend six pence a day; but if the one and the other be considered relatively to the expence of the manufacturer, every knot of my Lady’s will be found to have cost as much as a pound of the other. The Duchess’s pound, however, increases the quantity of knots; and so does my Lord’s farm the mass of subsistence for the whole society. The nation also gains by his extravagance having taken a turn, which may produce the permanent good effect of improving a part of the country, though at an expence infinitely beyond the value of it. I must now again touch upon another part of my subject, which I think has been treated too superficially.

In a former chapter I have shewn how industry has the natural effect of collecting into towns and cities the free hands of a state, leaving the farmers in their farms and villages. This distribution 139served the purpose of explaining certain principles; but when examined relatively to other circumstances which at that time I had not in my eye, it will be found by far too general. Let me therefore add some farther observations upon that matter.

The extensive agriculture of plowing and sowing, is the proper employment of the country, and is the foundation of population in every nation fed upon its own produce. Cities are commonly surrounded by kitchen gardens, and rich grass fields; these are the proper objects of agriculture for those who live in suburbs, or who are shut up within the walls of small towns. The gardens produce various kinds of nourishment, which cannot easily be brought from a distance, in that fresh and luxuriant state which pleases the eye, and conduces to health. They offer a continual occupation to man, and very little for cattle, therefore are properly situated in the proximity of towns and cities. The grass fields again are commonly either grazed by cows, for the production of milk, butter, cream, &c. which suffer by long carriage; or kept in pasture for preserving fatted animals in good order until the markets demand them; or they are cut in grass for the cattle of the city. They may also be turned into hay with profit; because the carriage of a bulky commodity from a great distance is sometimes too expensive. Thus we commonly find agriculture disposed in the following manner. In the center stands the city surrounded by kitchen gardens; beyond these lies a belt of fine luxuriant pasture or hay fields; stretch beyond this and you find the beginning of what I call operose farming, plowing and sowing; beyond this lie grazing farms for the fattening of cattle; and last of all come the mountainous and large extents of unimproved or ill improved grounds, where animals are bred. This seems the natural distribution, and such I have found it almost every where established, when particular circumstances do not invert the order.

The poorness of the soil near Paris, for example, presents you with fields of rye corn at the very gates, and with the most extensive kitchen gardens and orchards, even for cherries and peaches, 140at a considerable distance from town. Other cities I have found, and I can cite the example of that which I at present inhabit, Padoua, where no kitchen garden is to be found near it, but every spot is covered with the richest grain; two thirds with wheat, and the remaining third with Indian corn. The reason of this is palpable. The town is of a vast extent, in proportion to the inhabitants; the gardens are all within the walls, and the dung of the city enables the soil to produce constantly. Hay is brought from a greater distance, because the expence of distributing the dung over a distant field, would be greater than that of transporting the hay by water-carriage. The farm houses here appear no larger than huts, as they really are, built by the farmers, because the space to be laboured is very small, in proportion to the produce; hence it is, that a farmer here pays the value of the full half of the crop to the landlord, and out of the remaining half, not only sows the ground and buys the dung, but furnishes the cattle and labouring instruments, nay even rebuilds his house, when occasion requires.

When first I examined these fertile plains, I began to lament the prodigal consumption of such valuable lands, in a multitude of very broad high-ways, issuing to all quarters; many of which I thought might be saved, in consideration of the vast advantage accruing upon such oeconomy: but upon farther reflection I perceived, that the loss was inconsiderable; for the fertility of the soil proceeding chiefly from the manure laid upon it, the loss sustained from the roads ought to be computed at no more than the value of the land when uncultivated. The case would be very different, were roads now to be changed, or new ones carried through the corn fields; the loss then would be considerable, though even that would be temporary, and only affect particular persons: for the same dung, which now supports these lands in their fertility, would quickly fertilize others in their places and in a few years matters would stand as at present.