Birth control I rule out of discussion, and though I am of opinion that
it might well be made compulsory amongst politicians, my solution
demands not a restriction, but a vast increase in the birth rate.
The invention of the locomotive and steamship upset all birth rate
calculations.[2] During the last century it has been reckoned that
twenty-eight million people left Europe by sea, four millions during the
first half and twenty-four millions during the second, the period of
railway and steamship development. Out of these twenty-eight million
emigrants, twenty-two millions went to the United States, the population
of which was five and a quarter millions in the year 1800, seventy-six
millions in 1900, and is about one hundred and ten millions to-day, and
quite possibly, before the present century is out, this figure will be
doubled.
Footnote 2:
In 1750, before the industrial revolution set in, the population of
the United Kingdom was 6,517,000.
In the United Kingdom we see, if not so great, as startling an increase,
considering the smallness of the country. In 1801, the population
numbered about sixteen millions, and to-day, excluding Ireland, it
numbers about forty-four millions, which is probably four or five
millions more than the industry of the country can economically support,
as unemployment and the low standard of living, not only now but before
the war, testify to.
Let us remember always what has created the great civilizations of the
past, empires and kingdoms, prosperous lands and great cities. It is
movement and the means of movement. First man placed a bundle on his
wife’s head and gave her a kick, then he tamed the ox and beat it with a
stick, thus civilization became possible. At length, he invented the
wheel and the sail, and, by means of these inventions, mankind crept out
of primeval darkness into the dawn of history. In 1809 Fulton invented
the steamship, and in 1814 George Stephenson built his first locomotive.
It is, as I have already said, these inventions which have created not
only such immense cities as modern London and New York, but which have
shifted millions of men, women and children from one part of the globe
to the other. Why did they shift them, this is the question? Because the
steamship and the railway enabled them to tap sources of wealth which
did not exist in their own countries; for without prospects of wealth
there would be little or no movement.
To-day, we possess an Empire of over fourteen million square miles in
area, of which three-quarters is sparsely inhabited. In Canada we find
nine million two hundred thousand people; in Australia five million
eight hundred thousand; in South Africa eight millions, and in New
Zealand only one million two hundred thousand; yet New Zealand is as big
as the British Isles.
Without considering our immense Colonial possessions, the potential
wealth of the Dominions alone should eventually be sufficient to support
certainly one if not two hundred millions of Englishmen. On the one hand
we have room for at least a hundred millions, and on the other we have a
surplus of some five millions. The redistribution of this surplus should
not prove an insuperable problem, and even if it cost us twenty pounds a
head to arrive at a solution, it would be cheap when compared to
spending forty-six millions a year on doles and poor rates, which, far
from solving the problem of unemployment, only accentuate it.[3]
Footnote 3:
“Schemes to the value of approximately £466,000,000 undertaken in
connection with the relief of unemployment have, or are being assisted
by the Exchequer.”—_Whitaker’s Almanack._
In former times, the danger inherent in immigrations was the hostility
of the tribes in occupation of the new lands—the problem was a military
one. To-day, the difficulty is not military, but financial. To-day, it
is no longer bows and arrows which restrict immigration, but money.
To-day, it is not profitable to tackle a land owner with a rifle, and
nearly all land worth owning is owned; instead the settler must buy the
land, or be sufficiently skilled to dispose of his labour at a profit.
Our present-day unemployed have no money and little skill. To send such
people to the Dominions is no true solution of the unemployment problem,
for it only shifts the unemployed from one place to another, and this
does not solve the problem. In 1914, Germany attempted to gain the
French Colonies, not because she wanted to shift to them the vagrants of
Berlin and Hamburg; but, because the possession of these Colonies would
have enabled thousands of well-to-do Germans, the small capitalists and
skilled workers of the middle classes, to enrich themselves without loss
of nationality. Incidentally, as these people emigrated, room would be
made in Germany for the under-dog. Competition would have decreased with
a decrease in not the unemployed, but in the employed population. Wages
would have increased in proportion and, by degrees, the greater
percentage of the under-dogs, through increased wealth, would have
raised themselves into the middle class as small capitalists.
To-day, there is no necessity for us to covet the territories of other
nations. We possess ten million square miles of sparsely-populated land
in which Englishmen will not be lost to the Empire. To-day, we see this
problem mentioned in every paper, but writers will persist in thinking
in terms of the _unemployed_. It is the _employed_ we must shift, not
only because at home room will thus be made for the unemployed,[4] but
because it is the skilled man or the small capitalist who can thrive in
the Dominions and Colonies and the unemployed normally cannot.
Footnote 4:
It may be considered by some that this will mean that we in England
shall be left with the unworkable dregs of society. Such a view is a
gross libel on the bulk of the unemployed. Before the War, seventy per
cent. of the recruits for the army enlisted because they were
unemployed. During the War these men were universally proclaimed
heroes, and such they were. I can personally testify, after
twenty-seven years of service in the army, that less than five per
cent. of the men in any unit of regular soldiers would make
undesirable citizens if vocational training were fully established.
If, however, men are kept unemployed for years they will eventually
become unemployable.