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THE MALTHUSIAN HANDBOOK
Designed to induce Married People to
Limit their Families within their Means.
PRICE SIXPENCE.
LONDON:
W. H. REYNOLDS, NEW CROSS, S.E.
4th Edition.--1898.
INTRODUCTION.
In every civilised State the problem of poverty is one which presses
for solution. In some European countries it has, at times, locally
assumed a critical and menacing form, threatening the very foundations
upon which society is based. Revolutions have sprung from the fact
that people needed food and could not obtain it; and, even in our own
"highly favored" land, honest, industrious men are often driven to
despair because they can neither get work nor food.
Occasional outbreaks and demonstrations, however, are by no means the
true measure of national poverty. Beneath the glittering surface of
society there lies a seething mass of want and misery. The victims
suffer in silence and make no sign, but their existence constitutes a
permanent danger to the general welfare. Destitution is in numberless
instances the parent of crime and prostitution, with their chain of
disastrous consequences; overcrowding, semi-starvation and squalor are
the fruitful sources of disease which scruples not to travel beyond
its birthplace and to infect the homes of the wealthy. Modern society
may be fitly compared to a magnificent palace reared in a miasmatic
swamp, which fills the air with its death-dealing exhalations. No
cunning artifices of builders or engineers can afford protection in
such a case. In like manner, society cannot hope to escape from the
influences which make for corruption and ultimate dissolution whilst
it suffers poverty to remain in its midst.
It is, indeed, unnecessary to insist upon the evils and the national
dangers arising from poverty; for they are admitted upon all hands. The
problem is: How can poverty be abolished? Upon this vital point
opinions differ widely. The evil is so complex and many-sided that
observers are apt to be misled by a partial view of the symptoms. For
example, a total abstainer, concentrating his attention upon instances
in which poverty has been brought about by excessive indulgence in
alcoholic liquors, urges that drink is the "cause of poverty." The
Socialist asks "Why are the many poor?" and answers that the remedy
consists in the nationalisation of land and the instruments of
production, the abolition of competition, etc. Others attribute
the existence of poverty to idleness or to want of thrift amongst
the workers. In no case, however, is the alleged cause equal to the
palpable effect; and it is necessary to extend the enquiry in another
direction if we are to discover the cause which, above and beyond all
others, produces the want and misery that everybody desires to remove.
The purpose of this little work is, first, to show that an excessive
increase of population is the source from which these evils arise. In
the second place, the means by which population may be kept under
control will be explained, for it is useless to warn people of a
danger if they are kept in ignorance of the means by which it may
be avoided. Above all, it is to the poor that this knowledge must be
conveyed, for, as we shall show in the following pages, the indigent
class multiplies far more rapidly than the well-to-do, and it is upon
themselves that the consequent misery necessarily falls.
Experience teaches that almost all the ills which afflict mankind can
be obviated by a careful study of nature and by conduct based upon
due observance of natural laws. In the darkness of ignorance men
must stumble into many pitfalls; but in the clear light of reason
and knowledge they can discern the path which leads to freedom and
happiness.
THE MALTHUSIAN HANDBOOK.
CHAPTER I.
MALTHUS AND THE LAW OF POPULATION.
If it be desired to discover a remedy for an admitted evil, the first
step must necessarily be to ascertain its cause. All schemes for
the mitigation of the effects of poverty must in the long run end in
failure, no matter how ambitious may be the undertakings of those who
engage in this futile work. The captain of a sinking vessel does not
confine his attention to the pumps, he seeks without delay to stop
the inrush of water. And in dealing with the question of poverty it
is essential that its root-cause be discovered before any hope of
arriving at a solution of the problem can reasonably be entertained.
An enquiry into the facts of nature will show that all forms of
vegetable and animal life are capable of reproducing themselves
in almost boundless profusion. Darwin, in his work on The Origin
of Species, points this out with the greatest clearness. He says:
"There is no exception to the rule that every organic being naturally
increases at so high a rate that, if not destroyed, the earth would
soon be covered with the progeny of a single pair. Even slow-breeding
man has doubled in twenty-five years; and at this rate, in a few
thousand years, there would literally not be standing-room for his
progeny. Linnæus has calculated that if an annual plant produced
only two seeds--and there is no plant so unproductive as this--and
their seedlings next year produced two, and so on, then, in twenty
years there would be a million plants." After giving the example of
the slow-breeding elephant, he continues: "Still more striking is
the evidence from our domestic animals of many kinds which have run
wild in many parts of the world; if the statements of the rate of
increase of slow-breeding cattle and horses in South America, and
latterly in Australia, had not been well authenticated, they would
have been incredible. So it is with plants: cases could be given of
introduced plants which have become common throughout whole islands in
less than ten years. Several of the plants, such as the cardoon and
a tall thistle, now most numerous over the wild plains of La Plata,
clothing square leagues of surface almost to the exclusion of all other
plants, have been introduced from Europe; and there are plants which
now range in India, as I hear from Dr. Falconer, from Cape Comorin
to the Himalayas, which have been imported from America since its
discovery. In such cases, and endless instances could be given, no
one supposes that the fertility of these animals or plants has been
suddenly and temporarily increased in any sensible degree. The obvious
explanation is that the conditions of life have been very favorable,
and that there has consequently been less destruction of the old and
young, and that nearly all the young have been able to breed. In such
cases, the geometrical rate of increase, the result of which never
fails to be surprising, simply explains the extraordinarily rapid
increase and wide diffusion of naturalised productions in their new
homes. In a state of nature, almost every plant produces seed, and
among animals there are very few that do not annually pair. Hence
we may confidently assert that all plants and animals are tending
to increase at a geometrical ratio; that all would most rapidly
stock every station in which they could anyhow exist, and that the
geometrical tendency to increase must be checked by destruction at
some period of life."
It was the observation of this striking fact in nature which led
an English clergyman, the Rev. Thomas B. Malthus, to study deeply
the question of poverty, and to formulate as "the principle of
population" that which is now almost universally regarded as a law of
nature. Before he published his great work the view was generally
accepted that the wealth of a country was in proportion to its
population; and statesmen frequently attempted to stimulate, by the
distribution of bounties to the parents of excessively large families,
the natural rate of increase. A few far-sighted men, such as the
elder Mirabeau, Quesnay, and Adam Smith, partially perceived the true
doctrine; but it remained for Malthus to examine the question in all
its bearings, and to collect patiently and laboriously an overwhelming
array of facts which established his contention beyond all reasonable
doubt. It will be well here to give some account of this remarkable
man and of the work with which his name is indissolubly associated.
Thomas Robert Malthus was born at Dorking, Surrey, in 1766. At the
age of thirty-one he became a Fellow of Jesus College, Cambridge,
and shortly afterwards took orders, officiating in a small village
in Surrey.
In the closing years of the eighteenth century, the minds of men in
England were powerfully influenced by the great social upheaval taking
place in France, and political views in this country were entering
upon a new phase. The rights of man were coming to be regarded as
something more than a phrase, and a generous desire to promote the
welfare of the people was gradually taking the place of selfish
indifference. Condorcet in France, and William Godwin in England,
promulgated the view that the happiness of mankind depended chiefly
upon the justice of political institutions, and that national welfare
could be indefinitely promoted by just government. Daniel Malthus (the
father of Thomas Robert), a man of sanguine and romantic temperament,
warmly espoused the ideas set forth by Godwin, and frequently discussed
the subject with his son. The younger man, however, by no means
shared the paternal enthusiasm, and, following the lines suggested
by Hume, Adam Smith, and other writers, he maintained that vice and
misery were two powerful obstacles to the improvement of society,
and urged, further, that the tendency of mankind to increase more
rapidly than the means of subsistence gave rise to these evils. His
arguments made a deep impression upon the mind of Daniel Malthus, who
requested his son to put them in writing. This was accordingly done,
and in 1798 T. R. Malthus published the first edition of his work:
An Essay on the Principle of Population, as it affects the future
Improvement of Society; with Remarks on the Speculations of Mr. Godwin,
Mr. Condorcet and other Writers. (London: 1798. One volume.)
This book aroused a lively controversy, the writer's theories and
conclusions being attacked and defended by various writers. The great
interest excited by his essay caused Malthus to enquire still more
deeply into the phenomena of poverty, and he determined to travel
through Europe for the purpose of collecting facts bearing upon the
subject. In 1799 he visited the continent, passing through Denmark,
Sweden, and part of Russia, and, later, Switzerland and Savoy. The
results of his researches furnished overwhelming proof of the accuracy
of his contention; and in 1803 he published a second and much enlarged
edition of his Essay, in two volumes. During the remainder of his
life, Malthus thrice edited new editions of his work, which to this
day remains the greatest monument of his honorable career. He died
on 29th December, 1834.
It is not intended here to give an exhaustive analysis of Malthus's
Principle of Population. [1] We are concerned only with his theory
of population and the conclusions to which that theory points. "The
principal object of this essay," says the author, "is to examine the
effects of one great cause intimately connected with the very nature
of man, which, though it has been constantly and powerfully operating
since the commencement of society, has been little noticed by the
writers who have treated this subject. The cause to which I allude
is the constant tendency in all animated life to increase beyond the
nourishment prepared for it.
"Dr. Franklin has observed that there is no bound to the prolific
nature of plants or animals but what is made by their crowding and
interfering with each other's means of subsistence. Were the face of
the earth, he says, vacant of other plants, it might be gradually sowed
and overspread with one kind only--as, for instance, with fennel;
and were it empty of other inhabitants, it might in a few ages be
replenished from one nation only, as, for instance, with Englishmen.
"This is incontrovertibly true. Through the animal and vegetable
kingdoms Nature has scattered the seeds of life abroad with the
most profuse and liberal hand; but has been comparatively sparing
in the room and the nourishment necessary to rear them. The germs
of existence contained in this earth, if they could freely develop
themselves, would fill millions of worlds in the course of a few
thousand years. Necessity, that imperious, all-pervading law of Nature,
restrains them within the prescribed bounds. The race of plants and
the race of animals shrink under this great restrictive law, and man
cannot by any efforts of reason escape from it.
"In plants and irrational animals the view of the subject is
simple. They are all impelled by a powerful instinct to the increase
of their species, and this instinct is interrupted by no doubts about
providing for their offspring. Wherever, therefore, there is liberty,
the power of increase is exerted; and the superabundant effects are
repressed afterwards by want of room and nourishment."
Malthus then adduces evidence of the extremely rapid increase of
population amongst mankind under conditions in which food is abundant
and easily obtainable. He calculates that population, if unchecked,
goes on doubling itself every twenty-five years, or increases in a
geometrical ratio. But he points out that the food supply can by no
means be increased with equal facility. Even if it were possible in
one period of twenty-five years to double the amount produced, there
is no reason to suppose that the operation could be repeated during
the following twenty-five years. As the demand for food increased,
less fruitful soils would be taken into cultivation, and the additions
that could be made to the former average produce would be gradually and
regularly diminishing. Malthus then makes the following calculation:
"Let us suppose that the yearly additions which might be made to the
former average produce, instead of decreasing, which they certainly
would do, were to remain the same; and that the produce of this island
might be increased every twenty-five years, by a quantity equal to
what it at present produces. The most enthusiastic speculator cannot
suppose a greater increase than this. In a few centuries it would
make every acre in the island like a garden.
"If this supposition be applied to the whole earth, and if it be
allowed that the subsistence for man, which the earth affords, might
be increased every twenty-five years by a quantity equal to what it
at present produces, this will be supposing a rate of increase much
greater than we can imagine that any possible exertions of mankind
could make it.
"It may fairly be pronounced, therefore, that considering the
present average state of the earth, the means of subsistence, under
circumstances the most favorable to human industry, could not possibly
be made to increase faster than in an arithmetical ratio.
"The necessary effects of these two different rates of increase, when
brought together, will be very striking. Let us call the population
of this island 11,000,000 (Mr. Malthus writes in 1806), and suppose
the present produce equal to the easy support of such a number. In
the first twenty-five years the population would be 22,000,000, and
the food being also doubled, the means of subsistence would be equal
to this increase. In the next twenty-five years the population would
be 44,000,000, and the means of subsistence only equal to the support
of 33,000,000. In the next period the population would be 88,000,000,
and the means of subsistence just equal to the support of half that
number. And at the conclusion of the first century, the population
would be 176,000,000, and the means of subsistence only equal to the
support of 55,000,000, leaving a population of 121,000,000 totally
unprovided for."
Now let us see how this stupendous possible power of increase in the
human race has been kept in check.
The positive checks (i.e., checks which have operated through the
action of natural laws) to an excessive increase of population
comprehend the premature death of children and adults by disease,
starvation, war and infanticide. Nature has a short and sharp way
of dealing with her superfluous children. Amongst savage tribes the
positive checks alone are brought into operation. The pages of human
history teem with tragic records of famines decimating the unhappy
victims of over-population; of pestilence stalking through the land,
slaying its tens of thousands; of wars devastating countries and
overwhelming the inhabitants in ruin, misery and death. In certain
parts of the world the pangs of hunger have destroyed in men and
women the primal instinct of parental love; and, in the fifth chapter
of his work, Malthus shows how, in the South Sea Islands, where the
possible expansion of population was extremely small, the frightful
expedient of infanticide was largely resorted to by the inhabitants to
check their natural increase. Even then, however, the pressure on the
means of subsistence was so great that food became scarce at certain
seasons of the year, and destructive wars ensued. Captain Vancouver,
visiting Otaheite for the second time in 1791, found that most of the
natives whom he had known fourteen years before had perished in battle.
In the course of numerous examples of the effects of over-population
upon the condition of the masses in various countries, Malthus gives
a striking example of the appalling misery to which even industrious
laborers were reduced in densely-peopled China. He quotes the words
of a Jesuit missionary, who stated that a Chinaman "will pass whole
days in digging the earth, sometimes up to his knees in water, and
in the evening is happy to eat a little spoonful of rice, and to
drink the insipid water in which it is boiled." This is obviously
an exaggeration, since it would be impossible to maintain life under
such conditions; but it serves to show the deplorable state to which
the workers may be reduced by excessive population.
It is unnecessary here to follow Malthus through his exhaustive
survey of the condition of nations affected by over-population in
various stages of the world's history. Our purpose is rather to
furnish an indication of the principle than to reproduce in detail
the observations upon which it is based. The most concise formula
in which the theory of Malthus has been expressed is as follows:
"That population has a constant tendency to increase beyond the means
of subsistence."