It is not true that population increases in a larger proportionthan production of the means of subsistence; it is at least foolishto assume such disproportion, or to attempt to prove it byartificial calculations or sophistical arguments, so long as on theglobe a mass of natural forces still lies inert by means of whichten times or perhaps a hundred times more people than are nowliving can be sustained.It is mere narrow-mindedness to considerthe present extent of the productive forces as the test of how manypersons could be supported on a given area of land.The savage, thehunter, and the fisherman, according to his own calculation, wouldnot find room enough for one million persons, the shepherd not forten millions, the raw agriculturist not for one hundred millions onthe whole globe; and yet two hundred millions are living at presentin Europe alone.The culture of the potato and of food-yieldingplants, and the more recent improvements made in agriculturegenerally, have increased tenfold the productive powers of thehuman race for the creation of the means of subsistence.In theMiddle Ages the yield of wheat of an acre of land in England wasfourfold, to-day it is ten to twenty fold, and in addition to thatfive times more land is cultivated.In many European countries (thesoil of which possesses the same natural fertility as that ofEngland) the yield at present does not exceed fourfold.Who willventure to set further limits to the discoveries, inventions, andimprovements of the human race? Agricultural chemistry is still inits infancy; who can tell that to-morrow, by means of a newinvention or discovery, the produce of the soil may not beincreased five or ten fold? We already possess, in the artesianwell, the means of converting unfertile wastes into rich cornfields; and what unknown forces may not yet be hidden in theinterior of the earth? Let us merely suppose that through a newdiscovery we were enabled to produce heat everywhere very cheaplyand without the aid of the fuels at present known: what spaces ofland could thus be utilised for cultivation, and in what anincalculable degree w ould the yield of a given area of land beincreased? If Malthus' doctrine appears to us in its tendencynarrow-minded, it is also in the methods by which it could act anunnatural one, which destroys morality and power, and is simplyhorrible.It seeks to destroy a desire which nature uses as themost active means for inciting men to exert body and mind, and toawaken and support their nobler feelings -- a desire to whichhumanity for the greater part owes its progress.It would elevatethe most heartless egotism to the position of a law; it requires usto close our hearts against the starving man, because if we handhim food and drink, another might starve in his place in thirtyyears' time.It substitutes cold calculation for sympathy.Thisdoctrine tends to convert the hearts of men into stones.But whatcould be finally expected of a nation whose citizens should carrystones instead of hearts in their bosoms? What else than the totaldestruction of all morality, and with it of all productive forces,and therefore of all the wealth, civilisation, and power of thenation?
If in a nation the population increases more than theproduction of the means of subsistence, if capital accumulates atlength to such an extent as no longer to find investment, ifmachinery throws a number of operatives out of work andmanufactured goods accumulate to a large excess, this merelyproves, that nature will not allow industry, civilisation, wealth,and power to fall exclusively to the lot of a single nation, orthat a large portion of the globe suitable for cultivation shouldbe merely inhabited by wild animals, and that the largest portionof the human race should remain sunk in savagery, ignorance, andpoverty.
We have shown into what errors the school has fallen by judgingthe productive forces of the human race from a political point ofview; we have now also to point out the mistakes which it hascommitted by regarding the separate interests of nations from acosmopolitical point of view.
If a confederation of all nations existed in reality, as is thecase with the separate states constituting the Union of NorthAmerica, the excess of population, talents, skilled abilities, andmaterial capital would flow over from England to the Continentalstates, in a similar manner to that in which it travels from theeastern states of the American Union to the western, provided thatin the Continental states the same security for persons andproperty, the same constitution and general laws prevailed, andthat the English Government was made subject to the united will ofthe universal confederation.Under these suppositions there wouldbe no better way of raising all these countries to the same stageof wealth and cultivation as England than free trade.This is theargument of the school.But how would it tally with the actualoperation of free trade under the existing conditions of the world?