The whole question of population could be practically disposed of off hand with the observation that there is no danger of over-population within sight: we find ourselves in front of such a superabundance of food, which even threatens to increase, that the greatest worry, now afflicting the producers of means of subsistence, is to furnish this wealth of food at tolerable prices. A rapid increase of consumers would even be the most desirable thing for producers. But our Malthusians are tireless in the raising of objections: thus we are forced to meet these, lest they have the excuse that they can not be refuted.
They claim that the danger of an over-population in a not-distant future lies in the law of a "decreasing yield of the soil." Our fields become "tired of cultivation;" increasing crops are no longer to be looked for; seeing that fields, fit for cultivation, become daily rarer, the danger of a scarcity of food is imminent, if the population continue to increase. We believe to have proved beyond doubt, in the passages on the agricultural utilization of the soil, what enormous progress mankind can make with respect to the acquisition of new masses of nutriment. But we shall give further illustrations. A very able landlord of wide acres and economist of acknowledged worth, a man, accordingly who excelled Malthus in both respects, said as early as 1850—a time when chemical agriculture was still in its swaddling clothes—on the subject of agricultural production: "The productivity of raw products, especially foodstuffs, will in future no longer lag behind the productivity of the factory and of transportation.... Chemical agriculture has only started in our days to open to agriculture prospects that will no doubt lead to many false roads, but that in the end will place the production of foodstuffs as fully in the power of society, as it lies now in its power to furnish yards of cloth, if but the requisite supply of wool is at hand."[233]
Justus v. Liebig, the founder of chemical agriculture, holds that "if human labor and manure are available in sufficient quantity, the soil is inexhaustible, and can yield uninterruptedly the richest harvests." The "law of a decreasing yield of the soil" is a Malthusian notion, that had its justification at a time when agriculture was in an undeveloped state; the notion has long since been refuted by science and experience. The law is rather this: "The yield of a soil stands in direct ratio to the human labor expended (science and technique being included), and to the proper fertilizers applied to it." If it was possible for small-peasant France to more than quadruple the yield of her soil during the last ninety years, without the population even doubling, much better results are to be expected from a Socialist society. Our Malthusians, furthermore, overlook the fact that, under our existing conditions, not our soil merely is to be taken into account, but the soil of the whole earth, that is, to a great extent, territories whose fertility yields twenty, thirty and many more times as much as our corresponding fields of the same size. The earth is now extensively appropriated by man; nevertheless, a small fraction excepted, it is nowhere cultivated and utilized as it could be cultivated and utilized. Not Great Britain alone could, as has been shown, produce a much larger quantity of food than she does to-day, but France, Germany, Austria and to a still much greater extent the other countries of Europe also could do the same. In little Wurtemberg, with her 879,970 hectares of grain soil, the mere application of the steam plow would raise the average crop of 6,410,000 to 9,000,000 cwts.
European Russia—measured by the present standard of the population of Germany—would be able to nourish, instead of her present population, of 90,000,000, one of 475,000,000 souls. To-day European Russia has about 1,000 inhabitants to the square mile, Saxony over 12,000.
The objection that Russia contains vast stretches of territory, whose climate renders impossible any higher degree of cultivation, is true; on the other hand, however, she has to the south a climate and fertility of soil by far unknown in Germany. Then, again, due to the denseness of population and the improved cultivation of soil therewith connected, such as clearings of woods, draining, etc., changes, wholly unmeasureable to-day, will be brought on in climate. Wherever man aggregates in large numbers climatic changes are perceived. To-day we attach too little importance to this phenomenon; we are even unable to realize the same to its full extent, seeing that we have no occasion therefor, and, as things are to-day, lack the means to undertake the needed experiments on an adequate scale. Furthermore, all travelers are agreed that in the high latitudes of Northern Siberia, where spring, summer and autumn crowd together in rapid succession within a few months, an astonishing luxuriance of vegetation suddenly springs forth. Thus Sweden and Norway, to-day so sparsely populated, would, with their mammoth woods and positively inexhaustible mineral wealth, their numerous rivers and long stretch of coast lines, furnish rich sources of food for a dense population. The requisite means and appliances are not obtainable under present circumstances, and thus even that sparse population casts off its shoals of emigrants.
What may be said of the north applies with still more force to the south of Europe—Portugal, Spain, Italy, Greece, the Danubian States, Hungary, Turkey, etc. A climate of surpassing quality, a soil so luxuriant and fertile as is hardly found in the best regions of the United States, will some day furnish an abundance of food to unnumbered people. The decrepit political and social conditions of those countries cause hundreds of thousands of our own people to prefer crossing the ocean rather than to settle in those much nearer and more comfortably located States. Soon as rational social conditions and international relations will prevail there, new millions of people will be needed to raise those large and fertile lands to a higher grade of civilization.
In order to be able to reach materially higher rungs on the ladder of civilization we shall, for a long time to come, have in Europe, not a superfluity, but a dearth of people. Under such circumstances, it is an absurdity to yield to the fear of over-population. It must ever be kept in mind that the utilization of existing sources of food, by the application of science and labor, knows no limit: every day brings new discoveries and inventions which increase the yield of the sources of food.
If we pass from Europe to the other parts of the earth, the lack of people and the excess of soil is still more glaring. The most luxuriant and fruitful lands of the earth still lie wholly or almost wholly idle: the work of bringing them under cultivation and turning them to use can not be undertaken with a few hundred or thousand people: it demands mass colonizations of many millions in order to be able to bring the but-too-luxuriant Nature under human control. Under this head belong, among others, Central and South America—a territory of hundreds of thousands of square miles. Argentina, for instance, had in 1892 about 5,000,000 hectares under cultivation, the country has, however, 96,000,000 hectares at its disposal. The soil of South America, fit for the cultivation of corn and lying fallow, is estimated at 200,000,000 hectares, at least. The United States, Austria-Hungary, Great Britain and Ireland, Germany and France have all together only about 105,000,000 hectares devoted to cereals. Carey maintains that the 360-mile long valley of the Orinoco alone could furnish enough food to supply the whole present human race. Let us halve the estimate, and there is still an abundance. At any rate, South America alone could feed the majority of the population now extant on earth. The nutritive value of a field planted with banana trees and one of equal size planted with wheat stands as 133 to 1. While our wheat yields in favorable soil 12 to 20 times its seed, rice in its home yields 80 to 100, maize 250 to 300 times as much. In many regions, the Philippine Islands among them, the productivity of rice is estimated at 400 times as much. The question with all these articles of food is to render them as nourishing as possible by the manner in which they are prepared. Chemistry has in this a boundless field for development.
Central and South America, especially Brazil, which alone is almost as large as all Europe—Brazil has 152,000 square miles with about 15,000,000 inhabitants, as against Europe's 178,000 square miles and about 340,000,000 inhabitants—are big with a luxuriance and fertility that stir the astonishment and wonderment of all travelers, besides being inexhaustibly rich in minerals. Nevertheless, until now they are almost closed to the world because their population is indolent and stands, both in point of numbers and of culture, too low to overmaster the power of Nature. How matters look in Africa we have been enlightened on by the discoveries of recent years. Even if a good part of Central Africa never be fit for European agriculture, there are other regions of vast size that can be put to good use the moment rational principles of colonization are applied. On the other hand, there are in Asia not only vast and fertile territories, able to feed thousands of millions of people, but the past has also shown how in places that are there now sterile and almost desert, the mild climate once conjured up an abundance of food from the soil, provided only man knows how to lead to it the blessing-bestowing water. What with the destruction of the marvelous aqueducts and contrivances for irrigation in Asia Minor and in the regions of the Tigris and the Euphrates, with vandalic wars of conquest and the insane oppression of the people by the conquerors, fields, thousands of square miles wide, have been transformed into sandy deserts. Likewise in Northern Africa, Spain, Mexico and Peru. Let there be produced millions of civilized human beings, and inexhaustible sources of food will be unlocked. The fruit of the date tree thrives marvelously in Asia and Africa, and it takes up so little room that 200 trees can go on one acre of land. The durria bears in Egypt more than 3,000 fold, and yet the country is poor—not by reason of excessive population, but as the result of a robber system that accomplishes the feat of spreading the desert ever further from decade to decade. The marvelous results attainable in all these countries by the agriculture and horticulture of middle Europe is a matter that eludes all calculation.
With the present state of agriculture, the United States could easily feed fifteen and twenty times its present population (63,000,000)—that is, 1,200,000,000 people. Under the same conditions, Canada could feed, instead of 5,000,000 people, 100,000,000 people. Then there are Australia, the numerous and in some instances large and extraordinarily fertile islands of the great Indian Ocean, etc. "Multiply!"—such, and not "Reduce your numbers!"—is the call that in the name of civilization reaches the human race.