Malthus’s doctrine is just the reverse of the social teaching on the question in France at the present time. There you have an attempt to substitute solidarity for Christian charity. That means that the poor should be able to demand assistance, not as a gift, but as a right, and that the place of individual or private charity should be taken by a public institution with a view to giving effect to this. His teaching concerning the preventive obstacle has been so thoroughly taken to heart that there is not much fear of legal assistance resulting in a growth of population.
[311] It is not proved, however, that such were Malthus’s views. Private property, at least peasant proprietorship, acts as a stimulus to population. And it is very curious to think that he should have taken his illustration from France, where the multiplication of small farms is considered one of the causes of the falling birth-rate. “At all times the number of small farmers and proprietors in France was great, and though such a state of things is by no means favourable to the clear surplus produce or disposable wealth of a nation, yet sometimes it is not unfavourable to the absolute produce, and it has always a strong tendency to encourage population.” And again: “Even in France, with all her advantages of situation and climate, the tendency of population is so great and the want of foresight among the lower classes so remarkable.…” Godwin and Young express similar opinions. The latter is quoted by Malthus: “The predominant evil of the kingdom is the having so great a population that she can neither employ nor feed it.” (P. 509.)
Marriage, Malthus thought, had a restraining influence upon population. He admits that the simplest and most natural obstacle is to oblige every father to rear his own children. He also admits that the shame which the mother of a bastard and her child have to endure is a matter of social necessity. He does not approve of forcing the man who has betrayed a woman to marry, but he declares that seduction ought to be seriously punished. This is the view commonly adopted to-day, but it was very novel then.
[312] There are some sociologists who, like Malthus, would seek an explanation both of depopulation and of over-population in biological causes. Fourier and Doubleday, for example, are among the number. Doubleday, who wrote forty years before Malthus, believed that fecundity varied inversely with subsistence, and that this acted as a kind of natural check upon the growth of population. There are others, again, who think that reproductive capacity varies inversely with intellectual activity. Both explanations seem to suggest a kind of opposition between the development of the individual and the progress of the race which is very suggestive. But their views have not gained many adherents. If they are ever proved, which is not very likely, the prospect is not an attractive one. It would mean that those nations and classes who have risen to a position of ease through their superior culture would disappear, while the poorer, uncultured masses would continue to increase.
[313] David Ricardo was descended from a Jewish family originally domiciled in Holland. He was born in 1772 in London, where his father had settled as a stockbroker. He entered business at an early age, and soon became thoroughly conversant with the intricacies of banking and exchange. On the occasion of his marriage he changed his religion, and thus incurred the displeasure of his family. Setting up as a broker on his own account, he was not long in amassing a huge fortune, estimated at about £2,000,000—an enormous sum for those days.
Naturally enough, his earliest interest in economics centred round banking questions. The French wars had caused a depreciation in the value of the bank-note, and this aroused the interest not only of the specialists, but also of the public. His first essay, published in 1810, when he was thirty-eight years of age, was entitled The High Price of Bullion a Proof of the Depreciation of Bank-notes. It was soon followed by other studies dealing with banks and with the credit system. But these short polemical efforts gave scarcely any indication of the great attention which he was bestowing upon the principles of the science. His interest was primarily personal, for it appears that he had no intention of publishing anything on the subject. In 1817, however, the results were seen in a volume entitled The Principles of Political Economy. Ricardo the business man could hardly have guessed that it would shake the capitalistic edifice to its very foundations.
In 1819 he was elected a member of the House of Commons, but he was as indifferent a speaker as he was a writer. He was always listened to, however, with the greatest respect. “I have twice attempted to speak,” he writes, “but I proceeded in the most embarrassed manner: and I have no hope of conquering the alarm with which I am assailed the moment I hear the sound of my own voice.” In 1821 he founded the Political Economy Club, the earliest of those numerous societies for the study of economic subjects which have since been established in every country. In 1822 he published a work on Protection to Agriculture. The following year he died, at the comparatively early age of fifty-one.
Since his death all his writings have been carefully collected, and his correspondence with the chief economists of his day, with Malthus, McCulloch, and Say, published. The correspondence is extremely important for an understanding of his doctrines.
[314] Letter to McCulloch, July 13, 1820, quoted by H. Denis, vol. ii, p. 171.
[315] In his correspondence with McCulloch, under date December 18, 1819, he writes: “I am not satisfied with the explanation which I have given of the principles which regulate value. I wish a more able pen would undertake it.”