Life and Writings of Thomas R. Malthus

by Charles R. Drysdale

In 1881 the inhabitants of the British Islands had to import food consisting of live and dead meat, butter, eggs, flour, and wheat, &c., at an expense of no less than one hundred and thirty-two millions sterling, inclusive of sugar, one of the requisites of nutrition, or at the cost of one hundred and eight millions sterling without sugar. And yet the price of butter was about 1s. 6d. the pound and meat about 9d. a pound in London, whilst milk sold for 5d. the quart. Thus we see how true the words of the great writer on population were, even writing before the days of steam and electric telegraphs, improvements in the way of obtaining food supplies that might easily have made food as cheap here as in New Zealand, had it not been for the excessive birth-rate that has been going on for the whole of this century in the United Kingdom.

Mr. Malthus points out that a nation which from its extent and population must necessarily support the greater part of its population on the produce of its own soil, but which yet, in average years, draws a small portion of its corn from abroad, is in a more precarious position with regard to the constancy of its supplies, than such states as draw almost the whole of their provisions from other countries. A nation possessed of a large territory is unavoidably subject to this uncertainty of its means of subsistence, when the commercial part of its population is either equal to, or has increased beyond the surplus produce of its cultivators. “No reserve being in these cases left in exportation, the full effect of every deficiency from unfavorable seasons must necessarily be felt; and, although the riches of such a country may enable it for a certain period to continue raising the nominal rate of wages, so as to give the lower classes of the society a power of purchasing imported corn at a high price; yet, a sudden demand can very seldom be fully answered, the competition in the market will invariably raise the price of provisions in full proportion to the advance in the price of labor; the lower classes will be but little relieved, and the dearth will operate severely throughout all the ranks of society.

“According to the natural order of things, years of scarcity must occasionally recur in all landed nations. They ought always therefore to enter into our consideration; and the prosperity of any country may justly be considered as precarious, in which the funds for the maintenance of labour are liable to great and sudden fluctuations from every unfavourable variation in the seasons.

“But putting for the present, years of scarcity out of the question. When the commercial population of any country increases so much beyond the surplus produce of the cultivators, that the demand for imported corn is not easily supplied, and the price rises in proportion to the rate of wages, no further increase of riches will have any tendency to give the laborer a greater command over the necessaries of life. In the progress of wealth this will naturally take place, either from the largeness of the supply wanted, the increased distance from which it is brought, and consequently, the increased expense of importation; the greater consumption of it in the countries in which it is usually purchased, or, what must unavoidably happen, the necessity of a greater distance of inland carriage in these countries. Such a nation, by increasing industry in the improvement of machinery, may still go on increasing the yearly quantity of its manufactured produce; but its funds for the maintenance of labor, and consequently its population, will be perfectly stationary. This point is the natural limit to the population of all commercial states. In countries at a great distance from this limit, an effect approaching to what has been here described will take place, whenever the march of commerce and manufactures is more rapid than that of agriculture.”

Malthus takes China as an example, that every increase in the stock or revenue of a nation cannot be considered as an increase of the real funds for the maintenance of labor, and therefore cannot have the same good effect upon the condition of the poor. China, as Adam Smith remarked, has probably long been as rich as the nature of her laws and institutions will admit; although, with other laws and institutions, and on the supposition of unshackled foreign commerce, she might still be richer, yet, the question is, would such an increase of wealth be an increase of the real funds for the maintenance of labor, and consequently tend to place the lower classes in China in a state of greater plenty?

Malthus contends that if trade and foreign commerce were held in great honour in China, it is evident that, from the great number of laborers, and the cheapness of labor, she might work up manufactures for foreign sale to an immense amount. It is equally evident, that from the great bulk of provisions, and the amazing extent of her inland territory, she could not in return import such a quantity as would be any sensible addition to the annual stock of subsistence in the country. “Her immense amount of manufactures therefore, she would exchange chiefly for luxuries collected from all parts of the world. At present it appears that no labor whatever is spared in the production of food. The country is rather over-peopled in proportion to what its stock can employ, and labor is therefore so abundant that no pains are taken to abridge it. The consequence of this is probably the greatest production of food that the soil can possibly afford; for it will be generally observed, that processes for abridging agricultural labor, though they may enable a farmer to bring a certain quantity of grain cheaper to market, tend rather to diminish, than increase the whole produce. An immense capital could not be employed in China in preparing manufactures for foreign trade, without taking off so many laborers from agriculture, as to alter this state of things, and in some degree, to diminish the produce of the country. The demand for manufacturing laborers would naturally raise the price of labor; but, as the quantity of subsistence would not be increased, the price of provisions would keep pace with it, or even more than keep pace with it, if the quantity of provisions were really decreasing. The country would, however, be evidently advancing in wealth. The exchangeable value of the annual produce of its land and labor would be annually augmented; yet the real funds for the maintenance of labor would be stationary, or even declining; and consequently, the increasing wealth of the nation would tend rather to depress than to raise the condition of the poor. With regard to the command over the necessaries of life, they would be in the same, or rather worse state than before, and a great part of them would have exchanged the healthy labor of agriculture, for the unhealthy occupations of manufacturing industry.”

The observations of the greatest living Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr. W. E. Gladstone, of late years, have frequently pointed out to us how very unfair a proportion of the increasing wealth of this country has been absorbed by the possessors of capital, as compared with that by the recipients of wages. It may indeed be said, in the words of Mr. J. S. Mill, that owing to the way in which population has increased in this century in this country, pari passu with the increase of the wealth of the nation, it is doubtful whether all the improvements in manufactures and in instruments for abbreviating manual toil have taken one hour’s work from the shoulders of the working classes.

“The condition of the poor in China,” says Malthus, “is indeed very miserable at present, but this is not owing to their want of foreign commerce, but to their extreme tendency to marriage and increase; and if this tendency were to continue the same, the only way in which the introduction of a greater number of manufacturers could possibly make the lower classes of people richer, would be by increasing the mortality among them, which is certainly not a very desirable mode of growing rich.” This argument of our author might convince both the fair traders and the free traders of this day, that neither free trade, nor protection, are panaceas against starvation among the poorest classes, and make them learn the lesson that a small-family system alone can solve the fundamental question of man’s destiny—how to make the proportion of mouths to food most favorable.

The argument perhaps appears clearer when applied to China, because it is generally allowed that its wealth has been long stationary, and its soil cultivated nearly to the utmost. With regard to any other country it might always be a matter of dispute, at which of the two periods compared wealth was increasing the fastest, for Adam Smith, and others of his followers think that the condition of the poor depends on the rapidity of the increase of wealth at any particular epoch. Malthus to this replies that: “It is evident that two nations might increase exactly with the same rapidity in the exchangeable value of the annual products of their land and labor; yet, if one had applied itself chiefly to agriculture, and the other chiefly to commerce, the funds for the maintenance of labor, and consequently the effect of the increase of wealth in each nation, would be extremely different. In that which had applied itself chiefly to agriculture, the poor would live in greater plenty, and population would rapidly increase. In that which had applied itself chiefly to commerce the poor would be comparatively but little benefited, and consequently, population would either be stationary, or increase very slowly.”

“The condition,” says Malthus, “of the laboring poor, supposing their habits to remain the same, cannot be very essentially improved, but by giving them a greater command over the means of subsistence. But any advantage of this kind must from its nature be temporary, and is therefore really of less value to them than any permanent change in their habits. But manufactures, by inspiring a taste for comforts, tend to promote a favorable change in these habits, and in this way perhaps counterbalance all their disadvantages. The laboring classes of society, in nations merely agricultural, are generally on the whole poorer than in manufacturing nations, though less subject to those occasional variations which among manufacturers often produce the most severe distress.”