Life and Writings of Thomas R. Malthus

by Charles R. Drysdale

It is a matter, says our author, of very little comparative importance, whether we are fully supplied with broadcloth, linens, and muslins, or even with tea, sugar, and coffee, and no rational politician therefore would think of proposing a bounty on such commodities. “But it is certainly a matter of the very highest importance, whether we are fully supplied with food; and if a bounty would produce such a supply, the most liberal economist might be justified in proposing it, considering food as a commodity distinct from all others, and pre-eminently valuable.”

CHAPTER XI.

In Chapter X. Mr. Malthus treats of bounties on the exportation of corn. He sets out by observing that according to the general principles of political economy, it cannot be doubted, that it is for the interest of the civilised world that each nation should purchase its commodities wherever they can be had the cheapest.

“During the seventeenth century, and indeed the whole period of our history previous to it, the prices of wheat were subject to great fluctuations, and the average price was very high. For fifty years before the year 1700, the average price of wheat per quarter was £3 0s. 11d., and before 1650 it was £6 8s. 10d. From the time of the completion of the corn laws in 1700 and 1706, the prices became extraordinarily steady, and the average price for forty years previous to the year 1750, sunk as low as £1 16s. per quarter. This was the period of our greatest exportations. In 1757 the laws were suspended, and in 1773 they were totally altered. The exports of corn have since been regularly decreasing, and the imports increasing. The average price of wheat for the forty years ending in 1800, was £2 9s. 5d., and for the last five years of this period £3 6s. 6d. During this last term the balance of the imports of all sorts of grain is estimated at 2,938,357.”

Mr. Malthus observes that it is totally contrary to the habits and practice of farmers to save the superfluity of six or seven years. Great practical inconvenience generally attends the keeping of so large a reserved store. Difficulties often occur from a want of proper accommodation for it. It is at all times liable to damage from vermin and other causes. When very large it is apt to be viewed with a jealous and grudging eye by the common people. And in general, the farmer may either not be able to remain so long without the returns, or may not be willing to employ so considerable a capital in a way in which the returns must necessarily be distant and precarious.

Mr. Malthus was in favour of a bounty on the exportation of corn, because the effect of such a bounty was to repress slightly the increase of population in years of plenty, whilst it encouraged it comparatively in years of scarcity. This effect, he maintained, was one of the greatest advantages which could possibly occur to a society, and contributed more to the happiness of the labouring poor than could easily be conceived by those who had not deeply considered the subject. “In the whole compass of human events,” he says, “I doubt if there be a more fruitful source of misery, or one more invariably productive of disastrous consequences, than a sudden start of population from two or three years of plenty, which must necessarily be repressed on the first return of scarcity, or even of average crops.” From 1637 to 1700, both inclusive, the average price of corn, according to Adam Smith, was £2 11s.; yet in 1681 the growing price was only £1 8s. This high average price, according to Malthus, would not proportionally encourage the cultivation of corn. Though the farmer might feel very sanguine during one or two years of high price, and project many improvements, yet the glut in the market which would follow, would depress him in the same degree, and destroy all his projects. Sometimes, indeed, a year of high prices really tends to impoverish the land, and prepare the way for future scarcity.

In a foot-note in page 264, Chapter X., Mr. Malthus makes the remark that, “On account of the tendency of population to increase in proportion to the means of subsistence, it had been supposed by some that there would always be a sufficient demand at home for any quantity of corn which could be grown. But this is an error. It is undoubtedly true that if the farmers could gradually increase their growth of corn to any extent, and could sell it sufficiently cheap, a population would arrive at home to demand the whole of it. But in this case, the great increase of demand arises solely from the cheapness, and must therefore be totally of a different nature from such a demand as, in the actual circumstances of this country, would encourage an increased supply. If the makers of superfine broadcloth would sell their commodity for a shilling a yard, instead of a guinea, it cannot be doubted that the demand would increase more than tenfold, but the certainty of such an increase of demand, in such a case, would have no tendency whatever, in the actual circumstances of any known country, to encourage the manufacture of broad cloths.”

In page 267 Mr. Malthus adverts to what has recently been commented upon by a great French statistician, Mr. Maurice Block, viz.: the danger of a country becoming too dependent on others for its supplies of food. “A rich and commercial nation is by the natural course of things led more to pasture than to tillage, and is tempted to become daily more dependent upon others for its supplies of corn. If all the nations of Europe could be considered as one great country, and if any one state could be as sure of its supplies from others, as the pasture district of a particular state are from the corn districts in their neighbourhood, there would be no harm in this dependence, and no person would think of proposing corn laws. But can we safety consider Europe in this light? The fortunate condition of this country, and the excellence of its laws and government, exempt it, above any other nation, from foreign invasion and domestic tumult, and it is a pardonable love for one’s country, which under such circumstances produces an unwillingness to expose it, in so important a point as the supply of its principal food, to share in the dangers and chances which may happen on the Continent. How would the miseries of France have been aggravated during the revolution if she had been dependent on foreign countries for the support of two or three millions of her people.”

It is instructive to read what was thought might be the magnitude of our future imports of wheat in 1806. In page 268 Mr. Malthus writes: “We can hardly doubt that in the course of some years we shall draw from America, and the nations bordering on the Baltic, as much as two millions of quarters of wheat, besides other corn, the support of above two millions of people. If under these circumstances, any commercial discussion, or other dispute, were to arise with these nations, with what a weight of power they would have to negociate! Not the whole British Navy could offer a more convincing argument than the single threat of shutting all their ports. I am not unaware that in general, we may securely depend upon people not acting directly contrary to their interest. But this consideration, all powerful as it is, will sometimes yield voluntarily to national indignation, and it is sometimes forced to yield to the resentment of a sovereign. It is of sufficient weight in practice when applied to manufactures; because a delay in their sale is not of such immediate consequence. But in the case of corn, a delay of three or four months may produce the most complicated misery; and from the great bulk of corn, it will generally be in the power of the sovereign to execute almost completely his resentful purpose.” This is the argument of Mr. Block, with respect to our dependence on the United States for so much of our food supplies. He remarks that it might easily happen that some party in the United States might take to prohibiting the export of corn, and in such a case there can be no doubt that the people of this country would at once be plunged into the severest trouble with respect to their food supplies. A war with the United States is of course most unlikely, too, but alas! even such a catastrophe is possible in the present position of human affairs.