“There has never been an age or country known,” replied Mr. Mackenzie, “where at once the people have been so intelligent, their manners so pure, and their resources so abundant, as to give the principle of increase an unobstructed trial. Savage life will not do, because the people are not intelligent. Colonies will not do, because they are not free from vicious customs. An old empire will not do, because the means of subsistence are restricted.”
“A new colony of free and intelligent people in a fertile country affords the nearest approach to a fair trial,” observed Angus. “In some of the best settlements I saw in America, the increase of capital and of people went on at a rate that would scarcely be believed in an old country.”
“And that of the people the fastest, I suppose?”
“Of course; but still capital was far a-head, though the population is gaining upon it every year. When the people first went, they found nothing but capital—all means of production and no consumers but themselves. They raised corn in the same quantity from certain fields every year. There was too much corn at first in one field for a hundred mouths; but this hundred became two, four, eight, sixteen hundred, and so on, till more and more land was tilled, the people still spreading over it, and multiplying perpetually.”
“And when all is tilled and they still multiply,” said Ella, “they must improve their land more and more.”
“And still,” said Angus, “the produce will fall behind more and more, as every improvement, every outlay of capital yields a less return. Then they will be in the condition of an old country like England, where many are but half fed, where many prudent determine not to marry, and where the imprudent must see their children pine in hunger, or waste under disease till they are ready to be carried off by the first attack of illness.”
“May this never be the case in Garveloch!” cried Ella.
“The more waste of capital there is,” said Mr. Mackenzie, “the sooner will that day come.”
“But our islands are now in the state of a new colony, like that Angus was speaking of,” said Ella. “Want must be far from us at present.”
“Except that we have not a fertile soil or a good climate,” replied her husband. “It is true we do not depend entirely on corn;—we had not need for our home supply can never be large. We have the resource of fish, but it is so precarious a resource, that we ought to keep some means of subsistence in reserve. If the herrings should desert us for a season or two, and the harvest fail, some of us must starve, or all be half-starved, unless we have a stock in reserve.”