It would be neither complimentary nor true to ascribe the difference to the logic of sentiment; but it is true that the acute sensitiveness of Malthus to the evils of poverty kept constantly before him large classes of facts which Ricardo seemed willing to forget, and the path that he took, though long ago obscured and forgotten, led him in some important points away from laissez faire to doctrines of our own day, in which society acting through its Government is allowed an originative and not merely a regulative action in the matter of industry and wealth.
Resuming the thread of the essay, we shall find that the relation of society to its destitute poor is not to Malthus, as to Ricardo, a question of taxation and finance, but a problem of morals and politics, which could only be solved by a clear view of the relation of the citizen to the commonwealth.
CHAPTER IV.
THE BEGGAR.
Arrangement of the Essay—Nature’s Mighty Feast—Tract on High Price of Provisions—I cannot, therefore I ought not—Poor Laws condemned—Frederick the Great’s Army—Mitigation of Bad Effects of Poor Law—Step towards Abolition—New Poor Law.
In the foregoing brief review of the economical doctrines of Malthus, the chapters on commercial policy and the Corn Laws,[[688]] in the third book of the Essay on Population, have been already noticed. As the First and Second books of the essay were supposed to deal with the state of population in past and in present times, the Third is supposed to deal with the “different systems of expedients which have been proposed or have prevailed in society” for curing the evils arising from the principle of population, while the Fourth relates to the future prospects of society, and the possibility of removing the evils in question. This division of the subject could not be maintained very strictly. The “systems proposed” no doubt were in most cases mere theories and could be considered by themselves; but the “systems that prevailed” included such laws as the Corn Laws and Poor Laws, which directly affected the present habits and wealth of the people, and might fairly have been considered in the second book. The fourth book might quite logically have been part of the third, for it simply adds to the “systems proposed” the proposal of Malthus himself. The arrangement is not in itself so perfect or so closely respected by its author that we need have any remorse for disregarding it. The earliest chapters of the third book (i. and ii.) are substantially the refutation of Godwin, Wallace, Condorcet, as it appeared in 1798, with a postscript (ch. iii.) on Owen and Spence, which will be best considered in another place.[[689]] In point of style they are probably the best in the book.
After a chapter (iv.) on Emigration[[690]] come three chapters on the Poor Laws, to be viewed with ch. viii. of the fourth book, which deals with Plans for their Abolition. Of all the applications of the doctrines of Malthus, their application to pauperism was probably, at the time, of the greatest public interest. Even the first essay had distinct bearing on Pitt’s Poor Bill; the next writing of the author was on a question of parish relief; and these three chapters in the later Essay on Population have influenced public opinion and legislation about the destitute poor almost as powerfully as the Wealth of Nations has influenced commercial policy. Malthus is the father not only of the new Poor Law, but of all our latter-day societies for the organization of charity.
The subject is best introduced in the words of a celebrated parable, which Malthus having used once was never afterwards allowed to forget:[[691]]—“A man who is born into a world already possessed, if he cannot get subsistence from his parents, on whom he has a just demand, and if the society do not want his labour, has no claim of right to the smallest portion of food, and, in fact, has no business to be where he is. At nature’s mighty feast there is no vacant cover for him. She tells him to be gone, and will quickly execute her own orders, if he do not work upon the compassion of some of her guests. If these guests get up and make room for him, other intruders immediately appear demanding the same favour. The report of a provision for all that come, fills the hall with numerous claimants. The order and harmony of the feast is disturbed, the plenty that before reigned is changed into scarcity; and the happiness of the guests is destroyed by the spectacle of misery and dependence in every part of the hall, and by the clamorous importunity of those, who are justly enraged at not finding the provision which they had been taught to expect. The guests learn too late their error, in counteracting those strict orders to all intruders, issued by the great mistress of the feast, who, wishing that all her guests should have plenty, and knowing that she could not provide for unlimited numbers, humanely refused to admit fresh comers when her table was already full.”[[692]]
Our neighbours’ misfortunes have seldom been made so picturesque. The figure itself was no new one. Lucretius had written:—
“Cur non, ut plenus vitæ conviva, recedis?”[[693]]
and Fenton, in Pope’s[[694]] familiar lines:—