We find every country that was once wealthy, but that has fallen [end of page #138] into decline, is thinly peopled; and if it were not for the want of information, from which the cause may be traced, a deficiency of food might most probably be found to be one of the most efficient.
Flanders, which is one of the most fertile countries in Europe, and has experienced a partial decline, is probably not near so fully peopled as it once was. Its present population would not support those armies, or give it that rank amongst nations which it at one time maintained. It is true there have been persecutions and emigrations, which must have reduced the population of the country for a time, but not to an extent that would account for such a diminution in its numbers, as there is reason to think has taken place.
Ghent, a town of an amazing size, could, at one time, send out fifty thousand fighting men. It certainly could not now (that is to say, at the time the French subdued the country) have furnished one-fourth part of the number. Ghent is not the only town in this situation, the others have all fallen off in the same manner. When manufactures declined, the people did not go to live in the country, for that also is thinly inhabited, the richness of the soil being taken into consideration.
The peasants of that country lived much better than their French neighbours; they apparently brought up their children with more ease, and fed them more fully; but the country was not so populous, in proportion to its fertility.
In southern climates, where the heat of the sun is great, and vegetation difficult, unless the crop is of a nature to protect the ground from its effects, natural grass is never luxuriant; and the cattle are neither so large nor so fat as in more northerly latitudes. Corn, on the other hand, which rises to a sufficient height, before the hot season, to protect the ground from the rays of the sun, is a more profitable crop; and, indeed, the only one that could (potatoes excepted) support a great population.
In such countries, scarcely any degree of general affluence would enable the labouring classes to eat animal food. No degree of wealth, that can well be supposed, would enable the inhabitants of the southern parts of France, or of Spain, to live on butcher-meat, which, [end of page #139] if it became to be in general demand, would be dearer than poultry, or even than game. The absolute necessity of living on vegetables, or rather the absolute impossibility of contracting a habit of living on animal food, must, then, in those countries, counteract the taste, and prevent depopulation being produced by that cause.-- But it is very different with more northerly countries, where it is almost a matter of indifference, in point of expense, to an individual who enjoys any degree of affluence, whether he lives on vegetable or animal food, and where he gives a decided preference to the former. {115}
It is probable that nature (so admirable in adapting the manners of the inhabitants to the nature of the country) has made heavy animal food less congenial to the taste of southern nations than to those of the north. There is, indeed, reason to believe it is so, but, whether it is or not, as natural philosophy is not here the study, but political economy, the fact is, that if southern nations had the same propensity, it would be impossible to indulge it to an equal extent.
As wealth and power are intimately connected with population, and depend in a great measure upon it, wherever they are the cause of introducing a taste that will, in the end, depopulate a country, they must, in so far, undermine their own support, and bring on decay. This is a case that applies to all northern nations, and particularly to Britain; in order, therefore, to treat the subject at full length, it will be better to enter into the minute examination when we come to apply the case directly to this country, and seek for a remedy.
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{115} The proportion between the prices of bread and butcher meat will help to a conclusion on this subject. The warmer and dryer the climate, the cheaper bread is in proportion. At Paris, which is a dry, but not a very warm climate, the proportion, in ordinary times, was as four to one. A loaf of bread of four pounds, and a pound of meat, were supposed to be nearly the same price, but the meat was generally the higher of the two. In England, the proportion (before the late revolution in prices) was about two to one, and, in Ireland, where the soil and climate are more moist, and better for cattle, flesh meat was still cheaper, in proportion. The poverty of the people, indeed, prevented them from living on animal food, but buttermilk, (an animal production) and potatoes, a cheaper vegetable, are their chief sustenance.