"At this moment, in what has been deemed the declining years of our world, its powers of produce have been superior to its powers of popular multiplication. Our food exceeds, in its existing quantity, the present demand for it. We have more corn than we consume, and more is coming up than will be required by the present generation. On what is the urgency of some-of several-political economists, who uphold the Malthusian hypothesis, to have our corn-laws abolished,founded? On the vegetable produce of the earth being as inadequate to the supply of the living numbers, as the opposition of the contrasted geometrical and arithmetical laws must have long since made it? No! They require the repeal of the restrictive regulations which keep foreign corn from our shores, on their perceiving and knowing that there is more corn in the earth,—now on hand, and certain to be produced,-than its inhabitants will need.

66

Coinciding with this fact, of the mercantile solicitations for liberty of free importation, are also the circumstances which I will mention, from the periodical journals of the day, as the best practical authorities. The foreign dealers, in 1833, complained of the diminution of their trade, and of the value of corn, and of its fall in price, because there was no demand for it elsewhere, to take off the superfluous produce which had been accumulating among them. The countries of Europe had on hand so much more than their populations wanted, that bad weather was even deemed advantageous, from the hope that, by injuring the shooting vegetation, and preventing a good harvest, it would raise the prices of the stocks on sale. Because war had long ceased, there was no more that extraordinary consumption, which had made subsistence dearer; the superabundant productions of corn and wine, from their ordinary cultivation, were so much beyond the ordinary use of it, that the wine in 1834 was unsaleable, and the corn had become so cheap, that the landowners in Germany were much

VOL. IV.

G

distressed. The German farmers sent abundance to foreign dealers; but other nations having enough of their own produce, it found so small a sale as to sink in its money-worth. The effect of our corn-laws, which prevented Prussia from sending its superfluity to market, is represented, in 1834, as causing its land to fall in price, and as destroying the agricultural trade of Poland, from its superabundance. So far was population in Europe from over-running its subsistence in 1834, that a great part of Poland was not in cultivation; and, of the land in actual husbandry, though only a third part was raised from it which that portion could produce, yet even this was more than its own consumption required; so that their wheat was given to the cattle, because it had grown more than its people consumed.

"The same state of things, between population and produce, existed also in America in 1834, both in the United States and in our Canadas, though each was so surprisingly multiplying in their numbers, from immigration. Here, also, the demand was so much less than nature's supply, that the price of it sunk too low to meet with the rate of wages, and to return a profit on the capital employed.

“This over-produce,—its exuberance beyond the consumption of the population,-was not in any one country, or in the most fertile regions, but equally so in the less favoured ones; for we find Sweden, though so far in the north, and so near gelid Lapland, and so full of heaths, lakes, and mountains in herself, yet had so much more wheat than she wanted, as to be urging her government, in 1833, for leave to export it.

"From the produce most generally exceeding the demand of the population for it, all countries, in some years, and most countries at all times, are enabled and desirous to export their superabundance, even though some of their provinces receive a partial importation. This has been the case in our own country. Parliament, at the Revolution in 1688, enacted a bounty on exporta

tion, when wheat was at 48s. a quarter, or below; and for fifty-five years, England was an exporting country. In the next fifty-five years, the bounty was sometimes discontinued, and sometimes renewed. Importation was at times allowed, and at others prohibited; but always amounting to a very small part of our actual consumption. At present, notwithstanding our surprising increase of population, we are actually growing more than our numbers use.

“Flanders produces so much, from a soil not distinguished for its natural fertility, that, although crowded with inhabitants more densely than perhaps any other country, yet it exports, every year, one-third of its harvest. The produce, as compared with the population, even doubles the amount of ours.

"France is also, in some degree, an exporting country, although its consumption of bread is supposed to be greater than ours, though it occasionally imports, as harvests fluctuate ; yet its exports, in 1834, far exceeded its imports."

From these and various other facts which he details, and the truth of which he substantiates by quotations from various sources in his foot-notes, Mr Turner concludes, that, so far from the population outrunning the supply, there is, in fact, at this moment, notwithstanding the rapid increase of the former, a superabundant produce in actual existence over the whole face of the civilized world; that although particular districts may be deficient, and although, in some years, the harvests may fail in various parts, there is always found to be enough to supply the want as it arises, by importation from those quarters where the necessaries of life are superabundant; and that, therefore, the idea of Mr Malthus, that the population outgrows its subsistence, is “an unfounded fancy."

This conclusion seems, at first sight, to be inconsistent

* Turner's Sacred History, vol. iii. Letter 29.

with the known fact, that there are vast numbers of the human race, in very many regions of the world, who are destitute of the common necessaries of life; but when the matter is properly understood, it will be found to involve a very different question from that of vegetable nature not producing what the populations of the earth require. "It is not," as our author justly observes, "because there is not a sufficient quantity of the alimentary articles on the earth, that any are in want; it is because they have not the means of purchasing or obtaining what they require, from those who possess. If they had the trading medium, they would find in the public markets, every where, the sufficiency they desire." Poverty and want, he therefore argues, are the topics of an individual question between man and man, or between each person and society, and not between mankind and Providence. This is true, in so far as relates to the present subject; but yet the inequality alluded to, is a question of great importance, in reference to the providential system of our globe, and on this subject I must refer the reader to the observations made in another volume, when considering the origin and effects of property in the soil.*

FOURTH WEEK-TUESDAY.

HUMAN FOOD.-PROVISION FOR THE FUTURE.-SOIL STILL UNCULTIVATED.

We have seen that, during the four thousand years in which the human race has been in progress, it has not yet reached its maximum of population, with reference to the supply of the necessaries of life, and that although, through the whole course of that long period, they have been always increasing and always pressing upon the means of subsistence, these means have con

* "Spring." Eighth Week-Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday.

stantly yielded to the pressure, so that the increase has never exhausted the supply; and this remarkable fact is itself sufficient to afford a reasonable conviction that the same balance which has hitherto been maintained, will continue to the end of time. It is a law obviously impressed on nature, by the Infinite Intelligence which called it into existence; and we may rest assured, that the benevolence which formed the law will not cease to adjust its operation. We may, therefore, safely arrive at the conclusion, previous to all experience and to all reasoning on the facts of the case, that any theory must be false which maintains that this arrangement contains in itself the seeds of its own destruction. But it will be more satisfactory to show, from an induction of particulars, that, so far from the productive powers of nature, with regard to human food, being nearly exhausted, there is still a field of vast extent which remains to be cultivated, and which, taking the power of agricultural improvement as it at present exists, admits of the increase of population for many centuries, even at its recent accelerated progress, without any danger of the demand exceeding the supply.

It is necessary for an increasing population, that there should exist either additional soil to cultivate, or a power of producing additional means of subsistence from the same soil, or both of these requisites conjoined. Let us first examine how the case stands in regard to soil. Is there territorial surface at present on the earth, unemployed, on which an additional population may exert its productive energy? The answer to this question is highly satisfactory.

The present population of our earth has been variously estimated at from five hundred and fifty to a thousand millions. Taking the average medium between these two extremes, we may safely consider the whole amount of the human race now existing on our globe, to be between seven and eight hundred millions. It has progressively risen to this number; and, looking at all his