man is obliged to do the work of several. These general observations are not set aside by supposing the right of property to be established. All that I can understand by a right of property is a right in any one to cultivate a piece of land, be it more or, less, and a right at the same time to prevent any one else from cultivating it, or reaping the produce. This, in whatever way a man comes by it, is the utmost extent of this right. "Those who were " born after the division of property," says Mr. Malthus, " would come into a world already possessed." [How the whole world should come to be possessed immediately after the division of property I do not understand.] "If their parents, from having too large a family, were unable to give them sufficient "for their support, what could they do in a world, "where every thing was appropriated?" [Just now the world, and at present, every thing in it is appropriated.] "We have seen the fatal effects that would " result to society, if every man had a valid claim to an equal share of the produce of the earth." [This has been answered.] "The members of a family "which was grown too large for the original division " of land appropriated to it could not then demand a part of the surplus produce of others as a debt of "justice." [Certainly not. They would have no right to it, because one man would have no right to another man's property; but that right, as far as relates to the surplus produce, is not backed by the necessity of the case, as Mr. Malthus would lead us to suppose, or because every thing is already appropriated.] "It has appeared that, from the inevitable " laws of human nature, some beings will be exposed " to want." [That is the question.] "The number " of those persons would soon exceed the ability of "the surplus produce to supply." I believe so, if they depended on the surplus produce of the labour of the rich to supply them. But the long and the short of it is that these laborious landholders, these owners of surplus produce, finding that their own exertions could not supply all their own wants, and at the same time keep pace with their benevolence to those unhappy persons, who in the great lottery of life had drawn a blank, would call to their aid such of these as professed themselves able and willing to exert their strength in procuring a further surplus produce, which would enable the proprietors to afford assistance to greater numbers, that is, out of the produce of their own labour, not out of that of the proprietors. To hear Mr. Malthus talk, one would suppose that the rich were really a very hard-working, ill-used people, who are not suffered to enjoy the earnings of tl. ir honest industry in quiet by a set of troublesome, unsatisfied, luxurious, idle people called the poor. Or one might suppose that a landed estate was a machine that did its own work; or that it was like a large plum-cake, which the owner might at once cut up into slices, and either eat them himself, or give them away to others, just as he pleased. In this case I grant that the poor might be said to depend entirely upon the bounty or surplus produce of the rich; and as they would have no trouble in procuring their share but merely that of asking for it, their demands would no doubt be a little unreasonable, and in short, if they were com plied with, the estate, the surplus produce, or the plumb-cake (call it which you will) would soon be gone. The question would no longer be "whether 66 one man should give to another that which he did not use himself: but whether he should give to his neighbour the food which was absolutely necessary to his own existence." But I cannot admit that they would be reduced to any such necessity merely from allowing to the labourer as much of the additional produce of the ground as he himself had really added to it. I repeat that I do not see how a man's reaping the produce, and no more than the produce of his industry, can operate as an inducement to idleness, or to the excessive multiplication of children, when notwithstanding all his industry it is impossible he should provide for them without either diminishing his own comforts, or if the population is already full, plunging them and himself into want and misery. This addition to the argument is like a foil to a sword -it prevents any dangerous consequences. If I say to a number of people, that they may each of them have as much of a heap of corn as they desire, the whole of it would very soon be bespoke, but if I tell them that they may each of them have as much as they can carry away themselves, there might be enough to load them all, and I might have plenty left for my own consumption. The ability and the willingness of a man to labour, (when these are made the general foundation of his claim to the produce of the earth) at once set bounds to his own rapacious demands, and effectually limit the population. If Mr. Malthus U had shewn that nothing but extreme misery can excite to industry or check population, he would then have shewn the necessity of such a state. But if it has appeared in various ways that there is no connection between these things, or that if there is, it is directly contrary to what Mr. Malthus supposes it, then he has failed in his attempt to regulate the price of labour by the principle of population, or to prove that this should be fixed so low, as only just to keep the labourer from starving. Certainly any advance in the price of labour, or a more equal distribution of the produce of the earth would enable a greater number of persons to live in comfort, and would increase population; but it is the height of absurdity, as I have shewn over and over again, to suppose that it would lead to an excessive or unrestricted increase; as if by making people acquainted with comfort and decency, you were teaching them to fall in love with misery. This is the real jut and bearing of the question. The author of the Essay, to assist his argument, transposes the question. He represents the labouring class of the community as a set of useless, supernumerary paupers, living on charity, or on the labour of the industrious proprietor. If this representation had any foundation, I should be ready to admit that these interlopers had no claim on any part of the surplus produce of others as a debt of justice. They must owe every thing to favour, and would be entirely at the mercy of their benefactors. Every reader must perceive, how little this account is in any degree near the truth. The case is not that of a person both willing and able to labour for himself, and imparting freely to another, who had done nothing to deserve it, a part of the surplus produce of the soil, but of a person bargaining with another to do all his work for him, and allowing him as a bribe part of the produce of his own labour in return. It is not therefore a question of right any more than it is a question of expediency, but a question of power on one side, and of necessity on the other. On the degree of power, or on that of the necessity, and on nothing else, will the price of labour depend. Mr. Malthus somewhere talks of a man's having no right to subsistence when his labour will not fairly purchase it. This word fairness conveys to my ears no meaning but that of the struggle between power and want, just spoken of. "A man," he says, " born into a world already possessed, if the society do not want his 66 66 labour, has no claim of right to the smallest portion " of food." This is, as if the question was of an individual, pestering a laborious community for a job, when they do not want his assistance, and not of the laborious part of the community demanding a small portion of food or the means of subsistence out of the surplus produce of their labour as a fair compensation for their trouble! I sometimes think that abstruse subjects are best illustrated by familiar examples, and I shall accordingly give one. Suppose I have got possession of an island which I either took from somebody else, or was the first to occupy. But no matter how I came by it, I am in possession of it, and that is enough. Suppose then I see another person coming towards it either in a canoe (these questions are always first decided in a state very nearly approaching |