‘An hour’s importance to the poor man’s heart.’
‘An hour’s importance to the poor man’s heart.’
‘An hour’s importance to the poor man’s heart.’
‘An hour’s importance to the poor man’s heart.’
No human patience can submit to everlasting toil and self-denial. The prospect of mere physical comfort is not a match for continued physical suffering: and the lower classes of the people have no other motives to animate them to bear up against the ills of life, in habits of moral reflection, in the pursuits and example of the rich, or in the real respect and credit attached to their own good behaviour. You reduce them almost to the condition of brutes, and then grudge them their coarse enjoyments: you make machines of them, and then expect from them firmness, resolution, the love of independence, the fruits of an erect and manly spirit. Mr. Malthus, like the Sphinx, destroys his victims by the help of riddles; and makes a snare of impossibilities. As to the workmen and mechanics in manufacturing towns (to say nothing of the closeness and unwholesomeness of their occupations, which would go a good way in accounting for ‘their drunkenness and dissipation’) the noise and turbulence in which they live, and their being crowded together as they are must unfit them for enjoying the quiet and stillness of domestic life: they are glad to escape from the contempt which their ‘squalid appearance’ excites in the well-dressed mob who walk the streets, and hide their greasy clothes and smutched faces in the nearest pot-house; and to say the truth, with respect to those of them who are married, the hard features, the disjointed shapes, the coarse limbs, the carking countenances,and ill-humour of their wives, occasioned by the fretful wants of a set of squalling children, cannot be supposed to prove so attractive to them, as ‘the symmetry of person, the vivacity, the voluptuous softness of temper, the affectionate kindness of feeling, the imagination, and the wit’ which in Mr. Malthus’s opinion constitute the charm of the sex. After all, are the higher classes a bit better than their inferiors? Are drinking and dissipation confined to the poor? As Mr. Malthus ingenuously observes, ‘Our Doctors Commons and the lives that many married men [of the better sort] are known to lead sufficiently prove the reverse of this.’ I believe it will hardly be proposed to make moral merit a rule for the division of the good things of fortune. The only difference in the vices of the rich and the poor is, that the rich canaffordtheirs better. Nevertheless they set up for censors and reformers of the morals of the poor. I remember to have seen a red-faced swag-bellied bishop (such another as Father Paul in the Duenna) who could drink his two bottles of wine without being affected, belch out a severe reprimand against a poor labouring man, who was staggering home after drinking a quart of small beer. As to our author’s plan ofstarvingthe poor out of their vices, I must say (all circumstances considered) that I think it, in the first place, an impudent proposal, because their executioners are no better than themselves; in the second place, a silly proposal, because, if not literally followed up, it must evidently defeat itself; in the third place, a malignant proposal, because if it were strictly put in practice, it could only produce despair and sullen insensibility among the poor, and destroy all traces of justice or humanity among the rich; in the fourth place, a lying proposal, because it is contrary to Mr. Malthus’s own reasonings, who in many places has shewn that the only way to improve the condition of the poor is not by urging them to extremity, but by raising them above want, by inspiring them with a respect for themselves, and a taste for the comforts and decencies of life by sharing in them.
‘That the poor (says Mr. Malthus) employed in manufactures consider parish assistance as areasonwhy they may spend all the wages which they earn, and enjoy themselves while they can,appears to be evident, from the number of families that upon the failure of any great manufactory, immediately fall upon the parish.’ This is an assumption of the question. Our author here confounds the fact and the reason together. It appears evident that the manufacturer often spends his earnings as he gets them, but not that he does so in the hope that his family may go to the parish after his death. ‘A man who might not be deterred from going to the alehouse from the consideration that on his death or sickness he should leave his wife andfamily upon the parish, might yet hesitate in thus dissipating his earnings if he were assured that in either of these caseshis family must starve, or be left to the support of casual bounty.’ Now it has appeared that his conduct is regulated by motives and circumstances which have nothing to do with what happens to his wife and children after his death. It may therefore be questioned whether the catastrophe proposed by Mr. Malthus would have the desired effect. But certainly it could not have this effect as long as there was a dependence on casual bounty: and to stop up this resource it would be absolutely necessary to call in the aid of the magistrate to prevent the indiscreet and unavailing interference of private charity, and execute the sentence of the law of nature and the law of God on his wife and hapless progeny, justly doomed to starve for the neglect of their parent. What effect this would have on the ‘moral sensibility of the nation’ I leave to Mr. Malthus to determine with his well-known penetration and humanity. ‘The suffering a poor family to perish of want is bad enough: but I cannot conceive of any thing much more detestable or shocking to the feelings than any direct regulation of this kind, by whatever name it is sanctioned.’ Mr. Malthus may perhaps object that I have quoted him unfairly; and applied to theorganizing the starving of a familywhat he applied to the direct regulation ofinfanticide,—a very different thing! Unfortunately, I have not sufficient delicacy ofverbalfeeling to be able to find out the difference.—Now I recollect, however, what shocked Mr. Malthus so much in speaking of infanticide was the supposition that the parents were to be forced to destroy their own children, when they thought they could not maintain them; according to our author’s mode of starving a family, the society are only to stand by and prevent others from affording them assistance. Here we see there is not that direct violation of the parental affection which, says Mr. Malthus, is the principal aggravation of the other case. He explains the grounds of this distinction in another part of his work. ‘If,’ says he, ‘the parents desert their child,theyought to be answerable for the crime. The infant is, comparatively speaking, of no value to the society,[31]as others will immediately supply its place. Its principal value is on account of its being the object of one of the most delightful passions in human nature—parental affection. But if this value be disregarded by those who arealonein a capacity to feel it, thesocietycannot be called upon to put itself in their place and has no further business inits protection,’ than just to see that its parents do not ill-use, or kill or eat it. Nothing can be plainer than the inference from these premises. The society, which is bound to prevent or punish the least barbarity in parents towards their children, because they are to them an object of a very delightful passion, may exercise any barbarity it pleases on them itself, because it is not in a capacity to feel this affection towards them. It is not only not called upon to put itself in their place, but is bound to prevent others from doing so, and thus reversing the laws of nature, by which ‘the child is confided exclusively to its parents.’ It is only, says our author, by extinguishing every spark of humanity in the breasts of the community towards the children of others, that the ties of parental affection can ever exist in their full force, or be expected ‘to remain in the state in which nature has left them.’ Mr. Malthus may therefore in his zeal for the growth of parental affection, and the entire suppression of common humanity as subversive of it, very consistently brand every attempt of the society to make the parents accomplices in starving their children, as the greatest injustice, though we may very heroically proceed to starve them ourselves, repeating after this high-priest of nature, Their blood be upon us and uponourchildren! This is the best account I can give of the fundamental distinction which Mr. Malthus makes between the impropriety and inhumanity ofdestroying childrenby law, and the propriety and humanity ofstarvinga family by law. But I shall recur to the same subject presently, when I come to the detail of his plan.
Mr. Malthus devotes the first and second chapters of his fourth book to an inquiry into our obligations to regulate the sexual passion by considerations of prudence, &c. into the general capacity of human nature to act from rational motives, and the good effects which would result from such a conduct. He begins his third chapter in the following manner.
‘He who publishes a moral code, or system of duties, however firmly he may be convinced of the strong obligation on each individual strictly to conform to it, has never the folly to imagine that it will be universally or even generally practised. But this is no valid objection against the publication of the code. If it were, the same objection would always have applied; we should be totally without general rules; and to the vices of mankind arising from temptation, would be added a much longer list, than we have at present, of vices from ignorance.’ [This is well said, and ’tis a kind of good deed to say well.] ‘Judging merely from the light of nature, if we feel convinced of the misery arising from a redundant population, on the one hand, and of the evils and unhappiness, particularly to the female sex,arising from promiscuous intercourse, on the other, I do not see how it is possible for any person, who acknowledges the principle of utility as the great foundation of morals, to escape the conclusion that moral restraint, till we are in a condition to support a family, is the strict line of duty; and when revelation is taken into the question, this duty undoubtedly receives very powerful confirmation. At the same time, I believe that few of my readers can be less sanguine in their expectations of any great change in the general conduct of men on this subject than I am; and the chief reason, why, in the last chapter, I allowed myself to suppose the universal prevalence of this virtue, was, that I might endeavour to remove any imputation on the goodness of the Deity, by shewing that the evils arising from the principle of population were exactly of the same nature as the generality of other evils which excite fewer complaints, that they were increased by human ignorance and indolence, and diminished by human knowledge and virtue; and on the supposition, that each individual strictly fulfilled his duty, would be almost totally removed; and this, without any general diminution of those sources of pleasure, arising from the regulated indulgence of the passions, which have been justly considered as the principal ingredients of human happiness.’
Mr. Malthus here appears in the double character of a politician and divine. Sir Hugh Evans says, ‘I like not when a ’omans has a great peard.’ I must say, I do not like to see a philosopher in a cassock. He has you at an unfair advantage, and it is a hundred to one but he will make use of it. When he is pressed hard, or sees his arguments in danger of being cut off, he puts them into the false belly of theology. It is like hunting an otter: you do not know where to have him.—What our author says of moral systems is certainly true: neither the preaching of St. Paul, nor probably his own has been able to put an end to that pious, courtly race of men, who strive equally to serve God and mammon. Mr. Malthus in the last chapter took an opportunity of paying his court to the former: the leaf is no sooner turned, than he begins to insinuate himself into the good graces of the latter, by disclaiming the sincerity of his late professions. In the passage just quoted, Mr. Malthus not only tells you that he had endeavoured to give a more favourable account of the expectations of mankind and their capacity for virtue and happiness than he believes has any foundation in human nature; but he at the same time lets you into his motive for so doing, viz. his wish to remove any imputation on the divine goodness, which purpose, it seems, would not have been so well answered by the real statement of the fact. Having thus decently paid his compliments to his profession, and justified the goodness of God fromthe ideal capacityof man for virtuehe next proceeds to prove the wisdom of human institutions by hisreal incapacityfor it. He was yesterday engaged to whitewash Providence: to day he is retained on the other side of the question, which he assures his clients shall not suffer through any anxiety of his about consistency. This seems to be playing at fast and loose both with religion and morality. Mr. Malthus has indeed set apart the preceding chapter to shew that ‘the evils arising from the principle of population are exactly of the same nature as the generality of other evils which excite fewer complaints, that they were increased by human ignorance and indolence, and diminished by human knowledge and virtue.’ But I do not know what right he had to do this, seeing that it is the express object of his work to shew that the evils of population are unlike all other evils, neither generated by human folly, nor to be removed or palliated by human wisdom, but by vice and misery alone: that they aresui generis, and not to be reasoned upon, like any thing else. Neither do I understand how the evils of population can be said to excite more complaints than other evils, when Mr. Malthus tells us that till his time nobody had thought of tracing them to their true source, but erroneously ascribed them to human institutions, vice, folly, &c. Mr. Malthus himself was the first who proved them to be irremediable and inherent in the constitution of nature, and thus brought an imputation upon Providence. To remove this imputation he supposes them to admit of a remedy: then again lest any one should take him at his word and be for applying this remedy, he says they admit of no such remedy; and that it was all an idle supposition of his own without any foundation, a harmless picture drawn to illustrate theimaginarygoodness of Providence.
‘If it will answer any purpose of illustration, I see no harm in drawing the picture of a society in which each individual is supposed strictly to fulfil his duties: nor does a writer appear to be justly liable to the imputation of being visionary, unless he makes such universal or general obedience necessary to the practical utility of his system, and to that degree of moderate and partial improvement, which is all that can rationally be expected from the most complete knowledge of our duties.
‘But in this respect, there is an essential difference between that improved state of society which I have supposed in the last chapter, and most of the other speculations on this subject. The improvement there supposed, if we ever should make approaches towards it, is to be effected in the way in which we have been in the habit of seeing all the greatest improvements effected, by a direct application to the interest and happiness of each individual. It is not required of us toact from motives, to which we are unaccustomed; to pursue a general good, which we may not distinctly comprehend, or the effect of which may be weakened by distance or diffusion.’
Is there not such a virtue as patriotism? To what class of motives would our author refer this feeling? The way in which Mr. Malthus wishes to effect his improvement in the virtue and happiness of mankind, is one in which no such improvement has hitherto been effected. But I see Mr. Malthus’s object. He is only anxious, lest any one should attempt to rear the fabric of human excellence on any other basis than that of vice and misery. So that we begin with this solid and necessary foundation, he does not care to what height the building is carried. So that we set out on our journey of reform through the gate at which Mr. Malthus is sitting at the receipt of custom, (whether it faces the road or not) it gives him little concern what direction we take, or how far we go afterwards, or whether we ever reach our promised destination.
‘The duty of each individual is express and intelligible to the humblest capacity. It is merely that he is not to bring beings into the world for whom he cannot find the means of support. When once this subject is cleared from the obscurity thrown over it by parochial laws andprivate benevolence, every man must feel the strongest conviction of such an obligation. If he cannot support his children, they muststarve; and if he marry in the face of a fair probability that he shall not be able to support his children, he is guilty of all the evils which he thus brings upon himself, his wife, and his offspring. It is clearly his interest, and will tend greatly to promote his happiness to defer marrying, till, by industry and economy, he is in a capacity to support the children, that he may reasonably expect from his marriage and as he cannot in the mean time, gratify his passions, without violatingan express command of God, and running a great risk of injuring himself, or some of his fellow creatures, considerations of his own interest and happiness will dictate to him the strongest obligation to moral restraint.
‘However powerful may be the impulses of passionthey are generally in some degree modified by reason. And it does not seem entirely visionary to suppose, that if the true and permanent cause of poverty were clearly explained,’ [This I take to be that the rich have more than the poor] ‘and forcibly brought home to each man’s bosom, it would have some, and perhaps not an inconsiderable, influence on his conduct; at least, the experiment has never yet been fairly tried.’
It is astonishing, what a propensity Mr. Malthus has to try experiments, if there is any mischief to be done by them. He hasa perfect horror of experiments that are to be tried on the higher qualities of our nature, from which any great, unmixed, and general good is to be expected. But in proportion as the end is low, and the means base, he acquires confidence, his tremours forsake him, and he approaches boldly to the task with nerves of iron. His humanity is of a singular cast. What is grand and elevated, seems to be his aversion. Pure benefits are of too cloying a quality to please his taste. He is willing to improve the morals of the people by extirpating the common feelings of mankind, and will submit to the introduction of a greater degree of plenty and comfort, provided it is prefaced by famine.
His ardour is kindled not so much in proportion to the difficulty, as to the disgusting nature of the task. He is a kind of sentimental nightman, an amateur chimney-sweeper, a patriotic Jack-ketch. The spirit of adventure is roused in him only by the prospect of dirty roads, and narrow, crooked paths. He never flinches where there is any evil to be done, that good may come of it! His present plan is an admirable one of the kind—Omne tulit punctum—it comprises both extremes of vice and misery. The poor are to make a formal surrender of their right to private charity or parish assistance, that the rich may be able to lay out all their money on their vices.
‘Till these erroneous ideas have been corrected, and the language ofnatureand reason has been generally heard on the subject of population, instead of the language of error and prejudice, it cannot be said that any fair experiment has been made with the understandings of the common people; and we cannot justly accuse them of improvidence and want of industry, till they act as they do now, after it has been brought home to their comprehensions, that they are themselves the cause of their own poverty; that the means of redress are in their own hands, andin the hands of no other persons whatever; that the society in which they live, and the government which presides over it, are totally without power in this respect; and however ardently they may desire to relieve them, and whatever attempts they may make to do so, they are really and truly unable to execute what they benevolently wish, but unjustly promise; that when the wages of labour will not maintain a family, it is an incontrovertible sign thattheir king and country do not want more subjects, or at least thatthey cannot support them; that if they marry in this case, so far from fulfilling a duty to society, they are throwing a useless burden on it, at the same time that they are plunging themselves into distress; and that they are acting directly contrary to the will of God, and bringing down upon themselves various diseases, which might all, or in a great part, have been avoided, if they had attended to the repeated admonitions whichhe gives, by the general laws of nature, to every being capable of reason.’[32]
The erroneous ideas of which Mr. Malthus here complains as prevailing in the minds of the common people, to the prejudice of the language of reason and nature, are, as he states just before, that their poverty and distress arein partowing to their not getting more for their labour, to the slowness with which the parish assist them, to the avarice of the rich, and to the institutions of society, or to fortune which has assigned them a place so beset with difficulties and dependence! No, poverty is owing to none of these causes, but it is owing entirely toitself. Mr. Burke has said, that people will not be argued into slavery. Our author attempts more than this. He tries to persuade them out of their senses, and to argue them into slavery and famine besides. There is a distinction which it is sometimes dangerous to insist on in common life; but which it is necessary to attend to in matters of reasoning, and that is the distinction between truth and falsehood. For instance, Mr. Malthus asserts, that the means of remedying their complaints are in the hands of the poor, and in the hands of no other persons whatever. Now this is not true. It is not true that the society in which they live and the government which presides over it aretotallywithout power in this respect. It is not true that however ardently they may wish to relieve them, they are utterly unable to execute their benevolent intentions. It is not an incontrovertible sign that their king and country do not want more subjects, and that they cannot support them, when the common wages of labour will not maintain a family. As Mr. Malthus’s positions exist no where but in the Essay of Population, they will hardly support those weighty practical conclusions which he wishes to build upon them. Some persons may perhaps be at a loss to understand what Mr. Malthus can mean by his assertions. The following may be some clue to what in itself has very much the appearance of irony.
‘Among the other prejudices which have prevailed on the subjectof population, it has been generally thought, that while there is either waste among the rich, or land remaining uncultivated in any country, the complaint for want of food cannot be justly founded, or, at least, that the pressure of distress upon the poor is to be attributed to the ill-conduct of the higher classes of society, and the bad management of the land. The real effect, however, of these two circumstances, is merely to narrow the limit of the actual population; but they have little or no influence on what may be called the average pressure of distress on the poorer members of society. If our ancestors had been so frugal and industrious, and had transmitted such habits to their posterity, that nothing superfluous was now consumed by the higher classes, no horses were used for pleasure, and no land was left uncultivated, a striking difference would appear in the state of the actual population; but probably none whatever, in the state of the lower classes of people, with respect to the price of labour, and the facility of supporting a family. The waste among the rich and the horses kept for pleasure, have indeed a little the effect of the consumption of grain in distilleries, noticed before with regard to China. On the supposition that the food consumed in this manner may be withdrawn on the occasion of a scarcity, and be applied to the relief of the poor, they operate, certainly, as far as they go, like granaries which are only opened at the time that they are most wanted, and must therefore tend rather to benefit than injure the lower classes of society.
‘With regard to uncultivated land, it is evident that its effect upon the poor is neither to injure, nor to benefit them. The sudden cultivation of it, will indeed tend to improve their condition for a time, and the neglect of lands before cultivated, will certainly make their situation worse for a certain period; but when no changes of this kind are going forward, the effect of uncultivated land on the lower classes, operates merely like the possession of a smaller territory.’
After what has been said in various parts of these observations, I might leave these passages to the contempt of the reader. But Mr. Malthus shall not complain of my remissness. I will give him heaped measure. I say then that the argument here employed leads to a direct absurdity: for it would justify any degree of neglect, or waste, or wanton abuse that can be imagined. If thirty-nine out of the forty counties in England were laid waste to-morrow, this would be no evil, according to Mr. Malthus, because it would not increase the average pressure of distress in the remaining one. If half the corn that is grown every year, besides what is already employed in supplying the waste of the rich, were regularly sent off by waggon-loads, and thrown into the sea, there would be still no harm done. Astrikingdifference would undoubtedly appear in the number of poor people, but probablynone whatever in the state of those who had not been starved. If double the number of horses were kept for pleasure, and only half the number of poor were kept alive, these latter would have no reason to complain, because they would be as well, or better off than ever; and if a limited number are tolerably well provided for, this is all that can ever be expected, because by the laws of nature it is impossible to provide for an unlimited number. To say nothing of those immense granaries and boundless resources which are thus formed in the uncultivated parts of the earth, or which might be created at any time of extraordinary distress by employing in the service of man what had hitherto been providently reserved for the beasts.
While there is waste among the rich, or neglect of lands, or while the breed of horses is encouraged so as to put a stop to the breed of men, I deny that the distresses of the poor, or the restraints on population are the necessary effects of the laws of nature, or of the unavoidable disproportion between the increase of mankind and the capacity of the earth to produce food for a greater number. But Mr. Malthus has his usual resource. Though the distresses of the poor were actually relieved as they might be, and though the unnecessary checks to population were taken off, yet the time would come when these wants could no longer be supplied, and when the restraints on population would become necessary, from the inability of the earth to yield any more, and from the whole produce being applied to the best advantage. This is undoubtedly true: but I do not think it a reason that we are not to put off the evil as long as we can, or that we are not to attempt any improvement, because we cannot go on for ever improving. Death is certain, and ‘will come when it will come.’ Is that a reason why I should take poison? There is in all Mr. Malthus’s arguments on this subject the sametwistthat there was in the Irish servant, who was told to call his master early, and waked him two hours before the time to tell him how much longer he had to sleep. Mr. Malthus would have insisted on his getting up and dressing himself in the middle of the night.
Mr. Malthus allows, that ‘the object of those who really wish to better the condition of the poor must be to raise the relative proportion between the price of labour, and the price of provisions.’ Almost in the next paragraph, however, he adds, that if we are really serious in this object, ‘we must explain to them the true nature of their situation, and shew them thatthe withholding the supplies of labour is the only possible way of raising its real price.’ I cannot help thinking, to use his own words, that our author’s ‘benevolence to the poor must be either childish play, or hypocrisy: that it must be either to amuse himself, or to pacify the minds of the common people with a mereshew of attention to their wants.’ He proceeds to instruct the poor in their true situation in a chapter which requires a few comments.
‘The pressure of distress on the lower classes of people, with the habit of attributing this distress to their rulers, appears to me to be the rock of defence, the castle, the guardian spirit, of despotism. It affords to the tyrant the fatal and unanswerable plea ofnecessity.’ [That is Mr. Malthus’s plea.] ‘While any dissatisfied man of talents has power to persuade the lower classes of people, that all their poverty and distress arise solely from the iniquity of the government, though perhaps the greatest part of what they suffer is totally unconnected with this cause, it is evident that the seeds of fresh discontents, and fresh revolutions, are continually sowing.’
That is, the way to prevent revolutions, and at the same time to produce lasting reforms is to persuade the people that all the evils which they suffer, or which the government may chuse to inflict upon them are their own fault. The way to put governments upon their good behaviour is to give them a licence to do as much mischief as they please, without being answerable for it.
‘Of the tendency of mobs to produce tyranny, we may not be long without an example in this country.As a friend to freedom, and an enemy to large standing armies, it is with extreme reluctance that I am compelled to acknowledge, that, had it not been for the organized force in the country, the distresses of the people during the late scarcities, encouraged by the extreme ignorance and folly of many among the higher classes, might have driven them to commit the most dreadful outrages, and ultimately to involve the country in all the horrors of famine.’
Does Mr. Malthus think that this hint will dispose the government to keep up their large standing armies, or to mitigate the distresses of the people? I wonder, if Blifil had happened to be an author, whether he might not have written such a book as this.
‘Should such periods often recur, a recurrence which we have too much reason to apprehend from the present state of the country, the prospect which opens to our view is melancholy in the extreme. The English constitution will be seen hastening with rapid strides to theEuthanasiaforetold by Hume; unless its progress be interrupted by some popular commotion; and this alternative presents a picture still more appalling to the imagination. If political discontents were blended with the cries of hunger, and a revolution were to take place by the instrumentality of a mob, clamouring for want of food, the consequences would be unceasing change and unceasing carnage, the bloody career of which, nothing but the establishment of some complete despotism could arrest.’
The gentleman seems greatly alarmed at his own predictions. He points out to government the dangers arising from mobs; and shews that these again arise from discontent, and repining against the good order of society. The way proposed to cure them of this discontent, and these false notions of society is to break asunder at once the link of humanity which binds the poor to the rich, to reduce them to extremity, to cut off all hope, all over-weening expectation, all mutual kindness and good offices, by exploding the very idea of the rights of the poor, or the duties of the rich, and thus to tame them so effectually and systematically, that we shall be in no danger from mobs, revolutions, or military despotism, but shall conclude with a happy Euthanasia!
‘To say that our conduct is not to be regulated by circumstances, is to betray an ignorance of the mostsolidand incontrovertible principles of morality.’ [An odd phrase. Solid seems to imply something fixed. We should hardly talk of asolidbridge of boats, though they might afford tolerably safe footing.] ‘Though the admission of this principle may sometimes afford a cloke to changes of opinion that do not result from the purest motives; yet the admission of a contrary principle would be productive of infinitely worse consequences. The phrase of existing circumstances has, I believe, not unfrequently created a smile in the English House of Commons; but the smile should have been reserved for the application of the phrase and not have been excited by the phrase itself.’ [He teaches us to smile by the book.] ‘A very frequent repetition of it, has indeed, of itself, rather a suspicious air; and its application should always be watched with the most jealous and anxious attention; but no man ought to be judgedin liminefor saying, that existing circumstances had obliged him to alter his opinions and conduct. The country gentlemen were perhaps too easily convinced that existing circumstances called upon them to give up some of the most valuable privileges of Englishmen; but, as far as they were really convinced of this obligation, they acted consistently with theclearest ruleof morality.’ [Begging the learned writer’s pardon, it is rather the exception than the rule. Did Junius Brutus, when he killed his son, act in conformity to theclearest rule of morality? Mr. Malthus has not quite got rid of the leaven of his old philosophy.]
‘The degree of power to be given to the civil government, and the measure of our submission to it, must be determined by general expediency.’
This is saying a good deal. The rule which Mr. Malthus then lays down for ‘a rising of the people,’ seems to be that when they are enlightened and well off, that is, when the government is agood one, they may rebel against it: but when they are kept in a state of ignorance and want, then they are to blame, if they are at all refractory: they are to be considered as the causes of that very oppression which they are endeavouring to resist, and as giving a farther handle to that tyranny, which their superiors are thus forced to exercise in self-defence, not from any innate love of power, or predilection for violent measures.
‘All improvements in government must necessarily originate with persons of some education, and these will of course be found among the people of property. Whatever may be said of a few, it is impossible that the great mass of the people of property should be really interested in the abuses of government. They merely submit to them, from the fear, that an endeavour to remove them, might be productive of greater evils. Could we but take away this fear, reform and improvement would proceed with as much facility, as the removal of nuisances, or the paving and lighting the streets. Remove all apprehension from the tyranny or folly of the people, and the tyranny of government could not stand a moment. It would then appear in its proper deformity, without palliation, without pretext, without protector. Naturally feeble in itself, when it was once stripped naked, and deprived of the support of public opinion, and of the greatplea of necessity, it would fall without a struggle.’
This is a new view of the subject. What then, mankind are governed by the pure love of justice! The people of property and education have no vices or follies of their own, which blind their understandings, no prejudices about royalty, or aristocracy, or church or state, no attachment to party, no dependence on great men, no hopes of preferment, no connections, no privileges, no interest in the abuses of government, no pride, none of theesprit de corps, to hinder them from pronouncing sentence on the laws, institutions, uses, and abuses of society with the same calmness, disinterestedness, and wisdom, as they would upon cleaning a sewer, or paving a street.
‘The most successful supporters of tyranny are without doubt those general declaimers, who attribute the distresses of the poor, and almost all the evils to which society is subject, to human institutions and the iniquity of governments.’
This is like those highwaymen, who attribute their ill treatment of their victims to the resistance they make.
‘Whatever therefore may be the intention of those indiscriminate and wholesale accusations against governments, their real effect undoubtedly is, to add a weight of talents and principles to the prevailing power which it never would have received otherwise.’
This is possible: but the effect of Mr. Malthus’s method would bethat they would not want the additional weight either of talents or principle, but would laugh in your face.
‘The inference, therefore, which Mr. Paine and others have drawn against governments from the unhappiness of the people, is palpably unfair; and before we give a sanction to such accusations, it is a debt we owe to truth and justice, to ascertain how much of this unhappiness arises from the principle of population, and how much is fairly to be attributed to government. When this distinction has been properly made, and all the vague, indefinite, and false accusations removed, government would remain, as it ought to be, clearly responsible for the rest. A tenfold weight would be immediately given to the cause of the people, and every man of principle would join in asserting and enforcing, if necessary, their rights.’
Timeo Danaos, et dona ferentes.Our author here wishes to delay the question in order to give additional weight to the cause of the people. This is something as if upon a stranger coming into a house almost fainting with hunger and cold, we should advise him not to go near the fire, nor take any thing to eat, for that there is a great apothecary in the neighbourhood who sometimes calls in about that time of the day, who will be able to tell him exactly how much of his illness proceeds from cold, and how much from hunger, whether he should eat, or warm himself first, and how the one would assist the other. The man might naturally answer, I know that I am very cold and hungry: I will therefore first sit down by the fire, and if, in the mean time, you can let me have any thing to eat, I shall be heartily glad of it. Otherwise the advice of the apothecary will come too late.
‘I cannot help thinking, therefore, that a knowledge generally circulated, that the principal cause of want and unhappiness is unconnected with government, and totally beyond its power to remove would, instead of giving any advantage to governments, give a great additional weight to the popular side of the question, by removing the dangers with which, from ignorance, it is at present accompanied: and thus tend, in a very powerful manner, to promote the cause of rational freedom.’
The mode in which Mr. Malthus strengthens the popular side is by disarming it of all power or pretence for resistance. Undoubtedly that must be a strange sort of strength which is founded on impotence. The people are only secure against the encroachments of power from their inability to resist it. This is like clapping a man into a dungeon to save him from the pursuit of his creditors. Mr. Malthus promotes the cause of rational freedom, as the husband secured the virtue of his wife in the sign of the Good Woman.
Mr. Malthus’s plan for the abolition of the poor laws is as follows:
‘I should propose a regulation to be made, declaring, that no child born from any marriage, taking place after the expiration of a year from the date of the law; and no illegitimate child born two years from the same date, should ever be entitled to parish assistance. And to give a more general knowledge of this law, and to enforce it more strongly on the minds of the lower classes of people, the clergyman of each parish should after the publication of banns, read a short address, stating the strong obligation on every man to support his own children; the impropriety, and even immorality, of marrying without a fair prospect of being able to do this; the evils which had resulted to the poor themselves, from the attempt which had been made to assist by public institutions in a duty which ought to be exclusively appropriated to parents; and the absolute necessity which had at length appeared, of abandoning all such institutions, on account of their producing effects totally opposite to those which were intended.
‘This would operate as a fair, distinct, and precise notice, which no man could well mistake; and without pressing hard on any particular individuals, would at once throw off the rising generation from that miserable and helpless dependence upon the government and the rich, the moral as well as physical consequences of which are almost incalculable.
‘After the public notice which I have proposed had been given, and the system of poor laws had ceased with regard to the rising generation, if any man chose to marry, without a prospect of being able to support a family, he should have the most perfect liberty so to do. Though to marry, in this case, is in my opinion clearly an immoral act, yet it is not one which society can justly take upon itself to prevent or punish; because the punishment provided for it by the laws of nature, falls directly, and most severely upon the individual who commits the act, and through him, only more remotely and feebly on the society. When nature will govern and punish for us, it is a very miserable ambition to wish to snatch the rod from her hands, and draw upon ourselves the odium of executioner. To the punishment therefore of nature he should be left, the punishment of severe want. He has erred in the face of a most clear and precise warning, and can have no just reason to complain of any person but himself, when he feels the consequences of his error. All parish assistance should be most rigidly denied him: and if the hand of private charity be stretched forth in his relief, the interests of humanity imperiously require that it should be administered verysparingly. He should be taught to know that the laws of nature, which are the laws of God, had doomed him and his family to starve for disobeying their repeated admonitions;’ [nay his family had no hand in disobeying these admonitions] ‘that he had no claim ofrighton society for the smallest portion of food, beyond that which his labour would fairly purchase; and that if he and his family were saved from suffering the extremities of hunger, he would owe it to the pity of some kind benefactor, to whom, therefore, he ought to be bound by the strongest ties of gratitude.
‘If this system were pursued, we need be under no apprehensions that the number of persons in extreme want would be beyond the power and the will of the benevolent to supply. The sphere for the exercise of private charity would, I am confident, be less than it is at present; and the only difficulty would be, to restrain the hand of benevolence from assisting those in distress in so indiscriminate a manner as to encourage indolence and want of foresight in others.’
I am not sorry that I am at length come to this passage. It will I hope decide the reader’s opinion of the benevolence, wisdom, piety, candour, and disinterested simplicity of Mr. Malthus’s mind. Any comments that I might make upon it to strengthen this impression must be faint and feeble. I give up the task of doing justice to the moral beauties that pervade every line of it, in despair. There are some instances of an heroical contempt for the narrow prejudices of the world, of a perfect refinement from the vulgar feelings of human nature, that must only suffer by a comparison with any thing else.
Mr. Malthus prefaces his plan by saying,
‘I have reflected much on the subject of the poor laws, and hope therefore that I shall be excused in venturing to suggest a mode of their gradual abolition, to which I confess that at present I can see no material objection. Of this indeed I feel nearly convinced, that should we ever become sufficiently sensible of the wide-spreading tyranny, dependence, indolence, and unhappiness, which they create, as seriously to make an effort to abolish them, we shall be compelled by a sense of justice to adopt the principle, if not the plan, which I shall mention. It seems impossible to get rid of so extensive a system of support, consistently with humanity, without applying ourselves directly to its vital principle, and endeavouring to counteract that deeply-seated cause, which occasions the rapid growth of all such establishments, and invariably renders them inadequate to their object. As a previous step even to any considerable alteration in the present system, which would contract, or stop the increase of the relief to be given, it appears to me that we are bound in justice and honour formally to disclaim therightof the poor to support.’
Now I shall not myself be so uncandid as not to confess, that I think the poor laws bad things; and that it would be well, if they could be got rid of, consistently with humanity and justice. This I do not think they could in the present state of things and other circumstances remaining as they are. The reason why I object to Mr. Malthus’s plan is that it does not go to the root of the evil, or attack it in its principle, but its effects. He confounds the cause with the effect. The wide spreading tyranny, dependence, indolence, and unhappiness of which Mr. Malthus is so sensible, are not occasioned by the increase of the poor-rates, but these are the natural consequence of that increasing tyranny, dependence, indolence, and unhappiness occasioned by other causes.
Mr. Malthus desires his readers to look at the enormous proportion in which the poor-rates have increased within the last ten years. But have they increased in any greater proportion than the other taxes, which rendered them necessary, and which I think were employed for much more mischievous purposes? I would ask, what have the poor got by their encroachments for the last ten years? Do they work less hard? Are they better fed? Do they marry oftener, and with better prospects? Are they grown pampered and insolent? Have they changed places with the rich? Have they been cunning enough, by means of the poor-laws, to draw off all their wealth and superfluities from the men of property? Have they got so much as a quarter of an hour’s leisure, a farthing candle, or a cheese-paring more than they had? Has not the price of provisions risen enormously? Has not the price of labour almost stood still? Have not the government and the rich had their way in every thing? Have they not gratified their ambition, their pride, their obstinacy, their ruinous extravagance? Have they not squandered the resources of the country as they pleased? Have they not heaped up wealth on themselves, and their dependents? Have they not multiplied sinecures, places, and pensions? Have they not doubled the salaries of those that existed before? Has there been any want of new creations of peers, who would thus be impelled to beget heirs to their titles and estates, and saddle the younger branches of their rising families, by means of their new influence, on the country at large? Has there been any want of contracts, of loans, of monopolies of corn, of good understanding between the rich and the powerful to assist one another, and to fleece the poor? Have the poor prospered? Have the rich declined? What then have they to complain of? What ground is there for the apprehension, that wealth is secretly changing hands, and that the whole property of the country will shortly be absorbed in the poor’s fund? Do not the poor create their own fund? Is notthe necessity for such a fund first occasioned by the unequal weight with which the rich press upon the poor, and has not the increase of that fund in the last ten years been occasioned by the additional exorbitant demands, which have been made upon the poor and industrious, which without some assistance from the public they could not possibly have answered? Whatever is the increase in the nominal amount of the poor’s fund, will not the rich always be able ultimately to throw the burthen of it on the poor themselves? But Mr. Malthus is a man of general principles. He cares little about these circumstantial details, and petty objections. He takes higher ground. He deduces all his conclusions, by an infallible logic, from the laws of God and nature. When our Essayist shall prove to me, that by these paper bullets of the brain, by his ratios of the increase of food and the increase of mankind, he has prevented one additional tax, or taken off one oppressive duty, that he has made a single rich man retrench one article at his table, that he has made him keep a dog or a horse the less, or part with a single vice, arguing from a mathematical admeasurement of the size of the earth, and the number of inhabitants it can contain, he shall have my perfect leave to disclaim the right of the poor to subsistence, and to tie them down by severe penalties to their good behaviour on the same profound principles. But why does Mr. Malthus practise his demonstrations on the poor only? Why are they to have a perfect system of rights and duties prescribed to them? I do not see why they alone should be put to live on thesemetaphysicalboard-wages, why they should be forced to submit to a course ofabstraction; or why it should be meat and drink to them, more than to others, to do the will of God. Mr. Malthus’s gospel is preached only to the poor!—Even if I approved of our author’s plan, I should object to the principle on which it is founded. The parson of the parish, when a poor man comes to be married—No, not so fast. The author does not say, whether the lecture he proposes is to be read to the poor only, or to all ranks of people. Would it not sound oddly, if when the squire, who is himself worth a hundred thousand pounds, is going to be married to the rector’s daughter, who is to have fifty, the curate should read them a formal lecture on their obligation to maintain their own children, and not turn them on the parish? Would it be necessary to go through the form of the address, when an amorous couple of eighty presented themselves at the altar? If the admonition were left to the parson’s own discretion, what affronts would he not subject himself to, from his neglect of old maids, and superannuated widows, and from his applying himself familiarly to the little shop-keeper, or thriving mechanic? Well then let us supposethat a very poor hard-working man comes to be married, and that the clergyman can take the liberty with him: he is to warn him first against fornication, and in the next place against matrimony. These are the two greatest sins which a poor man can commit, who can neither be supposed to keep his wife, nor his girl. Mr. Malthus, however, does not think them equal: for he objects strongly to a country fellow’s marrying a girl whom he has debauched, or, as the phrase is, making an honest woman of her, as aggravating the crime, because by this means the parish will probably have three or four children to maintain instead of one. However, as it seems rather too late to recommend fornication or any thing else to a man who is actually come to be married (he must be a strange sawney who could turn back at the church-door after bringing a pretty rosy girl to hear a lecture on the principle of population) it is most natural to suppose that he would marry the young woman in spite of this principle. Here then he errs in the face of a precise warning, and should be left to the punishment ofnature, the punishment of severe want. When he begins to feel the consequences of his error, all parish assistance is to be rigidly denied him, and the interests of humanity imperiously require that all other assistance should be withheld from him, or most sparingly administered. In the mean time to reconcile him to this treatment, and let him see that he has nobody to complain of but himself, the parson of the parish comes to him with the certificate of his marriage, and a copy of the warning he had given him at the time, by which he is taught to know that the laws of nature, which are the laws of God, had doomed him and his family to starve for disobeying their repeated admonitions; that he had no claim of right to the smallest portion of food beyond what his labour would actually purchase; and that he ought to kiss the feet and lick the dust off the shoes of him, who gave him a reprieve from the just sentence which the laws of God and nature had passed upon him. To make this clear to him, it would be necessary to put the Essay on Population into his hands, to instruct him in the nature of a geometrical and arithmetical series, in the necessary limits to population from the size of the earth, and here would come in Mr. Malthus’s plan of education for the poor, writing, arithmetic, the use of the globes, &c. for the purpose of proving to them the necessity of their being starved. It cannot be supposed that the poor man (what with his poverty and what with being priest-ridden) should be able to resist this body of evidence, he would open his eyes to his error, and ‘would submit to the sufferings that were absolutely irremediable with the fortitude of a man, and the resignation of a Christian.’ He and his family might then be sent round the parish in a starving condition, accompanied bythe constables andquondamoverseers of the poor, to see that no person, blind to ‘the interests of humanity,’ practised upon them the abominable deception of attempting to relieve their remediless sufferings, and by the parson of the parish to point out to the spectators the inevitable consequences of sinning against the laws of God and man. By celebrating a number of theseAuto da fesyearly in every parish, the greatest publicity would be given to the principle of population, ‘the strict line of duty would be pointed out to every man,’ enforced by the most powerful sanctions, justice and humanity would flourish, they would be understood to signify that the poor have no right to live by their labour, and that the feelings of compassion and benevolence are best shewn by denying them charity, the poor would no longer be dependent on the rich, the rich could no longer wish to reduce the poor into a more complete subjection to their will, all causes of contention, of jealousy, and of irritation would have ceased between them, the struggle would be over, each class would fulfil the task assigned by heaven, the rich would oppress the poor without remorse, the poor would submit to oppression with a pious gratitude and resignation, the greatest harmony would prevail between the government and the people, there would be no longer any seditions, tumults, complaints, petitions, partisans of liberty, or tools of power, no grumbling, no repining, no discontented men of talents proposing reforms, and frivolous remedies, but we should all have the same gaiety and lightness of heart, and the same happy spirit of resignation that a man feels when he is seized with the plague, who thinks no more of the physician, but knows that his disorder is without cure. The best laid schemes are subject, however, to unlucky reverses. Some such seem to lie in the way of that pleasing Euthanasia, and contented submission to the grinding law of necessity, projected by Mr. Malthus. We might never reach the philosophic temper of the inhabitants of modern Greece and Turkey in this respect. Many little things might happen to interrupt our progress, if we were put into ever so fair a train. For instance, the men might perhaps be talked over by the parson, and their understandings being convinced by the geometrical and arithmetical ratios, or at least so far puzzled, that they would have nothing to say for themselves, they might prepare to submit to their fate with a tolerable grace. But I am afraid that the women might prove refractory. They never will hearken to reason, and are much more governed by their feelings than by calculations. While the husband was instructing his wife in the principles of population, she might probably answer that she did not see why her children should starve when the squire’s lady, or the parson’s lady kept half a dozen lap-dogs, and that it was but theother day that being at the hall, or the parsonage house, she heard Miss declare that not one of the brood that were just littered should be drowned—It wasso inhumanto kill the poor little things—Surely the children of the poor are as good as puppy-dogs! Was it not a week ago that the rector had a new pack of terriers sent down, and did I not hear the squire swear a tremendous oath, that he would have Mr. Such-a-one’s fine hunter, if it cost him a hundred guineas? Half that sum would save us from ruin.—After this curtain-lecture, I conceive that the husband might begin to doubt the force of the demonstrations he had read and heard, and the next time his clerical monitor came, might pluck up courage to question the matter with him; and as we of the male sex, though dull of apprehension, are not slow at taking a hint, and can draw tough inferences from it, it is not impossible but the parson might begravelled. In consequence of these accidents happening more than once, it would be buzzed about that the laws of God and nature, on which so many families had been doomed to starve, were not so clear as had been pretended. This would soon get wind among the mob: and at the next grand procession of the Penitents of famine, headed by Mr. Malthus in person, some discontented man of talents, who could not bear the distresses ofotherswith the fortitude of a man and the resignation of a Christian, might undertake to question Mr. Malthus, whether the laws of nature or of God, to which he had piously sacrificed so many victims, signified any thing more than the limited extent of the earth, and the natural impossibility of providing for more than a limited number of human beings; and whether those laws could be justly put in force, to the very letter, while the actual produce of the earth, by being better husbanded, or more equally distributed, or given to men and not to beasts, might maintain in comfort double the number that actually existed, and who, not daring to demand afairproportion of the produce of their labour, humbly crave charity, and are refused out of regard to the interests of justice and humanity. Our philosopher, at this critical juncture not being able to bring into the compass of a few words all the history, metaphysics, morality and divinity, or all the intricacies, subtleties, and callous equivocations contained in his quarto volume, might hesitate and be confounded—his own feelings and prejudices might add to his perplexity—his interrogator might persist in his question—the mob might become impatient for an answer, and not finding one to their minds, might proceed to extremities. Our unfortunate Essayist (who by that time would have become a bishop) might be ordered to the lamp-post, and his book committed to the flames.—I tremble to think of what would follow:—the poor laws would be again renewed, and the poorno longer doomed to starve by the laws of God and nature! Some such, I apprehend, might be the consequence of attempting to enforce the abolition of the poor-laws, the extinction of private charity, and of instructing the poor in their metaphysical rights. In a few years time it is probable, however, that no such consequences would follow. In that time, if Mr. Malthus’s systematic ardour will let him wait so long, they may be gradually crushed low enough in the scale of existence to be ripe for the ironical benefits, and sarcastic instruction prepared for them. Mr. Malthus says,
‘The scanty relief granted to persons in distress, the capricious and insulting manner in which it is sometimes distributed by the overseers, and the natural and becoming pride not yet quite extinct among the peasantry of England, have deterred the more thinking and virtuous part of them, from venturing on marriage, without some better prospect of maintaining their families, than mere parish assistance. The desire of bettering our condition and the fear of making it worse, like thevis medicatrix naturæin physics, is thevis medicatrix reipublicæin politics, and is continually counteracting the disorders arising from narrow human institutions. In spite of the prejudices in favour of population, and the direct encouragements to marriage from the poor laws, it operates as a preventive check to increase; and happy for this country is it that it does so.’
If then this natural repugnance in the poor to subject themselves to the necessity of parish relief has ceased to operate, must it not be owing to extreme distress, or to the degradation of character, consequent upon it? How does Mr. Malthus propose to remedy this? By subjecting them to severe distress, andteaching them patience under their sufferings. But the rational desire of bettering our condition and the fear of making it worse is not increased by its being made worse. The standard of our notions of decency and comfort is not raised by a familiarity with unmitigated wretchedness, nor is the love of independence heightened by insults, and contempt, and by a formal mockery of the principles of justice and humanity. On the previous habits and character of the people, it is, however, that the degree of misery incurred always depends, as far as relates to themselves. The consequence of an effectual abolition of the poor laws would be all the immediate misery that would be produced, aggravated by the additional depression, and proneness to misery in the lower classes, and a beautiful putrefaction of all the common feelings of human nature in the higher ones. Finally, I agree with Mr. Malthus, that, ‘if, as in Ireland and in Spain, and many of the southern countries, the people be in so degraded a state, as to propagate their species like brutes, it matters little, whether they have poor laws or not. Misery in all itsvarious forms must be the predominant check to their increase: and with, or without poor laws, no stretch of human ingenuity and exertion could rescue the people from the most extreme poverty and wretchedness.’
As to the metaphysical subtleties, by which Mr. Malthus endeavours to prove that we ought systematically to visit the sins of the father on the children, and keep up the stock of vice and misery in the family (from which it would follow, that the children of thieves and robbers ought either to be hanged outright, or at least brought up in such a manner as to ensure their following the fate of their parents) I feel and know my own superiority on that ground so well, that it would be ungenerous to push it farther. Mr. Malthus has a curious chapter on old maids. He might have written one on suicides, and another on prostitutes. As far as the question of population is concerned, they are certainly of more service to the community, because they tempt others to follow their example, whereas an old maid is a beacon to frighten others into matrimony. But this, says our author, is owing to unjust prejudice. I shall give the reader some of his arguments, as otherwise he might not guess at them.
‘It is not enough to abolish all the positive institutions which encourage population; but we must endeavour, at the same time, to correct the prevailing opinions, which have the same, or perhaps even a more powerful, effect. The matron who has reared a family of ten or twelve children, and whose sons, perhaps, may be fighting the battles of their country, is apt to think that society owes her much; and this imaginary debt, society is, in general, fully inclined to acknowledge. But if the subject be fairly considered, and the respected matron weighed in the scales of justice against the neglected old maid, it is possible that the matron might kick the beam. She will appear rather in the character of a monopolist, than of a great benefactor to the state. If she had not married and had so many children, other members of the society might have enjoyed this satisfaction; and there is no particular reason for supposing that her sons would fight better for their country than the sons of other women. She has therefore rather subtracted from, than added to, the happiness of the other part of society. The old maid, on the contrary, has exalted others by depressing herself. Her self-denial has made room for another marriage, without any additional distress; and she has not, like the generality of men, in avoiding one error, fallen into its opposite. She has really and truly contributed more to the happiness of the rest of the society arising from the pleasures of marriage, than if she had entered into this union herself, and had besides portioned twenty maidens with a hundred pounds each; whose particularhappiness would have been balanced, either by an increase in the general difficulties of rearing children and getting employment, or by the necessity of celibacy in twenty other maidens somewhere else. Like the truly benevolent man in an irremediable scarcity, she has diminished her own consumption, instead of raising up a few particular people, by pressing down the rest. On a fair comparison, therefore, she seems to have a better founded claim to the gratitude of society than the matron. Whether we could always completely sympathize with the motives of her conduct, has not much to do with the question. The particular motive which influenced the matron to marry, was certainly not the good of her country. To refuse a proper tribute of respect to the old maid, because she was not directly influenced in her conduct by the desire of conferring on society a certain benefit, which, though it must undoubtedly exist, must necessarily be so diffused as to be invisible to her, is in the highest degree impolitic and unjust. It is expecting a strain of virtue beyond humanity. If we never reward any persons with our approbation, but those who are exclusively influenced by motives of general benevolence, this powerful encouragement to do good actions will not be very often called into exercise.’
Mr. Malthus would make an excellent superior of a convent of nuns of the Order of Population.—The better to remove what he considers as an unjust stigma on old maids; he has endeavoured to set one on married women. He would persuade every one to look upon his mother as a person of bad character. He would pass an act of bastardy on every mother’s son of us; and prove that we come into the world without a proper license (from him) merely to gratify the coarse, selfish, immoral propensities of our parents. Till however he can do away the filial relation, or the respect attached to it, or so contrive it that all men should be ‘born of a virgin’ contrary to all our experience, it will I believe be impossible to get rid of the unjust prejudice against old maids, or to place them on a level with married women. Mr. Malthus has gone the wrong way to ingratiate himself with the mothers of families: but he has not taken his measures ill. He knows that the partiality and favours of such persons are generally confined to run in their own low, narrow, domestic channels. But this is not the case with those reverend persons, to whom he pays his court. He knows that their bounty is not confined by any such selfish limits, it flows liberally to all, and they have the best chance of sharing in it, who endeavour to indemnify them for their personal sacrifices, or the ridicule of the world by a succession of little agreeable attentions, or by offering theoretical incense to their virtue and merit.
‘It is perfectly absurd as well as unjust, that a giddy girl of sixteen should, because she is married be considered by the forms of society as the protector of women of thirty, should come first into the room, should be assigned the highest place at table, and be the prominent figure to whom the attentions of the company are more particularly addressed.’—Not more absurd than that a child or an ideot should be a king, or that a grave man of fifty should call a young coxcomb, My lord. Our sophist would overturn all the established order of society with his out-of-the-way principles.—Mr. Malthus has huddled into the same chapter his attack on the monopoly made by the married women of the men, and his defence of the monopoly of corn by farmers and others. It is the last passage I shall quote, though there are many others worthy of rebuke.
‘In some conversations with labouring men during the late scarcities, I confess that I was to the last degree disheartened, at observing their inveterate prejudices on the subject of grain: and I felt very strongly the almost absolute incompatibility of a government really free, with such a degree of ignorance. The delusions are of such a nature, that, if acted upon, they must, at all events, be repressed by force: and it is extremely difficult to give such a power to the government as will be sufficient at all times for this purpose, without the risk of its being employed improperly, and endangering the liberty of the subject. And this reflection cannot but be disheartening to every friend to freedom.
‘It is of the very utmost importance, that the gentlemen of the country, and particularly the clergy, should not, from ignorance, aggravate the evils of scarcity every time that it unfortunately occurs. During the late dearths, half of the gentlemen and clergymen in the kingdom richly deserved to have been prosecuted for sedition. After inflaming the minds of the common people against the farmers and corn-dealers, by the manner in which they talked of them, or preached about them, it was but a feeble antidote to the poison which they had infused, coldly to observe, that however the poor might be oppressed or cheated, it was their duty to keep the peace. It was little better than Antony’s repeated declaration, that the conspirators were all honourable men; which did not save either their houses or their persons from the attacks of the mob. Political economy is perhaps the only science of which it might be said, that the ignorance of it is not merely a deprivation of good, but produces great positive evil.’
I shall accompany this passage with an extract from the Author’s first edition and leave it to the reader to apply the hint of Antony’s speech to whom he thinks fit.
‘It very rarely happens that the nominal price of labour universally falls; but we well know that it frequently remains the same, while the nominal price of provisions has been gradually increasing. This is, in effect, a real fall in the price of labour; and during this period, the condition of the lower orders of the community must gradually grow worse and worse. But the farmers and the capitalists are growing rich from the real cheapness of labour. Their increased capitals enable them to employ a greater number of men. Work therefore may be plentiful; and the price of labour would consequently rise. But the want of freedom in the market of labour, which occurs more or less in all communities, either from parish laws, or the more general cause of the facility of combination among the rich, and its difficulty among the poor, operates to prevent the price of labour from rising at the natural period, and keeps it down some time longer; perhaps, till a year of scarcity, when the clamour is too loud, and the necessity too apparent to be resisted.
‘The true cause of the advance in the price of labour is thus concealed; and the rich affect to grant it as an act of compassion and favour to the poor, in consideration of a year of scarcity; and when plenty returns, indulge themselves in the most unreasonable of all complaints, that the price does not again fall; when a little reflection would shew them, that it must have risen long before, but from an unjust conspiracy of their own.’