Chap. XIV Of the Abuse of Agriculture and Population

I have taken above of two performances, wherein the authors with equal ability, have treated of the numbers of manors, with notice a subject which has a very close connection with political oeconomy.

Although (as I have said) I do not pretend to decide between them as to the point in dispute, I find that in this chapter I shall be naturally led into a chain of reasoning very unfavourable to that of Mr Wallace, which is a thing I should have dispensed with, did not the merit of his performance in the eyes of the learned world appear sufficient to draw my attention.

Agriculture is, without all doubt, the foundation of multiplication, which must ever be in proportion to it; that is, to the earth's productions, as has been said. But it does not follow, that in proportion to multiplication those produced must of course become useful to one another, and useful to the society in general. Now I consider multiplication as no otherwise useful to a state, than so far as the additional number becomes so to those who are already existing, whom I consider as the body-politic of the society. When it therefore happens, that an additional number produced do no more than feed themselves, then I perceive no advantage gained to the society by their production. If, without rendering any equivalent service, they are fed by others, there is a loss.

Agriculture may be said to be carried to its utmost extent, when the earth is so laboured as to produce the greatest quantity of fruits possible for the use of man; and in judging of the improvement of two spots of ground of the same extent, that may be said to be most improved which produces the greatest quantity of food: but as to population, the question does not stop here; for let the quantity be equal on both, yet if the inhabitants of the one be more frugal livers than those of the other, this circumstance alone will make an inequality. If agriculture therefore be considered with respect to population only, we must consider that country as the best peopled, where productions are the most abundant, and where the inhabitants are the most sober. Thus much with regard to the extent of agriculture and population: we come now to consider the inconveniences which may result to a society from an over-stretch, or from what I call an abuse of either the one or the other.

I call every thing an abuse in society which implies a contradiction to the spirit of it, or which draws along with it an inconvenience to certain classes, which is not compensated by the general welfare.

The political oeconomy of government is brought to perfection, when every class in general, and every individual in particular, is made to be aiding and assisting to the community, in proportion to the assistance he receives from it. This conveys my idea of a free and perfect society, which is, a general tacit contract, from which reciprocal and proportional services result universally between all those who compose it.

Whenever therefore any one is found, upon whom nobody depends, and who depends upon every one, as is the case with him who is willing to work for his bread, but who can find no employment, there is a breach of the contract, and an abuse. For the same reason, if we can suppose any person entirely taken up in feeding himself, depending upon no one, and having nobody depending on him, we lose the idea of society, because there are no reciprocal obligations between such a person and the other members of the society.

Those who are for employing the whole of a people in agriculture may answer, that all their time cannot be employed in this occupation, and that in the intervals they may apply themselves to supply reciprocal wants.

I very readily agree, that any person, who would calculate his labour in agriculture, purely for his own subsistence, would find abundance of idle hours. But the question is, whether in good oeconomy such a person would not be better employed in providing nourishment for others, than in prodding for any other want. When he provides food, he surely provides for a want; and experience shews, that it is better for a man to apply close to one trade, than to turn himself to several.

Hence I conclude, that the best way of binding a free society together is by multiplying reciprocal obligations, and creating a general dependence between all its members. This cannot be better effected, than by appropriating a certain number of inhabitants, for the production of the quantity of food required for all, and by distributing the remainder into proper classes for supplying every other want. I say farther, that this distribution is not only the most rational, but that mankind fall naturally into it; and misery attends and has ever attended those who have been found without a particular employment.

It must not be concluded from this reasoning that abuse is always implied when we find any of the classes of the free hands of a state casually employed in agriculture.

There is such a variety of circumstances in every country, that without a peculiar talent of laying principles together, so as to answer every combination, the most perfect theory which can be proposed must appear defective.

In countries ill-improved, where industry begins only to take root, we are not to conclude, that good policy requires a sudden and immediate separation between the dwellings of the husbandmen and free hands. Sudden revolutions are constantly hurtful, and a good statesman ought to lay down his plan for arriving at perfection by gradual steps.

If he find, as is the case of rude and uncivilized societies, that many are occupied, partly, in providing subsistence for their own family, partly, in other useful pursuits, he may by degrees attach as many as he can to agriculture alone. The most wealthy are the most proper to carry this branch to any degree of perfection. The landed men ought to be encouraged by every means to apply to the study of farming. This employment has been considered as honourable in all ages of the world, and very well suits the rank, the interest, and the amusement of gentlemen.

The next step is to introduce manufactures into the country, and to provide a ready market abroad for every superfluous part of them. The allurement of gain will soon engage every one to pursue that branch of industry which succeeds best in his hands. By these means many will follow manufactures and abandon agriculture; others will prosecute their manufactures in the country, and avail themselves, at the same time, of small portions of land, proper for gardens, grass for cows, and even for producing certain kinds of fruit necessary for their own maintenance.

This I do not consider as a species of farming. It is more properly, in a political light, a sort of village-life; the village here appears dispersed only over a large extent; and I call it a village-life, because here the occupation of the inhabitants is principally directed towards the prosecution of their trades: agriculture is but a subaltern consideration, and will be carried on so far only, as it occasions no great avocation from the main object. It will however, have the effect to parcel out a small part of the lands into small possessions: a system admirably calculated for the improvement of a barren soil, and advantageous to industry is not thereby checked. This is population, when the spirit of not the case when the possessors of small lots apply totally to agriculture, and content themselves with a bare subsistence from it, without industry, or forming any plan which prosecuting any other branch of may enable themselves or their children to emerge from so circumscribed a sphere of life: from this alone proceeds, in most countries, the inconvenience of a minute subdivision of land-property.

We shall presently see, by various examples, the truth of this proposition; and, from what observations I have been able to make, it appears, that a great inconvenience flows from it; the property of the lands, and not the bare possession of them, is vested in the lower classes. While they remain as tenants only, the interest of the proprietor, on one hand, will lead him to incorporate these small possessions into larger farms, the moment the possessors are no longer able to pay a rent above the value of the grounds when let in farms; and the interest of these tenants, on the other hand, will frequently lead them to abandon such small possessions, when the prosecution of their trades, which ought to be their principal occupation, demands a change of habitation. Thus the interest of agriculture will go hand in hand with that of industry, and classes will separate their habitations according as their respective interests require.

It is certainly the interest of every landlord whose lands are ill improved, to multiply the habitations on them; provided the possessors can be made to live by some other branch of industry than bare agriculture: and in many cases, it may be his advantage to incorporate such small possessions into farms, as soon as they have been sufficiently improved by the possessors; whose habitations may then be removed to other barren lands. By following this plan he will improve his estate; he will multiply the useful inhabitants; and he will, at the same time, share the profits of their industry beyond the value which any farmer can pay for the lands which he gives them to possess.

By these means has the woollen manufacture in England, and the linen in Ireland and Scotland been greatly augmented. But as the improvement of land goes on, this oeconomy will decline: towns will swell in consequence of the principles we are now going to deduce; the lands will become more thinly inhabited; and farms will by degrees grow more extensive. I appeal to experience for the justness of this observation.

Hence it plainly appears, that, in every light this matter can be represented, we still find it impossible usefully to employ in agriculture above a certain part of a people. The next question is, how to determine the just proportion. For this purpose we must have recourse to facts, not to theory. We have, in a former chapter, examined the state of this question with regard to one country. I shall here only add, that, in proportion to the culture of the soil, and to the number of crops it is made to produce, a greater or less number will be required; and in proportion to the surplus of food above what is necessary to maintain the labourers, will a number of free hands be provided for. If therefore a species of agriculture can be found established, which produces little or no surplus, there little or no industry can be exercised; few wants can be supplied: this will produce a wonderful simplicity of manners, will ruin the system of modern policy, and produce what I must call an abuse. Let me look for some examples of this, in order to set the question in a clearer light.

In the wine-provinces of France, we find the lands which lie round the villages divided into very small lots, and there cultivation is carried to a very extraordinary height. These lands belong, in property, (not by lease,) to the peasants who cultivate the vines. No frugality can be greater than in the consumption of this produce, and the smallest weed which comes up among the grain, is turned to account, for the food of animals. The produce of such lands, I may say, is entirely consumed by the proprietor and his family, who are all employed in the cultivation, and there is no superfluous quantity here produced for the maintenance of others. Does not this resemble the distribution of lands made by the Romans in favour of 5000 Sabine families, where each received two plethra of ground. (See Numbers of Mankind, p. 117) Now let me examine the political state of agriculture, and of other labour performed by my French vine-dresser.

By the supposition we imply, that the bit of land is sufficient for maintaining the man and his family, and nothing more; he has no grain to sell, no food can by him be supplied to any other person whatever; but the state of other lands capable of yielding a surplus, such as the vineyard, produces a demand for his labour. This labour, considered with respect to the vine-dresser, is a fund for providing all his wants in manufactures, salt, &c. and what is over must be considered as his profits, out of which he pays the royal impositions. The same labour, considered with regard to the proprietor of the vineyard, enters into that necessary deduction out of the fruits, which, when deducted, leaves the remainder, which we call surplus, or what answers to the land-rent. This belongs to the proprietor, and becomes a fund for supplying all his wants.

Here we have an idea of society. The vine-dresser depends upon the proprietor for the price of his labour, the proprietor upon the vinedresser for his surplus. But did we suppose all the kingdom parcelled out, and laboured, as the spot which lies round the village, what would become of the vine-dresser with regard to all his other wants; there would be no vines to dress, no surplus nourishment any where to be found, consequently no employment, not even life, for those who had no land. From this example we discover the difference between agriculture exercised as a trade and as a direct means of subsisting: a distinction to be attended to, as it will very frequently occur in the prosecution of our subject. We have the two species in the vine-dresser: he labours the vineyard as a trade, and his spot of ground for subsistence. We may farther conclude, that, as to the last part, he is useful to himself only; but, as to the first, he is useful to the society, and becomes a member of it: consequently, were it not for his trade, the state would lose nothing, though the vine-dresser and his land were both swallowed up by an earthquake. The food and the consumers would both disappear together, without the least political harm to any body: consequently, such a species of agriculture is no benefit to a state; and consequently, neither is that species of multiplication, implied by such a distribution of property, any benefit. Thus an over-extension of agriculture and subdivision of lands become an abuse, and so, consequently, does an over-multiplication of farmers.

Here I am obliged to conclude, that those passages of Roman authors which mention the frugality of that people, and the small extent of their possessions, cannot be rightly understood, without the knowledge of many circumstances relative to the manners of those times. For if you understand such a distribution of lands to have extended over all the Roman territory, the number of the citizens would have far exceeded what they appear to have been by the Census, and even surpass all belief. But farther, I may be allowed to ask, whether or no it be supposed that these frugal Romans laboured this small portion of lands with their own hands and consumed the produce of it? If I am answered in the affirmative (which is necessary to prove the advantages of agriculture's being exercised by all the classes of a people), then I ask, from whence were the inhabitants of Rome, and other cities, subsisted? who fed the armies when in the field? If these were fed by foreign grain imported or plundered from their neighbours, where was the advantage of this sub-division of lands, and of this extensive agriculture, which could not feed the inhabitants of the state? If it be said, that notwithstanding this frugal distribution of property among the citizens, there were still found surplus enough to supply both Rome and the armies, will it not then follow, that there was no necessity for employing all the people in agriculture, since the labour of a part might have sufficed?

That number of husbandmen, therefore, is the best, which can provide food for all the state; and that number of inhabitants is the best, which is compatible with the full employment of every one of them.

Idle mouths are useful to themselves only, not to the state; consequently, are not an object of the care of the state, any farther than to provide employment for them; and their welfare (while they remain useless to others) is, in a free country, purely a matter of private concern. Let me take another example for the farther illustration of this matter.

Those who travel into the southern provinces of Spain, find large tracts of land quite uncultivated, producing only a scanty pasture for herds of the lesser cattle. Here and there are found interspersed some spots of watered lands, which, from the profusion of every gift which nature can bestow, strike a northern traveller with an idea of paradise. In such places villages are found, and numbers of inhabitants. It must be allowed that industry and labour do not here go forward as in other countries; but to supply this want charity steps in. Charity in Spain (in proportion to its extent) is as powerful a principle towards multiplication as industry and labour. Whatever gives food gives numbers: but charity cannot extend beyond superfluity, and this must ever be in proportion to industry. These watered lands are well laboured and improved. The value of them, in one sense, is in proportion to their fertility, and the surplus of the labourers should naturally be given for an equivalent in money or work: But this equivalent cannot be found; because the poor of the village have neither the one or the other to give; and the charitable farmer considers it to be his duty, to bestow on them gratis whatever he can spare. If the Spaniards therefore were not the most charitable people upon earth, it is very plain that the labouring of those watered spots would diminish until it came upon a level with the demand of such people of the village only, as could purchase the farmer's surplus. But here it is otherwise; labour goes on mechanically; the farmer never complains of the burden of giving, charity; and the poor live in ease in proportion to plenty of the year.

Here then is a third principle of multiplication. The first is slavery, or a violent method of making mankind labour; the second is industry, which is a rational excitement to it; the third is charity, which resembles the manna in the desert, the gift of God upon a very extraordinary occasion, and when nothing else could have preserved the lives of his people. Whether, in all cases, this principle of christianity advances the prosperity of a modern society (when complied with from obedience to precept, without consulting reason as to the circumstances of times and situations), is a question which lies out of my road to examine. The action, considered in the intention of the agent, must in every case appear highly beautiful; and we plainly see how far it contributes to multiplication, though we do not so plainly perceive how such a kind of multiplication can be advantageous to society.

Now if we examine the state of agriculture in this Spanish village, considered as one large family, we find, upon the whole, no more surplus of fruits than upon the French vine-dresser's portion of land; consequently, if all Spain was laboured and inhabited like this village and its small garden, as it is called, it would be the most populous country in the world, the most simple in the manner of living; but it never could communicate the idea of a vigorous or a flourishing state. It is the employment alone of the inhabitants which can impress this character.

Now in this last example, what a number of free hands do we find! Are not all the poor of this class? Would it not be better if all these by their labour could purchase their subsistence, than be obliged to receive it in the precarious manner they do? Can one suppose all these people industrious, without implying what I call superfluity of labour? and does not superfluity of labour imply luxury, according to my definition of it? Where would be the harm if the Spanish farmer, who gives a third of his crop in charity, should in return receive some changes of raiment, some convenient furniture for his house, some embellishment to his habitation: these things would cost him nothing; he would receive them in exchange for what he now gives from a principle of charity, and those who have a precarious, would have a certain livelihood. Let us travel a little farther in search of the abuse of population.

In Germany, we find many small towns, formed into corporations, which enjoy certain privileges. The freedom of such towns is not easily purchased; and one, upon considering outward circumstances, must be not a little surprized to hear of the sums refused, when offered, to obtain it. Round these towns there is a small territory divided into very small portions, and not able to maintain the inhabitants: these lands therefore are infinitely over-stocked with husbandmen; for every proprietor, less or more, concerns himself with the cultivation. Here, one who should aspire to extend his possession, would, according to the sentiment of Manius Curius Dentatus, certainly be considered as a dangerous citizen, and a hurtful member of the society. These lots are divided among the children of the proprietors, who are free of the town, by which means they are constantly splitting by multiplication, and consolidating by death, and by marriage: these nearly balance one another, and property remains divided as before. A stranger is at a loss to find out the reason, why the liberty of so poor a little town should be so valuable. Here it is; first there are certain advantages enjoyed in common, such as the privilege of pasture on the town-lands, and others of a like nature; but I find that the charges which the burgesses are obliged to pay, may more than compensate them. The principal reason appears to be, that no one who has not the liberty of a town, can settle in a way of industry so as to marry and have a family: because without this, his labour can be directed towards furnishing the wants of peasants only, who live in villages; these are few, and little ingenuity is required for it. In towns there is found a greater diversity of wants, and the people there have found out mechanically, that if strangers were allowed to step in and supply them, their own children would starve; therefore the heads of the corporation, who have an interest to keep up the price of work, have also an interest to hold the liberty of their town at a high value. This appears to me a pretty just representation of the present state of some towns I have seen, relative to the present object of inquiry.

But as industry becomes extended, and trade and manufactures are established, this political oeconomy must disappear.

Such a change, however, will not probably happen without the interposition of the sovereign, and a new plan of administration; what else can give a turn to this spirit of idleness, or rather, as I may call it, of this trifling industry? Agriculture never can be a proper occupation for those who live in towns: this therefore is an abuse of it, or rather indeed an abuse of employment.

Ease and plenty never can enter a little town, but by the means of wealth; wealth never can come in but by the produce of labour going out; and when people labour purely for their own subsistence, they make the little money only they have to circulate, but can acquire nothing new and those who with difficulty can maintain themselves, never can hope to increase their numbers.

If in spite of the little industry set on foot in such towns, the generative faculty shall work its effect and increase numbers, this will make the poor parents still divide, and misery will ensue; this may excite compassion, and this again will open the chests of those who have a charitable disposition: hospitals are founded for the relief of the poor, they are quickly filled, and as many necessitous remain as ever. The reason is plain; the hospital applies a palliative for the abuse, but offers no cure. A tree is no sooner discharged of its branches than it pushes new ones. It has been said, that numbers are in proportion to food; consequently, poor are in proportion to charity. Let the King give his revenue in charity, he will soon find poor enough to consume it. Let a rich man spend 100,000 l. a year upon a table, he will find guests (the best in the kingdom) for every cover. These things, in my way of considering them, are all analogous, and flow from the same principle. And the misery found in these little German towns, is another modification of the abuse of population. These examples shew the inconveniences and abuses which result from a misapplication of agriculture, which produces a population more burthensome than beneficial to a modern state.

If the simplicity of the ancients be worthy of imitation, or if it appear preferable to the present system, which it is not my business to decide, then either slavery must be introduced to make those subsist who do not labour, or they must be fed upon charity. Labour and industry can never, I think, be recommended on one hand, and the effects of them proscribed on the other. If a great body of warlike men (as was the case in Sparta) be considered as essential to the well-being of the state; if all trade and all superfluity be forbid amongst them, and no employment but military exercises allowed; if all these warriors be fed at public tables, must you not either have a set of Helotes to plow the ground for them, or a parcel of charitable Spanish farmers to feed them gratis.

Thus much I have thought might be of use to say to illustrate the principles I have laid down. I find it very unfavourable to the reasoning which runs through the whole of the performance which I mentioned above, and which I have had in my eye. A more particular examination of it might be useful, and even amusing; but it would engage me in too long a disquisition for the nature of this work. I cannot however help, in this place, adding one observation more, in consequence of our principles, which seems contrary to the strain of our ingenious author's reasoning. I say seems, because all difference almost of opinion upon such subjects proceeds from the defect of language in clearly transmitting our ideas, when complex or abstract.

The effect of diseases which sweep off numbers of people does not essentially diminish population, except when they come suddenly or irregularly, any more than it would necessarily dispeople the world if all mankind were to be swept off the stage at the age of forty-six years. I apprehend that in man, as in every other animal, the generative faculty is more than able to repair all losses occasioned by regular diseases; and I have shewn, I think, more than once, that multiplication never can stop but for want of food. As long then as the labour of man can continue annually to produce the same quantity of food as at present, and that motives are found to make him labour, the same numbers may be fed, and the generative faculty, which from one pair has produced so many millions, would certainly do more than keep up the stock, although no person were to pass the age above mentioned. Here is the proof; were the life of man confined to forty-six years, the state of mortality would be increased in the proportion which those who die above forty-six bear to those who die under this age. This proportion is, I believe, as 1 to 10; consequently, mortality would increase 1/10, consequently, numbers would be kept up by 1/10 upon births; and surely the generative faculty of man far exceeds this proportion, when the other requisites for propagation, to wit, food, &c. are to be found, as by the supposition.