they retain a claim upon our gratitude and our confidence, yet undischarged titles which have not as yet been for feited, and which we hope, are in no serious danger of being so. In the session which approaches, we trust, we shall see them act once more with the union and the vigour to which, in former times, they owed all their successes. Relying with sober confidence on the yet unshaken strength of their adherents, let them remember, nevertheless, that nothing tends more to alienate respect, than the disappoint ment of expectation; and that the same services to which they now owe our attachment, have furnished us with a standard, by which to measure their merits or their deficiencies here after.

The dangers to which their power may be exposed, must all arise out of themselves; they can have no reason to transfer the blame, should any reverses come, from their own body to that of their opponents. It is true, that both in and out of Parliament, their characters and services, are attack ed by a set of stubborn hard-headed rhetoricians, whom defeat and detection have in vain striven to render less offensively arrogant than before. It is true, that whatever the pertinacity of unblushing self-complacent dullness can do, has been, and will be, done against them. In this, as in all other things, let them remember their master, and destroy the edge of reproach, by taking from it, as they may easily do, even the pretence of justice. The cool and veteran champions that are arrayed against them, are not indeed likely to relax their hostility; their wrath has been too well nursed by disappointment; no art can eradicate those longa injuria which have struck so deep a root into the lacerated soil of their self-love. But obstinate though they be in their enmity, and loudly as their trumpets may proclaim their strength, it may be doubted whether their array is even now so formidable as they would have us to believe. Are they more united in purpose and design-or can more firmness and unity be expected from the Grenvillites and the Foxites now than in 1806-when, each party standing cramped and committed by their own pledged opinions, they fairly neutralized each others energies like so many chemical liquids-or, rather,

like a man whose two legs should differ as to how they should move-they stood stock still? When the opposition writers talk so vauntingly about the genius and wisdom that are arranged upon their side-when they still continue to echo in our ears their old jubilate of "all the talents"—it is fair that we should expect from them something more than mere assertion. They have told us, that the leaders of their party have a right to the passive obedience of their followers ;-who are the heroes whom these pious worshippers would now invest with this right divine? Is Tierney one of them?

the hack of every administration→→→ he who left the Whigs to join Addington-he who gave rise to Mr Windham's notable simile of Punch and his Purchasers-he who would have joined the present administration, had they been pleased to think him worth the having. It is rumoured, that this great genius has been chosen for their head-if it be so, they have, no doubt, acted on the principle of placing a weathercock on the summit of their temple.-Or, does the rising star of Brougham aspire so high?-the "great statesman," whose super-eminent genius is so eternally and so effectually lauded by his friends, or, for aught we know, by himself, in the Edinburgh Review. The claims which these men possess upon the confidence of England, however splendid may be their talents, however honest their intentions, are not surely such as to awaken much apprehension in the breasts of their adversaries. The high terms in which their organs begin to speak of what is due to the official character of party leaders, may induce us to suspect, that they themselves are sensible how little is likely to be given to the personal character of these whom they have elected to that lofty station. -I repeat, that the Ministers have little to fear from their enemies; and I may add, that, if they do but exert themselves, there is nothing which they may not count upon from their friends.

[We are far from wishing it to be understood that the tenour of the above letter is wholly consistent with our views. We have inserted it, because we wish our pages to be and because it is the production of one open to free discussion on every subject; whose opinions, whatever they may be, are entitled to be listened to with respect.Editor.]

REFLECTIONS ON THE THEORY OF

POPULATION.

THE facts and reasonings on which the theory of population, as illustrated by Malthus, is founded, admit of very brief explanation. The increase of the human species is necessarily limited by that of the means of subsistence. Any increase which exceeds this limit must be productive of poverty, vice, disease, and death. We are taught by experience, that the productive powers of the earth acknowledge at least a practical limitation: that if the utmost point of its possible fertility cannot be speculatively assigned, we are authorised to say that the practical increase will fall within certain limits easily assignable; and that, looking to the same experience, which is the only safe guide in questions of this kind, we cannot fail to perceive, that the constant energy of the principle of population far surpasses the limits of agricultural improvement; and that the necessary and unalterable relations are sustained in practice, either by moral restraint alone, which anticipates and prevents the horrors arising out of any great inequality, or by that sweeping and resistless misery by which nature is avenged for every flagrant contempt of her immutable ordinations.

To prove that his theory is not the gratuitous produce of a gloomy imagination, Mr Malthus refers to the incontestible fact, that the population of British America doubled itself, under many and formidable inconveniences, in the space of twenty-five years and justly assuming that this is the narrowest limit which can be assigned to the undisturbed energy of this productive power, he asks, in which of the civilized countries of Europe the most vigorous efforts of industry and of science could, within the same short period, double_ the actual produce of agriculture? Even if this could be done once, could it be repeated? Could the same series be continued for centuries to come, even if every inch of European territory were improved to the fertility of the most cultivated garden? Every man of sense will at once answer in the negative. The result is, that the principle of population, not at any future and distant period, but in our ●wn days, as well as in ages that are VOL. IV.

past, has been restrained in its natural tendency to transcend the limits of subsistence, by some rigorous and efficient check,-by some moral impediment, which has prevented the existence of a surplus population, doomed to misery and destruction,-or by some fearful visitation, which, when the inexorable laws of the physical world have once been transgressed, has swept the helpless sufferers from the face of that earth which ever groans with the vice and misery of its inhabitants.

Such is a very general outline of the theory of population,-a theory not founded on any remote or uncertain facts, or on a series of hypothetical statements, but established out of the materials which the most common experience supplies, and by a much shorter process of deduction than is usually required to establish the truths of science.

The conclusions from the general principle thus laid down are of infinite importance to the right understanding of some of the most momentous questions of interior policy. If it be true that population has a natural tendency to increase in a more rapid ratio than the means of subsistence, it is obvious that all legislative encouragements to such increase are at best superfluous; but if it be also true that a surplus population, when once called into being by a system of mistaken policy, can be brought down to the inevitable limits which nature has ordained by devouring misery alone, it follows, that all such measures are in the highest degree cruel and impolitic. Let government occupy itself in its legitimate function of extending the resources of the country, by protecting industry in its operation and rewards; an increase of population will surely follow the increased means of providing for it; but let no legislature attempt to invert the natural course of policy by the encouragement of early marriages,— by bestowing premiums and immuni ties, honours and distinctions, which only give a superfluous and fatal activity to a spring already too powerful for human prudence and self-control.

The same principle involves the clear and unqualified condemnation of poor laws, so far as they not only provide for existing and inevitable misery, but tend to increase its amount by encouraging the growth of population. Private charity, so respectable in its

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motive, so pure in its exercise, so beneficial both to the donor and receiver, so free from all objections in point of policy to which a compulsory system is exposed, might be found adequate to the relief of all real and inevitable calamity; and the existence of legal provisions for the support of the poor is therefore without defence, upon the principles of true philosophy. But the questions about the original formation of such establishments, and their continuance when once formed, and interwoven with a vicious system of public morals, are quite distinct. It by no means follows that we are bound instantly to destroy whatever we should have refused, in the first instance, to construct. A tenderness to human suffering often exacts of philosophy great deference even to the most impolitic and barbarous institutions. It is strange, that amid the acknowledged and intolerable evils of the poor laws, which have now excited one universal murmur of condolence and despair, so few should be disposed to recognise the true source of the calamity in the opposition of the principle of policy on which these laws are founded, to the immutable ordinances of nature that so many intelligent persons should yet stubbornly look to the detail of regulation, instead of turning their eyes to the great and palpable vice of the entire system: that the insanity of that law, which assumes the unlimited abundance of the materials of labour and the means of subsistence, in the midst of the most cogent and touching evidence of their deficiency, should yet be disputed and that the man who has vigorously and fearlessly unmasked the fatal delusion, should be rewarded with unsparing insolence, and branded as the enemy of his species. It is not the object of Mr Malthus at once to sweep away the poor laws, and to abandon the floating mass of wretchedness which they have created to unpitied destruction: but he has pointed out the true source of the overwhelming calamity; he has cleared the great principle of all such establishments from the mist of prejudice in which it has been immemorially involved; he has shown, not with what unsparing havoc a pretended reformation ought to be accomplished, but in what direction all practicable improvements ought to be attempted. With a just and

philosophical rigour, he has deprived the ordinary tamperers with the most delicate subjects of domestic administration of their childish plausibilities for concealing the truth from a misguided public; he has developed the true source and fatal magnitude of the evil, and prepared the way for an efficient remedy, which philosophy may indeed prescribe, but time alone can accomplish. This is all that, in such perplexed problems, science can do for humanity.

Intimately connected with the theory of population is the question of the corn laws, which has long divided the most able and enlightened political economists. This momentous discussion has hitherto been conducted too much on the ground of minute and trifling details, and without that steady regard to general principles, which alone can lead to a satisfactory solution of the difficult problem.

The increase of population in any community becomes, in the present circumstances of Europe, independent of the supply of food afforded by the improved agriculture of that particular state; the demands of commerce for labour, with the facility of a foreign supply of grain, might, but for legislative interference, create the most appaling disproportions. The agriculture of a civilized state cannot, for obvious reasons, sustain a fair competition in the general market with that of semi-barbarous nations; it will therefore, in the natural course of events, be neglected, and the population must, of course, become dependent on foreign states for subsistence. Such is the inevitable course of that state of society in which we live, unless arrested by the interposition of the laws; the same impulse of resistless competition-the same pressure of severe discouragement, which have annihilated the once thriving manufactures, and swept away the commerce of flourishing states, will extinguish also that manufacture of food, which, like all others, thrives only by encouragement and reward. It is true indeed, that a fatal crisis has never yet arrived to any state so as to leave its fields desolate in the abandonment of its agriculture; for the rapid and unequal growth of commerce and manufactures, which can alone hasten such a catastrophe, is comparatively recent in the history of the world; and the calamity of agricultural deso

lation has been averted by the operation of private interests, demanding and receiving the protection of the laws,-interests which, however selfish in their origin, have in this, as in many other cases, wrought in strict subservience to the public prosperity. But even this constant and powerful instinct has not saved England from occasional and severe agricultural derangements, which, in many possible combinations of European policy, might have left her without resources to propitiate a starving population, and avert the horrors of insurrection. Those who have studied the science of political economy, not merely in its metaphysical details, but in its higher moral bearings, know that the mere accumulation of wealth, although an important, is not the exclusive object of its researches; that there are cases in which its most imperative maxims of a class, strictly economical, must be subordinated to the demands of a higher and more interesting policy; and that where national honour, tranquillity, or security is concerned, the most legitimate theory for the mere increase of wealth must, without scruple, be surrendered. It was thus that the legislature interposed by means of the navigation laws; and by circumscribing its shipping market to the commerce of England, made a sacrifice of profit to security and strength, which has commanded the gratitude of England, and the applauding envy of mankind. The principle of that entire freedom which distinguishes the liberal commercial policy of modern times is indeed sacred in every case which falls within its legitimate application-in every case where the question is singly about the accumulation of wealth, and where the sure sagacity of private interest will triumph over the presumptuous empiricism of legislation,-in every case where those objects alone are at stake, which address themselves to the unerring instinct of that private cupidity from which alone the principle derives its application and its force; but it is weak and unphilosophical to appeal to this maxim for the solution of cases which involve higher elements than the principle itself is intended to embrace, and which can be resolved only by a wider range of comparison, and larger and higher views of policy. The question is not, whether corn may be bought cheaper under

an unrestricted freedom of trade than with the incumbrance of corn laws? or, whether an enhancement of the price of grain does not operate on the price of labour, the state of manufac tures, and the course of foreign trade? no man who understands even the elements of political economy can hesitate for a moment as to any of these propositions. But the important matters truly at issue are-whether, under the visible preponderance of manufacturing and commercial enterprise in a state which is excluded by opulence, by taxation, by the accumulated pressure of natural and artificial burdens, from all agricultural competition with the frugal poverty of other nations, agriculture will not inevitably decline, and a fatal disproportion be created be twixt the population and the produce of that particular state? Whether this disproportion will not, unless the legislature interfere, naturally increase till a state of dependence be created not less artificial than formidable? And whether it be not the office of a high and presiding policy to interpose before the mischief of the system be consummated? and by the steady sacrifice of some portion of wealth, and amid the temporary struggles of a vivacious, and already luxuriant, commerce, restore the great and salutary proportions of nature, which never intended that the population of a mighty empire should repose for subsistence on the precarious fertility, or still more precarious policy, of neighbouring states, to whom she stands jealously opposed by the very tenure of her greatness.

Such is a specimen of the important applications of which the theory of population is susceptible-a theory which indeed affects, more or less, almost every great question of domestic policy. Those who calumniate the philosophy which they do not understand, have many expedients, indeed, to provide for any excess of population. They propose the cultivation of waste lands; they hold out the cheering prospect of emigration; they cannot believe that the world is not large enough to afford, in some corner, an asylum for human folly. Can such reasoners forget, that the additional cultivation, which is profitable, will surely be attempted? and that the fact of its not having been hitherto undertaken, affords conclusive evidence, that hitherto it would not

have been beneficial-that the same argument applies to the toils, the perils, the repulsive uncertainties of emigration-that if either enterprise would repay the danger and toil which it demands, it would undoubtedly be hazarded-and if it would not, that the inevitable failure of the experiment just presents one shape of that misery in which a redundant population is extinguished, and which it is the object of every enlightened friend of humanity to avert. The precarious resources of waste lands, and Transatlantic wilds are to be explored, not as affording an outlet to any excess of population which may be created, or an invitation to the imprudence which calls it into existence; but an ample field to enterprise and labour which, when crowned with success, will as suredly find a progeny to participate in the fruits. The order of nature and the voice of wisdom demanded that the creation of that abundance, which can alone avert misery in all its forms, should precede the existence of the population which is to consume it. The theory of population has been misrepresented as repugnant to the best feelings, and finest impulses of our nature-propitious to the schemes of despotism-and insulting to the dignity of the species.

Is that philosophy then at variance with the dearest and noblest of the passions, which would guard its virtuous gratifications from the pangs of embittering remorse the countless ills of hopeless and fatal poverty? The enlightened moralist and statesman, far from discountenancing the pure and virtuous union of the sexes, is ambitious to provide for the dignity and stability of the endearing attachmentto avert from the most sacred retreat of mortal felicity, the canker of care and sorrow, before which enjoyment withers away, and the ardour of passion slowly but surely expires. It is the fatal prerogative of human folly to levy war upon the bounty of nature, and perversely to extract from the richest blessings of Providence, the elements of the bitterest calamity. What so pure and ennobling as the passion of love in its virtuous form?what so frightful and degrading in its excesses and aberrations? Improvidence and its inevitable effects-extreme and irremediable poverty-have been more fatal to connubial enjoyment than those comparatively rare

irregularities of passion which spring out of a distempered constitution, and betray a diseased imagination. The philosopher who lifts his voice against this calamitous improvidence, and who wishes to give their natural plenitude and endurance to the pure delights of virtuous passion, by exacting performance of the condition upon which alone nature has promised her indispensible sanction, is not the peevish and sullen enemy of enjoyment, but the steady and enlightened friend of humanity.

Nor is it less absurd to represent this important philosophical lesson as being favourable to the progress of despotism. We are taught indeed, by the theory of population, that society has other dangers to provide against than those which spring out of political institutions, and when we consider what temptations to jealous tyranny the vehemence of indiscriminate and groundless complaint presents and reflect on the fatal and ignominious career which has been run by the masters of modern revolution, who first discovered the source of all human evils in the existence, and their remedy in the unsparing destruction of all established institutions, we ought to hail the doctrine which affords a manageable and efficient check upon their extravagant presumption, as a powerful instrument, not of despotism but of liberty. The just theory of population, which exacts of governments the arduous duty of extending the public resources, and exalting the national prosperity, instead of the cheap and vulgar function of adding indefinitely to the numbers of an unprovided, and of course, a profligate, populationwhich, instead of ministering to the crooked ambition of power, by the formidable aid of a needy and desperate gang, opposes to its projects the might and the wisdom of an independent, virtuous, and enlightened community; which provides for the tranquillity of the state, by ensuring the comfort of the people, and for the perpetuity of genuine freedom, by averting those frightful commotions, of which the craft of demagogues and despots has in all ages known so well how to profit; and finally, which addresses a perpetual and impressive remonstrance to the temerity of statesmen, who, amid the profound revolutions which their measures often produce, have not even a glance of the actual suffering which