WEALTH AS IT AFFECTS THE POOR.  
In the seventh chapter of book III. Mr. Malthus criticises an essay of Adam Smith, on “Increasing Wealth as it Affects the Condition of the Poor.” The professed object of Adam Smith’s enquiry is the nature and causes of the wealth of nations. “There is another, however, perhaps still more interesting (says our author) which he occasionally mixes with it, the causes which affect the happiness and comfort of the lower orders of society, which in every nation forms the most numerous class. I am sufficiently aware of the near connection of these two subjects, and that, generally speaking, the causes which contribute to increase the wealth of a state tend also to increase the happiness of the lower classes of the people. But perhaps Dr. Smith has considered these two inquiries as still more nearly connected than they really are; at least he has not stopped to take notice of those instances, when the wealth of a society may increase, according to his definition of wealth, without having a proportional tendency to increase the comforts of the labouring part of it.”
Malthus observes that the comforts of the labouring poor must necessarily depend upon the funds destined for the maintenance of labour, and will generally be in proportion to the rapidity of their increase. The demand for labour, which such increase occasions, will of course raise the value of labour; and till the additional number of hands required are reared, the increased funds will be distributed to the same number of persons as before, and therefore every labourer will live more at his ease. But Adam Smith was wrong when he represented every increase of the revenue or stock of a society, as a proportional increase of these funds. Such surplus stock or revenue will indeed always be considered by the individual possessing it, as an additional fund from which he may maintain more labour; but with regard to the whole country, it will not be an effectual fund for the maintenance of an additional number of labourers, unless part of it be convertible into an additional quantity of provisions; and it will not be so convertible when the increase has arisen merely from the produce of labour, and not from the produce of land. A distinction may in this case occur between the number of hands which the stock of a society could employ and the number which its territory can maintain.
79“Supposing a nation for a course of years to add what it saved from its yearly revenue to its manufacturing capital solely, and not to its capital employed on land, it is evident that it might grow richer without a power of supporting a greater number of labourers, and therefore without any increase in the real funds for the maintenance of labour. There would, notwithstanding, be a demand for labour, from the extent of manufacturing capital. This demand would of course raise the price of labour; but if the yearly stock of provisions in the country were not increasing this rise would soon turn out merely nominal, as the price of provisions must necessarily rise with it.”
The question is how far wealth increasing in this way has a tendency to better the condition of the labouring poor. “It is a self-evident proposition, that any general advance in the price of labour, the stock of provisions remaining the same, can only be a nominal advance, as it must shortly be followed by a proportional rise in provisions. The increase in the price of labour which we have supposed, would have no permanent effect therefore in giving to the labouring poor a greater command over the necessaries of life. In this respect they would be nearly in the same state as before. In some other respects they would be in a worse state. A greater portion of them would be employed in manufactures, and a smaller portion in agriculture. (The present condition of England in 1882.) And this exchange of profession will be allowed, I think, by all to be very unfavourable to health, an essential ingredient to happiness, and to be further disadvantageous on account of the greater uncertainty of manufacturing labour, arising from the capricious tastes of man, the accidents of war, and other causes which occasionally produce very severe distress among the lower classes of society.”
Mr. Malthus then feelingly alludes to the miserable condition of the poor young operatives in Manchester in his day, and to the destruction of the comforts of the family so often caused by the women becoming so frequently mere hands in mills and quite unacquainted with any household work. “The females are wholly uninstructed in sewing, knitting, and other domestic affairs, requisite to make them notable and frugal wives and mothers. This is a very great misfortune to them and to the public, as is sadly proved by a comparison of the families of labourers in husbandry, and those in manufactures in general. In the former we meet 80with neatness, cleanliness, and comfort: in the latter with filth, rags, and poverty, although their wages may be nearly double those of the husbandman. In addition to these evils we all know how subject particular manufactures are to fail, from the caprice of taste, or the accident of war. The weavers of Spitalfield were plunged into the most severe distress by the fashion of muslins instead of silks; and numbers of the workmen of Sheffield and Birmingham were for a time thrown out of employment, from the adoption of shoe strings and covered buttons, instead of buckles and metal buttons. Under such circumstances, unless the increase of the riches of a country from manufactures gives the lower classes of the society, on an average, a decidedly greater command over the necessaries and conveniences of life, it will not appear that their condition is improved.”
Mr. Malthus continues: “It will be said, perhaps, that the advance in the price of provisions will immediately turn some additional capital into the channel of agriculture, and thus occasion a much greater produce. But from experience it appears that this is an effect which sometimes follows very slowly, particularly if heavy taxes that affect agricultural industry, and an advance in the price of labour, had preceded the advance in the price of provisions. It may also be said, that the additional capital of the nation would enable it to import provisions sufficient for the maintenance of those whom its stock could employ. A small country with a large navy, and great accommodation for inland carriage, may indeed import and distribute an effectual quantity of provisions; but in large landed nations, if they may be so-called, an importation adequate at all times to the demand is scarcely possible.”
In 1881 the inhabitants of the British Islands had to import food consisting of live and dead meat, butter, eggs, flour, and wheat, &c., at an expense of no less than one hundred and thirty-two millions sterling, inclusive of sugar, one of the requisites of nutrition, or at the cost of one hundred and eight millions sterling without sugar. And yet the price of butter was about 1s. 6d. the pound and meat about 9d. a pound in London, whilst milk sold for 5d. the quart. Thus we see how true the words of the great writer on population were, even writing before the days of steam and electric telegraphs, improvements in the way of obtaining food supplies that might easily have made food as cheap here as in New Zealand, had it not been for the excessive birth-rate 81that has been going on for the whole of this century in the United Kingdom.
Mr. Malthus points out that a nation which from its extent and population must necessarily support the greater part of its population on the produce of its own soil, but which yet, in average years, draws a small portion of its corn from abroad, is in a more precarious position with regard to the constancy of its supplies, than such states as draw almost the whole of their provisions from other countries. A nation possessed of a large territory is unavoidably subject to this uncertainty of its means of subsistence, when the commercial part of its population is either equal to, or has increased beyond the surplus produce of its cultivators. “No reserve being in these cases left in exportation, the full effect of every deficiency from unfavorable seasons must necessarily be felt; and, although the riches of such a country may enable it for a certain period to continue raising the nominal rate of wages, so as to give the lower classes of the society a power of purchasing imported corn at a high price; yet, a sudden demand can very seldom be fully answered, the competition in the market will invariably raise the price of provisions in full proportion to the advance in the price of labor; the lower classes will be but little relieved, and the dearth will operate severely throughout all the ranks of society.
“According to the natural order of things, years of scarcity must occasionally recur in all landed nations. They ought always therefore to enter into our consideration; and the prosperity of any country may justly be considered as precarious, in which the funds for the maintenance of labour are liable to great and sudden fluctuations from every unfavourable variation in the seasons.
“But putting for the present, years of scarcity out of the question. When the commercial population of any country increases so much beyond the surplus produce of the cultivators, that the demand for imported corn is not easily supplied, and the price rises in proportion to the rate of wages, no further increase of riches will have any tendency to give the laborer a greater command over the necessaries of life. In the progress of wealth this will naturally take place, either from the largeness of the supply wanted, the increased distance from which it is brought, and consequently, the increased expense of importation; the greater consumption of it in the countries in which it is usually purchased, or, what must unavoidably 82happen, the necessity of a greater distance of inland carriage in these countries. Such a nation, by increasing industry in the improvement of machinery, may still go on increasing the yearly quantity of its manufactured produce; but its funds for the maintenance of labor, and consequently its population, will be perfectly stationary. This point is the natural limit to the population of all commercial states. In countries at a great distance from this limit, an effect approaching to what has been here described will take place, whenever the march of commerce and manufactures is more rapid than that of agriculture.”
Malthus takes China as an example, that every increase in the stock or revenue of a nation cannot be considered as an increase of the real funds for the maintenance of labor, and therefore cannot have the same good effect upon the condition of the poor. China, as Adam Smith remarked, has probably long been as rich as the nature of her laws and institutions will admit; although, with other laws and institutions, and on the supposition of unshackled foreign commerce, she might still be richer, yet, the question is, would such an increase of wealth be an increase of the real funds for the maintenance of labor, and consequently tend to place the lower classes in China in a state of greater plenty?
Malthus contends that if trade and foreign commerce were held in great honour in China, it is evident that, from the great number of laborers, and the cheapness of labor, she might work up manufactures for foreign sale to an immense amount. It is equally evident, that from the great bulk of provisions, and the amazing extent of her inland territory, she could not in return import such a quantity as would be any sensible addition to the annual stock of subsistence in the country. “Her immense amount of manufactures therefore, she would exchange chiefly for luxuries collected from all parts of the world. At present it appears that no labor whatever is spared in the production of food. The country is rather over-peopled in proportion to what its stock can employ, and labor is therefore so abundant that no pains are taken to abridge it. The consequence of this is probably the greatest production of food that the soil can possibly afford; for it will be generally observed, that processes for abridging agricultural labor, though they may enable a farmer to bring a certain quantity of grain cheaper to market, tend rather to diminish, than increase the whole produce. An immense capital could not be employed in China in preparing manufactures for foreign trade, without taking off so many laborers from agriculture, as to alter this state of 83things, and in some degree, to diminish the produce of the country. The demand for manufacturing laborers would naturally raise the price of labor; but, as the quantity of subsistence would not be increased, the price of provisions would keep pace with it, or even more than keep pace with it, if the quantity of provisions were really decreasing. The country would, however, be evidently advancing in wealth. The exchangeable value of the annual produce of its land and labor would be annually augmented; yet the real funds for the maintenance of labor would be stationary, or even declining; and consequently, the increasing wealth of the nation would tend rather to depress than to raise the condition of the poor. With regard to the command over the necessaries of life, they would be in the same, or rather worse state than before, and a great part of them would have exchanged the healthy labor of agriculture, for the unhealthy occupations of manufacturing industry.”
The observations of the greatest living Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr. W. E. Gladstone, of late years, have frequently pointed out to us how very unfair a proportion of the increasing wealth of this country has been absorbed by the possessors of capital, as compared with that by the recipients of wages. It may indeed be said, in the words of Mr. J. S. Mill, that owing to the way in which population has increased in this century in this country, pari passu with the increase of the wealth of the nation, it is doubtful whether all the improvements in manufactures and in instruments for abbreviating manual toil have taken one hour’s work from the shoulders of the working classes.
“The condition of the poor in China,” says Malthus, “is indeed very miserable at present, but this is not owing to their want of foreign commerce, but to their extreme tendency to marriage and increase; and if this tendency were to continue the same, the only way in which the introduction of a grea............