SECTION CCLIV.. The Ideal of Population.

THE IDEAL OF POPULATION.

Hence it was not an erroneous policy that most governments have sought to promote the increase of population in undeveloped nations. So far as the influence of the acts of government can reach, such a course must tend to the earlier maturity of a people's economy. Much more questionable are positive provisions by government intended to hinder the further increase of population in a country already supposed to be fully peopled; if for no other reason, because even the deepest, most varied and extensive knowledge can scarcely ever predict with certainty that no further extension of the field of food is possible under the spur of momentary over-population; and also because questions of population reach so far into the life and tenderest feelings of the individual that a government which has regard for the personal freedom of its subjects, instead of promoting or hindering marriage, emigration etc. by police regulations, cannot but limit itself to a statistical knowledge and legislative regulation of these relations.[254-1] [254-2]

Whether the population of a country increase in a well-to-do or proletarian manner; whether, therefore, the state should rejoice or lament over such increase, may generally be inferred with some certainty from the other conditions of the country's economy, especially from the height of the rate of wages and from the consumption of the nation (§ 230). Thus, for instance, the population of England, between 1815 and 1847, increased 47 per cent.; but during the same period the value of its exports increased 63 per cent.; the tonnage of its merchant marine, 55 per cent.; the amount yielded by the tax on legacies, and therefore moveable property, by 93 per cent.; the value of immoveable property by 78 per cent. Wherever in agriculture the ancient system of triennial rotation (Dreifelder-system = three-field system) has been exchanged for the so-called English system, not only is a greater number of men supported, but, as a rule, each is more abundantly provided for.[254-3] The construction of new houses is an especially good symptom, because a habitation is a want which governs many others, and which, at the same time, may be much curtailed in case of need. Only, there should be no thoughtless building speculations, the existence or absence of which may readily be inferred from the ratio between the rent of houses and the rate of interest usual in the country. In England and Wales there was, in 1801, one house to every 5.7 inhabitants; in 1821, to every 5.8; in 1841, to every 5.4; in 1861, to every 5.39; in 1871, to every 5.35.[254-4]

The taking of the census at regular intervals in accordance with the principles of modern science, and with the apparatus of modern art, is one of the chief means to enable us to form a correct judgment of the health of the national life and of the goodness of the state.[254-5]

On the other hand, a great dread of over-population prevailed among English political economists at the end of the sixteenth and the beginning of the seventeenth century. They recommended their colonial projects by saying that they desired to avert this danger. Thus, for instance, Raleigh, History of the World, I, ch. 4; Bacon, Sermones fid., 15, 33, and his essay, De Colonies in Hiberniam deducendis. Compare Roscher, Zur Geschichte der englischen Volkswirthschaftslehre, 24, 26, 31, 34, 42. Similarly, at the end of the fifteenth century, in highly developed Italy, which had become stationary. According to F. Patricius (De Inst. Republ., VI, 4; VII, 12): incolarum multitudo periculosa est in omni populo. Since Colbert's time, the opposite opinion has become the prevailing one. The densest population had been observed in the wealthiest and relatively the most powerful countries, and people thought they had here sufficient data for a wide generalization. The thought of military conscription by degrees obtained weight in this connection. Thus, Saavedra Faxardo, Idea Principis christiano-politici (1649), Symb. 66; De la Court, Aanwysing (1699), I, 9. Sir W. Temple, says that the fundamental cause of all commerce and wealth lies in a dense population, which compels men to the practice of industry and frugality. (Works, I, 162 ff., 171, III, 2.) Imperii potentia ex civium numero astimanda est. (Spinoza, Tract, politicus, VII, 18.)

Thus Petty says that 1,000 acres which can support 1,000 men are better than 10,000 which do the same thing. He would give Scotland and Ireland up entirely, and have the inhabitants settle in England. In this way all combination for common purposes would be facilitated. (Several Essays, 107 seq., 147 ff.) Peter the Great is said to have entertained a similar view: Oeuvres de Frédéric le Grand, II, 23. More moderate is Child, Discourse of Trade, 298, and still more so in 368 ff.; Locke, Works, I, 73 ff.; II, 3, 6, 191. In Germany, v. Seckendorff advises that great establishments for children should be erected, in which orphans and even the children of poor parents should be brought up at the expense of the state, simply with the object of increasing the number of healthy men. (Teutscher Fürstenstaat, ed. 1678, 203, Add. 179.) Becher, Polit. Discours, 21, would have murderers punished because they detract from population, although he elsewhere in his definition of a city, "a nourishing populous community," is no blind enthusiast over-population. According to v. Horneck; Oesterreich über Alles, 1684, 29 ff., the third fundamental rule of public economy is the greatest possible increase and employment of men. Vera regni potestas in hominem numero consistit; ubi enim sunt homines, ibi substantiæ et vires. (Leibnitz, ed., Dutens, IV, 2, 502.) According to Vauban, Dîme royale, 150, Daire, no child can be born of a subject by which the king is not a gainer. Compare 46,145. Numbers of People the greatest riches. (Law, Trade and Money, 209.) Similarly, Law's disciple Mélon, Essai politique sur le Commerce, ch. I, 3. The number of people is both means and motive to industry (Berkeley, Works, II, 187) and hence the public are interested in nothing so much as in the production of competent citizens. (Querist, Nr., 206.) Süssmilch, Göttl. Ordnung, I, Kap. 10; Oeuvres de Frédéric M. IV, 4; VI, 82.

About the middle of the 18th century, we find a whole school of political thinkers who decide every question from the standpoint of the influence of the solution on the increase of population. (Excellently refuted by Schlözer, Anfangsgründe, II, 15 ff.) Thus especially Tucker, Important Questions, IV, 11; V, 5; VII, 4; VIII, 5. Four Tracts, 70. Forbonnais, Finances de France, I, 351, who considered it one of the principal objects of a good industrial policy to employ the greatest possible number of men. Necker, Sur le Commerce et la Législation des Grains, 1776. v. Sonnenfels, Grundsätze der Polizei, Handlung und Finanz (1765), in which the principle of population is called the highest principle of all four sciences of the state (I, § 25 ff.). These writers understand the "balance of trade" in such a way, that a nation always operates most advantageously which gives employment to the largest number of men with its export articles, (v. Sonnenfels, II, § 210 ff., 354 ff.) v. Justi, Staatswissenschaft, I, 160 ff., says plainly that a country can never have too many men. According to Darjes, Erste Gründe, 379, "even the increase of beggars brings something into the treasury by means of the excise tax which they pay." Compare, also, J. J. Rousseau, Contrat Social, III, 9; Galiani, Della Moneta, II, 4; Verri, Opuscoli, 325; Filangieri, Leggi Politiche ed Economiche, II, 2; Paley, Moral and Political Philosophy, III, ch. 11. On similar grounds, A. Young laments that the increase of proletarians is greatly hindered by the English poor laws. (In later writings it is somewhat different: compare Travels in France, I, ch. 12.) How deeply such ideas had penetrated public opinion is apparent from the opening words of the Vicar of Wakefield, as well as from the declaration of Pitt in parliament in 1796, that a man who had enriched his country with a number of children had a claim upon its assistance to educate them. Much more correctly, Voltaire, Dict. Philosophique, art. Population, sect. 2.

The reaction which attained its height in the Malthusians proper, set in with the Physiocrates and Steuart: Quesnay, Maximes générales, No. 26; Mirabeau, Phil. rurale, ch. 8, and Ami des Hommes (1762), VIII, 84. Similarly, J. J. Reinhard, who calls Baden over peopled "for its present system of agriculture." (Vermischte Schriften, 1760, I, 1 ff.; II, Varr.) Möser Patr. Phant., I, 33, 42; II, 1; IV, 15; V, 26. Also Minister v. Stein: Leben von Pertz, V, 72; VI, 539, 887, 1184. Compare supra, § 242. Of certain modern economists, it may be said that they deplore and condemn the birth of every child for whose support there has not been established a life long annuity in advance. A remarkable but unsuccessful attempt is made by Ch. Périn, De la Richesse dans les Sociétés Chrêtiennes, at the end of the first volume, to reconcile the opposing views. Périn reproaches the Malthusians, and especially Dunoyer and J. S. Mill, with the advocacy of l'onanisme conjugal, and thus desiring to restore the old heathen situation. Only the Church holds the proper mean between defect and excess, inasmuch as it permits complete continency or the procreation of children regardless of circumstances to its members; while, on the other hand, it, by celibacy and by the inculcation of industry, frugality, etc., guards against over-population. (How well the Roman Church has succeeded in this is best proved by the Roman Compagna!)

In Greece, too, in its first economic periods, especially at the time that the first colonies were sent out, great fears were expressed of over-population. Hesiod weighs the advantages and disadvantages of the married state against one another with great thoroughness. (Theog., 600 ff.) In the Cypria, even the Trojan war was explained by a divine decree, emitted with the intention of removing over-population.]