on the checks to population in england, scotland, and ireland.
mr. malthus, in the seventh chapter of his second book, speaks of the checks to population in england. he points out that a man of liberal education, with an income just sufficient to enable him to associate with educated people, must feel absolutely certain that, if he should marry and have a family, he will be obliged to mix in the society of uneducated persons. such considerations make him pause. sons of tradesmen and farmers are exhorted not to marry until settled in some business or farm, and the labourer who earns two shillings a day, and lives comfortably while single, will hesitate to divide that pittance among five! the servants of rich people have so many comforts that they naturally are averse to sink down to be the proprietors of some poor alehouse.
hence, in malthus’ day (1806), the annual marriages in england and wales were as 1 in 123 of the population, a smaller proportion than obtained in any european country at that time, except norway and sweden. dr. short, writing in 1750, proposed that single people should be heavily taxed for the support of the married poor. mr. malthus replies to this proposal of the learned judge, that it is not wise to ask people to enter the married state, so long as such crowds of children die in infancy and so much poverty exists among married persons. those, he adds, who live single or marry late do not diminish the actual population by so doing. they merely prevent the proportion of premature mortality which would otherwise be excessive. sir f. m. eden mentioned that in some english villages the mortality seemed to be very low, viz. 1 in 47, or 21 per 1,000. london, in the beginning of this century, was, it seems, by no means so healthy as it is at present. according to a great authority, dr. price, the mortality was actually 60 per 1,000 (1 in 20?), whilst at present it is about 23 per 1,000. at the same epoch, the manchester death-rate was 1 in 21, or 35 per 1,000; so that manchester was in those days much healthier than london. manufactures, alas! however useful, are almost always most unwholesome, because they crowd hosts of people together without comfort, education, or forethought.
41mr. malthus truly observes that “there certainly seems to be something in great towns, and even in moderate towns, peculiarly unfavourable to the very early stages of life.” towns, he adds, are especially dangerous to the life of children. “in london, according to former calculations, one-half of the born died under three years of age; in vienna and stockholm under two; in northampton under ten. in country villages, on the contrary, half the born live to thirty, forty, forty-six, and above.” he adds that in parishes where the mortality is so small as 1 in 60 or 1 in 75, half the born would be found to have lived to 50 or 55. this is precisely the case among the members of the professional classes in england and wales at this time, according to mr. charles ansell’s oft-quoted tables.
dr. short, it seems, estimated the birth-rate of england at 1 in 28, or 35 per 1,000. this is just about our present birth-rate. “it has hitherto,” says our author, “been usual with political calculators to consider a great proportion of births as the surest sign of a vigorous and flourishing state. it is to be hoped, however, that this prejudice will not last long. in countries circumstanced like america, or in other countries after any great mortality, a large proportion of births may be a favourable symptom; but in the average state of a well-peopled territory, there cannot well be a worse sign than a large proportion of births, nor can there well be a better sign than a small proportion.” this sentence ought to be written in letters of gold on the public monuments of all civilised states.
sir francis d’ivernois, who is by no means always so wise, is cited by malthus as writing as follows:—“if the various states of europe kept and published annually an exact account of their population, noting carefully in a second column the exact age at which the children die, this second column would show the relative merit of the governments and the comparative happiness of their subjects. a single arithmetical statement would then perhaps be more conclusive than all the arguments that could be adduced.”
mr. malthus speaks of the great difficulty that existed in former centuries of obtaining reliable information as to the numbers of the people. according to davenant, he says, in 1690, the number of houses (in england and wales) was 1,319,215. allowing five persons to a house, this would give a population of six millions and a half in 1690; and it is quite incredible that from this time to 1710 the population should have diminished nearly a million and a half. so that the 42estimated population of england and wales in the latter year was said to have been only five millions.
in chapter eight of his second book, our author speaks of the checks to population in scotland and ireland. at the beginning of this century, as now, scotland seems to have been one of the healthiest countries in europe. malthus mentions that in the parish of crossmichael, in kircudbright, the mortality was given as one in 98, and the yearly marriages as one in 192 of the population. mr. wilkie stated that from the accounts of 36 parishes, the expectation of an infant’s life appeared to be as high as 40·3. there can be little doubt that these figures are all, more or less, erroneous.
mr. malthus, writing in 1806, says that “in these parishes in scotland, where manufacturing has been introduced, which offered employment to children as soon as they have reached their sixth or seventh year, a habit of marrying early naturally follows; and, while the manufacture continues to flourish and increase, the evil arising from it is not very perceptible; although humanity must confess with a sigh, that one of the reasons why it is not so perceptible is that room is made for fresh families by the unnatural mortality which takes place among the children thus employed.” mr. van houten gave a most eloquent variation of this theme at the meeting of the international congress of medical men, at amsterdam, in 1879, when he said that children should never be employed in industry:—“the child belongs to himself and to play. how many lives of children,” he continued, “do we not wear out in our clothes, or smoke away in our cigars!”
another writer in malthus’ day is astonished at the rapid increase of population in parts of scotland, in spite of a considerable emigration to america in 1770, and a large drain during the war. in the parish of duthie (elgin) the annual births were 1
12 of the whole population, the marriages one in 55. each marriage in this place was stated to yield seven children, and yet the population had decreased. the women of scotland appeared in those days to have been very prolific. in the parish of nigg (kincardine) there were 57 families with 405 children—i.e., nearly 7? each. compare this with modern france, with an average of three children to a marriage. in scotland at present the number of children to a marriage is about four.
the illustrious clergyman, dr. chalmers, whose centenary of birth was celebrated on march 7, 1880, was always greatly 43averse to the introduction of the english poor-law system into scotland. mr. malthus points out that before his day “the poor of scotland were in general supported by voluntary contributions, distributed under the inspection of the minister of the parish; and it appears, upon the whole, that they have been conducted with considerable judgment. having no claim by right to relief, and the supplies, from the mode of their collection, being necessarily uncertain, and never abundant, the poor have considered them merely as a last resource in cases of extreme distress, and not as a fund on which they might rely.” in the account of caerlaverock, in answer to the question, “how ought the poor to be supplied?” it is most judiciously remarked, “that distress and poverty multiply in proportion to the funds created to relieve them; that the measures of charity ought to remain invisible till the moment when it is necessary that they should be distributed; that in the country parishes of scotland in general small occasional voluntary collections are sufficient; that the legislature has no occasion to interfere to augment the stream, which already is copious enough; in fine, that the establishment of a poor rate would not only be unnecessary, but hurtful, as it would tend to oppress the land-holder without bringing relief to the poor.”
chalmers preached these doctrines enthusiastically during his long and eventful life, and his conduct in moralising that part of the city of glasgow where he was pastor will ever be remembered with gratitude by all lovers of human happiness.
the poor-law act of 1834, which was carried out in accordance with the views of malthus and chalmers, unfortunately placed no effectual check on the quantity of out-door relief, and hence the number of out-door paupers in england is often as high as one-eighth of all relieved. this demoralises and pauperises the english poor to an alarming extent. this poor-law was introduced, with its worst features exaggerated, into scotland in 1845, when a brand-new poor-law was brought in with great facilities for out-door relief. well might chalmers warn his countrymen against such a poor-law. it has already pauperised the most interesting peasantry in the british islands to such a degree that, whilst in england one out of every twenty persons is often a pauper, in scotland already one in twenty-three are so, whereas in ireland, with a far lower standard of comfort, but a much more stringent poor-law, only one in seventy-four persons are in receipt of any parish relief.
“the endemic and epidemic diseases in scotland,” says malthus, “fall chiefly, as is usual, on the poor.... to 44the same causes, in a great measure, are attributed the rheumatisms which are general and the consumptions which are frequent among the common people. wherever, in any place, from particular circumstances, the condition of the poor has been rendered worse, these disorders, particularly the latter, have been observed to prevail with greater force.” in these observations mr. malthus lays the very foundation of the science of health. health in europe, he shows, is incompatible with high birth-rates, which cause over-crowding, consumption, and death.
scotland, says malthus, writing in 1806, is certainly still over-peopled, but not so much as it was a century ago, when it contained fewer inhabitants. scotland in 1801, had 1,608,420 inhabitants, and in 1871, 3,360,018, so that its time of doubling has been nearly seventy years, or much slower than that of england and wales.
with regard to ireland, there is only one short paragraph in malthus’ tenth chapter of book second upon that country. we give it in its entirety:—“the details of the population of ireland are but little known. i shall only observe, therefore, that the extended use of potatoes has allowed of a very rapid increase of it during the last century (18th). but the cheapness of this nourishing root, and the small piece of ground which, under this cultivation, will in average years produce the food for a family, joined to the ignorance and barbarism of the people, which have prompted them to follow their inclinations with no other prospect than an immediate bare subsistence, have encouraged marriage to such a degree that the population is pushed much beyond the industry and present resources of the country; and the consequence naturally is that the lower classes of people are in the most depressed and miserable state. the checks to the population are, of course, chiefly of the positive kind, and arise from the diseases occasioned by squalid poverty, by damp and wretched cabins, by bad and insufficient clothing, by the filth of their persons, and occasional want.”
malthus here foresaw the famine of 1848, which, aided by emigration, reduced the irish population from 8,175,124 in 1841 to 6,552,385 in 1851. doubtless, as shown by mr. j. s. mill, professor laveleye, and other subsequent writers, the miserable condition of the irish peasant is due mainly to the intolerable feudal laws of land tenure, which have been so violently put an end to in our happiest of modern european states, france.
