Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 5.djvu/685

 POPULATION AND WAGES 669

western prairies of North America, or the colonization of such an island as Australia."'

As it is evident that the population of the earth cannot increase beyond the products of the earth, and as the productive capacity of the earth is not unlimited, the time may (it would be rash to say will^ come when the Malthusian doctrine will have to be faced in all its ugly nakedness. There being, however, two continually increasing obstacles to multiplication — the bio- logic and the psycho-economic check — it is difficult to foretell whether the equilibrium between food and population will be established by those checks or by the positive check — premature death. At any rate, a fact worthy of notice is that the food production of Europe (Russia and other few backward countries excepted) seems to have reached almost its limit, and that the population is greatly dependent upon importation both for its maintenance and its growth. From a comparison of the actual production of cereals in the year 1880 with calculations made by M. Tousaint Loua in 1868, Dr. V. I. Broch concludes that, while the population of Europe increased by about thirty millions, the grain produce remained almost stationary.^ In the particular case of Great Britain, Lord G. Hamilton, after a detailed discus- sion of the changes in food and population in the United Kingdom between the years 1871 and 1892, concludes "that foreign imported food produce has increased enormously — about 88 per cent.; that the home production of food has been practically stationary ; and that the growth of the population during the same period has been at the rate of 20.7 per cent." 3 He adds that the population of Ireland, which is self-supporting, is dimin- ishing very rapidly, so that the increase of population takes place in that part of the kingdom depending upon foreign sup- ply. In conclusion he draws an appalling picture of what might happen were England obliged to live on its own resources.

' G. B. LONGSTAFF, Studies in Statistics, chap, iv, pp. 22, 23.

'"The Agricultural Crisis in Europe," in Journal of the Royal Statistical Society (London, 1885), Vol XLVIII, p. 312.

'"Ocean Highways," in the ahovt Journal, 1894, Vol. LVII, pp. 112, 113, where several tables are given.