Page:Poverty, its effects on the political condition of the people.djvu/7

7 but these and all other accidental influences must be wholly thrown out of the question in considering the permanent cause, and aiming at the prevention of poverty, Drunkenness and ignorance, moreover, are far more frequently the effect than the cause of poverty. Population and food, like two runners of unequal swiftness chained together, advance side by side; but the ratio of increase of the former is so immensely superior to that of the latter, that it is necessarily greatly checked; and the checks are of course either more deaths or fewer births—that is, either positive or preventive."

Unless the necessity of the preventive or positive checks to population be perceived; unless it be clearly seen, that they must operate in one form, if not in another; and that though individuals may escape them, the race cannot; human society is a hopeless and insoluble riddle.

Quoting John Stuart Mill, the writer from whom the foregoing extracts have been made, proceeds —

"The great object of statesmanship should be to raise the habitual standard of comfort among the working classes, and to bring them into such a position as shows them most clearly that their welfare depends upon themselves. For this purpose he advises that there should be, first, an extended scheme of national emigration, so as to produce a striking and sudden improvement in the condition of the labourers left at home, and raise their standard of comfort; also that the population truths should be disseminated as widely as possible, so that a powerful public feeling should be awakened among the working classes against undue procreation on the part of any individual among them—a feeling which could not fail greatly to influence individual conduct; and also that we should use every endeavour to get rid of the present system of labour—namely, that of employers and employed, and adopt to a great extent that of independent or associated industry. His reason for this is, that a hired labourer, who has no personal interest in the work he is engaged in, is generally reckless and without foresight, living from hand to mouth, and exerting little control over his powers of procreation; whereas the labourer who has a personal stake in his work, and the feeling of independence and self-reliance which the possession of property gives, as, for instance, the peasant proprietor, or member of a co-partnership, has far stronger motives for self-restraint, and can see much more clearly the evil effects of having a large family."