Page:Time and Tide by Weare and Tyne.djvu/198

184 be hanged. The great difficulty in dealing with the land question at all arises from the false, though very natural, notion on the part of many reformers, and of large bodies of the poor, that the division of the land among the said poor would be an immediate and everlasting relief to them. An immediate relief it would be to the extent of a small annual sum (you may easily calculate how little, if you choose) to each of them; on the strength of which accession to their finances, they would multiply into as much extra personality as the extra pence would sustain, and at that point be checked by starvation, exactly as they are now.

144. Any other form of pillage would benefit them only in like manner; and, in reality, the difficult part of the question respecting numbers, is, not where they shall be arrested, but what shall be the method of their arrest.

An island of a certain size has standing room only for so many people; feeding ground for a great many fewer than could stand on it. Reach the limits of your feeding ground,