Page:Two Lectures on the Checks to Population.pdf/47

41, tending to neutralize its effects, which had no place under the hypothesis. The chief of these is the uncertainty of employment.

The failure of employment in one quarter, diverts the command of the means of subsistence, and causes it to flow more strongly in another channel. Consequently, the more fortunate labourers who retain their employment, can purchase, by their labour, an amount of subsistence, which the proportion between the whole population and the food of the country could not afford to all, were all employed. Thus, while the world is already full, a false signal is held out, and the same encouragement to marriage is offered, which would be offered by the legitimate encouragements, a vacancy by death, or an actual increase in the sum total of subsistence.

It cannot be justly argued, that the uncertainty of employment ought to be foreseen and provided for. The extent of the measures necessary to obviate it cannot be foreseen, and we cannot expect that those who are in actual employment should refrain from marrying, on account of the obscure anticipation of a danger which is not near, which