Page:Two Lectures on the Checks to Population.pdf/66

60 The problem to be solved relates to the manner in which the possession of the world may be best secured to its existing occupants, and the entrance guarded, so that those who are already seated, and have but just elbow-room, may limit the admissions, and exclude the crowd which is pressing at the doors. At nature's mighty feast, to use an expression of Mr. Malthus, there should be no free sittings. The first comers should have, each a box appropriated to himself, into which alone he should be at liberty to introduce others. Now, the old are the first comers into the world, and with them, therefore, the right of disposing of its food should chiefly reside. This would be the case, did they possess, either exclusively or principally, the power of labouring. But it is also equally the case, where, for the deficiency of the power of labouring, there is an adequate substitute, in income derived either from capital or from property in land. The unborn, when they come to be born, bring with them a pair of hands, which will soon become competent to labour. Capital cannot be acquired until long after. The possession of landed property depends upon succession. It continues to the end of life,