Page:Why do men starve?.djvu/6

 The question of wages and their relation to capital and population, a question which interests a poor man so much, is one on which he formerly hardly ever thought at all, and on which even now he thinks much too seldom. It is necessary to impress on the labourer that the rate of wages depends on the proportion between population and capital. If population increases without an increase of capital, wages fall; the number of competitors in the labour market being greater, and the fund to povide [sic] for them not having increased proportionately, and if capital increases without an increase of population, wages rise. Many efforts have been made to increase wages, but none of them can be permanently successful which do not include some plan for preventing a too rapid increase of labourers. Population has a tendency to increase, and has increased, faster than capital; this is evidenced by the poor and miserable condition of the great body of the people in most of the old countries of the world, a condition which can only be accounted for upon one of two suppositions, either that there is a natural tendency in population to increase faster than capital, or that capital has, by some means, been prevented from increasing as rapidly as it might have done. That population has such a tendency to increase that, unchecked, it would double itself in a small number of years—say twenty-five—is a proposition which most writers of any merit concur in, and which may be easily proven. In some instances, the increase has been even still more rapid. That capital has not increased sufficiently is evident from the existing state of society. But that it could increase under any circumstances with the same rapidity as is possible to population, is denied. The increase of capital is retarded by an obstacle which does not exist in the case of population. The augmentation of capital is painful. It can only be effected by abstaining from immediate enjoyment. In the case of augmentation of population precisely the reverse obtains. There the temporary and immediate pleasure is succeeded by the permanent pain. The only