We have seen that the demand for labour, the cause of production, must he proportional to revenue which sup ports consumption ; that this revenue, in its turn, origi nates in the national wealth, which wealth is formed and augmented by labour. Thus, in political economy, all things are linked together, we move constantly in a circle, since each effect becomes a cause in its turn. Yet all things are progressive, provided that each movement is adjusted to the rest ; but all stops, all retrogrades, when ever one of the movements which ought to be combined is disordered. According to the natural march of things, an augmentation of wealth will produce an augmentation of revenue ; from this will arise an increase of consump tion, next an increase of labour for reproduction, and therewith of population ; and, filially, this new labour will, in its turn, increase the national wealth. But if, by un reasonable mcasures,,ziny one of those operations is hasten ed without regard to all the rest, the whole system is deranged, and the poor are weighed down with suffer ing, instead of the happiness which was anticipated for them.
The object of society is not fulfilled, so long as the coun try occupied by this society, presents means of supporting a new population, of enabling it to live in happiness and abundance, whilst yet those means are not resorted to. The multiplication of happiness over the earth, is the object of Providence ; it is stamped in all his works, and the duty of men in their human society is to co-ope rate in it.
The government which, by oppression of its subjects,by its contempt for justice and order, by the shackles it puts on agriculture and industry, condemns fertile countries to he deserts, sins not against its own subjects alone; its ty ranny is a crime against human society, on the whole of which it inflicts suffering; it weakens its rights over the country occupied by it, and as it troubles the enjoyments of all other states, it gives to all others the right of con trolling it. All men are mutually necessary to each other. Europe has a double need of the subsistence which it might procure from Barbary, if this magnificent shore of Africa were given back to civilization, and from the con sumers we should soon find there. The institution of property is the result of social conventions. In a society subjected to laws and a regulating government, the in terest of each may be implicitly relied on for producing the advantage of all, because the aberrations of this pri vate interest are, in every case of need, limited by public authority. But, in the great human society formed among independent nations, there is no law or general govern ment to repress the passions of each sovereign: besides, the interest of those sovereigns is not necessarily conform able to that of their subjects; or, to speak more cor rectly, the one is contrary to the other, whenever the ob• ject of the rulers is to maintain their tyranny. Thus re
spect for the pretended right of property claimed by each government over its territory, is not referrible to the right of private property, and, besides, it cannot be reciprocal. The same circumstances which cause a tyrannical govern ment to impede its own civilization, render it equally in capable of respecting that of its neighbours, and submit ting to the laws of nations.
But whilst more than three quarters of the habitable globe are, by (he faults of their governments, deprived of the inhabitants they should support, we, at the present day, in almost the whole of Europe, experience the op posite calamity, that of not being able to maintain a•super abundant population, which surpasses the proportion of labour required, and which, before dying of poverty, will diffuse its sufferings over the whole class of such as live by the labour of their hands. For our part, we owe this calamity to the imprudent zeal of our governments. With us, religious instruction, legislation, social organization, every thing has tended to produce a population, the exist ence of which was not provided for beforehand. The labour was not adjusted to the number of men ; and, fre quently, the same zeal with which it was attempted to multiply the number of births, was afterwards employed, in all arts, to diminish the required number of hands. The proportion which should subsist in the progress of the different departments of society has been broken, and the suffering has become universal.
Mr. Malthus, the first writer who awakened public at tention to this calamity, tinder which nations have long suffered, without knowing it, whilst he gave an alarm to legislators, did not reach the true principles which he scented on the road to find. On reading his writings, one is struck at once with an essential error in his reasoning, and with the importance of the facts to which he appeals. Such confusion, in a matter to which the happiness of man is attached, may produce the most fatal consequences. By rigorously applying principles deficient in accuracy, the most grievous errors may be committed ; and if, on the other hand, the error is discovered, there is a risk of simultaneously rejecting both the observations and the precepts.