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31.: QUESTION OF POPULATION [3] BLACK DWARF, 7 JAN., 1824, PP. 21-3 - John Stuart Mill, The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, Volume XXII - Newspaper Writings December 1822 - July 1831 Part I [1822]

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The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, Volume XXII - Newspaper Writings December 1822 - July 1831 Part I, ed. Ann P. Robson and John M. Robson, Introduction by Ann P. Robson and John M. Robson (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1986).

Part of: Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, in 33 vols.

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31.

QUESTION OF POPULATION [3]

BLACK DWARF, 7 JAN., 1824, PP. 21-3

For the context of this third response to Thomas Wooler, see No. 27. Wooler had replied to No. 28 with “The Black Dwarf to A.M.,” Black Dwarf, 31 Dec., 1823, pp. 905-10, to which the interpolated page numbers refer. The letter by another correspondent that Mill refers to in the opening and penultimate paragraphs immediately precedes Mill’s own letter; headed “Question of Population,” and signed “A Friend to the ‘Lower Classes,’ ” it appears on pp. 15-21 of the issue for 7 Jan. How Mill became aware of its existence is not known. Mill’s letter is headed as title, subheaded “To the Editor of the Black Dwarf,” and described in his bibliography as “A third letter on the necessity of checking population whch. appeared in the Black Dwarf of January 9th [sic] 1824, signed A.M.”

(MacMinn, p. 5).

sir,—

I shall not extend my remarks on your last letter to any great length, as I know that you have on hand another letter on the same subject, which will probably consider the question as you wish it to be considered, with reference to the relative powers of increase possessed by population and subsistence.

I shall only at present remark, that you have made a much more free use, in this paper, of that easy figure of speech called assertion, than of that more intractable one called proof. With reference indeed to the laws of nature, you have, I am pleased to see, given up the point; for although you still dislike the remedy which I propose, you observe, “if it can be proved necessary to check population at all, your means may be the best, and therefore may be tolerated.” [P. 909.] At this also I am well pleased. But you maintain that if three-fourths of the inhabitants of Ireland were to be swept off, and the remainder were sufficient to do all the work required by the rich, the price of labour would not advance. This seems to me rather an extraordinary assertion. First, it supposes a case which can never happen. One-fourth of the Irish population could not possibly do all the work required by the rich, as the whole population does now.* In the next place, I can safely appeal to the experience of every working man (as well as to the reason of the case), whether, if three out of every four of his competitors were removed, he would not feel a very sensible addition to his wages. You admit that if the population is greatly reduced by a plague, wages will rise. [Pp. 907-8.] Surely then, if it is reduced by means less shocking to humanity than a plague, the effect will be the same.

You observe that it is neither wise nor politic to consider “whether a family of two or ten children, were more convenient to the individual, since such matters will always regulate themselves.” [P. 905.] This, Sir, is all that I want. I am far from wishing to regulate population by law, or by compulsion in any shape. I am aware that it will, and I think that it ought, to regulate itself: but you forget that it cannot regulate itself unless the means are known; a man cannot accommodate the numbers of his family to his means of supporting it, unless he knows how to limit those numbers; for I have no belief in the efficacy of Mr. Malthus’s moral check,1 so long as the great mass of the people are so uneducated as they are at present. Therefore I think it highly desirable that the physical check should be known to the people; and I agree with you that each man will then be the best judge of his own convenience.

I consider the question to be practically decided by this admission. If you allow that such things ought to regulate themselves, you cannot consistently object to the diffusion among the people of any information calculated to throw light upon the subject. Nevertheless, if you challenge me to the discussion of the other question, whether population has a tendency to increase faster than subsistence, I am perfectly ready to discuss this question also, when I shall have perused the arguments of your other correspondent, and such remarks as you may think proper to make upon those arguments.

At present I shall trouble you with very few words more, in answer to another of your observations. I consider it a mere play upon words, to say, as you have done, that labour is capital. [P. 907.] Capital is that portion of the annual produce which is set apart for the maintenance of productive labour. Capital, you say, might be made to increase faster than at present. I admit that for a limited time it might; but capital can only be increased from savings. Would you, then, force accumulation? Would you have sumptuary laws? When you shall have answered this question, whether in the negative or in the affirmative, the basis of the discussion will be narrowed, and I shall know what arguments to put forward, among the many which bear upon the case.

A.M.

[* ]It can be proved that the great majority of the agricultural population of Ireland have not one quarter as much employment as could be performed by them. Three-fourths of the number of this class, then, could be dispensed with, without any injury to the rich, but to their great benefit. [Wooler’s note.]

[1 ]See No. 28, n6.