in less than three-quarters of a century a casual argument which he introduced with the word 'particularly' would have become accepted as the foundation of the Malthusian' theory of population, to the entire exclusion of the geometrical and arithmetical ratios on which he himself declared all his principal conclusions to have been founded.1 § 4. Origin of the theory that Increasing Density of Population is connected with Diminishing Returns to Industry. 2 It must always have been known to every practical agriculturist that it does not 'pay' to expend more than a certain amount of labour in the cultivation of a particular acre. If asked why this is so, the ordinary agriculturist would probably always have answered, 'Because after a certain amount of labour has been expended no more produce is obtainable.' But this is because the practical agriculturist thinks only of the particular methods of cultivation which he sees commonly practised around him. By adopting a different system of cultivation, it is generally the case that by extra labour the produce might be somewhat increased. The scientific statement of the truth which underlies the broad assertion of the agriculturist is merely that, at any particular time, an increase of the labour employed on an acre of land beyond a certain amount causes a diminution of the returns to the average unit of labour. Turgot put the matter very well in some remarks which he wrote on a prize essay submitted to him. He says:— 'Granting to the writer of the essay that, where ordinary good cultivation prevails, the annual advances bring in 250 to the hundred, it is more than probable that if the advances were increased by degrees from this point up to that at which they would bring in nothing, each increment would be less and less fruitful. In this case the fertility of the earth would be like a spring which is forced to bend by being loaded with a number of equal weights in succession. If the weight is light and the spring not very flexible, the effect of the first load might be 1 Above, p. 143. 2 A large portion of this section has already appeared in the Economic Journal for March 1892. almost nil. When the weight becomes sufficient to overcome the first resistance, the spring will be seen to yield perceptibly and to bend; but, when it has bent to a certain point, it will offer greater resistance to the force brought to bear on it, and a weight which would have made it bend an inch will no longer bend it more than half a line. This comparison is not perfectly exact; but it is sufficient to show how, when the soil approaches near to returning all that it can produce, a very great expense may augment the production very little. 'Seed thrown on a soil naturally fertile but totally unprepared would be an advance almost entirely lost. If it were once tilled the produce will be greater; tilling it a second, a third time, might not merely double and triple, but quadruple or decuple the produce, which will thus augment in a much larger proportion than the advances increase, and that up to a certain point, at which the produce will be as great as possible compared with the advances. 'Past this point, if the advances be still increased, the produce will still increase, but less, and always less and less until the fecundity of the earth being exhausted, and art unable to add anything further, an addition to the advances will add nothing whatever to the produce.' There is, of course, no reason to suppose that this passage had any influence on English political economy. The early nineteenth-century English economists deduced their doctrines, not from study of the works of their predecessors, but from the actual experience of England during the war. About the year 1813 there were two features in the economic condition of the country which could not fail to strike the most superficial observer-the high prices of corn and the improvement and extension of cultivation. From 1711 to 1794 neither the Ladyday nor the Michaelmas price of the Winchester quarter of wheat at Windsor had ever been more than 60s. 51d. But at Michaelmas 1795 it was 92s.; at Ladyday 1801 it was 177s.; and from Michaelmas 1808 to Michaelmas 1813 neither the Michaelmas nor the Ladyday price ever fell below 96s.2 The rise was not only 1 Observations sur le mémoire de M. de Saint-Peravy en faveur de l'impôt indirect, couronné par la Société royale d'agriculture de Limoges, written about 1768; in Œuvres, ed. Daire, vol. i. pp. 420, 421. See also p. 436. 2 See the table of Windsor prices in Tooke's History of Prices, 1838, vol. ii. pp. 388, 389. great but progressive. The average of the yearly prices of wheat for the decade 1770-1779 was 45s.; for the decade 1780-1789, 45s. 9d.; for the decade 1790-1799, 55s. 11d.; for the decade 1800-1809, 82s. 2d.; and for the four years, 18101813, 106s. 2d.1 The improvement and extension of cultivation is more difficult to represent in statistical form, but at the time it was obvious to every traveller. Not only were the remaining common fields divided and brought under the better cultivation of several property, but immense quantities of waste lands, such as the great heaths in a corner of which Bournemouth has since grown up, were distributed in 'allotments' among the neighbouring proprietors, enclosed, and to a greater or less extent brought into cultivation. We have, unfortunately, no means of telling how much waste was inclosed, to say nothing of how much was brought into cultivation.2 We can, however, roughly compare the progress of the movement at one period with its progress during the preceding period by the variations in the number of Enclosure Acts. How closely the two things, the improvement and extension of agriculture and the price of corn were connected will be seen by the diagram on the next page. When the price of corn went up, up went also the number of Enclosure Acts. The corn laws had, at any rate directly and immediately, very little to do with producing the high prices. The law of 1791 (31 Geo. III. chap. 30) subjected foreign wheat to what was called the 'high' duty of 24s. 3d. per quarter only when the English price was below 50s. When the English price was between 50s. and 54s. the duty was 2s. 6d., and when it was over 54s. the duty was only 6d. Now from 1795 to 1802 the price was usually much above 50s., and importation consequently almost free. In 1804 the agricultural 1 See the table in Porter's Progress of the Nation, 1836, vol. i. pp. 155, 156. 2 It is a great mistake to assume that all the land that was enclosed was brought into cultivation. The particular heaths referred to in the text are a case in point, as there is no reason to suppose they were even temporarily cultivated. The end of the war and the collapse of prices probably arrived before the preliminary steps were accomplished. A few of the allotments (of several hundred acres each) were planted with Scotch firs, and all the rest long remained, as some of them still remain, much as they were in MONTHLY AVERAGE PRICE OF WHEAT AND ANNUAL NUMBER OF ENCLOSURE ACTS, 1793-1815. PRICE OF WHEAT. The figures at the sides of the diagram stand both for the number of shillings in the price of a quarter of wheat and for the number of The price of wheat is taken from the table in Tooke's History of Prices, 1888, vol. ii. p. 390. The number of Enclosure Acts has been interest persuaded the legislature to raise the price limit. Henceforward foreign wheat was made subject to the prohibitive duty whenever the English price was below 63s. (44 Geo. III. chap. 109). This change, however, made no practical difference. The English price remained above the new limit, so that freedom of importation was no more interfered with than before. It was perhaps only natural that landlords and farmers should deduce from these facts the conclusion that free importation was no remedy for high prices, and that the high prices would eventually reduce themselves, by causing such an extension of cultivation that a full supply of food would be produced at home. They immediately did so, and accordingly urged that in order ultimately to obtain low prices, or rather 'steady and moderate' prices,1 all that was required was to maintain for the present the high prices.2 A select committee of the House of Commons, appointed to inquire into the corn trade, gravely alleged in May 1813 that prices had been low till 1765 because till that time exportation was encouraged and importation practically prohibited, and that they had since been high because importation had been encouraged and exportation restrained. They recommended, therefore, that until February 1814, the 'high duty' of 24s. 3d. should be charged on imported wheat whenever the home price was below 105s. 2d., and after that date it should be charged whenever the home price was not 331 per cent above the average price of the twenty years immediately preceding. Sir Henry Parnell, the chairman of 1 Report from the Select Committee appointed to inquire into the Corn Trade, 1812-13, No. 184 (vol. iii. pp. 479-530, in the House of Commons collection), p. 7. This Report is reprinted in Hansard, vol. xxv., Appendix. 2 See Hansard, 1813-15, passim. By a bounty of 5s. when the price did not exceed 488. 4 By a duty of 16s. when the price did not exceed 53s. 4d., and of 8s. when it was between 53s. 4d. and 80s. • From 1765 to 1772, inclusive, temporary laws were passed prohibiting exportation and allowing importation free of duty. In 1773, by 13 Geo. III. chap. 43, the bounty ceased to be paid whenever the price was above 44s., instead of 48s., and the ‘high duty' ceased to be charged on imports whenever the price rose to 48s., instead of 53s. 4d. Report (see note 1 above), p. 9. The 105s. 2d. fixed for 1813 was arrived at by this method (Hansard, June 15, 1813, p. 654). |