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Programming Scala
 Programming Scala

Dean Wampler and Alex Payne

Beijing • Cambridge • Farnham • Köln • Sebastopol • Taipei • Tokyo

Programming Scala
by Dean Wampler and Alex Payne

Copyright © 2009 Dean Wampler and Alex Payne. All rights reserved.
Printed in the United States of America.

Published by O’Reilly Media, Inc., 1005 Gravenstein Highway North, Sebastopol, CA 95472.

O’Reilly books may be purchased for educational, business, or sales promotional use. Online editions
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Editor: Mike Loukides Indexer: Ellen Troutman Zaig

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Printing History:
September 2009: First Edition.

O’Reilly and the O’Reilly logo are registered trademarks of O’Reilly Media, Inc. Programming Scala, the
image of a Malayan tapir, and related trade dress are trademarks of O’Reilly Media, Inc.
Many of the designations used by manufacturers and sellers to distinguish their products are claimed as
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While every precaution has been taken in the preparation of this book, the publisher and authors assume
no responsibility for errors or omissions, or for damages resulting from the use of the information con-
tained herein. This work has been released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial
license.

ISBN: 978-0-596-15595-7

[M]

1252446332
To Dad and Mom, who always believed in me.
To Ann, who was always there for me.
—Dean

To my mother, who gave me an appreciation for

good writing and the accompanying intellectual
tools with which to attempt to produce it.
To Kristen, for her unending patience, love, and
kindness.
—Alex
 Table of Contents

Foreword . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xv

Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xvii

1. Zero to Sixty: Introducing Scala . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

Why Scala? 1
If You Are a Java Programmer… 1
If You Are a Ruby, Python, etc. Programmer… 2
Introducing Scala 4
The Seductions of Scala 7
Installing Scala 8
For More Information 10
A Taste of Scala 10
A Taste of Concurrency 16
Recap and What’s Next 21

2. Type Less, Do More . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

In This Chapter 23
Semicolons 23
Variable Declarations 24
Method Declarations 25
Method Default and Named Arguments (Scala Version 2.8) 26
Nesting Method Definitions 28
Inferring Type Information 29
Literals 36
Integer Literals 36
Floating-Point Literals 37
Boolean Literals 38
Character Literals 38
String Literals 39
Symbol Literals 39

vii
 Tuples 40
Option, Some, and None: Avoiding nulls 41
Organizing Code in Files and Namespaces 44
Importing Types and Their Members 45
Imports are Relative 46
Abstract Types And Parameterized Types 47
Reserved Words 49
Recap and What’s Next 52

3. Rounding Out the Essentials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53

Operator? Operator? 53
Syntactic Sugar 54
Methods Without Parentheses and Dots 55
Precedence Rules 56
Domain-Specific Languages 57
Scala if Statements 58
Scala for Comprehensions 59
A Dog-Simple Example 59
Filtering 60
Yielding 60
Expanded Scope 61
Other Looping Constructs 61
Scala while Loops 61
Scala do-while Loops 62
Generator Expressions 62
Conditional Operators 63
Pattern Matching 63
A Simple Match 64
Variables in Matches 64
Matching on Type 65
Matching on Sequences 65
Matching on Tuples (and Guards) 66
Matching on Case Classes 67
Matching on Regular Expressions 68
Binding Nested Variables in Case Clauses 69
Using try, catch, and finally Clauses 70
Concluding Remarks on Pattern Matching 71
Enumerations 72
Recap and What’s Next 74

4. Traits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
Introducing Traits 75
Traits As Mixins 76

viii | Table of Contents

 Stackable Traits 82
Constructing Traits 86
Class or Trait? 87
Recap and What’s Next 88

5. Basic Object-Oriented Programming in Scala . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89

Class and Object Basics 89
Parent Classes 91
Constructors in Scala 91
Calling Parent Class Constructors 94
Nested Classes 95
Visibility Rules 96
Public Visibility 98
Protected Visibility 99
Private Visibility 100
Scoped Private and Protected Visibility 102
Final Thoughts on Visibility 110
Recap and What’s Next 110

6. Advanced Object-Oriented Programming In Scala . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111

Overriding Members of Classes and Traits 111
Attempting to Override final Declarations 112
Overriding Abstract and Concrete Methods 112
Overriding Abstract and Concrete Fields 114
Overriding Abstract and Concrete Fields in Traits 114
Overriding Abstract and Concrete Fields in Classes 119
Overriding Abstract Types 120
When Accessor Methods and Fields Are Indistinguishable: The Uni-
form Access Principle 123
Companion Objects 126
Apply 127
Unapply 129
Apply and UnapplySeq for Collections 132
Companion Objects and Java Static Methods 133
Case Classes 136
Syntactic Sugar for Binary Operations 139
The copy Method in Scala Version 2.8 140
Case Class Inheritance 140
Equality of Objects 142
The equals Method 143
The == and != Methods 143
The ne and eq Methods 143
Array Equality and the sameElements Method 143

Table of Contents | ix
 Recap and What’s Next 144

7. The Scala Object System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145

The Predef Object 145
Classes and Objects: Where Are the Statics? 148
Package Objects 150
Sealed Class Hierarchies 151
The Scala Type Hierarchy 155
Linearization of an Object’s Hierarchy 159
Recap and What’s Next 164

8. Functional Programming in Scala . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165

What Is Functional Programming? 165
Functions in Mathematics 166
Variables that Aren’t 166
Functional Programming in Scala 167
Function Literals and Closures 169
Purity Inside Versus Outside 169
Recursion 170
Tail Calls and Tail-Call Optimization 171
Trampoline for Tail Calls 172
Functional Data Structures 172
Lists in Functional Programming 173
Maps in Functional Programming 173
Sets in Functional Programming 174
Other Data Structures in Functional Programming 174
Traversing, Mapping, Filtering, Folding, and Reducing 174
Traversal 175
Mapping 175
Filtering 178
Folding and Reducing 179
Functional Options 181
Pattern Matching 182
Partial Functions 183
Currying 184
Implicits 186
Implicit Conversions 186
Implicit Function Parameters 188
Final Thoughts on Implicits 189
Call by Name, Call by Value 189
Lazy Vals 190
Recap: Functional Component Abstractions 192

x | Table of Contents
 9. Robust, Scalable Concurrency with Actors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193
The Problems of Shared, Synchronized State 193
Actors 193
Actors in Abstract 194
Actors in Scala 194
Sending Messages to Actors 195
The Mailbox 196
Actors in Depth 197
Effective Actors 202
Traditional Concurrency in Scala: Threading and Events 203
One-Off Threads 203
Using java.util.concurrent 204
Events 204
Recap and What’s Next 210

10. Herding XML in Scala . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 211

Reading XML 211
Exploring XML 212
Looping and Matching XML 213
Writing XML 214
A Real-World Example 215
Recap and What’s Next 216

11. Domain-Specific Languages in Scala . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217

Internal DSLs 218
A Payroll Internal DSL 222
Infix Operator Notation 223
Implicit Conversions and User-Defined Types 223
Apply Methods 224
Payroll Rules DSL Implementation 224
Internal DSLs: Final Thoughts 229
External DSLs with Parser Combinators 230
About Parser Combinators 230
A Payroll External DSL 230
A Scala Implementation of the External DSL Grammar 233
Generating Paychecks with the External DSL 239
Internal Versus External DSLs: Final Thoughts 244
Recap and What’s Next 245

12. The Scala Type System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 247

Reflecting on Types 248
Understanding Parameterized Types 249
Manifests 250

Table of Contents | xi
 Parameterized Methods 251
Variance Under Inheritance 251
Variance of Mutable Types 255
Variance In Scala Versus Java 256
Implementation Notes 259
Type Bounds 259
Upper Type Bounds 259
Lower Type Bounds 260
A Closer Look at Lists 261
Views and View Bounds 263
Nothing and Null 267
Understanding Abstract Types 267
Parameterized Types Versus Abstract Types 270
Path-Dependent Types 272
C.this 273
C.super 273
path.x 274
Value Types 275
Type Designators 275
Tuples 275
Parameterized Types 275
Annotated Types 275
Compound Types 276
Infix Types 276
Function Types 277
Type Projections 279
Singleton Types 279
Self-Type Annotations 279
Structural Types 283
Existential Types 284
Infinite Data Structures and Laziness 285
Recap and What’s Next 288

13. Application Design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 289

Annotations 289
Enumerations Versus Pattern Matching 300
Thoughts On Annotations and Enumerations 304
Enumerations Versus Case Classes and Pattern Matching 304
Using Nulls Versus Options 306
Options and for Comprehensions 308
Exceptions and the Alternatives 311
Scalable Abstractions 313
Fine-Grained Visibility Rules 314

xii | Table of Contents

 Mixin Composition 316
Self-Type Annotations and Abstract Type Members 317
Effective Design of Traits 321
Design Patterns 325
The Visitor Pattern: A Better Alternative 326
Dependency Injection in Scala: The Cake Pattern 334
Better Design with Design By Contract 340
Recap and What’s Next 342

14. Scala Tools, Libraries, and IDE Support . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 343

Command-Line Tools 343
scalac Command-Line Tool 343
The scala Command-Line Tool 345
The scalap, javap, and jad Command-Line Tools 350
The scaladoc Command-Line Tool 352
The sbaz Command-Line Tool 352
The fsc Command-Line Tool 353
Build Tools 353
Integration with IDEs 353
Eclipse 354
IntelliJ 356
NetBeans 359
Text Editors 360
Test-Driven Development in Scala 361
ScalaTest 361
Specs 363
ScalaCheck 365
Other Notable Scala Libraries and Tools 367
Lift 367
Scalaz 367
Scalax 368
MetaScala 368
JavaRebel 368
Miscellaneous Smaller Libraries 368
Java Interoperability 369
Java and Scala Generics 369
Using Scala Functions in Java 371
JavaBean Properties 374
AnyVal Types and Java Primitives 375
Scala Names in Java Code 375
Java Library Interoperability 377
AspectJ 377
The Spring Framework 381

Table of Contents | xiii

 Terracotta 384
Hadoop 384
Recap and What’s Next 385

Appendix: References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 387

Glossary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 393

Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 407

xiv | Table of Contents

Another Random Scribd Document
with Unrelated Content
an address to Parliament, entitled Giving Alms no Charity. Speaking
of the employment of parish children in manufactories, he says, ‘For
every skein of worsted these poor children spin there must be a skein
the less spun by some poor family that spun it before.’ Sir F. M.
Eden, on the same subject, observes, that whether mops and brooms
are made by parish children or by private workmen, no more can be
sold than the public is in want of.”
“It will be said, perhaps, that the same reasoning might be applied
to any new capital brought into competition in a particular trade or
manufacture, which can rarely be done without injuring, in some
degree, those that were engaged in it before. But there is a material
difference in the two cases. In this, the competition is perfectly fair,
and what every man on entering his business must lay his account to.
He may rest secure that he will not be supplanted, unless his
competitor possess superior skill and industry. In the other case, the
competition is supported by a great bounty, by which means,
notwithstanding very inferior skill and industry on the part of his
competitors, the independent workman may be undersold, and
unjustly excluded from the market. He himself is made to contribute
to this competition against his own earnings, and the funds for the
maintenance of labour are thus turned from the support of a trade
which yields a proper profit to one which cannot maintain itself
without a bounty. It should be observed in general that when a fund
for the maintenance of labour is raised by assessment, the greatest
part of it is not a new capital brought into trade, but an old one,
which before was much more profitably employed, turned into a new
channel. The farmer pays to the poor’s rates for the encouragement
of a bad and unprofitable manufacture what he would have
employed on his land with infinitely more advantage to his country.
In the one case, the funds for the maintenance of labour are daily
diminished; in the other, daily increased. And this obvious tendency
of assessments for the employment of the poor to decrease the real
funds for the maintenance of labour in any country, aggravates the
absurdity of supposing that it is in the power of a government to find
employment for all its subjects, however fast they may increase.”
It is strange how the present generation begins to forget the truths
that were clearly seen by the one immediately preceding. We have
had a proof of this in the late agitation for Protection versus Free
Trade. And on November 5th, 1881, there was another example so
given in the case of a deputation of ratepayers of Newington, who
waited on Mr. Dodson, the President of the Local Government
Board, to ask him to administer out-door relief instead of building a
new workhouse at Champion Hill, at a cost of £200,000. The
deputation, which actually contained a professor of political
economy, Mr. Thorold Rogers, urged that the system of the
workhouse test entailed a cost of 7s. a week to the parish, whereas, if
persons were relieved at home, 3s. or 4s. would be all that would be
required. Well might a French economist write an essay upon “things
that are seen, and things that are not seen”!
Mr. Dodson, in his able reply to this deputation, tried to teach
again the lesson taught by the Poor Law Commissioners in 1834, that
the whole object and system of the Poor Law which was then
established in this country was, that it should be strictly
administered, with a view simply of testing and checking absolute
destitution, and no means, no effectual means, had been devised, of
so testing destitution, except by offering the house: and just in
proportion as the poor-law was strictly administered, so in
proportion the entrance to the house was insisted upon as the
condition of relief. In the case of out-door relief it was impossible
absolutely to test the case. Out-door relief could not be closely
watched. They could not tell, when a man received relief, that he was
not receiving aid from other sources, that he was not earning
something for himself, and might possibly, if he were left to his own
resources, earn more. This was a system, he said, which in that way
acted as a check upon exertion and upon providence; and he need
not say that anything which acted as a check on these could not
result but in the increase of pauperism, the demoralisation of the
working classes, and in increased charges upon the ratepayers. Of
course, he knew that it was very tempting, when a case came before
them, to relieve a man by out-door relief. They might give him 1s. 6d.
and a loaf, or 2s.; and if they brought him into the house it would of
course cost 4s. or 5s., and thus the ratepayers would not, for the
moment, have so much to pay. But the system of the workhouse was
not so expensive as that, for we knew that not more than one man in
ten would go into the house. Where ten would accept out-door relief,
they could not get more than one or two who would accept in-door
relief. And, besides, they must further remember this, that if they
increased the rates by this system, they were making the prudent and
industrious man, who maintained himself and his family by his own
labour, support the idlers and vagrants who did not make similar
exertions. He knew how tempting it was to wish to save the money of
the ratepayers, and at the same time to gratify the feelings of
humanity to the poor by giving out-door relief, since it often
appeared hard and cruel to compel people to enter the workhouse,
and, as it was said, to “break up their homes.” But he, Mr. Dodson,
reminded his hearers that, as guardians, they had the administration
of the ratepayers’ money, and not the administration of a benevolent
fund. They were not administering a Charity, but were the stewards
for the ratepayers, and were bound to administer the Poor Law in the
manner which, not superficially and for the moment, was the most
really economical. The workhouse test was known by experience to
be, in the long run, the only truly economical and feasible way of
administering relief to the destitute. For what, he asked, was the
whole history of the modern English Poor Law? What was the
condition of England before 1830, when that law was loosely
administered? It was a system ruinous to the indigent classes, and
destructive to the ratepayers. The Poor Law Commissioners had
shown that the only way in which the people could be guaranteed
against starvation was by enforcing the workhouse test, and thus
avoiding the creation of a pauper class too numerous to be alleviated.
It is gratifying to find that Mr. Dodson is so well instructed in the
affairs of the office in which he holds sway. Doubtless, he is also
aware of the grand difficulty which opposes all State assistance of the
poor at their own houses, and which consists in the utter
recklessness still so prevalent among the uneducated classes as to the
size of their families. To give out-door relief in the present state of
public opinion would merely be to offer a premium upon large
families, and this could, of course, only result in early death,
degradation of the family, and a relapse into barbarism. Even in
Australia it has been found possible to raise up a pauper class by
such unwise out-door doles, which are no charity at all, but merely a
means to degrade and enslave the poorest classes.
 CHAPTER X.
WEALTH AS IT AFFECTS THE POOR.

I n the seventh chapter of book III. Mr. Malthus criticises an essay

of Adam Smith, on “Increasing Wealth as it Affects the Condition
of the Poor.” The professed object of Adam Smith’s enquiry is the
nature and causes of the wealth of nations. “There is another,
however, perhaps still more interesting (says our author) which he
occasionally mixes with it, the causes which affect the happiness and
comfort of the lower orders of society, which in every nation forms
the most numerous class. I am sufficiently aware of the near
connection of these two subjects, and that, generally speaking, the
causes which contribute to increase the wealth of a state tend also to
increase the happiness of the lower classes of the people. But
perhaps Dr. Smith has considered these two inquiries as still more
nearly connected than they really are; at least he has not stopped to
take notice of those instances, when the wealth of a society may
increase, according to his definition of wealth, without having a
proportional tendency to increase the comforts of the labouring part
of it.”
Malthus observes that the comforts of the labouring poor must
necessarily depend upon the funds destined for the maintenance of
labour, and will generally be in proportion to the rapidity of their
increase. The demand for labour, which such increase occasions, will
of course raise the value of labour; and till the additional number of
hands required are reared, the increased funds will be distributed to
the same number of persons as before, and therefore every labourer
will live more at his ease. But Adam Smith was wrong when he
represented every increase of the revenue or stock of a society, as a
proportional increase of these funds. Such surplus stock or revenue
will indeed always be considered by the individual possessing it, as
an additional fund from which he may maintain more labour; but
with regard to the whole country, it will not be an effectual fund for
the maintenance of an additional number of labourers, unless part of
it be convertible into an additional quantity of provisions; and it will
not be so convertible when the increase has arisen merely from the
produce of labour, and not from the produce of land. A distinction
may in this case occur between the number of hands which the stock
of a society could employ and the number which its territory can
maintain.
“Supposing a nation for a course of years to add what it saved from
its yearly revenue to its manufacturing capital solely, and not to its
capital employed on land, it is evident that it might grow richer
without a power of supporting a greater number of labourers, and
therefore without any increase in the real funds for the maintenance
of labour. There would, notwithstanding, be a demand for labour,
from the extent of manufacturing capital. This demand would of
course raise the price of labour; but if the yearly stock of provisions
in the country were not increasing this rise would soon turn out
merely nominal, as the price of provisions must necessarily rise with
it.”
The question is how far wealth increasing in this way has a
tendency to better the condition of the labouring poor. “It is a self-
evident proposition, that any general advance in the price of labour,
the stock of provisions remaining the same, can only be a nominal
advance, as it must shortly be followed by a proportional rise in
provisions. The increase in the price of labour which we have
supposed, would have no permanent effect therefore in giving to the
labouring poor a greater command over the necessaries of life. In
this respect they would be nearly in the same state as before. In some
other respects they would be in a worse state. A greater portion of
them would be employed in manufactures, and a smaller portion in
agriculture. (The present condition of England in 1882.) And this
exchange of profession will be allowed, I think, by all to be very
unfavourable to health, an essential ingredient to happiness, and to
be further disadvantageous on account of the greater uncertainty of
manufacturing labour, arising from the capricious tastes of man, the
accidents of war, and other causes which occasionally produce very
severe distress among the lower classes of society.”
 Mr. Malthus then feelingly alludes to the miserable condition of
the poor young operatives in Manchester in his day, and to the
destruction of the comforts of the family so often caused by the
women becoming so frequently mere hands in mills and quite
unacquainted with any household work. “The females are wholly
uninstructed in sewing, knitting, and other domestic affairs,
requisite to make them notable and frugal wives and mothers. This is
a very great misfortune to them and to the public, as is sadly proved
by a comparison of the families of labourers in husbandry, and those
in manufactures in general. In the former we meet with neatness,
cleanliness, and comfort: in the latter with filth, rags, and poverty,
although their wages may be nearly double those of the
husbandman. In addition to these evils we all know how subject
particular manufactures are to fail, from the caprice of taste, or the
accident of war. The weavers of Spitalfield were plunged into the
most severe distress by the fashion of muslins instead of silks; and
numbers of the workmen of Sheffield and Birmingham were for a
time thrown out of employment, from the adoption of shoe strings
and covered buttons, instead of buckles and metal buttons. Under
such circumstances, unless the increase of the riches of a country
from manufactures gives the lower classes of the society, on an
average, a decidedly greater command over the necessaries and
conveniences of life, it will not appear that their condition is
improved.”
Mr. Malthus continues: “It will be said, perhaps, that the advance
in the price of provisions will immediately turn some additional
capital into the channel of agriculture, and thus occasion a much
greater produce. But from experience it appears that this is an effect
which sometimes follows very slowly, particularly if heavy taxes that
affect agricultural industry, and an advance in the price of labour,
had preceded the advance in the price of provisions. It may also be
said, that the additional capital of the nation would enable it to
import provisions sufficient for the maintenance of those whom its
stock could employ. A small country with a large navy, and great
accommodation for inland carriage, may indeed import and
distribute an effectual quantity of provisions; but in large landed
nations, if they may be so-called, an importation adequate at all
times to the demand is scarcely possible.”
 In 1881 the inhabitants of the British Islands had to import food
consisting of live and dead meat, butter, eggs, flour, and wheat, &c.,
at an expense of no less than one hundred and thirty-two millions
sterling, inclusive of sugar, one of the requisites of nutrition, or at the
cost of one hundred and eight millions sterling without sugar. And
yet the price of butter was about 1s. 6d. the pound and meat about
9d. a pound in London, whilst milk sold for 5d. the quart. Thus we
see how true the words of the great writer on population were, even
writing before the days of steam and electric telegraphs,
improvements in the way of obtaining food supplies that might easily
have made food as cheap here as in New Zealand, had it not been for
the excessive birth-rate that has been going on for the whole of this
century in the United Kingdom.
Mr. Malthus points out that a nation which from its extent and
population must necessarily support the greater part of its
population on the produce of its own soil, but which yet, in average
years, draws a small portion of its corn from abroad, is in a more
precarious position with regard to the constancy of its supplies, than
such states as draw almost the whole of their provisions from other
countries. A nation possessed of a large territory is unavoidably
subject to this uncertainty of its means of subsistence, when the
commercial part of its population is either equal to, or has increased
beyond the surplus produce of its cultivators. “No reserve being in
these cases left in exportation, the full effect of every deficiency from
unfavorable seasons must necessarily be felt; and, although the
riches of such a country may enable it for a certain period to continue
raising the nominal rate of wages, so as to give the lower classes of
the society a power of purchasing imported corn at a high price; yet,
a sudden demand can very seldom be fully answered, the
competition in the market will invariably raise the price of provisions
in full proportion to the advance in the price of labor; the lower
classes will be but little relieved, and the dearth will operate severely
throughout all the ranks of society.
“According to the natural order of things, years of scarcity must
occasionally recur in all landed nations. They ought always therefore
to enter into our consideration; and the prosperity of any country
may justly be considered as precarious, in which the funds for the
maintenance of labour are liable to great and sudden fluctuations
from every unfavourable variation in the seasons.
“But putting for the present, years of scarcity out of the question.
When the commercial population of any country increases so much
beyond the surplus produce of the cultivators, that the demand for
imported corn is not easily supplied, and the price rises in proportion
to the rate of wages, no further increase of riches will have any
tendency to give the laborer a greater command over the necessaries
of life. In the progress of wealth this will naturally take place, either
from the largeness of the supply wanted, the increased distance from
which it is brought, and consequently, the increased expense of
importation; the greater consumption of it in the countries in which
it is usually purchased, or, what must unavoidably happen, the
necessity of a greater distance of inland carriage in these countries.
Such a nation, by increasing industry in the improvement of
machinery, may still go on increasing the yearly quantity of its
manufactured produce; but its funds for the maintenance of labor,
and consequently its population, will be perfectly stationary. This
point is the natural limit to the population of all commercial states.
In countries at a great distance from this limit, an effect approaching
to what has been here described will take place, whenever the march
of commerce and manufactures is more rapid than that of
agriculture.”
Malthus takes China as an example, that every increase in the
stock or revenue of a nation cannot be considered as an increase of
the real funds for the maintenance of labor, and therefore cannot
have the same good effect upon the condition of the poor. China, as
Adam Smith remarked, has probably long been as rich as the nature
of her laws and institutions will admit; although, with other laws and
institutions, and on the supposition of unshackled foreign
commerce, she might still be richer, yet, the question is, would such
an increase of wealth be an increase of the real funds for the
maintenance of labor, and consequently tend to place the lower
classes in China in a state of greater plenty?
Malthus contends that if trade and foreign commerce were held in
great honour in China, it is evident that, from the great number of
laborers, and the cheapness of labor, she might work up
manufactures for foreign sale to an immense amount. It is equally
evident, that from the great bulk of provisions, and the amazing
extent of her inland territory, she could not in return import such a
quantity as would be any sensible addition to the annual stock of
subsistence in the country. “Her immense amount of manufactures
therefore, she would exchange chiefly for luxuries collected from all
parts of the world. At present it appears that no labor whatever is
spared in the production of food. The country is rather over-peopled
in proportion to what its stock can employ, and labor is therefore so
abundant that no pains are taken to abridge it. The consequence of
this is probably the greatest production of food that the soil can
possibly afford; for it will be generally observed, that processes for
abridging agricultural labor, though they may enable a farmer to
bring a certain quantity of grain cheaper to market, tend rather to
diminish, than increase the whole produce. An immense capital
could not be employed in China in preparing manufactures for
foreign trade, without taking off so many laborers from agriculture,
as to alter this state of things, and in some degree, to diminish the
produce of the country. The demand for manufacturing laborers
would naturally raise the price of labor; but, as the quantity of
subsistence would not be increased, the price of provisions would
keep pace with it, or even more than keep pace with it, if the quantity
of provisions were really decreasing. The country would, however, be
evidently advancing in wealth. The exchangeable value of the annual
produce of its land and labor would be annually augmented; yet the
real funds for the maintenance of labor would be stationary, or even
declining; and consequently, the increasing wealth of the nation
would tend rather to depress than to raise the condition of the poor.
With regard to the command over the necessaries of life, they would
be in the same, or rather worse state than before, and a great part of
them would have exchanged the healthy labor of agriculture, for the
unhealthy occupations of manufacturing industry.”
The observations of the greatest living Chancellor of the
Exchequer, Mr. W. E. Gladstone, of late years, have frequently
pointed out to us how very unfair a proportion of the increasing
wealth of this country has been absorbed by the possessors of capital,
as compared with that by the recipients of wages. It may indeed be
said, in the words of Mr. J. S. Mill, that owing to the way in which
population has increased in this century in this country, pari passu
with the increase of the wealth of the nation, it is doubtful whether
all the improvements in manufactures and in instruments for
abbreviating manual toil have taken one hour’s work from the
shoulders of the working classes.
“The condition of the poor in China,” says Malthus, “is indeed very
miserable at present, but this is not owing to their want of foreign
commerce, but to their extreme tendency to marriage and increase;
and if this tendency were to continue the same, the only way in which
the introduction of a greater number of manufacturers could possibly
make the lower classes of people richer, would be by increasing the
mortality among them, which is certainly not a very desirable mode
of growing rich.” This argument of our author might convince both
the fair traders and the free traders of this day, that neither free
trade, nor protection, are panaceas against starvation among the
poorest classes, and make them learn the lesson that a small-family
system alone can solve the fundamental question of man’s destiny—
how to make the proportion of mouths to food most favorable.
The argument perhaps appears clearer when applied to China,
because it is generally allowed that its wealth has been long
stationary, and its soil cultivated nearly to the utmost. With regard to
any other country it might always be a matter of dispute, at which of
the two periods compared wealth was increasing the fastest, for
Adam Smith, and others of his followers think that the condition of
the poor depends on the rapidity of the increase of wealth at any
particular epoch. Malthus to this replies that: “It is evident that two
nations might increase exactly with the same rapidity in the
exchangeable value of the annual products of their land and labor;
yet, if one had applied itself chiefly to agriculture, and the other
chiefly to commerce, the funds for the maintenance of labor, and
consequently the effect of the increase of wealth in each nation,
would be extremely different. In that which had applied itself chiefly
to agriculture, the poor would live in greater plenty, and population
would rapidly increase. In that which had applied itself chiefly to
commerce the poor would be comparatively but little benefited, and
consequently, population would either be stationary, or increase very
slowly.”
“The condition,” says Malthus, “of the laboring poor, supposing
their habits to remain the same, cannot be very essentially improved,
but by giving them a greater command over the means of
subsistence. But any advantage of this kind must from its nature be
temporary, and is therefore really of less value to them than any
permanent change in their habits. But manufactures, by inspiring a
taste for comforts, tend to promote a favorable change in these
habits, and in this way perhaps counterbalance all their
disadvantages. The laboring classes of society, in nations merely
agricultural, are generally on the whole poorer than in
manufacturing nations, though less subject to those occasional
variations which among manufacturers often produce the most
severe distress.”
There are two chapters in Malthus’s second volume devoted to the
consideration of the Agricultural and Commercial Systems about
which so much was written by his contemporaries. Mr. Malthus says
in Chapter VIII. that there are none of the definitions of the wealth of
a state that are not liable to some objections. If the gross produce of
the land be taken as indicating wealth, it is clear that this may
increase very rapidly whilst the nation is very poor, and, wealth again
may increase without tending to increase the funds for the
maintenance of labor and population. “Whichever of these
definitions is adopted, the position of the economists will remain
true, that the surplus produce of the cultivators is the great fund
which ultimately pays all not employed in the land. Throughout the
whole world the number of manufacturers, of proprietors, and of
persons engaged in the various civil and military professions must be
exactly proportional to the surplus produce, and cannot in the nature
of things increase beyond it. If the earth had been so niggardly of her
produce as to oblige all her inhabitants to labor for it, no
manufacturer or idle persons could ever have existed. But her first
intercourse with man was a voluntary present, not very large indeed,
but sufficient as a fund for his subsistence, till by the proper exercise
of his faculties he could produce a greater. In proportion as the labor
and ingenuity of man increased, again, the land has increased this
surplus produce; leisure has been given to a greater number of
persons to employ themselves in all the inventions which embellish
civilised life; and, although in its turn, the desire to profit by these
inventions has greatly contributed to stimulate the cultivators to
increase their surplus produce; yet the order of precedence is clearly
the surplus produce, because the funds for the subsistence of the
manufacturer must be advanced to him before he can complete his
work.”
“In the history of the world,” says Malthus, “the nations whose
wealth has been derived principally from manufactures and
commerce, have been perfectly ephemeral beings, compared with
those whose wealth has been agriculture. It is in the nature of things
that a state which subsists upon a revenue furnished by other
countries, must be infinitely more exposed to all the accidents of
time and chance, than one which produces its own. No error is more
frequent than that of mistaking effects for causes. We are so blinded
by the shrewdness of commerce and manufactures, as to believe that
they are almost the sole cause of the wealth, power, and prosperity of
England; but perhaps they may be more justly considered as the
consequence, than the cause of the wealth. According to the
definition of the economists, which considers only the produce of
land, England is the richest country in Europe, in proportion to her
size. Her system of agriculture is beyond comparison better, and
consequently, her surplus produce is more considerable. France is
very greatly superior to England in extent of territory and
population; but when the surplus produce, or disposable revenue of
the two nations are compared, the superiority of France almost
vanishes. According to the returns lately made of the population of
England and Wales, it appears that the number of persons employed
in agriculture is considerably less than a fifth part of the whole.”
This was written by Malthus in 1806, and it is curious to contrast
the state of matters which now exists in the United Kingdom. In 1881
she consumed 1,740,000 tons of meat, and only produced 1,090,000
of these herself. She also consumed 607 millions of bushels of grain,
and produced only 322 millions of these, so that, although her
agricultural skill has greatly increased since the days of Malthus, she
imports nearly half of her grain and one-third of her meat supplies.
Malthus was of opinion that the National Debt of England was
chiefly injurious because it absorbed the redundancy of commercial
capital and kept up the rate of interest, thus preventing capital from
overflowing upon the soil. He thought that thus a large mortgage had
been established on the lands of England, the interest of which was
drawn from the payment of productive labor, and dedicated to the
support of idle consumers. “It must be allowed, therefore, upon the
whole, that our commerce has not done so much for our agriculture,
as our agriculture has done for our commerce; and that the improved
system of cultivation which has taken place, in spite of considerable
discouragements, creates yearly a surplus produce which enables the
country, with but little assistance, to support so vast a body of people
engaged in pursuits unconnected with the land.”
About the middle of the eighteenth century, England, says our
author, was genuinely, and in the strict sense of the economists, an
agricultural nation. With London containing a population of more
than four millions, and our other immense cities, this description of
England is now quite out of place.
About the middle of the last century, says Malthus, we were
genuinely, and in the strict sense of the economists, an agricultural
nation. “We have now, however, slipped out of the agricultural
system into a state in which the commercial system clearly
predominates, and there is but too much reason to fear that even our
consumers and manufacturers will ultimately feel the disadvantage
of the change. When a country in average years grows more wheat
than it consumes, and is in the habit of exporting a part of it, those
great variations of price which from the competition of commercial
wealth, often produce lasting effects, cannot occur to the same
extent. The wages of labour can never rise very much above the
common price in other commercial countries; and under such
circumstances England would have nothing to fear from the fullest
and most open competition.”
Our author thinks (chap. ix. book iii.) that if we were to lower the
price of labour by encouraging the import of foreign corn, we should
probably aggravate our evils. The decline in our agriculture would be
certain. The British grower could not, in his own markets, stand the
competition of foreign growers, in average years. Arable lands of a
moderate quality would hardly pay the expenses of cultivation. Rich
soils alone would yield a rent. Round our towns the appearance
would be the same as usual; but in the interior of the country much
of the land would be neglected, and almost universally, where it was
practicable, pasture would take the place of tillage. This state of
things would continue till the equilibrium was restored, either by the
fall of British rent and wages, or an advance in foreign corn, or, what
is more probable, by the union of both causes. But a period would
have elapsed of considerable relative encouragement to
manufactures, and relative discouragement to agriculture. A certain
portion of capital would be taken from the land, and when the
equilibrium was at length restored, the nation would probably be
found dependent upon foreign supplies for a great portion of its
subsistence: and unless some particular cause were to occasion a
foreign demand greater than the home demand, its independence, in
this respect, would not be recovered. In the natural course of things,
a country which depends for a considerable part of its supply of corn
upon its poorer neighbours may expect to see this supply gradually
diminish, as those countries increase in riches and population, and
have less surplus produce to spare.
This last remark of Malthus has been verified of late years in
Europe, for countries from which we used some few years back to
receive a considerable amount of our supplies of meat and grain,
have now become competitors with us for supplies of these articles
from the United States and Australasia. And for other countries his
further remark holds true, that the political relations of such a
country may expose it, during a war, to have that part of its supply of
provisions which it derives from foreign states suddenly stopped or
greatly diminished; an event which could not take place without
producing the most calamitous effects. “A nation,” he continues, “in
which agricultural wealth predominates, though it may not produce
at home such a surplus of luxuries and conveniences as the
commercial nation, and may therefore be exposed possibly to some
want of these commodities, has, on the other hand, a surplus of that
article which is essential to the well-being of the whole state, and is
therefore secure from want in what is of the greatest importance.
And if we cannot be so sure of the supply of what we derive from
others, as of what we produce at home, it seems to be an
advantageous policy in a nation whose territory will allow of it, to
secure a surplus of that commodity, a deficiency of which would
strike most deeply at its happiness and prosperity.”
Malthus held that there is no branch of trade more profitable to a
country, even in a commercial point of view, than the sale of rude
produce. And here he seems to have disagreed with Adam Smith’s
views. That illustrious writer on Wealth observes that a trading and
manufacturing country exports what can subsist and accommodate
but very few, and imports the subsistence and accommodation of a
great number. The other exports the subsistence and
accommodation of a great number, and imports that of a very few
only. The inhabitants in the one must enjoy, said Adam Smith, a
much greater quantity of subsistence than what their own land, in
the actual state of cultivation, could afford. The inhabitants of the
other must always enjoy a much smaller quantity.
Malthus demurs to much of this argument of Adam Smith. For,
says he, “though the manufacturing nation may export a commodity
which, in its actual shape, can only subsist and accommodate a very
few, yet it must be recollected that in order to prepare this
commodity for exportation, a considerable part of the revenue of the
country has been employed in subsisting and accommodating a great
number of workmen. And with regard to the subsistence and
accommodation which the other nation exports, whether it be of a
great or a small number, it is certainly no more than sufficient to
replace the subsistence that has been consumed in the
manufacturing nation, together with the profits of the master
manufacturer and merchant, which probably, are not so great as the
profits of the farmer and the merchant in the agricultural nation;
and, though it may be true that the inhabitants of the manufacturing
nation enjoy a greater quantity of subsistence than what their own
lands in the actual state of their cultivation could afford, yet an
inference in favour of the manufacturing system by no means
follows, because the adoption of the one or the other system will
make the greatest difference in their actual state of cultivation. If,
during the course of a century, two landed nations were to pursue
these two different systems, that is, if one of them were regularly to
export manufacture and import subsistence, and the other to export
subsistence and import manufacture, there would be no comparison
at the end of the period between the state of cultivation in the two
countries; and no doubt could rationally be entertained that the
country which exported its raw produce would be able to subsist and
accommodate a much larger population than the other.”
It is a matter, says our author, of very little comparative
importance, whether we are fully supplied with broadcloth, linens,
and muslins, or even with tea, sugar, and coffee, and no rational
politician therefore would think of proposing a bounty on such
commodities. “But it is certainly a matter of the very highest
importance, whether we are fully supplied with food; and if a bounty
would produce such a supply, the most liberal economist might be
justified in proposing it, considering food as a commodity distinct
from all others, and pre-eminently valuable.”
 CHAPTER XI.

I n Chapter X. Mr. Malthus treats of bounties on the exportation of

corn. He sets out by observing that according to the general
principles of political economy, it cannot be doubted, that it is for the
interest of the civilised world that each nation should purchase its
commodities wherever they can be had the cheapest.
“During the seventeenth century, and indeed the whole period of
our history previous to it, the prices of wheat were subject to great
fluctuations, and the average price was very high. For fifty years
before the year 1700, the average price of wheat per quarter was £3
0s. 11d., and before 1650 it was £6 8s. 10d. From the time of the
completion of the corn laws in 1700 and 1706, the prices became
extraordinarily steady, and the average price for forty years previous
to the year 1750, sunk as low as £1 16s. per quarter. This was the
period of our greatest exportations. In 1757 the laws were suspended,
and in 1773 they were totally altered. The exports of corn have since
been regularly decreasing, and the imports increasing. The average
price of wheat for the forty years ending in 1800, was £2 9s. 5d., and
for the last five years of this period £3 6s. 6d. During this last term
the balance of the imports of all sorts of grain is estimated at
2,938,357.”
Mr. Malthus observes that it is totally contrary to the habits and
practice of farmers to save the superfluity of six or seven years. Great
practical inconvenience generally attends the keeping of so large a
reserved store. Difficulties often occur from a want of proper
accommodation for it. It is at all times liable to damage from vermin
and other causes. When very large it is apt to be viewed with a
jealous and grudging eye by the common people. And in general, the
farmer may either not be able to remain so long without the returns,
or may not be willing to employ so considerable a capital in a way in
which the returns must necessarily be distant and precarious.
Mr. Malthus was in favour of a bounty on the exportation of corn,
because the effect of such a bounty was to repress slightly the
increase of population in years of plenty, whilst it encouraged it
comparatively in years of scarcity. This effect, he maintained, was
one of the greatest advantages which could possibly occur to a
society, and contributed more to the happiness of the labouring poor
than could easily be conceived by those who had not deeply
considered the subject. “In the whole compass of human events,” he
says, “I doubt if there be a more fruitful source of misery, or one
more invariably productive of disastrous consequences, than a
sudden start of population from two or three years of plenty, which
must necessarily be repressed on the first return of scarcity, or even
of average crops.” From 1637 to 1700, both inclusive, the average
price of corn, according to Adam Smith, was £2 11s.; yet in 1681 the
growing price was only £1 8s. This high average price, according to
Malthus, would not proportionally encourage the cultivation of corn.
Though the farmer might feel very sanguine during one or two years
of high price, and project many improvements, yet the glut in the
market which would follow, would depress him in the same degree,
and destroy all his projects. Sometimes, indeed, a year of high prices
really tends to impoverish the land, and prepare the way for future
scarcity.
In a foot-note in page 264, Chapter X., Mr. Malthus makes the
remark that, “On account of the tendency of population to increase in
proportion to the means of subsistence, it had been supposed by
some that there would always be a sufficient demand at home for any
quantity of corn which could be grown. But this is an error. It is
undoubtedly true that if the farmers could gradually increase their
growth of corn to any extent, and could sell it sufficiently cheap, a
population would arrive at home to demand the whole of it. But in
this case, the great increase of demand arises solely from the
cheapness, and must therefore be totally of a different nature from
such a demand as, in the actual circumstances of this country, would
encourage an increased supply. If the makers of superfine broadcloth
would sell their commodity for a shilling a yard, instead of a guinea,
it cannot be doubted that the demand would increase more than
tenfold, but the certainty of such an increase of demand, in such a
case, would have no tendency whatever, in the actual circumstances
of any known country, to encourage the manufacture of broad
cloths.”
In page 267 Mr. Malthus adverts to what has recently been
commented upon by a great French statistician, Mr. Maurice Block,
viz.: the danger of a country becoming too dependent on others for
its supplies of food. “A rich and commercial nation is by the natural
course of things led more to pasture than to tillage, and is tempted to
become daily more dependent upon others for its supplies of corn. If
all the nations of Europe could be considered as one great country,
and if any one state could be as sure of its supplies from others, as
the pasture district of a particular state are from the corn districts in
their neighbourhood, there would be no harm in this dependence,
and no person would think of proposing corn laws. But can we safety
consider Europe in this light? The fortunate condition of this
country, and the excellence of its laws and government, exempt it,
above any other nation, from foreign invasion and domestic tumult,
and it is a pardonable love for one’s country, which under such
circumstances produces an unwillingness to expose it, in so
important a point as the supply of its principal food, to share in the
dangers and chances which may happen on the Continent. How
would the miseries of France have been aggravated during the
revolution if she had been dependent on foreign countries for the
support of two or three millions of her people.”
It is instructive to read what was thought might be the magnitude
of our future imports of wheat in 1806. In page 268 Mr. Malthus
writes: “We can hardly doubt that in the course of some years we
shall draw from America, and the nations bordering on the Baltic, as
much as two millions of quarters of wheat, besides other corn, the
support of above two millions of people. If under these
circumstances, any commercial discussion, or other dispute, were to
arise with these nations, with what a weight of power they would
have to negociate! Not the whole British Navy could offer a more
convincing argument than the single threat of shutting all their ports.
I am not unaware that in general, we may securely depend upon
people not acting directly contrary to their interest. But this
consideration, all powerful as it is, will sometimes yield voluntarily to
national indignation, and it is sometimes forced to yield to the
resentment of a sovereign. It is of sufficient weight in practice when
applied to manufactures; because a delay in their sale is not of such
immediate consequence. But in the case of corn, a delay of three or
four months may produce the most complicated misery; and from
the great bulk of corn, it will generally be in the power of the
sovereign to execute almost completely his resentful purpose.” This
is the argument of Mr. Block, with respect to our dependence on the
United States for so much of our food supplies. He remarks that it
might easily happen that some party in the United States might take
to prohibiting the export of corn, and in such a case there can be no
doubt that the people of this country would at once be plunged into
the severest trouble with respect to their food supplies. A war with
the United States is of course most unlikely, too, but alas! even such
a catastrophe is possible in the present position of human affairs.
The argument made use of by M. Maurice Block, that, in times of
war, Great Britain may possibly in some future time be in danger of
seeing much of its population starved from want of food supplies,
was anticipated by Malthus in a foot-note in chapter x. He there says:
—“I should be misunderstood if, from anything I have said in the
four last chapters, I should be considered as not sufficiently aware of
the advantages derived from commerce and manufactures. I look
upon them as the most distinguishing characteristics of civilization,
the most obvious and striking marks of the improvement of society,
and calculated to enlarge our enjoyments, and add to the sum of
human happiness. No great surplus of agriculture could exist without
them, and if it did exist, it would be comparatively of very little value.
But still they are rather the ornaments and embellishments of the
political structure than its foundations. While these foundations are
perfectly secure, we cannot be too solicitous to make all the
apartments convenient and elegant: but if there be the slightest
reason to fear that the foundations themselves may give way, it
seems to be folly to continue directing our principal attention to the
less essential parts. There has never yet been an instance in history
of a large nation continuing with undiminished vigour to support
four or five millions of its people on imported corn; nor do I believe
that there ever will be such an instance in future. England is,
undoubtedly, from her insular situation and commanding navy, the
most likely to form an exception to this rule; but in spite even of the
peculiar advantages of England, it appears to me clear that if she
continues yearly to increase her importations of corn, she cannot
ultimately escape that decline which seems to be the natural and
necessary consequence of excessive commercial wealth. I am not now
speaking of the next twenty or thirty years, but of the next two or
three hundred. And though we are little in the habit of looking so far
forward, yet it may be questioned whether we are not bound in duty
to make some exertions to avoid a system which must necessarily
terminate in the weakness and decline of our posterity. But whether
we make any practical application of such a discussion or not, it is
curious to contemplate the cause of those reverses in the fate of
empires, which so frequently changed the face of the world in past
times, and may be expected to produce similar, though perhaps not
such violent changes in future. War was undoubtedly, in ancient
times, the principal cause of these changes; but it frequently only
finished a work which excess of luxury and agriculture had begun.
Foreign invasions, or internal convulsions, produced but a
temporary and comparatively slight effect upon such countries as
Lombardy, Tuscany, and Flanders, but are fatal to such states as
Holland and Hamburg, and though the commerce and manufactures
of England will probably always be supported in a great degree by
her agriculture, yet that part which is not so supported will still
remain subject to the reverses of dependent states.”
Writing in 1806, Mr. Malthus adds:—“We should recollect that it is
only within the last twenty or thirty years that we have become an
importing nation. In so short a period it could hardly be expected
that the evils of the system should be perceptible. We have, however,
already felt some of its inconveniences; and if we persevere at it, its
evil consequences may by no means be a matter of remote
speculation.”
In the eleventh chapter of his third book our author treats of the
prevailing errors respecting population and plenty, and notices some
of the arguments which have this very year (1883) been put forward,
over and over again, by the disciples of Mr. Henry George, an
American writer who has acquired a sudden celebrity for his work on
“Progress and Poverty.” “It has been observed,” says Mr. Malthus,
“that many countries at the period of their greatest degree of
populousness have lived in the greatest plenty, and have been able to
export corn; but at other periods, when their population was very
low, have lived in continual poverty and want, and have been obliged
to import corn. Egypt, Palestine, Rome, Sicily, and Spain are cited as
particular examples of this fact: and it has been inferred that an
increase of population in any state, not cultivated to the utmost, will
tend rather to augment than diminish the relative plenty of the whole
society; and that, as Lord Kaimes observes, a country cannot easily
become too populous for agriculture, because agriculture has the
signal property of producing food in proportion to the number of
consumers.... The prejudices on the subject of population bear a very
striking resemblance to the old prejudices about specie, and we know
how slowly and with what difficulty those last have yielded to juster
conceptions. Politicians, observing that states which were powerful
and prosperous were almost invariably populous, have mistaken an
effect for a cause, and concluded that their population was the cause
of their prosperity, instead of their prosperity being the cause of their
population; as the old political economists concluded, that the
abundance of specie was the cause of national wealth, instead of the
effect of it. The annual produce of the land and labour, in both of
these instances, became in consequence a secondary consideration,
and its increase, it was conceived, would naturally follow the increase
of specie in the one case, or of population in the other. Yet surely the
folly of endeavouring to increase the quantity of specie in any
country without an increase of the commodities which it is to
circulate, is not greater than that of endeavouring to increase the
number of people without an increase of the food which is to
maintain them; and it will be found that the level above which no
human laws can raise the population of a country, is a limit more
fixed and impassable than the limit to the accumulation of specie.”
“Ignorance and despotism seem to have no tendency to destroy the
passions which prompt to increase; but they effectually destroy the
checks to it from reason and foresight. The improvident barbarian
who thinks only of his present wants, or the miserable peasant, who,
from his political situation, feels little security of reaping what he has
sown, will seldom be deterred from gratifying his passion by the
prospect of inconvenience, which cannot be expected to press upon
him under three or four years. Industry cannot exist without
foresight and security. Even poverty itself, which appears to be the
great spur to industry, when it has passed certain limits almost
ceases to operate. The indigence which is hopeless destroys all
vigorous exertion, and confines the efforts to what is sufficient for
bare existence. It is the hope of bettering our condition, and the fear
of want rather than want itself, that is the best stimulus to industry;
and its most constant and best directed efforts will almost invariably
be found among a class of people above the class of the wretchedly
poor.”
This remark of Malthus is a reply to those who say that if food
were cheaper and the poor better fed, they would only work as much
as was needed to get a scanty supply of food. Experience in our
colonies and in the United States shows that the fear of want is an
incentive to make the early colonists of a fertile country fervid in
their desire to obtain wealth.
“That an increase of population,” says Malthus, “when it follows in
its natural order, is both a great positive good in itself, and absolutely
necessary to a further increase in the annual produce of the land and
labour of any country, I should be the last to deny. The only question
is, What is the natural order of this progress? In this point, Sir James
Stewart appears to me to have fallen into an error. He determines
that multiplication is the efficient cause of agriculture, and not
agriculture of multiplication; but though it may be allowed that the
increase of people beyond what could easily subsist on the natural
fruits of the earth, first prompted man to till the ground: and that the
view of maintaining a family, or of obtaining some valuable
consideration in exchange for the products of agriculture, still
operates as the principal stimulus to cultivation; yet it is clear that
these products, in their actual state, must be beyond the lowest
wants of the existing population before any permanent increase can
possibly be supported. We know that a multiplication of births has in
numberless instances taken place, which has produced no effect
upon agriculture, and has merely been followed by an increase of
diseases: but perhaps there is no instance where a permanent
increase of agriculture has not a permanent increase of population,
somewhere or other. Consequently agriculture may with more
propriety be termed the efficient cause of population, than
population of agriculture, though they certainly react upon each
other, and are mutually necessary to each other’s support.”
 “The author of ‘L’Ami des Hommes’ (Mirabeau’s father), in a
chapter on the effects of a decay in agriculture upon population,
acknowledges that he had fallen into a fundamental error in
considering population as the source of revenue: and that he was
afterwards convinced that revenue was the source of population.
From a want of attention to this most important distinction,
statesmen, in pursuit of the desirable object of population, have been
led to encourage early marriages, to reward the fathers of families,
and to disgrace celibacy; but this, as the same author justly observes,
is to dress and water a piece of land without sowing it, yet to expect a
crop.” It is curious that so backward is speculation on this question
even in modern France, the most practical Neo-Malthusian country
in Europe, that this year has already seen two proposals made by
learned Frenchmen to encourage marriage and large families. The
first emanated from the son of one of the most distinguished
surgeons of Paris, Dr. Richet; the other from a member of the French
Corps Legislatif.
“Among the other prejudices,” says Malthus, “which have
prevailed on the subject of population, it has been generally thought
that while there is either waste among the rich, or land remaining
uncultivated in any country, the complaints for want of food cannot
be justly founded, or at least that the presence of distress among the
poor is to be attributed to the ill-conduct of the higher classes of
society and the bad management of the land. The real effect,
however, of these two circumstances is merely to narrow the limit of
the actual population; but they have little or no influence on what
may be called the average pressure of distress on the poorer
members of society. If our ancestors had been so frugal and
industrious, and had transmitted such habits to their posterity, that
nothing superfluous was consumed by the higher classes, no horses
were used for pleasure, and no land was left uncultivated, a striking
difference would appear in the state of the actual population, but
probably none whatever in the state of the lower classes of people,
with respect to the price of labour and the facility of supporting a
family. The waste among the rich, and the horses kept for pleasure,
have indeed a little the effect of the consumption of grain in
distilleries, noticed before with regard to China. On the supposition
that the food consumed in this manner may be withdrawn on the
occasion of a scarcity, and be applied to the relief of the poor, they
operate certainly as far as they go, like granaries which are only
opened at the time that they are wanted, and must therefore tend
rather to benefit than to injure the lower classes of society.
“With regard to uncultivated land,” says our author, “it is evident
that its effect upon the poor is neither to injure nor to benefit them.
The sudden cultivation of it would undoubtedly tend to improve their
condition for a time, and the neglect of lands before cultivated will
certainly make their situation worse for a certain period; but when
no changes of this kind are going forward the effect of uncultivated
land on the lower class operates merely like the possession of a
smaller territory. It is indeed a point of very great importance to the
poor whether a country is in the habit of exporting or importing
corn; but this point is not necessarily connected with the complete or
incomplete cultivation of the whole territory, but depends upon the
proportion of the surplus produce to those who are supported by it;
and in fact this proportion is generally the greatest in countries
which have not yet completed the cultivation of their territory.
“We should not, therefore, be too ready to make inferences against
the internal economy of a country from the appearance of
uncultivated heaths, without other evidence. But the fact is, that no
country has ever reached, or probably ever will reach, its highest
possible acme of produce, it appears always as if the want of
industry, or the ill-direction of that industry, was the actual limit to a
further increase of produce and population, and not the absolute
refusal of nature to yield any more; but a man who is locked up in a
room may be fairly said to be confined by the walls of it, though he
may never touch them; and with regard to the principle of
population, it is never the question whether a country will produce
any more, but whether it may be made to produce a sufficiency to
keep pace with an unchecked increase of people. In China the
question is not, whether a certain additional quantity of rice might be
raised by improved culture, but whether such an addition could be
counted on during the next twenty-five years as would be sufficient
to support an additional three hundred millions of people. And in
this country it is not the question whether, by cultivating all our
commons, we could raise considerably more than at present: but
whether we could raise sufficient for a population of twenty millions
in the next twenty-five years and forty millions in the next fifty years.
 “The allowing of the produce of the earth to be absolutely
unlimited scarcely removes the weight of a hair from the argument,
which depends entirely upon the differently increasing ratios of
population and food; and all that the most enlightened governments
and the most persevering and best guided efforts of industry can do,
is to make the necessary checks to population act more equably, and
in a direction to produce the least evil; but to remove them is a task
absolutely hopeless.”
We have now arrived at the last part of Malthus’s great essay on
population. In Book IV. our author speaks in chapter i. of future
prospects of the removal or mitigation of the evils arising from the
principle of population. He shows that we must submit to the
population law as an ultimate law of nature, and that all that remains
for us is, how we may check population with the least prejudice to
the virtue and happiness of human society. He claims for moral
restraint that it is the least harmful of all the checks. “If we be
intemperate in eating and drinking (he says) we are disordered; if we
indulge the transports of anger, we seldom fail to commit acts of
which we afterwards repent; if we multiply too fast, we die miserably
of poverty and contagious diseases.... The kind of food, and the mode
of preparing it, best suited for the purposes of nutriment and the
gratification of the palate, &c., were not pointed out to the attention
of man at once, but were the slow and late result of experience, and
of the admonitions received by repeated failures.”
Mr. Malthus then, following Hippocrates, points out that in the
history of every epidemic, it has almost invariably been observed,
that the lower classes of people, whose food was poor and
insufficient, and who lived crowded together in small and dirty
houses, were the principal victims. “In what other manner can nature
point out to us, that if we increase too fast for the means of
subsistence, so as to render it necessary for a considerable part of the
society to live in this miserable manner, we have offended against
one of her laws?” After the desire of food, the most powerful and
general of our desires is passion between the sexes, taken in an
enlarged sense. Mr. Godwin had said, in one of his works: “Strip the
commerce of the sexes of all its attendant circumstances, and it
would be generally despised.” To this Mr. Malthus replies, that
Godwin might as well say to a man who admired trees: “Strip them of
their spreading branches and lovely foliage, and what beauty can you
see in a bare pole?” “The evening meal, the warm house, and the
comfortable fire-side would lose half of their interest if we were to
exclude the idea of some object of affection with whom they were to
be shared.”
Few or none, then, of our human passions would admit of being
greatly diminished, without narrowing the sources of good more
powerfully than the sources of evil. The fecundity of the human
species is, in some respects, a distinct consideration from the passion
between the sexes. It is strong and general, and apparently would not
admit of any very considerable diminution without being inadequate
for its object. “It is of the very utmost importance to the happiness of
mankind that they should not increase too fast; but it does not
appear that the object to be accomplished would admit of any very
considerable diminution in the desire for marriage. It is clearly the
duty of each individual not to marry until he has a prospect of
supporting his children; but it is at the same time to be wished that
he should retain undiminished his desire for marriage, in order that
he may exert himself to realise this prospect, and be stimulated to
make provision for the support of greater numbers.
“Our obligation not to marry till we have a fair prospect being able
to support our children will appear to deserve the attention of the
moralist, if it can be proved that an attention to these obligations is
of more effect in the prevention of misery than all the other virtues
combined; and that if, in violation of this duty, it was the general
custom to follow the first impulse of nature, and marry at the age of
puberty, the universal prevalence of every known virtue in the
greatest conceivable degree would fail of rescuing society from the
most wretched and deplorable state of want, and all the diseases and
famines which usually accompany it.”
In chapter ii. Mr. Malthus speaks of the effects which would result
to society from the prevalence of this virtue of moral restraint. “No
man whose earnings were only sufficient to maintain two children,
would put himself in a situation in which he might have to maintain
four or five, however he might be prompted to it by the passion of
love. The interval between the age of puberty and the period at which
each individual might venture to marry must, according to this view
be passed in strict chastity; because the law of chastity cannot be
violated without producing evil. The effect of anything like a
promiscuous intercourse which prevents the birth of children, is
evidently to weaken the best affections of the heart, and in a very
marked manner to degrade the female character. And any other
intercourse would, without improper arts, bring as many children
into society as marriage, with a much greater probability of their
becoming a burden to it.”
The phrase, “improper arts,” is the only point on which the so-
styled Neo-Malthusians differ from Malthus. To his modern disciples
it seems abundantly proved, from the experience of France and
elsewhere, that late marriage is not what must be trusted to check
population; but a restraint in the size of families. Mr. Malthus,
indeed, seems himself to recognise the evils of late marriages, for he
writes: “The late marriages at present are, indeed, principally
confined to the men; and there are few, however advanced in life
they may be, who, if they determine to marry, do not fix their choice
on a very young wife. A young woman, without fortune, when she has
passed her twenty-fifth year, begins to fear, and with reason, that she
may lead a life of celibacy.... If women could look forward with just
confidence to marriage at twenty-eight or thirty, I fully believe that,
if the matter were left to them for choice, they would clearly prefer
waiting till this period, to the being involved in all the cares of a large
family at twenty-five.”
Lord Derby, some years ago, truly observed that great emperors
did not like their subjects to be too well off. This remark may have
been a citation from Malthus, where he says: “The ambition of
princes would want instruments of destruction, if the distresses of
the lower classes of their subjects did not drive them under their
standards. A recruiting sergeant always prays for a bad harvest and
want of employment, or in other words, a redundant population.”
Mr. Malthus points out that a society with a low birth-rate will be
extremely powerful both in war and peace. One of the principal
encouragements to an offensive war would be removed, and there
would be greater freedom from political dissensions at home.
“Indisposed to a war of offence, in a war of defence such a society
would be strong as a rock of adamant. Where every family possessed
the necessaries of life or plenty, and a decent portion of its comforts
and conveniences, there could not exist that hope of change, or at
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