502 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



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urban, which are necessary for the full economic support of a self- 

 sufficing population are considered without respect to national or 

 municipal boundaries, it will be found that land is, in all civilized coun- 

 tries, a real limiting factor of production, which is the same as saying 

 that the law of diminishing returns is everywhere in operaton where 

 these conditions are considered. 



Is there any occasion for alarm in this situation ? Certainly not for 

 us in the immediate future. From a scientific point of view, however, 

 there are two things which ought to be said. In the first place, time is 

 an element which may be left out of account. Whether the difficulties 

 inherent in this situation will become acute in a hundred, a thousand 

 or a million years, is not a matter of such importance as the question, 

 are these difficulties inherent? In the second place, while we may not 

 have any immediate cause for alarm, certain other people have, though 

 that may not be our concern. The people of western Europe may not 

 have had any cause for alarm in the days of Malthus, for the whole 

 American continent lay before them. But the American Indians had 

 ample cause for alarm had they understood the situation. Similarly, 

 the civilized races of to-day may be at ease in Zion, their temporal sal- 

 vation being assured, since South America and Africa lie open before 

 them. But certain other races already in possession of those alluring 

 Canaans may well be on the anxious seat, for their temporal damnation 

 is imminent. It will be so easy for us to take these lands that, doubt- 

 less, it would be very foolish for us to worry about the land question. 

 Fortunately, we are not the people who have to do the worrying, and 

 doubtless a merciful providence has rendered the people who ought to 

 worry incapable of seeing anything to worry about. 



Since our growing agricultural population is showing a tendency, 

 as all agricultural populations of the Occident have shown for thousands 

 of years, to spread rather than to remain pent up in their national 

 boundaries, one of three things must happen if our population should 

 continue to increase: (1) We must become more and more a manu- 

 facturing and commercial people, depending more and more upon the 

 outside world for our agricultural produce, and joining in the general 

 scramble of the commercial nations for outside markets; (2) we must 

 restrain our people at home by force to prevent their emigration until 

 the pressure of population upon subsistence becomes strong enough to 

 check further increase and restore an equilibrium; or, (3) our people 

 will spread over the territories occupied by inferior races, dispossessing 

 them of their lands and sending them the way the Tasmanians have 

 gone and the American Indians are going. Why are we compelled to 

 face these alternatives ? For no reason in the world except the law of 

 diminishing returns, which, by the way, is reason enough. 



