248 TEE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



tural products from her own soil. The obvious answer could be found 

 in any economic text-book. England has great stores of coal and iron, 

 while other regions have none, or what they have is of inferior quality. 

 This localization of resources makes an exchange of products advan- 

 tageous, and in such an exchange the lighter and more easily moved 

 products are transported. This fact has been greatly to the advantage 

 of England. Food has come to her instead of coal, iron, cotton and wool 

 going elsewhere to be worked up. This advantage is now lost and there 

 is a spread of industry to other nations, much to the disadvantage of 

 England. The pressure that is now producing so much poverty in Eng- 

 land is not due to diminishing returns, but to a more natural distribu- 

 tion of industry. Another reason for the movement of food to England 

 has been the unstable political conditions elsewhere. If Eussia will not 

 protect industry, her food goes to countries where it is favored. The 

 diminishing returns thus caused are felt, not in England, but in Eussia. 

 England gains by trade with inferior nations and has her profits raised 

 thereby. It is not England but the inferior nations that pay the cost of 

 transportation. 



Professor Carver asks why does urban population grow, and again 

 answers — the law of diminishing returns. The real reply is that urban 

 population grows because the scale of production is increasing. Central- 

 ized industry yields a greater return than localized workers receive. 

 He also asks why it is necessary to change our habits, eating, for ex- 

 ample, more oatmeal and less beef? In replying, he is as far off here 

 as in his other answers. It is not the poor who cut down the amount of 

 meat they eat. It is the more intelligent, and they do it because a 

 varied diet gives them more energy. That the English eat beef and 

 wheat bread is not due to their superiority as food, but to historical 

 conditions. English habits are social survivals, not physiological neces- 

 sities. The English eat meat for the same reasons that the Jews refuse 

 pork. If these old dietary laws prove anything, it is that the law of 

 diminishing returns is a social tradition and not a physical law. Why, 

 he also asks, are inventions and improvements made unless it be to en- 

 able increasing populations to avoid the law of diminishing returns? 

 Inventions are not made to support increasing population: population 

 increases because inventions have been made. I can point to forty in- 

 stances where the increase of population has followed inventions. I 

 doubt if he can point to one where the increase of population came first. 

 Growing population is an effect, not a cause. Men make improvements 

 to increase their product. The economy of effort is a psychic tendency, 

 not a physical fact. We get inventions as men move up in the scale of 

 existence, not as they move down. 



Two fundamental facts are thus involved in the relations of men to 

 nature. The resources of the world are localized and population must 



