IS27.] Third Report of the Emigration Committee. 531 



away! The atFair, put into figures would stand thus : Our population, 

 taking it at Christmas next, (1827) to be 23,000,000, supposing it to 

 double itself in fifty years by Christmas 1828, will have increased (in 

 round numbers) 32*1,000; and the Committee will have removed 20,000. 

 By Christmas, 1S29, it will have increased .'325,000 more, making an 

 advance of 646,000 ; and the Committee will have carried away 30,000 

 more, making a diminution of 50,000. By Christmas, 1831, the popula- 

 tion will have increased 604,000 more, making altogether an increase of 

 1,310,000; and the Committee will have removed 45,000 more, mak- 

 ing altogether an abstraction of 95,000. So that we should have out of 

 this project 



Total of increase within the time stated, supposing a rate of i *u 414 



increase such as would double the population in fifty years > ' 

 Total of diminution by emigration 95,OOO 



Increase of our population (and consequent difficulty) in ~) 



1831 as far as the exertions of the Committee are > 1,216,414 

 concerned ) 



Now our readers will observe that the in crease here quoted has nothing what- 

 ever to do with the alleged impetus, which the abstraction of any portion of 

 the inhabitants of a country of its own act gives to population [Mr. 

 Malthus, Q. 3386.], and against which it is'part of the duty of those who 

 Organize an emigration to provide : it is merely the ordinary increase 

 which is inevitable, at the rate at which our population is, and has been, 

 believed to be augmenting. We are perfectly aware, too, that these esti- 

 mates as to the rate in which population does increase, both in England 

 and Ireland, stand generally upon very unsatisfactory data. Mr. Mal- 

 thus, who has devoled great attention to the subject, says that he 

 believes the average increase of the people of Ireland to be such as would 

 double the population in forty years: judging from a calculation made 

 upon the actual increase which the census of 1821 shewed to have taken 

 place in the last thirty years, over the census or estimate of Dr. 

 Beaufort in 1792: but of the accuracy of Dr. Beaufort's census of 

 1792, on which the whole truth of his own estimate depends Mr. Mal- 

 thus knows nothing ! Still, in taking the average of 50 years as the rate 

 of increase in which the whole kingdom would double itself, we have 

 taken the lowest rate given by any witness indeed a rate considerably 

 lower than any witness suggests ; and even halve that increase ; divide 

 that half again ; say the increase is such as would double the population 

 in 1 00 years or in 200 years ; still either the fallacy of half the premises 

 upon which the Report proceeds must be monstrous, or there is no conceiv- 

 able rate of augmentation that can go on so slowly, but that the diminu- 

 tion provided by the Committee will be behind it! And, unless that 

 body are prepared to shew that of which certainly no word of proof 

 appears in their Report that they have some means for holding this 

 great and increasing population suddenly at a stand still their whole 

 scheme (according to all the data on which they have founded it) is just 

 as hopeless and extravagant, as that of a man who should propose to stop 

 the filling of a cistern by opening a half-inch pipe to run out on one 

 side, while a six-inch pipe (drowning him and his philosophy together) 

 was running in on the other ! 

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