Actual State of the British Empire. 161 



such as he has described. These principles being founded on 

 the very constitution of human nature, I should suppose can 

 never be shaken by any future discoveries or argumentations. 

 They seem to have been at all times sufficiently obvious, and 

 yet they have been so little recognised, that the manner in 

 which Mr. Malthus has developed them, has advanced the 

 science of political economy more than all the efforts of his 

 predecessors, and has thrown broad sunshine on some of the 

 most perplexed phenomena of civilized society. 



But when this gentleman begins his examination of the 

 remedies which have been proposed for these alarming evils, 

 and especially when he brings forward his own grand proposi- 

 tions of practical alleviation, he then, I presume, enters on 

 more debatable ground. This observation, perhaps, might be 

 variously illustrated ; but in the few remarks which are here 

 loosely thrown together, I shall confine myself to two points of 

 acknowledged importance — ^the question of emigration and the 

 abolition of the poor-laws. 



From the first appearance of this great work, it always struck 

 me, that the chapter on emigration was the vulnerable part of 

 the book. To use a vulgar, but very expressive parliamentary 

 phrase, he always appeared to me a little disposed to blink that 

 essential part of the enquiry. Apparently his object is to shew 

 that the evils which have always preceded and accompanied 

 emigration, are necessarily greater than those which they were 

 meant to relieve. He has made a formidable array of the 

 obstacles which present themselves to every new settlement, 

 and has detailed some of the most disastrous attempts of this 

 kind, which have been recorded in different ages. He has 

 endeavoured to shew, that in almost every conceivable case, 

 whether the object is to colonize an uninhabited country, or a 

 territory claimed, but not occupied by other governments, the 

 suffering and waste of life will, in most instances, exceed the 

 operation of the positive checks which drove, the superfluous 

 population from home. On these grounds, therefore, emigra- 

 tion is not to be considered as a remedy, but as a substitution 

 of one evil for another equivalent to it, with the gratuitous 

 trouble and expense of a change of residence. 



But these conclusions are not inevitable. The sufferings 



