PROCEEDINGS, AUGUST. Xxiii 



of this problem is at once apparent by the manner in which in his other- 

 wise very able work ' Progress and Poverty,' he has attempted to refute 

 the conclusions of Malthus. When Malthus afKrmed that the ratio of 

 increase of population increased faster than the ratio of increase of means 

 of subsistence, he never stated or conceived that population could 

 actually outstrip the means of subsistence as interpreted and discussed 

 by Mr. Henry George ; and hence the whole of Mr. Georgf's citations 

 and reasonings are either fallacious, or they never touch upon the real 

 causes at the root of Malthus' problem. That there is a thorough 

 misconception on the part of Mr. George is clearly proved by the 

 following quotation from Malthus : ' According to the principles of 

 population the human race has a tendency to increase faster than food. 

 It has, tlierefore, a constant tendency to people a country fully up to the 

 limits of subsistence ; but by tlie laws of nature it can never gu beyond 

 them, meaning, of course, by tliese limits the lowest quantity of food 

 which will maintain a stationary population. Population, therefore, can 

 never, strictly speaking, precede food.' This clear expression on the 

 part of Malthus casts aside the whole of Mr. George's ratiocinations as 

 worthless. His inability to grasp the most important elements of the 

 problem is still further made manifest by his query, ' How is it, then, 

 that this globe of ours, after all the thousands, and it is thought millions, 

 of years, that man has been upon the earth, is yet so thinly populated? " 

 The paper went on at great length to deal with the subject 

 of checks, and the fallacy of Mr. George's arguments, and the writer 

 maintained that when population is declining it is rather because misery, 

 disease, and vice have abnormally raised the deatli rate higher than 

 the birth rate, and not because of any material tendency to a decline in 

 the birth rate. While there are different stages of civilisation in 

 existence, over-population is a relative term applicable to the particular 

 country, and not an absolute auantity to be determined liy an absolute 

 number of persons to a given area as most erroneously indicated by Mr. 

 George. This is clear to any one who studies the civilisation and the 

 sanitary state of different countries. 



Mr. J. >S. Laukik said the whole question was in a nutshell. There 

 was a sufficient supply of food for a family of a certain number, but 

 when fresh births occurred in that family without any fresh avenues 

 of work with which to obtain the means of sustenance, trouble begau. 

 This principle, when extended, of course, narrowed the pleasures of a 

 certain numl)er, because of there being too large a number to participate 

 in them, Population, however, was fairly balanced by disease, famine, 

 war, etc. As to moral restraint, however, the lower orders knew nothing 

 whatever about it, and had no powers of restraint, and consequently 

 overwhelmed the world by imprudetce. This was the reason of the 

 overpopulation in many countries, and he took it that the art of living 

 was to live without making life a burden to one's self. The Frencli 

 adopted this plan, and their families averaged three. In Scotland the 

 average was eight, six or seven in England, and in Ireland 12 or 15. The 

 soil could not produce more than a maximum portion of food, and when 

 there was no further opening for employment, and no further source from 

 which to obtain food, there must be disaster. 



.scott'.s track to the west coast. 



Mr. James Andrew read a paper entitled " Notes in reference to 

 Scott's Track, via Lake St. Clair, to the West Coast of Tasmania." 

 In the notes he said he had been re(iue8ted by a fellow of the Society 

 whom circumstances prevented from himself representing the subject, 

 to call attention to an error in the designation of a track which appeared 

 in a paper on "The Highlands of Lake >t. Clair," read at the Novem- 

 ber meeting by Colonel Logge. The mimbcr referred to was Mr. T. B. 



