140 History of the English Landed Interest. 



population consisted of ten or twelve million souls. If five 

 millions of people produced as much necessaries of life as 

 would feed and clothe double their number, the produce of 

 the five millions would still be the net income, even though 

 there were seven millions producing food and clothing suf- 

 ficient for twelve millions. This is because the employment 

 of two millions extra in the processes of production could 

 neither add a man to our army nor a halfpenny to our funds. 

 If, then, the increase in population merely consumed the excess 

 of produce occasioned by the employment of a larger amount 

 of the national labour in agriculture, the net income of the 

 community would not have been increased. The real question 

 of benefiting the community depended upon whether the em- 

 ployment of the surplus population in agriculture would have 

 produced more wealth, or as much wealth at a less cost, than 

 if employed in manufactures. An increase, therefore, in popu- 

 lation, unless it was employed in labour, which would ulti- 

 mately add to the real net income of the nation, had no 

 influence on the public wealth. 



But these earlier economists (except perhaps Stewart) did 

 not realise the importance of such an argument, and regarded 

 an increase in the population merely as a godsend to agricul- 

 ture. The object of the community was to promote the 

 production of the greatest possible quantity of human food, 

 for by so doing there would be an increase in the population 

 and more labour available for husbandry. It was however, as 

 we have said, recognised that the economy which produced 

 the most human food did not necessarily employ the most 

 labour. Tull's new drill husbandry, for example, had enabled 

 the farmer to produce more direct human food with less labour 

 than under the old system. The obvious solution of the 

 difficulty would have been to export the superfluous food, 

 pending the usual resultant increase of population, and, as 

 soon as the latter became available, have employed it in the 

 reclamation of wastes. It will be seen that the prosperity 

 of the commercial industries did not much trouble such 

 theorists as these. Young, if he had had his way, would have 

 enticed all the townsmen into the fields, and exported the 



