ECONOMIC CAUSES OF DEPLETION 65 



afforded to all a greater means of service than any ever 

 before known. In the material framework of the indus- 

 trial world we have the structural lines supplied us 

 upon which the finest spiritual development man has 

 as yet conceived of shall presently take place. " One 

 music, as before, but vaster," shall yet arise from the 

 modern world. The new is better than the old. 



^loreover, the change is not only for the better, it 

 was also imperative. Malthus was entirely in the right 

 in asserting, from his standpoint amidst the economic 

 conditions of his time, that population was rapidly 

 pressing upon the limits of the means of subsistence. 

 Though the greater portion of the race was then engaged 

 in agriculture, food production was insufficient for 

 increa.se of population, whereas now greater abundance 

 for all is furnished by the moiety of the population 

 which still remains upon the land, and every prospect 

 ..promises greater abimdance for yet larger population 

 for indefinite periods in the future. 



The opening up of new lands under the old economic 

 conditions would not have bettered matters, inasmuch 

 as agricultural regions such as Saskatchewan now is 

 could not have become the base of support for more 

 densely populated distant regions apart from modern 

 means of transportation ; nor. indeed, coidd agricul- 

 tural regions such as these have come into being, for 

 their needed manufactured products could not have 

 \>oon transported to thcin. All expansion must have 

 U'cn cx[)aiiHion of the limifs of tlie eomuiunity organized 

 as it then was. 



Not only so, Imt to Malthus's position wo must add 

 this — that population was pressing upon the limits of 

 manufacture as well as of food supply, for man liad 

 6 



