778 REPORT— 1888. 



production greater than is now obtained from it, but that the landlords of Ireland 

 are generally incompetent from want of skill to obtain it by labour-saving 

 machinery. In England, it is in evidence that the labour-saving machinery in 

 use in agriculture is not so productive by one-half, as the like machinery in use in 

 the United States. And yet in England, the yield, say, of wheat, is double what 

 it is in France or in Germany, and according to the examinations of the late 

 Mr. Jenkins, the owner of land in petite culture works twice as hard for this 

 reduced produce and for half the wages of a well-paid labourer in England. In 

 Germany, the produce of every sort is one-half what it is in England. In 

 England, however, more than half the land that would be largely improved for 

 profitable production by drainage, is as yet undrained. Of the possible augmen- 

 tation of production in England by high culture it may be stated, that whilst the 

 common production is as one, the high production of market garden culture is as 

 three and a half, whilst the liquefied manure culture, as set forth by De Candolle 

 as the future of agriculture, by giving food and water at the same time, is as five. 

 And yet in the metropolis, prepared plans for the distribution of fresh sewage have 

 been set aside, and tlie fresh sewage which would yield the milk of 200,000 cows, 

 is thrown into the river Thames in a condition of putridity, to its gross pollution. 



It may be mentioned as an incident in analogy with the course of population 

 in Lancashire, that in Norfolk, where the greatest amount of labour-saving 

 machinery has yet been introduced, the agricultural population appears rather to 

 have increased. 



Now, in regard to the doctrine of the assumed natural check of pestilence to 

 increase of population. In the investigation on the subject of Poor Law Relief, I 

 found that in the healthy agricultural districts the intervals of births, where the 

 mothers suckled their own children, was about two years, and that where there 

 was a family of eight children, the eldest would be sixteen years of age, the second 

 fourteen, and the third twelve, capable of earning their own subsistence. In the 

 depressed districts, on the other hand— the slums of the metropolis, more heavily 

 ravaged by epidemics — the intervals of births were only one year, the conceptions 

 taking place immediately after each birth. Extended experience shows that, 

 except in such extraordinary pestilences as the Black Death, ordinary pestilences 

 do not diminish population, "but only leave it weakened. This may be exemplified 

 from India and elsewhere. As health and the duration of life is advanced, the 

 proportion of births appears to be rather diminished, as with the well-to-do classes. 

 To sum up, it is shown that where wages increase, the pi-essure of population on 

 the means of subsistence is diminished ; that, instead of the cost of the production 

 of land bemg fixed, it is generally reducible largely by science and machinery, 

 whilst the amount of produce may be everywhere augmented, and that mostly in 

 the regions of 2)etite culture ; that, instead of pestilence being the natural check to 

 population, it does not diminish that pressure, but serves to weaken population and 

 diminish its productive power, and increase the pressure of population on the 

 means of subsistence. 



I cannot descry the limits of a further advance of prosperity in this country 

 with a further increase of population. I expect it will be found with a iifth or a 

 fourth more of population. And then as to external relief. It is declared by a 

 French authority that only one-sixth part is yet inhabited of the cultivable parts 

 of the world. Mr. Justice Cunningham declares that in India ' there are still 79 

 millions of cultivable acres not utilised, and the rate of produce might be increased 

 so as to provide for an additional population of 400 millions.' Mr. Bence Jones 

 succeeded to an estate in Ireland when the wages were M. a day and the rental 

 10s. an acre. He advanced the wages to 2s. a day, and the valued rental to 40«. 

 per acre, and was proceeding to advance still further at the time of his death. 

 But scarcely an instance was known of a similar advance in all Ireland. In 

 France and Germany a similar augmentation of production is proved to be prac- 

 ticable. 



2. Dairy Industry. By George Gibbons. 



