BY B. M. JOHNSTON, P.L.S. 201 



Nothing shows better the incoherence of Mr. Henry George's 

 so-called disproof of the Malthusian theory as in that portion 

 where he deals with man as limited by space. The figures 

 referred to show, without doubt, that if misery as a check td 

 population be banished, the increase to population would at 

 least be not less than 2 per cent, per year, and this would in 

 85 years, or within the limits of the life of persons now living, 

 exhaust all available lands, even if all available lands (pro- 

 viding 2'81 acres for each person) could be made to yield the 

 same average as the better lands now cultivated ; and this 

 near contingency Mr. Henry George scoffs at as something so 

 distantly remote " as to have for us no more practical interest 

 than the recurrence of the glacial period or the final extinguish- 

 ment of the sun." Rhapsodical nonsense of this sort ill- 

 becomes one who professes to discuss so momentous a question, 

 and one who professes to be so enthusiastic in attempting to 

 grapple with the real difiiculties which hitherto have barred 

 the material, intellectual, moral, and social progress of 

 mankind. 



On the other hand, it is logically impossible by any scheme 

 of civilisation yet propounded by man, except that suggested 

 by Malthus (moral check), to dispose of the existing miseiy 

 of mankind. 



It would be inhuman to perceive this terrible dilemma, and 

 not in heart and spirit rebel against it. Who does not flinch 

 as he gazes upon this terrible enigma ? It is no wonder, 

 therefore, that many emotional natures are either struck 

 mentally blind at the fierce light, or try to escape the bitter 

 conclusions which calm reason points out as inevitable by 

 concealing, ostrich like, the eyes of reason in the sands of 

 passionate rhetoric. The worst calamities that exist seem to 

 be far more easily borne if we could but suppose them to be 

 solely the results of man's own doings. In this conclusion 

 there is a hope of escape in the thought that man may undo 

 or amend what lie has done amiss. Hence, no doubt, the 

 natural repulsion of Mr. Henry George to the terrible thought 

 that the inexorable laws of Nature dominate, corporeally at 

 least, over the single life, and over the types of Adam's race, 

 much in the same way as Nature has hitherto dealt with the 

 thousand types of earlier races that have vanished. He but 

 utters the human cry of passion when he urges that this is not 

 the doing of the Almighty Ruler. " We degrade the Ever- 

 lasting ; we slander the Just One. A merciful man would have 

 better ordered the world." Alas ! alas ! Who does not, or 

 has not at times, made similar despairing exclamations and 

 passionate protests. 



With respect to the statements of Mr. Henry George, which 

 led to this outburst of declamation, they are but a repetition of 



