Ch. xiii. ajfects the Condition of the Poor. 219 



and more exposed to fluctuations of demand and 

 unsteadiness of wages. 



A diminished power of supporting children is 

 an absolutely unavoidable consequence of the 

 progress of a country towards the utmost limits 

 of its population. If we allow that the power of 

 a given quantity of territory to produce food has 

 some limit, we must allow that as this limit is ap- 

 proached, and the increase of population becomes 

 slower and slower, the power of supporting chil- 

 dren will be less and less, till finally, when the 

 increase of produce stops, it becomes only suffi- 

 cient to maintain, on an average, families of such 

 a size as will not allow of a further addition of 

 numbers. This state of things is generally ac- 

 companied by a fall in the corn price of labour ; 

 but should this effect be prevented by the preva- 

 lence of prudential habits among the lower classes 

 of society, still the result just described must 

 take place ; and though, from the powerful ope- 

 ration of the preventive check to increase, the 

 wages of labour estimated even in corn might not 

 be low, yet it is obvious that, in this case, the 

 power of supporting children would rather be 

 nominal than real ; and the moment this power 

 began to be exercised to its apparent extent, it 

 would cease to exist. 



The second disadvantage to which the lower 

 classes of society are subjected in the progressive 

 increase of wealth is, that a larger portion of them 

 is engaged in unhealthy occupations, and in em- 

 ployments in which the wages of labour are ex- 



