252 General Observations. Bk. iii. 



The allowing of the produce of the earth to be 

 absolutely unlimited, scarcely removes the weight 



want of food) is never the immediate check, except in cases of 

 actual famine. 



If the expressions are unguardedly strong, they will certainly 

 allow of considerable mitigation, without any sensible diminution 

 in the practical force and application of the argument. But I am 

 inclined to think that, though they are unquestionably strong, they 

 are not very far from the truth. The great cause which fills 

 towns and manufactories is an insufficiency of employment, and 

 consequently the means of support in the country ; and if each 

 labourer, in the parish where he was born, could command food, 

 clothing, and lodging for ten children, the population of the towns 

 would soon bear but a small proportion to the population of the 

 country. And if to this consideration we add that, in the case 

 supposed, the proportion of births and marriages in towns would 

 be greatly increased, and all the mortality arising from poverty 

 almost entirely removed, I should by no means be surprised (after 

 a short interval for the change of habits) at an increase of popu- 

 lation, even in China, equal to that which is referred to in 

 the text. 



With regard to this country, as it is positively known that the 

 rate of increase has changed from that which would double the 

 population in 1 20 years, or more, to that which would double it in 

 55 years, under a great increase of towns and manufactures, I 

 feel very little doubt that, if the resources of the country were so 

 augmented and distributed, as that every man could marry at 

 18 or 20, with the certainty of being able to support the largest 

 family, the population of the British Isles would go on increasing 

 at a rate which would double the population in 25 years. It ap- 

 pears, from our registers, that England is a healthier country than 

 America. At the time that America was increasing with extra- 

 ordinary rapidity, in some of the towns the deaths exceeded the 

 births. In the English towns, with their present improvements, I 

 do not think this would ever be the case, if all the lower classes 

 could marry as soon as they pleased, and there was little or no 

 premature mortality from the consequences of poverty. 



