Ch.iii. impj'ov'mg the Condition of tilt Poor. 291 



not proportion the food to the population, our next 

 attempt should naturally be, to proportion the 

 population to the food. If we can persuade the 

 hare to go to sleep, the tortoise may have some 

 chance of overtaking her. 



We are not however to relax our efforts in 

 increasing the quantity of provisions, but to com- 

 bine another effort with it ; that of keeping the 

 population, when once it has been overtaken, at 

 such a distance behind, as to effect the relative 

 proportion which we desire ; and thus unite the 

 two grand desiderata, a great actual population, 

 and a state of society, in which abject poverty and 

 dependence are comparatively but little known ; 

 two objects which are far from being incom- 

 patible. 



If we be really serious in what appears to be 

 the object of such general research, the mode of 

 essentially and permanently bettering the condi- 

 tion of the poor, we must explain to them the true 

 nature of their situation, and shew them, that the 

 withholding of the supplies of labour is the only 

 possible way of really raising its price, and that 

 they themselves, being the possessors of this com- 

 modity, have alone the power to do this. 



1 cannot but consider this mode of diminishing 

 poverty as so perfectly clear in theory, and so in- 

 variably confirmed by the analogy of every other 

 commodity which is brought to market, that 

 nothing but its being shewn to be calculated to 

 produce greater evils than it proposes to remedy, 

 can justify us in not making the attempt to put 

 it into execution. u 2 



