Phillips. — On the Law of Gavelkind. 527 



must amount to something like £100,000,000 per annum, which, of itself, 

 means an enormous foreign food-supply. England at present is a gigantic 

 money-lender, and the Stock Exchange is the London office. But both 

 sources of these two exceptions are precarious, and it would be better for a 

 state to depend upon its own food-supply. Tberefore it follows that the 

 land should be fairly divided among the people. The danger arises, too, of 

 these great manufacturing towns breeding vast hordes of paupers, which in 

 times of war, pestilence, famine, or other trouble, would put to the test not 

 only the food-supply, but the whole machinery of law of whatever kind. In 

 France, this custom of gavel-kind, and a slightly higher tone of civilization, 

 checks the increase of population beyond the food-supply limit, and it is 

 very doubtful whether we shall not have to educate the members of both 

 sexes of the Anglo-Saxon race in this direction. I, of course, include the 

 fish from the adjacent seas in the food-supply limit. 



Mr. George ridicules Malthus. I simply desire to record my respect for 

 the principle enunciated by Malthus, and if the limits of this paper would 

 permit, I think I could show that Mr. George's own observations are open 

 to numerous exceptions. 



There is little doubt that England is in a precarious position, when she 

 has -to import so many hundreds of thousands of tons of corn and meat to 

 feed her population. This is enough to prove to us here how utterly diverse 

 are our circumstances from the circumstances of America. Furthermore that 

 different land laws apply according to the density of the population. Thus 

 there is more necessity for an alteration in the English land law of the 

 present day than there is in Australasia or America. In the latter 

 countries we may still go on as we are, but in order to prevent accumulation 

 we may enact the custom of compulsory division, the same as France 

 enacted it after the revolution. But in England more immediate and drastic 

 measures are required, for from 20,000,000 of a population, in the course of 

 a few years, the United Kingdom has sprung up into 35,000,000, and it is 

 time to check the growth of this population which surpasses the food limit. 

 A great population will test any land law. But then great populations of 

 paupers should not arise. 



Of course emigration of a superabundant home population is no cure for 

 the root of the evil. Emigration only allows the matter from the ulcerous 

 sore to escape as it were. The sore itself is not healed. The only cure is 

 the compulsory subdivision of the land, whereby the population itself imposes 

 the voluntary check to excessive increase. This is the cause found to be at 

 work 'in France. The five million land proprietors do not care to farther 

 subdivide their small estates, and population becomes checked. Under any 

 system of leaseholding whatever paupers would continue to breed paupers. 



