In Chapter VI. of Book IV. Mr. Malthus treats of the effects of the knowledge of the principal cause of poverty on Civil Liberty, observing at the outset that it may appear to some that a doctrine which attributes the greatest part of the sufferings of the lower classes of society exclusively to themselves, is unfavorable to the cause of liberty, affording, it may be said, a tempting opportunity to governments of oppressing their subjects at pleasure, and laying all the blame on the improvident habits of the poor. Our author contends that, on the other hand, the pressure of distress on the lower classes of people, with the habit of attributing the distress to their rulers, appears to him to be the rock of defence, the castle and the guardian spirit of despotism, affording as it does to the tyrant the unanswerable plea of necessity.

“The patriot who might be called upon by the love of his country to join with heart and hand in a rising of the people for some specific attainable object or reform, if he knew that they were enlightened respecting their own situation, and would stop short when they had attained their demand, would be called upon by the same motion to submit to very great opposition rather than give the slightest countenance to a popular tumult, the members of which, at least the greatest number of them, were persuaded that the destruction of the Parliament, the Lord Mayor, and the monopoly would make bread cheap, and that a revolution would enable them all to support their families. In this case it is more the ignorance and delusion of the lower classes of people that occasions the oppression, than the actual disposition of the government to tyranny.”

Mr. Malthus observes that the circulation of Paine’s Rights of Man was said to have done great mischief among the lower and middle classes in this country: and that might be true; but that was because Mr. Paine in many important points had shown himself totally unacquainted with the structure of society, and the different moral effects to be expected from the physical difference between this country and America. Mobs of the same description as those collections of people known by that name in Europe could not at that day exist in America. The number of people without property was, then, at that time, from the physical state of the country, comparatively small: and therefore the civil power which was needed to protect property, did not require to be so large. Mr. Paine argued that the real cause of riots was always want of happiness, and maintained that such was always due to something being wrong in the system of Government. But this is evidently not always the case. The redundant population of an old state furnishes materials for unhappiness, unknown to such a state of that of America.

Nothing would so effectually counteract the mischief caused by Mr. Paine’s Rights of Man (says our author), as a general knowledge of our true rights. “What these rights are, it is not now my business to explain: but there is one right which man has generally been thought to possess, which I am confident he neither does nor can possess, a right to subsistence when his labor will not fairly purchase it. Our laws (in 1806) indeed say that he has this right, and bind the society to furnish employment and food to them who cannot get them in the regular market; but in so doing they attempt to reverse the laws of nature; and it is in consequence to be expected, not only that they should fail in their object, but that the poor who were intended to be benefited should suffer most cruelly from this inhuman deceit which is practised upon them.”

Malthus adds that the AbbÉ Raynal had said that before all other social laws, man has a right to subsistence. “He might just as well have said that every man had a right to live 100 years. Yes! He has a right to do so, if he can. Good social laws enable truly a greater number of people to exist than could without them; but neither before nor since the institution of social laws can an unlimited number exist. Consequently, as it is impossible to feed all that might be born, it is disgraceful to promise to do so.

“If the great truths on these subjects were more generally circulated, and the lower classes could be convinced that by the laws of nature, independently of any particular institution, except the great one of property, which is absolutely necessary in order to attain any considerable produce, no person has any claim or right on society for subsistence, if his labor will not purchase it, the greatest part of the mischievous declamation on the unjust institutions of society would fall powerless to the ground. If the real causes of their misery were shown to the poor, and they were taught to know how small a part of their present distress was attributable to government, discontent would be far less common.

“Again—Remove all fear from the tyranny or folly of the people, and the tyranny of government could not stand a moment. It would then appear in its proper deformity, without palliation, without pretext, without protection.

“Good governments are chiefly useful to the poorer classes, by giving them a clearer view of the necessity of some preventive check to population. And in despotic governments it is usually found that the checks to population arise more from the sickness and mortality consequent on poverty, than from any such preventive check.”

Mr. Malthus contends that “the most successful supporters of tyranny are without doubt those general declaimers who attribute the distresses of the poor, and almost all the evils to which society is subject, to human institutions and the iniquity of governments. The falsity of these accusations, and the dreadful consequences that would result from their being generally admitted and acted upon, make it absolutely necessary that they should at all events be resisted: not only on account of the immediate revolutionary horrors to be expected from a movement of the people acting under such impressions, a consideration which must at all times have very great weight, but on account of the extreme probability that such a revolution would soon terminate in a much worse despotism than that which it had destroyed. Whatever may be, therefore, the intention of those indiscriminate accusations against governments, their real effect undoubtedly is to add a weight of talents and principles to the prevailing power which it would never have received otherwise.”

“Under a government constructed upon the best and purest principles, and executed by men of the highest talents and integrity, the most squalid poverty and wretchedness might universally prevail from an inattention to the prudential check to population, and as this cause of unhappiness has hitherto been so little understood, that the efforts of society have always tended rather to aggravate than to lessen it, we have the strongest reason for supposing that in all the governments with which we are acquainted, a great part of the misery to be observed among the lower classes of the people arises from this cause.”

The inference, therefore, which Mr. Godwin, and in latter days Mr. Hyndman and the Democratic Federation, have drawn against governments from the unhappiness of the people is palpably unfair, and before we give a sanction to such accusations, it is a debt we owe to truth and justice, to ascertain how much of this unhappiness arises from the principle of population, and how much is fairly to be attributed to government. When this distinction has been properly made, and all the vague, indefinite, and false accusations removed, government would remain, as it ought to be, clearly responsible for the rest, and the amount of this would still be such as to make the responsibility very considerable. “Though government has but little power in the direct relief of poverty, yet its indirect influences on the prosperity of its subjects is striking and incontestible. And the reason is, that though it is comparatively impotent in its efforts to make the food of a country keep pace with an unrestricted increase of population, yet its influence is great in giving the best direction to those checks, which in some form or other must necessarily take place.”

The first great requisite, says Mr. Malthus, to the growth of prudential habits is the perfect security of property, and the next perhaps is that respectability and importance which is given to the lower classes by equal laws, and the possession of some influence in the framing of them. The more excellent, then, is the government, the more does it tend to generate that prudence and elevation of sentiment by which alone in the present state of our being can poverty be avoided.

Mr. Malthus was greatly opposed to despotic government; and he remarks that it has been sometimes asserted, that the only reason why it is advantageous that the people should have some share in the government, is that a representation of the people tends best to secure the framing of good and equal laws; but that if the same object could be obtained under a despotism, the same advantage would accrue to the community. If, however, the representative system, by securing to the lower classes of society a more equal and liberal mode of treatment from their superiors, gives to each individual a greater personal respectability and a greater fear of personal degradation, it is evident that it will powerfully co-operate with the security of property in animating the exertions of industry, and in generating habits of prudence, and thus more powerfully tend to increase the riches and prosperity of the lower classes of the community, than if the same laws had existed under a despotism.

But, says our author, though the tendency of a free constitution and a good government to diminish poverty is certain, yet its effect in this way must necessarily be indirect and slow, and very different from the immediate and direct relief which the lower classes of people are too frequently in the habit of looking forward to as the consequences of a revolution. This habit of expecting too much, and the irritation occasioned by disappointment, continually give a wrong direction to their efforts in favor of liberty, and continually tend to defeat the accomplishment of those gradual reforms in government, and that slow amelioration of the lowest classes of society, which are really attainable.

The following passage might be well studied in these days of proposed schemes for land confiscation and communism. “It is of the very highest importance, therefore, to know distinctly what government cannot do, as well as what it can do. If I were called upon to name the cause which, in my conception, had more than any other contributed to the very slow progress of freedom, so disheartening to every liberal mind, I should say that it was the confusion that had existed respecting the causes of the unhappiness and discontent which prevail in society; and the advantage which governments had been able to take, and indeed had been compelled to take, of this confusion, to confirm and strengthen their power. I cannot help thinking, therefore, that a knowledge generally circulated, that the principal cause of want and unhappiness is only indirectly connected with government, and totally beyond its power to remove; and that it depends upon the conduct of the poor themselves, would, instead of giving any advantage to government, give a great additional weight to the popular side of the question, by removing the danger with which from ignorance it is at present accompanied; and these tend in a very powerful manner to promote the cause of rational freedom.”

Mr. J. S. Mill, who was more of a Socialist than Mr. Malthus and a greater optimist, admits that it would be possible for the State to ensure employment at ample wages to all that are born. But, he adds, if it does this, it is bound in self-protection, and for every purpose for which the State exists, to see that no one should be born without its consent. That is, he seems to favor the framing of a statute directed against the production of large families.

In suggesting that it would be possible for the State to ensure employment at ample wages to all that are born, if it only takes care that too many shall not be born, Mr. Mill differs a good deal from Mr. Malthus and from many of the laissez faire economists of the school of Adam Smith. Persons who are great admirers of individual liberty confound, as is very often the case, the idea of freedom with that of the right to do wrong. It is quite clear that if in an old country, such as any of the European States, all classes of society were to engender as many children as is now done by the poorest and most thoughtless members, poverty would become as universal as it formerly was, when mankind were less civilised and had a very low standard of comfort. Mr. Mill and those who follow him in this contention, among whom is to be reckoned the author of the “Elements of Social Science,” affirm that, although it is quite true that a grown-up man or woman should be perfectly free to live his or her own life so far as relates to self-regarding actions, it is a confusion of ideas to style the bringing into life of another human being, an act purely self-regarding. When a country is over-peopled, or threatened with that greatest of all calamities, the production, it is held by these able writers, of more than a very small number of children by any couple is a gross offence against all who gain their living by toil, since the over-crowding of a country with human beings makes it very difficult for those at the bottom of society to get enough even of the coarsest food for themselves and their families, whilst life is rendered harder for all who have to gain it by services of any kind. The number of children to a family among the richer classes in France appears now to be on an average not quite two to a family: whereas the poorer classes in Paris and some of the less thoughtful districts of France have families of more than six on an average. London now exhibits the notable fact that, whereas in the comfortable parishes of Kensington, St. George Hanover Square, St. James Westminster, and Hampstead, the birth-rate in 1886 was not much above 21 per 1000 inhabitants annually; in the poor parishes of Shoreditch, Bethnal Green, St. George in the East, and Whitechapel the birth-rate was 38·6 per 1000 in that year, i.e., nearly twice as many children are born of 1000 persons in the poor quarters as in the rich. As a consequence of this, the death-rate in the East End is to that in the West End as 3 to 2. Mr. Mill, and in this I entirely concur with him, thinks that the State can and ought to discourage the production of large families by some social stigma, and the author of the “Elements of Social Science” thinks that some fine might be the penalty for the production of more than four children by any married pair. This he looks upon as a far juster way of checking rapid birth-rates than the Continental plan of preventing the poorest persons from marrying, since it is not marriage, he observes, but the production of large families, that the State ought to endeavor to guard against. The mere discussion in the House of Commons of such a proposition would do an immense deal of good in this and in all European States, since the poorer classes are generally anxious enough to do their duty, if they only knew what that duty was. Of course any penalty for the production of a large family should fall equally on the rich and the poor, since the miseries inflicted by the well-to-do parent, who produces a large family, on his helpless and innocent offspring, in the shape of life-long celibacy, may fairly be compared with the want of food which such conduct causes among the poor. And any penalty ought to be very small, because, if not so, persons might be led to practise criminal abortion or infanticide, practices most inimical to the welfare and even the existence of society.

The existence of the Malthusian theory of population was greatly obscured during the greater part of this century by the writings of the Free Traders, many of whom, in common with the illustrious leaders of the movement, Messrs. Cobden and Bright, thought that by means of the free importation of food, poverty might be entirely put an end to. It was said by some of the most enthusiastic speakers against the Corn Laws, that if they were but abolished, the workhouses would soon disappear; and the United Kingdom would be filled with a numerous and contented population. This shows how little these eminent men had considered the immense power of multiplication of the human race. As Mr. Malthus said, the power of increasing production is, to the power of reproduction, as the speed of a tortoise is to that of a hare. The tortoise can only overtake the hare if the swifter animal fall asleep. Hence, free trade, however admirable in itself, has but little influence on the life of the poorest inhabitants of an over-crowded country. The share they get of the productions of the world will always be most meagre, so long as they increase so rapidly in number by producing families of ten or fifteen children, and thus courting the positive check of the lower animals.

Soon after Mr. Malthus wrote his essay, it began to be noticed that in France families were much smaller, among the respectable classes, than they were in England; and Mr. Francis Place wrote a pamphlet in which he pointed this out and recommended the plan in place of the preventive check of late marriages. His pamphlet and remarks had much influence on the celebrated Robert Owen, and it is said that the latter philanthropist made known Place’s views to his workmen at New Lanark, in Scotland, and it was on that account that that famous socialistic experiment succeeded so well. Mr. Robert Dale Owen, son of Robert Owen, emigrated to the United States and was ambassador to Europe from that country for some years. His pamphlet entitled “Moral Physiology” was a most eloquent plea for parental prudence, or early marriages and small families. That pamphlet was written subsequently to one written by Mr. Richard Carlile, entitled “Every Woman’s Book,” and also to Dr. Charles Knowlton of Boston’s work, written in 1833, entitled the “Fruits of Philosophy.”

This last work, in company with those of Owen, Carlile, and Austin Holyoake, which last was called “Large and Small Families,” were sold openly for some forty years in London and elsewhere, chiefly by the Secular party. In the year 1876, the “Fruits of Philosophy” was attacked as an obscene publication under a new Act of Parliament, called “Lord Campbell’s Act,” and a Bristol bookseller named Cook was sentenced to two years’ imprisonment for selling it. Mr. Charles Watts, the London publisher of the work, was also prosecuted; but, on his submission, he was allowed to get free with the payment of costs. This did not suit the views of the more chivalrous of the Secularist party, and accordingly Mr. Charles Bradlaugh and Mrs. Annie Besant, the leaders of that party in England, issued the work again with a preface, and invited the authorities to prosecute them. The “Fruits of Philosophy” was sold openly at 28, Stonecutter Street, London, and as the City authorities prosecuted, the case was sent up for trial to the Queen’s Bench, where it was tried before the Lord Chief Justice Cockburn in June, 1877. The details of this most interesting of all trials are to be found in a work published by Mr. Charles Bradlaugh, which should be perused by all who wish to understand how our liberties are gradually acquired. Mr. Bradlaugh, in his admirable speech, maintained that the advocacy of all checks to population is lawful, except such as advise the destruction of the foetus in utero, or the child after birth. The Lord Chief Justice admitted the truth of the principle of population, and summed up most favorably to the defendants; but the jury being quite new to the question, gave the following verdict: “We are unanimously of opinion that the book in question is calculated to deprave public morals; but at the same time we entirely exonerate the defendants from any corrupt motives in publishing it.” It turned out that the indictment was faulty; and, on appeal to a higher court, the defendants were set free from the fine and imprisonment imposed on them by Chief Justice Cockburn, which he sentenced them to because they went on selling the pamphlet. In the year 1877 the Malthusian League, a society for the propagation of Malthusian literature, was inaugurated. In February, 1878, Mr. Edward Truelove, bookseller, of Holborn, London, was prosecuted by the authorities of the City of London, for the publication of the Hon. R. D. Owen’s pamphlet “Moral Physiology,” and another pamphlet entitled “Individual, Family, and National Poverty.” His case was admirably defended by Mr. William Hunter, and Mr. Truelove was set free; but a second trial took place shortly after this at the Old Bailey, and the jury then gave a verdict of guilty, on which the judge sentenced the defendant to a fine of £200 and a period of four months’ imprisonment. Fortunately, Mr. Truelove’s health was excellent, and he supported his period of imprisonment without injury, emerging from his prison a hero to all those who understand the immense value of the cause for which he suffered. No further trials have taken place of such works in London, although Mrs. Annie Besant’s new pamphlet, the “Law of Population,” and others have had a quite enormous sale of recent years. In the North of England and in Scotland, there is still a remnant of the old persecuting spirit, for a travelling hawker named Mr. Williamson has been imprisoned at Goole and in Lincolnshire for selling Mrs. Besant’s pamphlet in 1887. In the same year Dr. Henry Arthur Allbutt of Leeds, published a medical work called “The Wife’s Handbook,” which gave details of how the size of a family might be controlled by married people; and the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh in 1887 summoned him in March to come up in three months time, to show cause why he should not be deprived of his diploma for this act of common humanity. A host of protests and petitions were at once despatched to the Fellows of the College, showing them the gross wickedness of this action of theirs; and the consequence of this was that up to July, 1887, Dr. H. Arthur Allbutt had heard nothing more of this atrocious persecution by the governing body of a noble profession against one of its members for telling the poor how to get rid of poverty. Hopes are entertained that not only may that body of physicians withdraw its opposition to Dr. H. A. Allbutt’s work; but that they may even see fit to act the generous part, and, whilst confessing their error, ask for forgiveness from outraged humanity.