Allusion has been made to the immortality of Cleombrotus the Ambraciot, from the time of Cicero to that of Milton. The force of the celebrated epigram of Callimachus on this subject, is quite lost in the paraphrastic translation of the concluding line. εν, το περί ψυχής, γραμμ' αναλεξαμενος. But Plato's reason caught his youthful eye, The desultory and miscellaneous nature of the notes which form so large a part of this volume, opens a wide field for remark, but our extracts have been already so considerable that we cannot venture upon them. Briefly, however, we may observe, that amidst much ingenious and amusing criticism, there are to be found in them a laborious trifling which occasionally fatigues us, and an effort altogether disproportioned to the effect meant to be produced. Were this part of the work reduced to half its present bulk, (and we hope that opportunities will not be wanting,) we might then expect to receive a volume of which the Illustrations. should not be unworthy of the text. ART. VII. An Inquiry into the State of National Subsistence, as connected with the Progress of Wealth and Population. By W. T. Comber. London: Cadell and Davies. 1808. 8vo. pp. 382. IN calling the attention of our readers to a work which was pub lished five years ago, we are aware that we deviate from our usual practice but the deviation is, we hope, excusable; because that work has derived, from very recent circumstances, a degree of importance which it did not possess when it was first presented to the public. A select committee of the House of Commons, appointed at an early period of the last session, to inquire into the Corn Trade of the united kingdom,' have, in their report to the House, proposed the repeal of the existing system of laws for the control of the importation and exportation of corn, and in lieu of such system, the chairman of that committee has proposed to the House a series of resolutions, of which the object is to secure to this country a corn-trade unfettered by regulations, but subject to duties, so graduated, as to protect the British growers and consumers, against those great and sudden variations in the price of grain, which have hitherto been occasioned by correspondent fluctuations in the supply and demand. Thus far, the opinions of the chairman of the committee exactly coincide with those of Mr. Comber, whose inquiry we will now proceed to examine. The The author designates himself, in his preface, as a 'practical writer,' and laments that his habits (commercial habits we presume) have been adverse to the cultivation of the higher attainments of literature;' yet he appears to have studied, with much attention, the best writers on political economy; and we think that the diligence with which he has collected a large stock of useful materials, and the candour and good sense with which he uses them, afford a full compensation for the few faults of his style; which, perhaps, is sometimes too diffuse, and rather too much laboured, but never so far as to become perplexed or unintelligible. His 'Inquiry,' indeed, is carried to a length which many of his readers may be inclined to think excessive; but he excuses himself by alleging the necessity of combating the many strange and contradictory theories which some modern writers have endeavoured to substitute for the wise and sober doctrines of Dr. Smith: Writers, (says he,) from the bias of their own minds, have given a latitude and universality to principles, evidently secondary in their nature, and limited in their operation, which form the basis of particular theories. Some, with Mr. Malthus, deduce all the political and moral evils which exist in society, from an excess of population, inferring a deficiency of the means of subsistence, and the decay of our wealth and prosperity, from this cause; and, as a practical result, recommend discouragements to the further increase of the species. Others, viewing population as a means of increasing wealth, consider depopulation and decline as synonymous; they regard the actual production of subsistence as already superabundant, which, by enabling every order in the state to consume an increased quantity, generates luxury; and consider this as inevitably producing a decay of industry, which will be followed by depopulation and decline. While some trace all our riches to our commerce, and triumphantly produce the imports and exports as the barometer of national wealth, others as confidently deny that commerce is any means of increasing wealth, whatever it may be of distributing it. By some it has been contended, that the increase of taxes, by raising the price of our manufactures to the foreign consumer, has a tendency to occasion a decay of the employments of industry, and to increase the number of the poor; whilst others contend, that by prolonging the action of necessity, they stimulate to industry, and are one of the chief causes of national wealth.' Instead of entangling himself in the labyrinth of theory, our author undertakes to trace, from the commencement of English history, the circumstances which have actually attended, in this country, the progress of wealth, population, and agriculture; occasionally commenting on the facts which he produces, and applying them to each of the conflicting systems above-mentioned; but particularly to that of Mr. Malthus, whom he justly considers as the most formidable of all the dissenters from the orthodox tenets of political political economy. Such a task, it is obvious, could not be completed within very narrow limits; but as only a small portion of Mr. Comber's Inquiry is immediately suited to our purpose, we must confine ourselves to a very short and imperfect sketch of that part of his agricultural history, which is antecedent to the establishment of any regular code of laws, for the encouragement of tillage. It must, indeed, be confessed, that no degree of industry can enable an historian to glean, from the early annals of this country, a certain knowledge of the number of its inhabitants, or of the quantity of subsistence afforded by agriculture, at different remote periods. The first document of this kind, which our author has quoted, occurs in the reign of Edward III, at which time (i. e. in 1377) the population of England and Wales appears to have amounted to no more than two and a half millions of souls. The next estimate of the population is in 1575, during the reign of Elizabeth, when the number of inhabitants was found to be 4,600,000; by which it appears, that the population of England and Wales had doubled itself during the two last centuries; and lastly, the returns made to the legislature under the population act in 1801, have shewn, that after an interval of 225 years, the population had been once more doubled. These documents, though perhaps not strictly accurate, are sufficient to prove, that though the progress of population, and of subsistence in this country, may have been occasionally interrupted during some short intervals, yet during the last four hundred years at least, a great augmentation has taken place in the produce of each succeeding century; an augmentation which has lately proceeded with a uniformly accelerated rapidity. This increase, indeed, has been viewed, by some philosophers, as a just subject of alarm. Mr. Malthus, to whom we owe our thanks for the boldness with which he has opposed some errors of modern philanthropists, and for the just and popular arguments by which he has demonstrated the impossibility of supplying, from the contributions of the rich and idle, those means of subsistence which can only be secured by the labour of the industrious, has been grievously scared by this new phantom. Because mankind have a tendency to propagate their species, and to devour the fruits of the earth, whilst that earth does not possess a reciprocal power of increasing its own surface, he thinks that the limited quantity of provender in the whole world must, ultimately, be insufficient for the growing number of mouths; and hence he concludes that our only chance of retarding that starvation, which will be our inevitable lot, is to practise celibacy, and to employ as many as possible of our manufacturers (who are far too numerous, and frightfully prolific) in raising corn for exportation. Our author replies, that this opinion, like some others inculcated by by the ingenious essayist, is deduced, not from the simple and long established truth to which it is professedly a corollary, but from the mystical sense of the words in which he has enveloped his preliminary axiom. A man of plain sense, will probably be startled at being told that population and subsistence cannot possibly proceed at the same rate, the one always increasing in a geometrical, and the other in an arithmetical ratio. It would naturally occur to him, that the whole human race having been derived from two original parents, each generation must have found or created the means of subsistence; and he must, thence, be disposed to infer, that man and his food will continue their journey as amicably as heretofore; and he will not readily believe, that their nearer approach to their common goal, will be likely to disturb their harmony. It will, also, occur to him, that the power of reproduction implanted in all animated nature may be still left, without danger, under the control of the Author of nature, and that it is unnecessary to provide against its influence, by attempting to eradicate the natural propensities of our species, or to change the natural course of human industry. If the project of Mr. Malthus were realized, such a change in the state of society would, in our author's opinion, produce effects exactly opposite to those so confidently anticipated. Supposing the class of manufacturers in this country to be in excess, it follows that these redundant members of the class must be fed, not from our home stock of provisions, but from that of some foreign nation which consumes the produce of their labour. The advantage of their residence here consists in their occasional supply of men for the exigencies of the state. Meanwhile, the remainder of their class, whom we suppose to be as numerous as the national produce can feed, being compelled to give for their food the largest equivalent that their powers of labour can afford, it seems clear that the agricultural class will acquire as great, and the manufacturing class as small a profit as possible, from their respective exertions. But if, the population of the country remaining unaltered, the manufacturers now employed in working for the foreign demand, were suddenly transferred to tillage, it does not follow that a total change in the comparative comforts of the two classes, would be the only consequence. Those writers who, like Mr. Malthus, bestow great and extravagant eulogiums on the policy of exporting grain, seem to have forgotten that this is not necessarily practicable. Every trade is an exchange of equivalents: but if a superabundance of wheat were actually created in Great Britain, to what country could we send it, with the hope of exchanging it for an equivalent which should repay the expenses of the farmer? When When all our neighbours have been desolated by a war expressly waged against commerce and manufactures, a war which has swept away the accumulated capital of ages, and has left to the conquered, nothing but the privilege of extorting from their soil the first necessaries of life, can the wealthiest nation in the world rationally undertake the task of providing Europe with those necessaries, and neglect its natural advantages in pursuit of a trade to be carried on in competition with America, and Poland, from whose abundant supply we have so often found relief in times of very distressing necessity? It is expedient,-it is necessary, to call out all the resources which can be derived from our own soil, as a security against those evils, to which a series of untoward seasons may sometimes expose our numerous and growing population; and the means of attaining this security, are certainly within our reach. But why propose to ourselves a new and unnecessary object, which is inconsistent with our own circumstances, and with the actual situation of all our neighbours? The present state of the continent, indeed, very nearly resembles that of England, during the reigns of our Norman line of kings; because that feudal system, which is the system of all conquerors, still subsists, with slight differences of modification, in the whole Turkish empire; in that of Russia; in Poland; and must, if Buonaparte should ultimately succeed in his efforts, be shortly established in Germany, as well as in Italy and France. Our ancestors were, during some centuries, a nation of vassals and serfs doomed, alternately, to fight and to labour for the lords of the soil, and to supply those task-masters with the articles of raw produce which were exchanged for the manufactures of Flanders, and the more costly products of the East. For grain, however, there was no foreign market; because the agriculture of the Flemings kept pace with their industry; the commercial republics of Italy were amply fed by their own fertile territories; and the rest of Europe, portioned out, like England, into baronial districts, afforded a very precarious supply, to a very scanty stock of inhabitants. A strong proof of this occurs in our history, during the period which immediately followed the termination of the contest between the houses of York and Lancaster. We all know that the establishment of regal power on the ruins of feudal anarchy, was accompanied by the cession of numerous advantages to the people; whose industry, since this dawn of liberty, has been progressive. Yet all historians have agreed to point to this period, as remarkable for the sudden and general decline of tillage. This was not occasioned by the false policy of the government; on the contrary, the numerous enactments by Henry VII, Henry VIII, VOL. X. NO. XIX. Edward |