n
1753 John Potter, son of the archbishop, proposed to the House of
Commons a plan for a census. A violent discussion arose,[211] in the
course of which it was pointed out that the plan would inevitably lead
to the adoption of the 'canvas frock and wooden shoes.' Englishmen
would lose their liberty, become French slaves, and, when counted,
would no doubt be taxed and forcibly enlisted. The bill passed the
House of Commons in spite of such reasoning, but was thrown out by the
House of Lords. Till the first census was taken in 1801--a period at
which the absolute necessity of such knowledge had become obvious--the
most elementary facts remained uncertain. Was population increasing or
decreasing? That surely might be ascertainable.

Richard Price (1723-1791) was not only a distinguished moralist and a
leading politician, but perhaps the best known writer of his time upon
statistical questions. He had the credit of suggesting Pitt's sinking
fund,[212] and spoke with the highest authority upon facts and
figures. Price argued in 1780[213] that the population of England had
diminished by one-fourth since the revolution of 1688. A sharp
controversy followed upon the few ascertainable data. The vagueness of
the results shows curiously how much economists had to argue in the
dark. Malthus observes in his first edition that he had been
convinced by reading Price that population was restrained by 'vice and
misery,' as results, not of political institutions, but of 'our own
creation.'[214] This gives the essential point of difference. Mirabeau
had declared that the population of all Europe was decaying. Hume's
essay, which he criticises, had been in answer to a similar statement
of Montesquieu. Price had learned that other countries were increasing
in number, though England, he held, was still declining. What, then,
was the cause? The cause, replied both Price and Mirabeau, was
'luxury,' to which Price adds the specially English evils of the
'engrossment of farms' and the enclosure of open fields. Price had to
admit that the English towns had increased; but this was an additional
evil. The towns increased simply by draining the country; and in the
towns themselves the deaths exceeded the births. The great cities were
the graves of mankind. This opinion was strongly held, too, by Arthur
Young, who ridiculed the general fear of depopulation, and declared
that if money were provided, you could always get labour, but who
looked upon th