e be so great as I
have represented it to be, it may appear strange that this increase
does not come when it is thus repeatedly called for. The true reason is
that the demand for a greater population is made without preparing the
funds necessary to support it. Increase the demand for agricultural
labour by promoting cultivation, and with it consequently increase the
produce of the country, and ameliorate the condition of the labourer,
and no apprehensions whatever need be entertained of the proportional
increase of population. An attempt to effect this purpose in any other
way is vicious, cruel, and tyrannical, and in any state of tolerable
freedom cannot therefore succeed. It may appear to be the interest of
the rulers, and the rich of a state, to force population, and thereby
lower the price of labour, and consequently the expense of fleets and
armies, and the cost of manufactures for foreign sale; but every
attempt of the kind should be carefully watched and strenuously
resisted by the friends of the poor, particularly when it comes under
the deceitful garb of benevolence, and is likely, on that account, to
be cheerfully and cordially received by the common people.

I entirely acquit Mr Pitt of any sinister intention in that clause of
his Poor Bill which allows a shilling a week to every labourer for each
child he has above three. I confess, that before the bill was brought
into Parliament, and for some time after, I thought that such a
regulation would be highly beneficial, but further reflection on the
subject has convinced me that if its object be to better the condition
of the poor, it is calculated to defeat the very purpose which it has
in view. It has no tendency that I can discover to increase the produce
of the country, and if it tend to increase the population, without
increasing the produce, the necessary and inevitable consequence
appears to be that the same produce must be divided among a greater
number, and consequently that a day's labour will purchase a smaller
quantity of provisions, and the poor therefore in general must be more
distressed.

I have mentioned some cases where population may permanently increase
without a proportional increase in the means of subsistence. But it is
evident that the variation in different states, between the food and
the numbers supported by it, is restricted to a limit beyond which it
cannot pass. In every country, the population of which is not
absolutely decreasin