Now, if we inquire further into the history of the inhabitants who live crowded together in this miserable way, we shall find, no doubt, a certain number, in every great town, in whom this state of destitution is the result of disease, death of relations, or personal profligacy; and of the best means to be adopted to limit the evils resulting from these causes, we do not propose to speak at present, only observing that they may be and are met much more effectually in some countries and some towns than in others. But we maintain, also, with perfect confidence, from much personal observation and many inquiries, that at this moment, in all the great towns of this country, the most numerous class of the destitute poor, among whom epidemic diseases prevail – from whom they extend to other ranks of society, and by whose illness or death their families become a burden on all other ranks – are not more profligate or less deserving of compassion and assistance than the great body of our labouring classes, and have no distinctive peculiarity but this, that they are Irish.2 Many of them have had possession of bits of land, others have been labourers, or are families of labourers: they have formed part of that enormous immigration of human beings, from Ireland to Britain, which has been going on for many years, which has given Irish labourers to all our public works, has formed an Irish quarter in every one of our great towns, and has impressed all the promoters of our schemes of philanthropy with the intimate conviction, that "if we would cut off the sources of mendicity and misery, we must first cut off Ireland;" i. e., looking on the Irish as fellow-subjects, if we wish to perform towards them, or towards all who suffer in common with them, the great Christian duty of charity, we must endeavour to ascertain and counteract, in Ireland itself, whatever causes have swelled that flood of poverty and destitution which has been so prolific of evils to us.
Now, without entering on any abstruse discussions, either metaphysical or economical, we think it quite possible to state certain principles, drawn from observations of human nature, and generalised in the same manner as any general truths in physical science, by which the phenomenon in question may be explained; and the only truly effective remedies that can be devised for the present peculiarly miserable condition of Ireland must be applied and regulated.
In the present state of that country, all her peculiar sufferings may be ranked under the single head of redundant population, or, what is the same thing, an overstocked labour market, – a population greater than is required for all the works, productive or unproductive, for which the possessors of capital, or the richer classes generally, are willing to pay; and, in consequence, great numbers of the lower classes whose employment is precarious, whose wages are scanty, whose mode of life is irregular and debased, who are continually liable to disease from poor living and insufficient clothing, and whose sufferings under disease and destitution are greater, and extend their effects more among the higher classes in their own country, and among neighbouring nations – England, Scotland, even America – than those of any other nation in Europe. As long as this miserable condition of the Irish poor exists, it must be regarded both as a national disgrace, indicating that, notwithstanding the boasted excellence of our constitution, the British government is really less effective as regards one-third of its subjects, in securing the main object of all governments, ut cives feliciter vivant, than that of any other civilised country.
Now, whatever secondary causes for a redundant population may be assigned, all who attend carefully to the subject must admit that the great, primary, and fundamental cause for it in all countries is, the power of reproduction granted by nature to human beings, and which is capable of multiplying the species more rapidly than the means of their subsistence can be increased.
If it be true that this is a general law of human nature, and yet that, in other countries, where ample time and opportunity have been afforded for similar indications of redundant population to show themselves, these are altogether absent, the first question for consideration is not, why are not the resources of Ireland more developed, but why has not the population accommodated itself better to the resources that exist? Comparing Ireland with other countries long inhabited, we find that in many others, – viz. in Switzerland, in many districts of England, in Sweden, Norway, &c., – although the resources of the country and the demand for labour are small, the population has accommodated itself to them; it has remained nearly stationary for ages, or has gradually increased only as the productions of the country and the demand for labour extended; and the miseries of redundant population are comparatively unknown.
Continuing this line of inquiry, we observe that the most powerful and the only desirable check on population, by which it is habitually restrained from passing the limits which the demand for labour may be regarded as imposing, is that to which political economists give the name of moral restraint, by which we know that men and women, in all ranks of society, may frequently, and, to a certain degree, uniformly limit the reproduction of the species greatly within the bounds of its possible increase, rather than allow their progeny to incur any imminent risk of descent in the scale of society, and of abject destitution.
If we next inquire what are the circumstances in which this beneficial limitation on our population operates most efficiently, and what are those which counteract its influence, we shall find distinctly and unequivocably – whether we limit our observations to individuals, where we can assure ourselves of the most influential motives of conduct, or extend our views to large communities, and so avoid the fallacies attending partial collections of facts – that the only security for the existence of moral restraint is the habit of comfort, and the feeling of artificial wants which that habit gradually imposes on the human mind; and that those who are brought up in a state of destitution, who are themselves strangers to that habit and feeling in early life, hardly ever look forward to the means of securing the supply of these wants for their children, and yield to the instincts of nature, as to the propagation of their species, almost as blindly and recklessly as animals do.
If this be so, it is obvious that the first subject for consideration, as to the social state of any country, and the only means by which we can hope to avert the evils, which the known tendency of human nature to multiply more rapidly than the means of its subsistence would otherwise involve, is to extend and secure the habit of comfort among the poorer classes of society, and preserve them from sinking into those habits of alternate physical suffering and reckless indulgence, which abject destitution implies. And we have the more confidence in this conclusion, as it is in strict accordance with the distinct, authoritative, and frequently repeated injunction of Scripture, as to the duty of those who have the means, to supply the wants of the poor.
This being so, the question as to the means of preventing or correcting the evils of redundant population in any country, resolves itself simply into the question, how the lower ranks of society there may be best and most permanently preserved in habits of comfort? And this question, likewise, is held to be sufficiently decided by experience.
A moment's reflection is enough to show that there can be no claim on the higher ranks in any country to place the poor —i. e., those who are unable to work from age, sex, or infirmity, or who are unable to find work – on a better footing than the lowest of those who can maintain themselves by labour, and that any such attempt would speedily tend to disorder and do injury to the whole frame of society, and especially to the working classes; but it is confidently maintained, that a country in which these classes are regularly and uniformly preserved, by the contributions of the higher ranks, from falling into lower habits than those which prevail among the poorest of the people who maintain themselves by regular labour, – is also that in which the population will adapt itself most strictly to the demand for labour – remaining, if necessary for this purpose, quite stationary for ages together.
There are different modes in which the contributions of the rich for these purposes have been received and applied; but it may be stated with perfect confidence, as the result of experience, that the only truly and uniformly effectual means is, to give them the security and uniformity of a legal enactment. For several ages, the general mode throughout Europe was through the intervention of the Christian church, for "the distribution of alms and food by the clergy was not merely a voluntary charity,