Part 12 (1/2)
[11] Thompson, Warren S. ”Population: A Study in Malthusianism.”
Studies in History, Economics and Public Law, Columbia University Vol.
LXIII, No. 3. New York, 1915.
[12] ”The Agricultural Element in the Population:” _American Statistical a.s.sociation Quarterly_, March, 1916, p. 52.
[13] The dwarf farms found in many parts of Europe are even less economical. The Bavarian, French, or Belgian peasant secures more per acre than the American farmer but much less per hour or year of work.
”Small scale farming, as we have defined it,” says Prof. Thomas Nixon Carver, ”invariably means small incomes for the farmers, though the land is usually well cultivated and yields large crops per acre.” ”The French or the Belgian peasant (because of the smallness of his farm) frequently finds it more profitable to dispense altogether with horses, or even oxen, as draft animals, using rather a pair of milch cows, or only a single cow, for such work as he cannot do with his own muscles.”
”He would likewise find a reaping or a mowing machine a poor investment. The general result of such small scale staple farming is necessarily the use of laborious and inefficient methods.”--”Principles of Rural Economics,” pp. 253-54. New York, 1911.
[14] If, however, the average product per acre remains constant or decreases, the pressure of the population will make itself felt far sooner.
[15] The loss in perishable farm products, to cite only one instance, is tremendous. A very large proportion of the perishable fruits and vegetables, and a smaller proportion of the dairy and poultry products, decay on the farmer's hands. According to a study made by Mr. Arthur B. Adams, ”at least 25 per cent. of the perishables which arrive at the wholesale markets is hauled to the dump-pile because it is unfit for human consumption.... In warm weather Florida oranges lose 30 per cent. in transportation alone, and if we add the decay after the fruit reaches the consuming centre the total loss would be astounding. There is a loss of 17 per cent. in eggs from producer to consumer, due to breakage, decay, etc., but b.u.t.ter has an equally great loss.... It is not an over-estimate, therefore, to say that between 30 and 40 per cent. of the perishables which are raised on the farms are never consumed at all, but are a complete social loss.”--”Marketing Perishable Farm Products.” Studies in History, Economics and Public Law. Columbia University. Vol. LXXII, No. 3, p. 25. New York, 1916.
[16] It is of course a.s.sumed that no means will soon be found by which cheap food can be produced synthetically; if that happens, all our conclusions go by the board.
[17] In the decade 1850-59 the death rate in New York City was 35.6 per cent., in the period 1900-13 only 15.3 per cent.; in Ma.s.sachusetts, in the same periods, the death rate was 18.0 and 15.5 per cent.
respectively. The diminution was due, partly to a change in the age-const.i.tution of the population and partly to a progressive control of diseases.--Walter F. Willc.o.x, ”The Nature and Significance of the Changes in the Birth and Death Rates in Recent Years.” _American Statistical a.s.sociation Quarterly_, March, 1916, p. 2.
[18] Prof. Willc.o.x, who presents the table from which these figures are drawn, ill.u.s.trates the decline by showing that its continuation would wipe out all births in 160 years, so that by 2070 we should live in a baby-less world.--_Op cit._, pp. 11, 12.
[19] Quoted by Prof. Willc.o.x, _op. cit._, pp. 13, 14.
[20] That there lies a danger in exactly the opposite direction cannot be denied. There are limits to the fall in the death rate, but practically no limits to the possible decline in child-bearing. The limitation of births is almost entirely determined by individual (or family) considerations, and may proceed to a point where population will decline rapidly and perhaps deteriorate in quality. A linking up of the individual interest in small families to the social interest in having the population maintained or slowly increased, as well as improved in quality, is essential.
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CHAPTER XIV
AN ANTIDOTE TO IMPERIALISM
A nation, though economically complete, in the sense that it could, if it desired, maintain its population upon its own resources may yet be lured into an imperialistic and warlike policy. Just as political disintegration leads to internal conflicts, disorders and finally foreign intervention, so an economic disequilibrium, by placing the interests of certain cla.s.ses within the arena of international friction may evoke a struggle, which can have no other issue than war.
This is exactly the effect, for example, of a gross inequality of wealth and income. Such an inequality means that multi-millionaires, gaining far more than they can spend, are impelled to invest their surplus funds in outside ventures. The capital that can be profitably absorbed by industries manufacturing for home consumption depends upon the ability of the population to purchase food, clothes, houses, furniture, watches, and automobiles. If the population cannot or will not increase purchases at a rate commensurate with the increase of national savings, a vast capital must either be diverted to manufacturing for the export trade or must itself be exported. Neither of these deflections is in itself bad; in moderation, both are good.
There is, however, a certain degree of intensity of compet.i.tion for foreign trade and investment which means industrial war and the danger of military war. The wider the interval between {187} national savings and national consumption, the more powerful and dangerous is this expulsive tendency of capital.
Such a tendency may arise in a country in which, despite an equality in wealth, the national savings are excessive, but the greatest danger is in countries in which the returns to capital, rent and business enterprise are large and the returns to labour small. The big profits come from the manufacture of articles of common use, and the home demand for such articles is limited by the consuming capacity of poor men. The surplus capital must therefore find a vent, and the larger this surplus capital, the more venturesome it grows and the more insistently it demands that the state back up its enterprises.
We may trace this development in the recent history of Great Britain.
Though British wages rose during the half century ending in 1900, the consuming capacity of the ma.s.ses was not sufficient to employ the rapidly expanding capital. British capital went everywhere; among other places to the Transvaal. There was more money in ”Kaffirs” than in making socks for the British artisan, and if international friction resulted from this capital export, it was all the better, or at least none the worse, for the financiers. The men who controlled the Rand mines knew when shares were to rise and when they were to fall, and profited by their knowledge. Nor were war preparations disadvantageous. An extra Dreadnought helped British capital more than would the expenditure of the cost of such a vessel in increasing the wages of school teachers. Yet it was because school teachers and other wage-earners in Britain, as in many other countries, were poorly paid, that the acc.u.mulating capital of the nations was forced increasingly into foreign lands and into imperialistic ventures. Morocco, Egypt, Korea and Manchuria offered larger rewards than did the highly {188} compet.i.tive businesses which depended on the custom of French, English and Russian peasants or wage-earners. The inequality in the distribution of wealth proved to be a stimulus to imperialistic compet.i.tion.
Those who are satisfied with things as they are never tire of speaking of this distribution of wealth as an immutable thing, protected by economic laws more potent than legislative enactments. They insist that law cannot control the expansion of capital or the distribution of wealth. But our whole system of distribution is based on law. If England had not preserved entail and primogeniture, if France had not decreed the equal inheritance by all children, if the United States had not adopted a liberal land policy, the distribution of wealth in each of these countries would have been far different. Within wide limits the economic course of the nation can be controlled.
Such a peaceful programme for creating a better distribution of wealth, a wider consumption and therefore a larger employment of capital in industries for home consumption has the added advantage that it is a policy in complete harmony with the interests of great sections of the population. The average man desires peace feebly; he does not think of it day and night and is not willing to fight for it. But he is willing to fight for things which actually contribute more towards peace than do arbitration treaties. The demand of the workman for higher wages, shorter hours and better conditions is, whether the wage-earner knows it or not, a demand for international peace. Progressive income and inheritance taxes, the regulation of railroads and industrial corporations, the conservation of natural resources are all opposed to an imperialistic policy leading to war. In short the entire {189} democratic struggle against the narrow concentration of wealth, by increasing the demand for capital within the country, tends to preserve us from a meddlesome, domineering, dangerous imperialism.
To increase the consumption of the ma.s.ses of our people is easier for us than for Germany or England because of our wider economic base, our bulk, territory and immense potential wealth. To increase wages, we need not, like the crowded countries of western Europe, acquire new resources beyond our borders. We already have a place in the sun, and out of our waste can extract more than can Germany or France out of colonies for which they must fight. It is easier for us to increase industrial rewards because we now waste more in our unregulated scramble for wealth than Germany gains in her scientific, economical use of her smaller resources. Compared to industrial Germany we are a spendthrift nation. Had Germany our resources and numbers, she would be peaceful and rich; were we obliged to live on her narrow territory, we should be bellicose and impoverished.
Not that Germany has solved the whole problem; all she has learned is to be efficient. Her early poverty taught her to make a little go a great way, to combine the peasant's industry and parsimony with the far-flung plans of the business organiser. So capably has she done this that living conditions have improved as her population has increased. Where all nations have as yet failed, however, is in the distribution of the industrial product. In the end a gross inequality of wealth and income, as we find it in all developed countries, is another form of waste. It means fewer economic satisfactions, less true value. A few billion dollars added to the income of twenty thousand families is of less utility than when distributed among {190} twenty millions. Inequality of wealth, moreover, involves low wages, over-work, child labour, insecurity, unemployment, preventable disease, premature death, in short, a bad economy. It also involves an inability on the part of the ma.s.ses to consume the product of industries in which the wealthy invest.