blanket manufactures, Irish silk manufactures, Irish calico manufactures, Irish flannel manufactures, and Irish stocking manufactures. These manufactures are now smothered and extinct.

But what ought they to have been? with increased population and power of consumption, with the application of steam, with improved mechanical and chemical agencies! What would, and must they have been, but for the blight of English competition! withering at once both the power of producing, and the means of purchasing! What might they be made EVEN NOW, should England, instead of blindly chasing the phantom of cheapness, no matter of what sort, at once and seriously address herself to developing the unexplored but prodigious productive power of Ireland.

But England is, at present, spell-bound and paralyzed by her epidemic, yet ephemeral theories. Unless it be in conformity with her new doctrines, she will not listen to the most obvious measure of true policy for Ireland. She will support an artificial system to maintain myriads of Irish poor in idleness, but will not hear of an artificial system to marry them to industry. Buy," says she, with bitter irony, to the penniless Irish, "buy in the cheapest market. Don't make for yourselves, when you can buy of me cheaper than you can make." Accordingly, the Irish do, as all nations so situated needs must do, they go without. Innumerable Irish hands, ready to labor-immeasur

able quantities of Irish materials ready to be wrought up,-innumerable consumers, too anxious to consume, and to produce in return, are, as if by enchantment, kept asunder. Without temporary protection, Irish industry is undersold, smothered, rendered impossible. Universal, hereditary, and national idleness, poverty, and discontent, are the necessary consequences.

Who, again we ask, is to blame?

England and nobody else. Though it must be admitted that the theories which blind her to true Irish interests, have blinded her quite as much to her own.

CHAPTER XX.

Higher wages will but increase population.”

THE fashionable political economy has many pleasing theories: it is distressing to see them fall either before a rigorous analysis, or before the yet more convincing logic of experiment.

But then by way of set-off, political economy has one theory very dark and gloomy * indeed. We are told, that to augment the comfortable subsistence of mankind, is but to increase their numbers,-to create ultimately only a larger collection of wretched families, who are to succumb at length to vice and misery, the appointed checks of population.

Twenty years ago the doctrine of the anti-populationists reigned supreme. A great law of nature had been discovered. Rich unbelievers in Malthus were assailed with ridicule and contemptuous pity: +-persecution, it is true, was reserved for poor and practical unbelievers only.

But of late, this specious, but disheartening theory,

* Mr. Carlyle calls it "THE DISMAL SCIENCE."

+ Obvious mistakes had been discovered-the world had not been made big enough. There was danger of want of standing room.

has been much more closely examined. Old facts have been more carefully sifted, and new facts have afforded a wide field for induction.

The opinion of sceptics in political economy, will of course weigh little. Let us therefore see what orthodox believers in political economy, and eminent professors of the science, now say.

And Mr. M'Culloch shall speak.

"The principle of increase," says he, "as explained by Mr. Malthus, and more recently by Dr. Chalmers, appeared to form an insuperable obstacle to all per"manent improvement in the condition of society, "and to condemn the great majority of the human "race to a state approaching to destitution.

"But further inquiries have shewn that the inferences drawn by the authorities now referred to, are " contradicted by the widest experience.

"That the too rapid increase of population is "almost always prevented by the influence of prin"ciples which its increase brings into activity.

"That a vast improvement has taken place in the "condition of the people of every country, particu"larly of those in which population has increased "with the greatest rapidity.

"And that so far from being inimical to improve"ment, we are really indebted to the principle of in"crease, for most part of our comforts and enjoyments, "and for the continued progress of arts and industry.

* Principles of Political Economy, Preface, p. xiv.

So that according to this great authority, Mr. Malthus's inferences are now contradicted by the widest experience.

Good men felt all along, that there must be something unsound in a theory which would extinguish benevolent and philantrophic exertion. It now appears they were right.

"The heart is wiser than the schools."

When therefore we are distressed to see the pleasant theories of political economy gradually dissolve, and new views take their place, it is a consolation that the gloomiest picture is as evanescent as the sunniest.

The two following propositions constitute the theory of the anti-populationists, not long ago triumphant, but lately fallen into distrust and discredit.

First, that the increase of mankind proceeding in a geometrical progression, while the increase of the means of subsistence advances only in an arithmetical progression, population increases faster than subsistence.

Secondly, that the price of labour, when left to find its natural level, is, to use the words of Mr. Malthus, a most important political barometer, expressing clearly the wants of the society respecting population.' In other words, that the increase of a population will be in proportion to its comfortable circumstances.

But it is now difficult to reconcile the first position with well-known facts.