On political economy - 1832 Author:Thomas Chalmers Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: 29 CHAPTER II. ON THE INCREASE AND LIMIT OF EMPLOYMENT. 1. The great and immediate demand is for the application of the external remedies ; and, till th... more »ese have done their uttermost, the feeling is, that the application of the internal is meanwhile uncalled for. So long, it is imagined, as there are still unevoked any possible resources from without, it is yet time to think of a restraint from within. It is readily admitted, that, as cultivation is carried downward through the gradation of soils, the last which has been entered on, does no more, in the existing state of our agriculture, than barely remunerate the operations of its husbandry; or, laying capital at present out of the account, than feed the agricultural labourers and their secondaries. And it is further granted, that, if the last possible limit is ever to be reached, the tendency of the population to increase must either be corrected by the positive, or kept in by the preventive checks; and that, were the operation of the moral preventive check sufficiently powerful, there might, even in the ultimate state of the world's agriculture, be as. high, or a more highly conditioned peasantry, than at any preceding stage of the world's history. But it is not seen that, long anterior to this consummation, the moral preventive check may be imperiously called for, in order to sustain the comfort and circumstances of the working population. Nevertheless, this moral restraint is desirable now, as well as then; and that, just because the tendency to an increase in the number of labourers far outstrips the tendency to an increase in the productive powers of labour. It is quite true, that, by the inventions of machinery, and the improvements which are ever taking place, both in the methods of agriculture, and the implements...« less