Principles of Political Economy Part 40

Much more correctly, _Voltaire_, Dict. Philosophique, art.

Population, sect. 2.

The reaction which attained its height in the Malthusians proper, set in with the Physiocrates and _Steuart: Quesnay_, Maximes generales, No. 26; _Mirabeau_, Phil. rurale, ch. 8, and Ami des Hommes (1762), VIII, 84. Similarly, _J. J.

Reinhard_, who calls Baden over peopled "for its present system of agriculture." (Vermischte Schriften, 1760, I, 1 ff.; II, Varr.) _Moser_ Patr. Phant., I, 33, 42; II, 1; IV, 15; V, 26. Also Minister _v. Stein_: Leben von Pertz, V, 72; VI, 539, 887, 1184. Compare _supra_, -- 242. Of certain modern economists, it may be said that they deplore and condemn the birth of every child for whose support there has not been established a life long annuity in advance. A remarkable but unsuccessful attempt is made by _Ch. Perin_, De la Richesse dans les Societes Chretiennes, at the end of the first volume, to reconcile the opposing views. Perin reproaches the Malthusians, and especially _Dunoyer_ and _J.

S. Mill_, with the advocacy of _l'onanisme conjugal_, and thus desiring to restore the old heathen situation. Only the Church holds the proper mean between defect and excess, inasmuch as it permits complete continency or the procreation of children regardless of circ.u.mstances to its members; while, on the other hand, it, by celibacy and by the inculcation of industry, frugality, etc., guards against over-population. (How well the Roman Church has succeeded in this is best proved by the Roman Compagna!)

In Greece, too, in its first economic periods, especially at the time that the first colonies were sent out, great fears were expressed of over-population. _Hesiod_ weighs the advantages and disadvantages of the married state against one another with great thoroughness. (Theog., 600 ff.) In the Cypria, even the Trojan war was explained by a divine decree, emitted with the intention of removing over-population.]

[Footnote 254-3: _A. Young_, Political Arithmetik, 160 ff.

In the United States, in ten years, the increase of wealth to that of population, was as 61:33. (_Tucker_, Progress of the United States, 202 ff.) As a good measure for the well-being of the ma.s.ses, _J. J. Neumann_ recommends the relative number attending higher schools, also that of shoemakers, tailors, etc., because the magnitude of the consumption of wool, leather, etc., can scarcely be directly ascertained. (_Hildebrand's_ Jahrbb., 1872, I, 283, 294.)]

[Footnote 254-4: Statist. Journ., 1861, 251. In Liverpool, between 1831 and 1841, the population increased 40 per cent., and the number of houses 24 per cent., on account of the large immigration of Irish proletarians. (Edinb. Rev.

Lx.x.x, 80.) According to _Fregier_, les Cla.s.ses dangereuses, the number of good buildings continually increased under Louis Philippe, and that of the worst lodging houses continually diminished. In Prussia, between 1819 and 1858, the population increased 60.8 per cent., the number of houses, 30.1 per cent.; but the insurance-value of the houses seems to have increased in a still greater proportion, (_v. Viebahn_, Zollverein's Statist., II, 291, ff., 299.) According to _Horn_, Bevolk. Studien, I, 62, ff., there are to every 100 persons in France, 20 dwelling houses; in Belgium, 19; in Great Britain, 18; in Holland, 16; in Austria, 14; in Prussia, 12. Too much should not be inferred from this mere table, as, for instance, in English cities, a house is, on an average, smaller than in the Prussian. A French house has, on an average, only 5 windows and doors; a Belgian house, on the other hand, 3 rooms. And so, in villages, it is found that there are uniformly fewer persons to a house than in cities, especially large ones. In Belgium, for instance, the cities have to every 100 inhabitants, 66 rooms, the country only 62. In the largest parishes of France (over 5,000 inhabitants), the number of doors and windows is on the average almost six times as great as in the smallest (under 5,000 inhabitants); but only 4 times as many persons live in them. (_Horn_, loc. cit. I, 76 ff.)]

[Footnote 254-5: It was very well remarked, even of the Servian census: _ut omnia patrimonii, dignitatis, aetatis, artium officiorumque discrimina in tabulas referrentur, ac sic maxima civitas minimae domus diligentia contineretur ...

ut ipsa se nosset respublica_. (_Florus_, I, 6, 8.)]

SECTION CCLV.

MEANS OF PROMOTING POPULATION.

The following are the princ.i.p.al means which have been used to artificially promote the increase of population:

A. Making marriage and the procreation of children obligatory by direct command. Among almost all medieval nations so strong is the family feeling, that it seems to men to be a sacred duty to keep their family from becoming extinct. Where a person is not in a condition physically to fulfill this duty, the law supplies a means of accomplis.h.i.+ng it by juridical subst.i.tution[255-1] at least. Most national religions[255-2]

operate in the same direction, as well as the influence of political law-givers, who fully share in the contempt for willful old bachelors and sterile women, which runs through the national feeling of all medieval times.[255-3] In addition to this, there are the positive rewards offered for large families of children.[255-4] Even Colbert, in 1666, decreed that whoever married before his 20th year should be exempt from taxation until his 25th; that anyone who had 10 legitimate children living, not priests, should be exempt from taxation for all time;[255-5]

that a n.o.bleman having 10 children living should receive a pension of 1,000 livres, and one having 12, 2,000 livres. Persons not belonging to the n.o.bility were to receive one-half of this, and to be released from all munic.i.p.al burthens.[255-6] Such premiums are, indeed, entirely superfluous. No n.o.bleman would desire 12 children simply to obtain a pension of 2,000 livres! Colbert himself abandoned this system of premiums shortly before his death.[255-7] [255-8]

In the case of morally degenerated nations, in which an aversion to the married state had gained ground, efforts have sometimes been made to work against it by means of new premiums. Thus, especially in Rome, since the times of Caesar and Augustus, although with poor success. It little becomes one who is himself a great adulterer to preach the sixth commandment.[255-9]

[Footnote 255-1: In Sparta, impotent husbands were obliged to allow another man to have access to their young wives.

(_Xenoph._, De Rep. Laced., I. _Plutarch_, Lycurg., 15.) Compare _J. Grimm_, Weisthumer, III, 42. Great importance of adoption in Roman law.]

[Footnote 255-2: Thus, the Indian laws of Menu, concerned princ.i.p.ally with the necessity of sacrifices to a.s.sure parents an existence after death. Similarly, Zoroaster and Mohammed. In the Bible the periods should be accurately distinguished: I Moses, 2, 18; V Moses, 26, 5; Judges, 10, 4; 13, 14; Proverbs, 14, 28; 17, 6, and the Preacher, 4, 8 apparently agree; also I Corinth., 7, written under essentially different circ.u.mstances but precisely on this account not in contradiction with those pa.s.sages of the Old Testament.]

[Footnote 255-3: Genesis, 30, 23. In Sparta, willful bachelorhood was almost infamous. (_Plutarch_, Lycurg., 15.) In Athens, a person might be charged with _agamy_ as with a crime. (_Pollux_, VIII, 40.) Concerning the ancient censorial punishments inflicted on those who had no children and the rewards of prolificacy, see _Valer. Max._, II, 9, 1; _Livy_, XLV, 15; _Gellius_, I, 6: V, 19. Festus v. Uxorium.

Many German cities made marriage a qualification for the holding of certain public offices, etc. In some places, the public treasury was made the heir of bachelors, a custom not abolished in Hanover until 1732. Compare _Ludewig_, on the Hagestolziatu (1727), but also _Selchow_, Elem. Juris Germ., -- 290. On the fines imposed on old bachelors in Spain, during the middle ages, see _Gans_, Erbrecht, III, 401 seq.

Recently recommended very strongly by _Hermes_, Sophiens Reise (3 aufl.), I, 660.]

[Footnote 255-4: Yearly rewards for _polytekny_ in Persia: _Herodot._, I 136. In Sparta, a father with three children was relieved of guard duty; and one with four, of all public burthens. (_Aristot._, Polit., II, 6, 13. _Aclian_, V. H., VI, 6.) Between 1816 and 1823, 250 fathers received the royal gift made to G.o.dchildren at their christening in the district of Oppeln, for the seventh son. (_v. Zedlitz_, Staatskrafte der preuss. Monarchie, I, 285.) The king of Hannover paid annually about 900 thalers in such gifts.

_Lehzen_, Hannovers Staatshaushalt, II, 346.]

[Footnote 255-5: Children who had fallen in the service of their country were considered as still living. Precisely similar laws had existed in Spain from 1623 (_de Laet_, Hispania Cap., 4); in Savoy from 1648 (_Keysslers_, Reise, I, 209).]

[Footnote 255-6: Russian law which required the serf master to emanc.i.p.ate his male serfs who were not married by their 20th year, and female serfs not married by their 18th. He could not charge them with desertion in such case, even where combined with theft. (_Karamsin_, Russ. Gesch., XI, 59.) An ancient Prussian law provides that the country people shall marry at the age of 25. Corpus Const., March, V, 3, 148, 274.]

[Footnote 255-7: Lettres, etc. de Colbert, _ed_. Clement, II, 68, 120. _Voltaire_, Siecle de Louis XIV. ch. 29, bitterly complains of this; and also _Berkeley_, Works, II, 187, and _Forbonnais_, Finances de France, I, 391. On the other hand, _Ferguson_, Hist, of Civil Society, III, 4, asks: what fuel can the statesman add to the fires of youth?

Similarly, _Franklin_, Observations, etc. It should not be forgotten that the taxes necessary to supply the so-called marriage-fund, intended to enable poor couples to marry at the expense of the state, make marriage more difficult for other couples. (_Krug_, Staats-Oek., 31.)]

[Footnote 255-8: Frederick the Great limited the mourning time of widowers to 3 months and of widows to 9. His abolition of ecclesiastical punishment for those who had fallen, and his prohibition of censuring them under penalty of fine, was based as much on his population policy as on philanthropic grounds. (Preuss. Geschichte, Friedrich's M., II, 337.) Similarly in Sweden: _Schlozer_, V. W., V, 43. In Iceland, after a great plague, even in the last century, it was provided that it should be no disgrace to a young woman to have as many as six illegitimate children. (_Zaccharia_, Vierzig Bucher vom Staate, II, 112.) The marshal of Saxony wished, in the interest of the recruiting of the army, that marriages should be contracted only for a term of five years. (Reveries de Maurice, etc., 345.) The sterile women of Egypt visit the Tantah, a place of pilgrimage and fair-town, where, under the cloak of religion, they give themselves up to unbridled and promiscuous intercourse.

(_Wachenhufen_, vom agypt. armen Mann, II, 151 ff.)]

[Footnote 255-9: Even in the year 131 B. C., the censor Metellus demanded that citizens should, for political reasons be compelled to marry. (_Livy_, LIX, _Sueton._, Oct.

89.) _Aes uxorium_ for bachelors. (_Valer. Max._, II, 9, I.) Caesar distributed land by way of preference among those who had three or more children. (_Sueton._, Caes. 20.) Augustus'

celebrated Lex Julia et Papia Poppaea sought to urge even widows to marry again in opposition to the moral public conscience. (Partly augendo aerario: _Tacit._, Ann., III, 25.) _Dio Ca.s.s._, LVI, 1 ff. Trajan did more yet, inasmuch as he gave great a.s.sistance to impoverished parents, even of the highest cla.s.ses, to enable them to educate their children. _Sub te liberos tollere libet, expedit!_ (_Plin._, Paneg., 26.) Of what little a.s.sistance all this really was, _Tacitus_, Ann., III, 25, IV, 16, and _Plin._, Epist. IV, 15, bear witness. If, under the Caesars, the damage done to the childless in the case of inheritance was a frequent motive of divorce (_Friedlander_, Sittengeschichte I, 389), the L. Julia, in fact, operated in a direction contrary to that in which it was intended to work.]

SECTION CCLVI.

IMMIGRATION.

B. Calling for immigrants. This is a means all the more in favor, inasmuch as it provides the country not only with new-born children, but with mature men, who frequently, when they come from thickly peopled and highly civilized countries, promote the industries of the country of their adoption, and become the teachers of a higher civilization. I need only mention the inhabitants of the Low Countries, who in the twelfth century settled as agriculturists in Northern Germany,[256-1] and in the fourteenth and sixteenth centuries in England, as artisans; the German miners and inhabitants of cities, who, during the middle ages, colonized Hungary, Transylvania[256-2] and Poland,[256-3] and the French Huguenots, who fled to the Independent Protestant countries. Nearly all the remarkable Russian princes since Ivan III. have endeavored in this way to induce Germans to settle in Russia, and, for the same reason, Peter the Great refused to give up his Swedish prisoners of war.[256-4]

The great Prussian rulers have cultivated the policy of immigration on an extensive scale, and thus maintained the original character of their parent provinces as the colonial land of the German people.[256-5] [256-6]

Such immigrants have been generally accorded a release from taxation and from military duty for a number of years; a proper measure since the state thereby only surrendered an advantage temporarily which it otherwise would not have possessed at all. Where the land of the state receiving the immigrants was still almost valueless, it has frequently been made over in parcels to well-to-do colonists without consideration.[256-7] a.s.sistance exceeding these limits is a very questionable boon. It should not be forgotten that the influx of men who bring no capital whatever with them, and who are not good workmen, is of no advantage. Nor are they always the best elements of a people who emigrate. They are very frequently men who, through their own fault, did not prosper at home, and who come to the new country, with all their old faults.[256-8] This is, of course not true of those who emigrate from their attachment to some great principle; for instance, it is not true of those who emigrate in search of freedom of conscience. These may become, provided they are in harmony with their new environment, a support and ornament to their adopted country.[256-9] But there is always danger that they may not be able to adapt themselves to their new economic relations, and that thus they may in consequence succ.u.mb to the pressure of circ.u.mstances.[256-10]

Oriental despotisms have frequently endeavored to a.s.sure themselves the possession of newly conquered countries by transporting its most vigorous inhabitants in whole ma.s.ses to a distant part of their old empire. Thus, the Jews were carried into a.s.syria and Babylon; the Eretrians into Persia; the inhabitants of Caffa by Mohammed II.; the Armenians by Abbas the Great. The Russians, too, undertook a similar transportation of people under the Ivans.[256-11]

C. The prohibition of emigration, which, in the case of serfs, va.s.sals and state-villeins, it seems natural enough, was very usual in periods of absolute monarchical power. Thus, for instance, Frederick William I.

forbade the emigration of Prussian peasants under penalty of death.

Whoever captured an emigrant received a reward of two hundred thalers.[256-12] The public opinion of modern times is very decidedly opposed to this compulsion, which would make the state a prison.[256-13]

"A really excessive population would still find an exit to escape, namely, through the gates of death." (_J. B. Say._) The statesman, on the other hand, who opposes the withdrawal of political or ecclesiastical malcontents should take care, lest he act like the physician who prevents the discharge of diseased matter from the sick body, and causes it to take its seat in some vital organ.[256-14] Hence, even where emigration is considered detrimental to the country, no governmental condition should be attached to it, except that the person desiring to emigrate should give timely notice of his intention, and receive his pa.s.sport only after it has been shown that he has discharged all his military duties, paid his taxes and his debts.[256-15] [256-16]

The severe penalties imposed in Athens on emigration, after the defeat at Chaeronea, when general discouragement threatened the state with total dissolution, belong to an entirely different mode of thought.[256-17]

[Footnote 256-1: _v. Wersebe_, Ueber die Niederlandischen Kolonien in Deutschland, II, 1826.]

[Footnote 256-2: The immigration of the so-called Saxons into Transylvania began between 1141 and 1161, in consequence of the great inundations in the Netherlands.

Compare _Schlozer_, Kritische Sammlungen zur Gesch. der Deutschen in Siebenb., 1795.]

[Footnote 256-3: In Poland, a mult.i.tude of German colonists established themselves during the thirteenth century on the domains of the crown and of the church. As a rule, they obtained the land in consideration of moderate services and rents, which, however, did not begin to run until after eight years, nor until after thirty for uncleared land. In addition to this, they were governed by the German law, and their communal authorities were for the most part German.

(_Roepell_, Gesch. von Polen, I, 572 ff.)]

[Footnote 256-4: Later, the amba.s.sador of Peter the Great endeavored to attract into Russia the Swedes, whom the Russian invasion had prevented from continuing the operation of their mines, saw mills, etc. (_Schlosser_, Gesch. des 18 Jahrhund., I, 205.) Catherine's colonization, especially on the Volga and in. Southern Russia, 1765 and 1783. About 1830, the number of the colonists was estimated at 130,000, mostly Germans.]

[Footnote 256-5: It is estimated that Frederick William I.

spent 5,000,000 thalers in establis.h.i.+ng colonists. Up to 1728, 20,000 new families were received into Prussia alone.

_Stenzel_, Preuss. Gesch. III, 412 ff. Frederick the Great endeavored above all to retain in the country the strangers who came there periodically. Thus, the harvesters of Vogtland, in the neighborhood of Magdeburg, and the Vogtland masons in the suburbs of the capital (1752). Compare _v.

Lamotte_ Abhandlungen, 1793, 160 ff. He is said to have settled 42,600 families, mostly foreigners, in 539 villas and hamlets. Besides, the population of Prussia, between 1823 and 1840, increased by 751,749 immigrants, without any positive favors shown them (_Hoffmann_, Kleine Schriften, 5 ff.), and the greater part of these were not very poor.]

[Footnote 256-6: In antiquity, nothing so much contributed to the rise of Athens and Rome as their reception of n.o.ble refugees during its earlier periods.]

[Footnote 256-7: In Russia, the Emperor Alexander, in 1803, promised the colonists a full release from taxation during ten years, a reduction of taxation for ten more, and freedom from civil and military service for all time; besides 60 _dessatines_ of land per family gratis, an advance of 300 rubles for housebuilding, etc. and money to enable them to maintain themselves until their first harvest. The provision relating to Poland (1833) was much less favorable: importation of movable property free of duty, freedom from military duty and from taxation for six years, and perpetual quit rents (_Erbzinsguter_) to agriculturists who owned a certain amount of capital. Brazil promised immigrants, in 1820, land and ten years' freedom from taxation. Compare _Jahn_, Beitrage, z. Einwanderung und Kolonisation in Br.

(1874), 37 ff. Hungary, in 1723, accorded settlers freedom from taxation for six years and artisans for fifteen years.

(_Mailath_, Oesterreichische Gesch., IV, 525.) The ordinance of 1858 affords too little security for non-Catholics and is not adapted to farmers, but only to purchasers.]

[Footnote 256-8: Many of Frederick the Great's colonists turned out very badly. They were attracted only by the premiums offered, and they became dissolute after they had consumed them. Many of them thought that they were to be of use only by giving children to the state (_Meissner_, Leben des Herrn v. Brenkenhof, 1782), and that the land donated them was to be cultivated by others at the expense of the state! _Dohm_ mentions villages of colonists which had to a great extent changed hands four times in 20 years. Whether the king would not have better attained his object had he employed the younger sons of Prussian peasants as colonists, _quaere_. (_Dohm_, Denkwurdigkeiten, IV, 390 ff.) Even _Sussmilch_ says: "A native subject is, in most cases and for most purposes, better than two colonists." (Gottl.

Ordnung, I, 14, 275.) Compare the work: Wie dem Bauernstande Freiheit und Eigenthum verschafft werden konne, 1769, 16.

Every family of colonists in South and new East Prussia is said to have cost the state 1,500 thalers. (_Weber_, Lehrbuch der polit. Oekonomie, 1806, II, 172); but according to _Busching_ (Beitrage z. Regierungsgeschichte Friedrichs, II, 239), only 400 thalers. _J. Moser_ is strongly opposed to the encouragement of immigration by direct appeals to it.