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Show S50 ON THE IlVIMEDIA,TE CAUSES [en. vn. employn1ent, and the scanty support of those e1n· ployed, and will not furnish the required sti1nulus to an increase of wealth proportioned to the power of production. But, if any doubts should retnain with respect to the theory on the subject, they will surely be dissipated by a reference to eLvperience. It is scarcely possible to cast our eyes on any nation of the world without seeing a striking confinnation of what has been advanced. Aln1ost universally, the actual wealth of all the states with 'vhich we are acquainted is very far short of their po,vers of production ; and almost universally atnong those states, the slowest progress in wealth is made where the stin1ulus ai·ising from population alone is the greatest, that is, ,vhere the population presses the hardest against the limits of subsistence, It is quite evident that the only fair way, indeed the only ~ay, by \vhich \Ve can judge of the practical effect of population alone as a stitnulus to wealth, is to refer to those countries \vhere, frmn the excess of population above the funds applied to the maintenance of labour, the stin1ulus of want is the greatest. And if in tliese countries, which still have great powers of production, the progress of wealth is very slo,v, ,ve have certainly all the evidence which experience can possibly give us, that population alone cannot create an effective demand for "vealth. To suppose an actual and permanent increase of population is to beg the question. We n1ay as well suppose at once an increase of wealth; be- SEC. ITT.] OF THE PROGRESS OF WEALTH. 35l cause an actual and permanent increase of population cannot take place without a proportionate or nearly proportionate increase of \tvcal th. The question really is, whether encouragements to population, or even the natural tendency of population to increase beyond the funds for its maintenance, so as to press .hard against the limit of subsistence, 'vill, or will not, alone furnish an ad - quate stimulus to the increase of wealth. And this question, Spain, Portugal, Poland, Hungary, Turkey, and many other countries in Europe, togethei1 with nearly the whole of Asia and Africa, and the greatest part of An1erica, distinctly ans,ver in the negative. SECTION III. O.f Accumulation, or the Sat1ing .frorn Ret,enue to add to Capital, considered as a Stimulus to tlze Increa e oj. Wealtlt. T~ose who reject mere population as an adcquat sdt. imulus to the increase of \Veal th ' are o·enerally b 1sposed to make every thing depend upon accun1~- latto~1. It. is certainly true that no pern1anent and continued Increase of wealth can take place \vithout a co~tinued increase of capital; and I cannot ~gree With Lord Lauderdale in thinking that this Increase can be e.ffected in any other 'vay than by I |