“In the actual circumstances of every country (says Malthus, p. 180, Book iii.) the prolific power of nature seems always ready to exert nearly its full force; but within the limit of possibility, there is nothing, perhaps, more improbable, or more out of the reach of any government to effect, than the direction of the industry of its subjects in such a manner as to produce the greatest quantity of sustenance that the earth could bear. It evidently could not be done without the most complete violation of the law of property, from which everything that is valuable to man has hitherto arisen. Such is the disposition to marry, particularly in very young people, that if the difficulties of providing for a family were entirely removed, very few would remain single at twenty-two. But what statesman or rational government could propose that all animal food should be prohibited, that no horses should be used for business or pleasure, that all people should live upon potatoes, and that the whole industry of the nation should be exerted in the production of them, except what was necessary for the mere necessaries of clothing and houses. Could such a revolution be effected, would it be desirable; particularly as, in a few years, notwithstanding all their exertions, want, with less resource than ever, would inevitably recur.” “The attempts,” says our author, “to employ the poor on any great sale in manufactures have almost invariably failed, and the stock and materials have been wasted. In those few parishes which, by better management of larger funds, have been enabled to persevere in this system, the effect of these new manufactures in the market must have been to throw out of employment many independent workmen, who were before engaged in fabrications of a similar nature. This effect has been placed in a strong point of view by Daniel De Foe, in an address to Parliament, entitled _Giving Alms no Charity_. Speaking of the employment of parish children in manufactories, he says, ‘For every skein of worsted these poor children spin there must be a skein the less spun by some poor family that spun it before.’ Sir F. M. Eden, on the same subject, observes, that whether mops and brooms are made by parish children or by private workmen, no more can be sold than the public is in want of.”