Malthus in fact reached the point at which he was always glad to arrive, the medium between two extreme views.[567] He would neither approve of a purely agricultural nation, whose danger was want of capital, nor of a purely commercial, whose danger was want of food. In a purely commercial, everything depends on a superiority in industry, machinery, and trade, which from the nature of things cannot last. Not only foreign but domestic competition will bring down profits, and thereby, by discouraging saving and enterprise, diminish the demand for labour and bring the population to a standstill. Christendom has seen Venice, Bruges, Holland lose their trade by their neighbours’ gain.[568] To say that the nations of the world ought to be allowed to develope their trade as freely as the provinces of a single empire, is, in his opinion, to overlook the reality of political obstacles. If England were still separated into the kingdoms of the Heptarchy, London could not be what it is. The interest of a province and the interest of an independent state are never the same.[569] To one who believes political divisions inevitable, there can be little hope for universal free trade. Malthus is unable to rise to the cosmopolitan view of Cobden, and he never seems to see that by ignoring political barriers, free trade may really weaken them. His ideal is a state which combines agriculture and commerce in equal proportions.[570] The prosperity of the latter implies the decay of feudalism and the establishment of secure government; with security comes the spontaneous extension of enterprise and a steady demand for labour. Since the two great classes of producers provide a market for each other, wealth will constantly grow, and without risk of sudden check by a foreign influence. The prosperity of such a country may (he thinks) last practically for ever, and we might answer in the affirmative for our own country the query of Bishop Berkeley about his.[571] “The countries which unite great landed resources with a prosperous state of commerce and manufactures, and in which the commercial part of the population never essentially exceeds the agricultural part, are eminently secure from sudden reverses. Their increasing wealth seems to be out of the reach of all common accidents, and there is no reason to say that they might not go on increasing in riches and population for hundreds, nay almost thousands of years.”[572] They would go on in fact till they reached the extreme practical limits of population, which under the system of private property would mean such a state of the land as would “enable the last employed labourers to produce the maintenance of as many probably as four persons,” the man, his wife, and two children. As soon as the labour ceases to produce more than this, it ceases to be worth the employer’s while to give the wages and employ the labour. These practical limits are far from the limits of