ABSTRACT
The impossibility of ultimately avoiding the stationary state-the irresistible necessity that the stream of human industry should finally spread itself out into an apparently stagnant sea-must have been, to the political economists of the last two generations, an unpleasing and discouraging prospect. When, however, population increases, the demand for most of the productions of the earth, and particularly for food, increases in a corresponding proportion. One of the effects of economical change of circumstances is sufficiently obvious: wages will fall, and the labouring class will be reduced to an inferior condition. The element introduced, an increased demand for food, besides occasioning an increase of rent, still further disturbs the distribution of the produce between capitalists and labourers. If the increase of population leads to an increased production of food, the cost of labour will not be diminished as the real reward of it, and profits, therefore, will not be so much raised.
