Birth Control | Page 9

the colonists, by applying the methods of civilisation to the rich soil, become more and more prosperous. Eventually there comes a time when capital or labour applied to the soil gives a maximum return per head of population. Once that point has been reached any further capital or labour applied to the soil will produce a smaller return per head of population. This "law of diminishing returns" may be illustrated by a simpler example. Let us suppose that during one year a market garden worked by one man has produced vegetables to the value of ￡10. During the second year the garden is worked by ten men and produces vegetables to the value of ￡200. It is obvious that the work of ten men has produced twice as much per head as the work of one man, because each man has produced not ￡10 but ￡20. During the third year the garden is worked by twenty men and yields vegetables to the value of ￡300. The total yield is greater, but the yield per head is less, because each man has produced not ￡20 but ￡15. The point of maximum production per head has been passed, and the law of diminishing returns is operating.
By restricting the birth-rate Malthusians would limit the population to the number necessary for maximum production per head. Now, in the first place, it would be very difficult, if not impossible, in the case of a country with various industries, to decide when the line of maximum production had been passed at any given time. Moreover, it would be utterly impossible to fix this line permanently. In the case of our market garden the introduction of intensive horticulture might mean that maximum production per head required the work of forty men. Again, the very phrase "maximum production per head" implies sterling moral qualities in the workers, and an absence of drones; and sterling moral qualities have never been prominent in any nation, once the practice of artificial birth control has been adopted. Lastly, the Christian ideal requires for its realisation, not a maximum, but an adequate supply of food, clothing, shelter, and fuel. Christianity teaches that to seek after the maximum enjoyment of material things is not the chief end of man, because the life of a man in this world is very short compared with his life in eternity.
(c) Wages The Wages Fund Theory is an economic reflection of the Malthusian myth. This theory assumes that a definite fixed sum is available every year for distribution as wages amongst labourers, so that the more numerous the labourers the less wages will each one receive. From this theory Malthusians argue that the only remedy for low wages is artificial birth control. They carefully refrain from telling the working classes the other aspect of this Wages Fund theory--namely, that if the workers in one trade receive a rise in wages, a corresponding reduction must be made in the wages of others, so that a rise in wages here and there confers no real benefit on the labouring classes as a whole. That is merely one illustration of capitalist bias in the Malthusian propaganda. In any case, economic science has discarded the Wages Fund Theory as a pure fiction. No fixed or definite sum is available for wages, because the wages of a labourer are derived from the produce of his work. Even in the case of making a railway, where wages are paid before the work is completed, the money is advanced by shareholders on the security of the proceeds that will eventually accrue from the produce of the labourers.
Section 2. POVERTY IN GREAT BRITAIN DUE TO OTHER CAUSES
(a) _Under-development_
Even if the theory of birth controllers, that a high birth-rate increases poverty, were as true as it is false, it could not possibly apply to Great Britain or to any other country open to commercial intercourse with the world; because there is no evidence that the supply of food in the world either cannot or will not be increased to meet any actual or possible demand. Within the British Empire alone there was an increase of 75 per cent. in the production of wheat between 1901 and 1911. [15] In Great Britain there has been not only an increase of population but also an increased consumption of various foods per head of the population. Moreover, if Britain were as well cultivated as is Flanders we could produce all or nearly all our own food. [16]
The truth is that in countries such as England, Belgium, and Bengal, usually cited by Malthusians, as illustrating the misery that results from overpopulation, there is no evidence whatsoever to prove that the population is pressing on the soil. On the contrary, we find ample physical resources sufficient to support the entire population, and