The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1891-03-18

| IL me one TACT Is wort
a thousand theories and the mos
boundless faith, and it is fact that til
populations of European blood-to sa
nothing of the remainder of the world
Is increasing at the rate of 10 per cen
per annum, and probably Wilt for ye
many years, as there is but one Franc
and one French people who have reduces
TO an exact science the art of repressin.
increase, and with the bread eating pop
ulatlons increasing at the rate of 10 pc
cent per annum while the means upol
which such populations subsist is increas
ing at a rate actually less than De
cent, 1t looks as though some one woulC
go hungry in future not many genera
tons off.
I'll. NJ. W." felicitates us upon the in
ventlons which have accelerated produc
tlon True, these inventions have en-
abied US to open the prairie farms before
tneir products were needed, but fail to
see how that is to help succeeding
generations, as all of the inventive
faculty Of man has thus far failed tc
ADD one acre to the surface of the earth
or give the soil any greater productive
| power. On the contrary these same in
Ventlons have helped us to prematurely
| rob the soil of its virgin fertility.
1nere are men who look upon the de-
wees which save labor as not unmixed
blessings, as they believe the time is not
Tar OIL when-wIth no new farms to be
opened-the entire increase of the popu-
latlon must seek the towns and that
both employment and food, for such
hosts as will then crowd the streets. will
be scarce.
Some evidence is said to exist that
prior to the Christian era one of the
wise rulers of China destroyed all the
labor saving agricultural implements
that were robbing the laborers and leav-
ing them to starve, and whether this
be true or not it is very certain
that the force now employed on
the farms of the United States
Will, owing to the progressively greater
use OF labor saving devices, be quite suf-
tlcient to cultivate all the land that will
be IN cultivation twenty, thirty and forty
years from now hence all additions to
the rural population, from excess of
births over deaths, must seek employ
ment IN the towns. Will H. NJ. w"
tell us how these hosts of people are to
be employed and fed? Are they to sub
sist on the "unbounded faith" that he
writes abouta
1 presume I have all the belief
IN the progress of the human
race that facts and the past
history of the race warrant, but the !
elevation of the race will probably in the |
future, as in the past, come because |
is forced to strive against a |
nature for the means of sub
stance.
Probably III. NJ. W." does not know
hat it was one of the fundamental be-
iefs of Nautilus that "by contriving that
he earth shall produce food only in
mall quantities, and in reward for Ia
'or, God has provided perpetual spur
# human progress" and "that the first
of the mind results from
be wants of the body"
That this is and has been the cause and
curse of human development and ele-
alton is seen when we compare the
rozen Norway with its high civilization
nth tropical Otaheite where the food
rops into the mouth of the indolent saw
ge.
Nautilus also taught that inventions in
processes are not able to re-
love the necessity, as population in
reases, of having recourse to inferior
nd, and he also taught that it was the !
neapness of food that endangered the :
elfare of the artisan and laborer, as it =
estroyed the purchasing power of the
litivator; hence few goods were needed f
made, and the artisan and laborer |
ere idle because his best customers sold f
elr products at cost. And this is Just t
hat the American farmer has been do $
g of late years. hence he has been I'M 1
'le to employ the maker of coats, hard q
are, furniture, musical instruments, i,
rriages, watches, houses and ships as a
ell as the merchant, and this has D
ought about hard times and CONNER s.
ii and Industrial stagnation, which is
st what poor derided Nautilus told us
ould happen when the farmer sold his
oducts at or below cost; and he has r
en- selling them in this way simply be-
use we opened two and half farms
here the increase of population required n
t one. =,
What Nautilus taught about the rela- -
e tendency of food and population to n,
'rease lin diverse ratios, if that is q,
ter way t. express it, was that "If u
ID land could be got in abundance. i;
increase of food would be in a geo
trIcal ratio far greater than that of \,
n. That of wheat, for example. N
uld be six-fold, as we have seen" n,
ut good lands are comparatively few: ar
y Will, IN the nature of things, soon n,
occupied; and then the increase of m
q Will be lahorious process at a rate CT,
her resembling a decreasing than an Is
reasing geometrical ratio. The yearly 10,
rement of food, at least, would have hy
onstant tendency to diminish and the w.
cunt OF the increase in each successive
years would be less and less" -,
he position of Nautilus was. that: t;r
wen a peoples skill. and given its ar
ldard of living, at any given time its he
nbers are always tending to be the eic
lost that can be furnished by that
|, with living up to that Standard wt
Is to say. with what, according to an
standard, are the necessaries of for
y. tne io'esoIng we nave the basls OF htt
theory of Nautilus, and while he inc
GRATED this theory in many ways and hol
ported it by vast array of facts all 90,
deductions and conclusions were orv
lded upon these fundamental res.
0'ile'' anu ior lhe HE onl
can see nothing but
far out of the way in them al the
lgh the hypothetical Malthusianism am
ID. NJ. w" may be anything that is we,
rom MS reference 10 the fea
's-he has utterly failed to give us fro
u what IL As, Out he ciearIy job
70 'u@t LIE approves Praclices OF me add
~ - lance which most men thihA att,
~ az evidence OF moral eieVaiion job
a. y. IL no SOFT OF sense II accord T
the teachings of Malthus l.