The most intelligent social reformers are naturally directing their attention to the question, how to drain these lowlands of labour of the superfluous supply, or in other words to keep down the population of the low-skilled working class.

Among the many population drainage schemes, the following deserve close attention-- Sec.2.Checks on growth of population .-- We need not discuss in its wider aspect the question whether our population tends to increase faster than the means of subsistence.

Disciples of Malthus, who urge the growing pressure of population on the food supply, are sometimes told that so far as this argument applies to England, the growth of wealth is faster than the growth of population, and that as modern facilities for exchange enable any quantity of this wealth to be transferred into food and other necessaries, their alarm is groundless.

Now these rival contentions have no concern for us.

We are interested not in the pressure of the whole population upon an actual or possible food supply, but with the pressure of a certain portion of that population upon a relatively fixed supply of work.