Review of the Book
The Growth and Distribution of Population
By S. Vere Pearson
Gilbert M. Tucker
[Reprinted from Land and Freedom,
January-February 1936]
In this work Dr. S. Vere Pearson has made a most valuable
contribution to the literature of sociology and, more especially, to
the literature of sound economics and the philosophy of Henry George.
The book is a broad and masterly study of population trends and the
deep underlying causes of changes in the people of the earth. It is
marred by no narrow provincialism or nationalism, for it is based on
world-wide conditions and deals with widely scattered lands and
civilizations. The author is an Englishman, a graduate of Cambridge,
and a physician, but he has given much study to American conditions
and, for this reason as well as for his breadth of vision, the book is
quite as valuable on this side of the water as on his.
The book opens with a discussion of the problems of agriculture and
food control, showing that our difficulties are attributable, not to
any overcrowding or to limitations of nature, but to maladjustment and
failure to use wisely and to distribute fairly what nature offers. He
deals another crushing blow to the doctrines of Malthus and shows the
fallacy of such statements as that of Mill: "The niggardliness of
nature, not the injustice of society, is the cause of the penalty
attached to overpopulation." By argument as well as by experience
he demonstrates the error of such gloomy predictions as that made by
Sir William Crookes nearly forty years ago that long ere now the world
would be experiencing a real wheat famine. He shows how readily our
food supply may be augmented, how there is abundant room and
opportunity for all, if we will but use what nature has given us
wisely and fairly. The theory of diminishing returns as applied to
agricultural production is discredited for he points out that
increasing population means increasing rather than diminishing
production, pointing out that "The development of human skill
coincidentally with the increase of numbers of human beings enables
man to exist comfortably upon smaller and smaller areas of land."
There is much in this section of the book worthy of study by rural
economists.
Such a study brings us naturally to the subject of systems of land
tenure and their consequences, of course with one inevitable lesson;
in the author's words, "It is the first duty of government to
collect the rent of the land." Again he says: "Tranquility
and good government can go hand in hand when governments recognize
that their first duty is to collect their own revenue and cease from
robbery by taxation." Throughout the book there is much wise
economic teaching, sometimes in definite concrete form but more often
by inference, for the book is written to plead no cause nor to
substantiate any doc- trine, but simply as a study of population
trends from which study the conclusions are deduced. It covers a wide
range of matter and evidences so much reading, thought and study that
to attempt to summarise an outline of its more than four hundred pages
in a brief review would be inadequate and unfair. In its discussion
of housing, town planning, emigration, resettlement schemes and the
complications of transportation and traffic there is wealth of
material which might be well studied by those interested in the
problems of housing and slum clearance. Were the workers in these
fields to get down to fundamentals and study the real essentials of
such problems, instead of devoting themselves almost entirely to the
superficial aspects of the case, far more progress, and more
substantial progress, would be made. To rural workers and economists
his treatment of the big questions of rural and urban problems and the
drift to cities should prove enlightening and the discussion of birth,
marriage and death rates, including a very wise and well balanced
consideration of birth control, free from bias and prejudice, is to be
commended. To the public health worker the whole book should prove
invaluable.
To readers of LAND AND FREEDOM perhaps the most interesting sections
are those dealing with the functions and duties of government, the
chapter on " Ground Values and Appraisals" (dealing very
largely with American conditions) and the concluding chapters, "A
Gracious Dispensation" and "Co-operation for the Commonweal,"
but the book fairly bristles with good Single Tax lessons for, from
whatever angle these big problems are approached, the same remedy is
always deduced, and no part of the book should be overlooked. The
disastrous effects of tariffs and trade restrictions and the threats
which they offer to the peace of the world are all touched on, and the
author is clear-visioned enough to see the folly of the unsound
features of our American " New Deal," especially in the
wanton destruction and limitation of the very things which we must
have if we are to prosper.
To the Single Tax cause the book is perhaps an almost unique
contribution. The name of Henry George is mentioned only three times
and the Single Tax scarcely at all, but this does not detract in the
least from the merit of the work. Its unusual value to our mind is
that it is a dispassionate study of a big question the whole problem
of population and its tendencies and it is from this disinterested
study, at first glance a bit remote from taxation theories and social
betterment, that the lesson is drawn as to the obvious correction of
difficulties. If the book finds its way, as we hope it does, into the
proper hands, it will unquestionably be the means of enlisting the
interest and support of many intelligent leaders in the quest for a
better and saner organization of society. Agricultural students and
students of rural sociology, housing authorities and public health
workers, all who are students of those subjects embraced under the
somewhat vague term of demography, all these are too often cold to the
usual arguments for the reforms advocated by Henry George, especially
when the approach is so often from standpoints of purely fiscal and
taxation measures. To all these large and influential groups this book
should serve as a sound introduction to a wiser philosophy of society
and to bring it to their attention will mean a material accession to
the ranks of those who see that only by following the teachings of
Henry George shall we find our way to a greater measure of justice and
a better social order. Read the book, and bring it to the attention of
those to whom so often much existing Single Tax literature makes but
little appeal.
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