In a time of peace the whole of this
half might be kept in idleness without making the
other half poorer than they would have been if the
war had continued, and if, instead of being idle, they
were productively employed, the whole of what they
would produce would be a divisible surplus over and
above present wages. The present productivity of
labor in Great Britain would suffice to produce an
income of about 1 pound per day for each family, even
without any of those improvements in methods which
are obviously immediately possible.
But, it will be said, as population increases, the
price of food must ultimately increase also as
the sources of supply in Canada, the Argentine,
Australia and elsewhere are more and more used up.
There must come a time, so pessimists will urge, when
food becomes so dear that the ordinary wage-earner
will have little surplus for expenditure upon other
things. It may be admitted that this would be true
in some very distant future if the population were to
continue to increase without limit. If the whole
surface of the world were as densely populated as
London is now, it would, no doubt, require almost
the whole labor of the population to produce the
necessary food from the few spaces remaining for
agriculture.
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