AMONG THE BOOKS.

Otago Witness, Issue 1920, 4 December 1890, Page 38

AMONG THE BOOKS.

* " THE SQUATTER'S DREAM."

This is another of the excellent books being sent out for circulation in Australia and India. Rolf Bolderwood is so well known to Australian readers at any rate, that there is no need to describe him ; but only in this case, to point out the merits of this book as compared with some others by the same author, and to compare it with what really is squatting life in Australia— of which, by the way, the author should know a good deal. The burden of the story is to show how a young squatter on a small scale sold all that he had to enter upon larger things, and how in forsaking the substance he lost it, and who for a time was in great danger of never seeing more than the shadow of those larger things. The moral of the story is on the face of, and has nob to be sought in any paragraph at the end. To those quite familiar with squatting life, parts of the story will appear to be not closely jointed. It may jar on the feelings of a thoroughbred squatter that it is not made plainer by what means Jack Redgrave, a jolly, well-to-do young squatter, came to be so well-to-do, and came to be a squatter, even a young one, and then afterwards to have to learn so much, and such simple conditions of his calling. But this little hitch in the story does not, as we have said, affect the moral; because, if it was not true of Jack Redgrave it is true of many, that they have to learn even the vocation of a squatter in a jolly hard school. To say that many do not come out so well as he did is, alas I too true. It may be they had not the grit, for you cannot make a silk purse from a sow's ear. This little book has the genuine Bolderwood features. It is sharply descriptive; it is rich in personal incident, and the author always commands a wealthy vocabulary - one which reminds a reader of the best living novel writers. " The Squatter's Dream " is a good Australian book.

AN ESSAY ON THE PRINCIPLE OF POPULATION AND ITS EFFECTS ON HUMAN HAPPINESS. By the Rev. Dr Malthus. New and cheap edition. (London : Ward, Lock, and Co.

In issuing this new, clearly printed, and remarkably cheap edition of the famous work of Thomas Robert Mai thus, the publishers have doubtless been influenced by the fresh upheaval of various perplexing social problems which unfortunately have lately fallen into a low arena of controversy, to be tossed about by insignificant sciolists and pinchbeck politicians. Time was when the consideration of weighty social questions lay in the domain of the earnest scholar and philosopher — the man who, far removed from worldly warfare, could calmly view the contending hosts and judge between right and wrong, between truth and error. But sciolism seems to be triumphant in these days ; the hydra-headed monster seems to have terrified the peaceloving scholar into silence. Malthus' essay is an oracular literary and political monument. It .was first published in 1798, the year after the author had taken a high academic position as ninth wrangler at Cambridge. A much more comprehensive edition was published in 1803, and this became the groundwork of all subsequent editions. The earnestness of Malthus was shown in a remarkable manner during the preparation ot the 1803 edition. Not content with the narrowness of his previous observations he journeyed throughout Europe gathering fresh materials, at a time when warfare made travelling difficult, if not dangerous. He was fortunately able to make quick and beneficial use of the short peace of Amiens. It is needless to say that his completed work has since been an indispensable aid to those who sincerely desire to study the construction of our social fabric. Unfortunately, the sciolist knave has been at work. Misdirected by half-educated writers and gutter demagogues, the popular mind has long been prejudiced against Malthus. Speaking of thoughts Malthusian to their minds means something vaguely immoial. Not unfrequently their teachers are ignorant as to who Malthus was, assuming him to have been perhaps an Italian conspirator or a German alchemist of the middle age, and not the English scholar and gentleman whom his contemporaries knew as being able, candid, and cultured, and who " bore the popular abuse and misrepresentation without the slightest murmur or soreness of temper." The question o£ overpopulation is prima facie tbemost important that can come under the notice of the publicist. Malthus grasped the subject firmly ; he gathered facts from all parts of the known world ; he adhered rigidly to the consideration of these facts, and formed his conclusions without wandering — as* naturally, he might be tempted to do— into correlative branches of investigation. Two things have to be done in examining matters concerning the improvement of society, and these are clearly set forth— (l) to investigate the causes that have hitherto impeded

the progress of mankind to happiness, and (2) to examine the probability of the total or partial removal of those causes in future. Even the most superficial observer must admit that in most countries population increases beyond the means of subsistence. Malthus thinks it safe to calculate that population, when unchecked, doubles itself every 25 years. There are no means of calculating the rate of increase in the means of subsistence. Checks have been placed under threa heads-namely, moral restraint, vice, and misery. In speaking of positive checks— i.e., everything that tends to shorten the natural duration of human life— Malthus says:— "Under this head may be enumerated all unwholesome occupations, severe labour, and exposure to the seasons, extreme poverty, bad nursing of children, laige towns, excesses of all kinds, the whole train of common diseases and epidemics, wars, plague, and famine." Emigration is the remedy usually proposed; but emigration merely staves off a difficulty. This has been long since discovered in Great Britain, and in a much wider sense the question is now occupying the attention of Indian legislators. An admirable article on " Emigration " of Labour from British India," by Sir Charles Bruce, appears in the New Review for September. In it he speaks of the work as bristling with difficulties. Viewing all sides of the population question, we are forced back to the wisdom and truth of Malthus' theory of moral seft-restraint. The materials he gathered cannot be controverted ; they are historical facts, which the author has merely systematised and elucidated. His simple precept is, " Do not marry till you have a fair prospect of supporting a family." One of the chief results of Malthus' inquiries was the reformed Poor Law (1834), by which the duty of self-support was emphasised, as well as the responsibilities cf parentage.