few among them have any practical knowledge on the
subject of food production. But Kropotkin is an
exception. His two books, ``The Conquest of Bread''
and ``Fields, Factories and Workshops,'' are very
full of detailed information, and, even making great
allowances for an optimistic bias, I do not think it
can be denied that they demonstrate possibilities in
which few of us would otherwise have believed.

Malthus contended, in effect, that population
always tends to increase up to the limit of subsistence,
that the production of food becomes more expensive
as its amount is increased, and that therefore, apart
from short exceptional periods when new discoveries
produce temporary alleviations, the bulk of mankind
must always be at the lowest level consistent with
survival and reproduction. As applied to the civilized
races of the world, this doctrine is becoming
untrue through the rapid decline in the birth-rate;
but, apart from this decline, there are many other
reasons why the doctrine cannot be accepted, at any
rate as regards the near future. The century which
elapsed after Malthus wrote, saw a very great
increase in the standard of comfort throughout the
wage-earning classes, and, owing to the enormous
increase in the productivity of labor, a far greater
rise in the standard of comfort could have been
effected if a more just system of distribution had
been introduced. In former times, when one man's
labor produced not very much more than was needed