Page:Conventional Lies of our Civilization.djvu/253

would have advocated the castration of every individual born without a regular income, and the reorganization of humanity upon the pattern of the societies of ants and bees which have but a few individuals possessing the power of propagating their species, while the majority is composed of sexless individuals who have only the right to labor for those more completely developed. Such a condition of affairs could not fail to complete the happiness of the millionaires. It never entered the heads of the pious Malthus and his disciples, to state their principle in a reversed form: "The provisions produced by the earth are not sufficient to support her children. Therefore we must increase the amount of provisions," and yet it seems as if this would be the most natural remedy for the economic distress. There surely can not be any man in existence, in possession of his reasoning faculties, who would dare to assert that it is impossible to increase the amount of agricultural products. If there does exist such a fool, he can easily be silenced by a few figures. Europe supports 310 millions of inhabitants upon an area of 9.710.340 square kilometers; that is, it supports them aided by the contributions of provisions it receives from India, southern Africa, Algeria, North America and Australia. Enormous quantities of grain and meat are imported from these countries into Europe, which sends them nothing in return, except perhaps, wines. And yet with all this stream of food flowing into the country a considerable portion of the population suffers from actual want. Europe as a whole, thus confesses its incapability of supporting 32 human beings on one square kilometer. But Belgium supports 5.536.000 inhabitants on an area of 29.455 kilometers, consequently in this country one kilometer is amply sufficient to support 200 human beings, a number six times as large as that which we have found to be the