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46 ECONOMIC INQUIRIES AND STUDIES
to apologize for introducing them. Noone, it will be
urged, can make the blunder of overlooking them. But
in point of fact, and this is my justification, the grossest
blunders are constantly made. We know, for instan<:e.
in regard to the question of the population which a
given area will support, that nothing is so common in
books of travel or geographies, with reference to un-
occupied or partially occupied areas, than statements
that a given area will support so many million inhabit-
ants. Nothing is said as to what kind of inhab:tants.
But clearly the sort of inhabitants will make all the
difference. The idea of boundlessness of area so
common in new countries, and which is to some extent
;:tn illusion, if I may venture the remark, is also due to
neglect of the fact of quality of population. The area
of a given country in a sense may be practically bound-
less, but it may be equally true that the full occupation
of the country would imply a continual re-adaptation
of the people to new economic conditions-that there
is by no meartsboundless room for the same sort of
people carrying on the same sort of industries. To the
same effect, the idea of narrowness of area so common
in old countries, where there is constant wonder as to
what is to be done with the growing population, is
based largely on the vague assumption that there must
be some proportion between area and population,
whereas, as we have seen, and as experience proves,
populations of indefinite magnitude may be supported
on narrow territory. Every city is an illustration in
disproof of the supposed connection between population
and area in the sense stated. Area is no doubt necess-
ary to a wholly self-contained people, if such a people
can be conceived of, short of one which occupies the
whole habitable territory of the globe; but, as no nation
is self-contained, there is equally no means of settling
a priori the maximum limit of inhabitants per square
mile which a community may occupy; and that a nation
reaches a high maximum is no proof of its being in an
unfavourable economic condition, or th~ reverse.