23.28. 28. By what means we may remedy a Depopulation.
When a state is
depopulated by particular accidents, by wars, pestilence, or famine,
there are still resources left. The men who remain may preserve the
spirit of industry; they may seek to repair their misfortunes, and
calamity itself may make them become more industrious. This evil is
almost incurable when the depopulation is prepared beforehand by
interior vice and a bad government. When this is the case, men perish
with an insensible and habitual disease; born in misery and weakness, in
violence or under the influence of a wicked administration, they see
themselves destroyed, and frequently without perceiving the cause of
their destruction. Of this we have a melancholy proof in the countries
desolated by despotic power, or by the excessive advantages of the
clergy over the laity.
In vain shall we wait for the succour of children yet unborn to
re-establish a state thus depopulated. There is not time for this; men
in their solitude are without courage or industry. With land sufficient
to nourish a nation, they have scarcely enough to nourish a family. The
common people have not even a property in the miseries of the country,
that is, in the fallows with which it abounds. The clergy, the prince,
the cities, the great men, and some of the principal citizens insensibly
become proprietors of all the land which lies uncultivated; the families
who are ruined have left their fields, and the labouring man is
destitute.
In this situation they should take the same measures throughout the
whole extent of the empire which the Romans took in a part of theirs;
they should practise in their distress what these observed in the midst
of plenty; that is, they should distribute land to all the families who
are in want, and procure them materials for clearing and cultivating it.
This distribution ought to be continued so long as there is a man to
receive it, and in such a manner as not to lose a moment that can be
industriously employed.
