THE ECONOMIC OUTLOOK. 



471 



whose annual income does not reach the taxable limit (£150) is suffi- 

 ciently indicated by the fact that while population increases pauperism 

 diminishes. 



Thus, in the United Kingdom, during the last fifty years, the gen- 

 eral result of all industrial and societary movement, according to Mr. 

 Giffen, has been that " the rich have become more numerous, but not 

 richer individually ; the 'poor ' are, to some smaller extent, fewer ; and 

 those who remain 'poor' are, individually, twice as well off on the 

 average as they were fifty years ago. The poor have thus had almost 

 all the benefit of the great material advance of the last fifty years." 



The following further citations from the record of the recent eco- 

 nomic experiences of Great Britain are also strongly confirmatory of 

 the above conclusions : 



The amount of life insurance in the United Kingdom exceeds that 

 of any other country ; and the record here is a very rapid increase in 

 the number of policies issued, but a large decrease in the average 

 amount of the policies ; the meaning of which clearly is that a larger 

 number of people are not only continually becoming provident, but 

 able to insure themselves for small amounts. 



The changes in the relations of crime and of educational facilities 

 during the last fifty years of the history of the British people, which 

 have occurred and are still in progress, are in the highest degree en- 

 couraging. In 1839 the number of criminal offenders committed for 

 trial was 54,000 ; in England, alone, 24,000. Now the corresponding 

 figures (1886) were. United Kingdom, 19,446 ; England, 13,974. In 

 1840 one person for every 500 of the population of the British Islands 

 was a convict; in 1885 the proportion was as one to every 4,100. 



As late as 1842 there was no national school system in England, 

 and there were towns with populations in excess of 100,000 in which 

 there was not a single public day-school and not a single medical 

 charity. In 1886 the number of attendants upon schools in the United 

 Kingdom was reported at 5,250,000. In the same year the number in 

 attendance upon schools, for the support of which grants of money are 

 made by Parliament (and which correspond to the public schools of 

 the United States) was 3,915,315, an increase over the preceding year 

 of 85,335. The amount of such Parliamentary grants for 1886 was 

 £3,945,576 ($19,728,830). 



The change which has taken place in the relations of the Govern- 

 ment of Great Britain to the national life of its people is also very re- 

 markable. Thus at the commencement of the present century the 

 British Government annually appropriated and spent about one third 



times, durinj^ the times which we have been goins: throuprh and which have not been 

 times of great prosperity, there has been a most satisfactory increase in the incomes below 

 £500, while no similar increase is seen in the incomes between £500 and £1,000, and 

 upward."— Mr. Goschek, "'On the Distribution of Wealth,'' Loyal Stalisiical Society of 

 Enrfland, 18S7. 



