472 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



of tbe national income ; now it expends annually about one twelfth. 

 But for this greatly diniinisbed expenditure the masses of the people 

 now receive an immensely greater return than ever before ; in the 

 shape of increased postal and educational facilities, safer navigation, 

 greater expenditures for the maintenance of the public health and pub- 

 lic security, greater effort for preventing abuses of labor, etc. 



The general conclusion from all these facts, as Mr. Giffen has ex- 

 pressed it, is that what "has happened to the working- classes in Great 

 Britain during the last fifty years, is not so much what may propei'ly 

 be called an improvement, as a revolution of the most remarkable de- 

 scription." And this progress for the better has not been restricted to 

 Great Britain, but has been simultaneously participated in to a greater 

 or less extent by most, if not all, other countries claiming to be civil- 

 ized. So far as similar investigations have been instituted in the United 

 States, the results are even more favorable than in Great Britain. If 

 they have not been equally favorable in other than these two coun- 

 tries, we have a right to infer that it has been, because the people 

 of the former have not only started in their career of progress from 

 a lower level of civilization and race basis than the latter, but have 

 bad more of disadvantages — natural and artificial — than the people of 

 either Great Britain or the United States. The average earnings per 

 head of the people of countries founded by the Anglo-Saxon race are 

 confessedly larger than those of all other countries.* 



But some may say ; this is all very interesting and not to be dis- 

 puted. But how does it help us to understand better and solve the 

 industrial and social problems of to-day, when the cry of discontent 

 on the part of the masses is certainly louder, and the inequality of 

 condition, want, and suffering is claimed to be greater than ever be- 

 fore ? In this way. 



The record of progress in Great Britain above described is in- 

 disputably a record that has been made under circumstances that, if 

 not wholly discouraging, were certainly uufavorable. It is the record 

 of a country densely populated and of limited area, with the owner- 

 ship, or free use of land, restricted to the comparatively few ; with 

 (until recent years) the largest national debt known in history ; with 

 a heavy burden of taxation apportioned on consumption rather than 

 on accumulated property, and the reduction of which, a participation 

 in constant wars and enormous military and naval expenditures has 

 always obstructed or prevented ; with a burden of pauperism at 

 the outset, and, indeed, for the first half of the period under con- 



* A recent British authority (Sir Richard Temple) malvcs the highest average earnings 

 per head in any country at the present time to be in Australia, namely, £41 4s. Next in 

 order, he places the United Kingdom, with an average pcr-capita earning capacity of 

 £35 4,s. ; then the United States, with an average capacity of £2*7 4s. ; and next, Canada, 

 with an average of £26 18i. For ihc Continent of Europe the average is estimated at 

 £18 Is. 



