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chief articles of consumption. 38. The greater benefits the State 
gives the working people in return for diminished taxes. 4. The 
actual improvement in the condition and wealth of the people as 
tested—(a) by the birth and death rates ; (b) by the vast increase 
in the number of articles needed by the people; (c) by their 
savings and investments; (d) by the decline of pauperism; 
(ec) by the spread of education ; (f) by the diminution in adult 
and juvenile crime. Mr. Giffen, in the address from which 
I have drawn so largely for statistics, elaborately discusses yet 
another point, on which I have not left myself time and space 
to give you more than his conclusions. ‘Have the working 
classes gained in proportion with others by the development of 
material wealth during the last fifty years?’ To this question, 
after examining the statistics of probates and of the income tax 
he replies that ‘‘the increase of working-class income in the 
ageregate is greater than that of any other class, being 160 per 
cent., while the return to capital and to what are called the 
capitalist classes . . . has only increased about 100 per 
cent., although capital itself had increased over 150 per cent. 
At the same time the capitalist classes themselves have greatly 
increased in number, so that the amount of capital possessed 
among them per head can hardly have increased at all. On the 
other hand, as the masses of the nation—taking the United 
Kingdom altogether—have only increased about 380 per cent. 
since 1843, when these income tax figures begin, while their 
ageregate incomes have increased 160 per cent., it is explained 
how these incomes have gained, individually, about 100 per 
cent., as against hardly any increase at all in the incomes of 
what are called the capitalist classes on the average. The 
lecturer passed on to refer to the strides of scientific discovery 
and invention during the last half-century, the revelation of the 
chemical composition of the sun, of nebule, and of many fixed 
stars, the investigation of the physical condition of the sun, the 
calculation of the velocity of light, photography, artificial light- 
ing, the electric telegraph, the electric light, the telephone, 
microphone, and phonograph, and the use of electricity as a 
motive power. Railways themselves are a work of the last 
fifty-three years. Steamboats—which first crossed the Atlantic 
in 1838—have developed from the paddle to the screw, and 
from the simple to the compound engine, while iron has replaced 
wood, and steel in its turn iron. Our British shipping not 
- only increases, but increases relatively to that of the rest of the 
world. Mechanical science has made other great strides, includ- 
ing the use of the hot blast in smelting, and of Siemens’ 
regenerative furnace, and Nasmyth’s steam “hammer, and Whit- 
worth’s fluid compression of steel. Subsoil drainage, the mowing 
Machine, and the steam plough, and other uses of the steam 
