500 PROCEEDINGS OF SECTION P. 



workers in agricultural industry for the Census year 1880, 

 3,300,000 are included as agricultural labourers. It appears 

 that these figures include all the labourers engaged upon the 

 farms ; and some, including negroes, will, of course, be 

 employed in other services than the actual work of produc- 

 tion. For the United Kingdom the male workers in primary 

 production cannot be ascertained from the data available. 

 A table in the second edition of Mulhall's work gives the 

 percentage of agriculture and manufactures at 45 percent.: 

 but these figures include female workers, who should not be 

 included for ascertaining the requisite proportion of con- 

 sumers ; and, as the figures would be higher, according to 

 those given by other countries, if females were omitted, 

 there is the requisite approximation to 50 per cent, for male 

 workers. The approximations deduced are sufficient for all 

 practical purposes of a general result. 



The hypothesis I have formed to account for the operation 

 of the law is this : that as the workers at the centre of the 

 circle, engaged in the work of primary production, approxi- 

 mately represent with women and children one-half of the 

 population, they will actually consume one-half of the product, 

 and that the other half of the product will pass to the secondary 

 workers at the circumference in exchange for services. The 

 incomes of the secondary workers come out of the incomes 

 of the primary workers and out of one another, so much 

 product representing purchasing power in the different hands 

 through which it passes until it is consumed. Thus, a 

 merchant receiving £3000 a year virtually receives the 

 equivalent of product to that amount. He pays as rent 

 £500 a year. Product to that amount, without his consuming 

 any portion of it, virtually passes into the hands of the land- 

 lord. In like manner he gives incomes to those engaged in 

 personal services, to professionals and others; and the amount 

 he pays in the market-place in the purchase of clothing and 

 of food for himself and family, or for the entertainment of 

 friends, represents so much more of the product than its 

 original cost ; the difference being the incomes of the dealers 

 and distributors through whose hands the product has passed. 

 The larger incomes give off" a number of smaller ones ; the 

 smaller ones give off" incomes smaller still, until at length the 

 product reaches hands where it is no longer given away for 

 services, and is consumed. The only hypothesis I have been 

 able to form as to the mode in which the secondary incomes 

 duplicate is shown by--this second diagram. It is a diagram 



