xvn LAND NATIONALIZATION— WHY ? AND HOW ? 305 



terested writers that we are the most pauperised country 

 on the globe.^ 



Our public men continually assure us that pauperism is 

 diminishing ; or that at the worst it is stationary, while 

 our population is increasing rapidly, and that it is therefore 

 proportionally diminishing ; and they base their statements 

 on the official statistics of pauperism. I shall show, however, 

 that these are not trustworthy guides, and that there is good 

 reason to believe that, during the very periods in which our 

 aggregate wealth has increased most rapidly, pauperism has 

 increased also in positive amount, and perhaps even in 

 greater proportion than the increase of population. 



If we take the official statistics of pau perism in England 

 and Wales for the last thirty years, we find great fluctua- 

 tions, but nothing like a regular diminution. Between 

 1849 and 1880 the numbers were lowest in the years 1853 

 and 1876-78, while they were highest from 1862 to 1873. 

 The only years in which the numbers rose above a million 

 were 1863-64 and 1868-71, and this was the very period 

 when our commerce was increasing so rapidly as to excite 

 the enthusiasm of our legislators, and when our prosperity 

 was supposed to be greatest. The extremely irregular 

 fluctuations of official pauperism render it possible 

 almost always to choose some year, twenty, thirty, or forty 

 years back, when it was higher than now, and thus show 

 an apparent decrease of numbers ; but if we take the 

 whole period from 1849 to 1880 as one during which our 

 commerce and wealth increased enormously, and all the 

 industrial arts and means of communication made the most 

 rapid strides, and take the average pauperism of the first 

 twelve and last twelve of these years we find them almost 

 exactly the same, thus — 1849 — 1860, average paupers, 

 863,338 ; 1869—1880, average paupers, 864,398. Between 



^ As this has been denied without proof of its inaccuracy it will be 

 well to quote the words of Mr. Joseph Kay, Q.C, author of Free 

 Trade in Land, who says: "The French, the Dutch, the Germans, 

 and the Swiss look with wonder at the enormous fortunes and at the 

 enormous mass of pauperism which accumulate in England side by side. 

 They have little of either extreme." And again he speaks of the 

 astonishment of foreigners at "the frightful amount of absolute 

 pauperism amongst the lowest classes." 



VOL. IL X 



