32 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



wheat and sugar, we need say nothing more on this head. But few 

 people seem to be aware how, simultaneously with this reduction of 

 the cost of government, there has been an increase of the expenditure 

 of the government for miscellaneous civil purposes, of all of which 

 the workman gets the benefit. It may be stated broadly that nearly 

 £15,000,000 of the expenditure of the central government for educa- 

 tion, for the post-office, for inspection of factories, and for the miscel- 

 laneous purposes of civil government, is entirely new as compared with 

 fifty years ago. So far as the expenditure is beneficial, the masses get 

 something they did not get before at all. It is the same, even more 

 markedly, with local government. In Great Britain, the annual out- 

 lay is now about £60,000,000, as compared with £20,000,000 fifty 

 years ago. This £20,000,000 was mainly for poor-relief and other old 

 burdens. Now the poor-relief and other old burdens are much the 

 same, but the total is swollen by a vast expenditure for sanitary, edu- 

 cational, and similar purposes, of all of which the masses of the popu- 

 lation get the benefit. To a great deal of this expenditure we may 

 attach the highest value. It does not give bread or clothing to the 

 working-man, but it all helps to make life sweeter and better, and to 

 open out careers even to the poorest. The value of the free library, 

 for instance, in a large city, is simply incalculable. All this outlay 

 the workman has now the benefit of, as he had not fifty years ago. 

 To repeat the words I have already used, he pays less taxes, and he 

 gets more — much more — from the government.* 



* With regard to this question of prices, I have been favored since the delivery of 

 this address with the copy of a letter, dated June 11, 1881, addressed by Mr. Charles 

 Hawkins, of 27 Savile Row, to the editor of the " Daily News," on the cost per patient 

 of the expenditure of St. George's Hospital in 1830 and 1880. The facts stated confirm 

 in an interesting way what is here said as to the cost of articles of the workman's con- 

 sumption fifty years ago and at the present time. Mr. Hawkins, who was at one time 

 one of the treasurers of the hospital, and therefore speaks with authority, gives the fol- 

 lowing table and notes : 



"Although each patient costs now Is. \d. less than in 1830, there have been great 

 alterations in the different items of expenditure, viz. : 



Meat 



Bread and flour. . 

 Wine and spirits. 



Malt liquor 



Milk 



Tea and grocery. 



Coals and wood 



Laundry. . . i 



Instruments and surgical appliances. 

 Staff — officers, servants, nurses 



" Had wheat cost in 1880 what it did in 1830, £1,884 must have been spent in bread 

 and flour instead of £738. The cost of port wine in 1830 was £72 per pipe; in 1880, 



