44 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY, 



the fruits of their labor being increasingly appropriated to capital. 

 On the contrary, the income from capital has at least no more than 

 kept pace with the increase of capital itself, while the increase of capi- 

 tal per head, as we have seen, is very little ; so that it may be doubted 

 whether the income of the individual capitalist from capital has on the 

 average increased at all. If the return to capital had doubled, as the 

 wages of the working-classes appear to have doubled, the aggregate in- 

 come of the capitalist classes returned to the income-tax would no^^' be 

 £800,000,000 instead of £400,000,000. In other words, it would not be 

 far short of the mark to say that almost the whole of the great mate- 

 rial improvement of the last fifty years has gone to the masses. The 

 share of capital is a very small one. And what has not gone to the 

 workman, so called, has gone to remunerate people who are really 

 workmen also, the persons whose incomes are returned under Schedule 

 D as from "trades and professions." The capitalist as such gets a 

 low interest for his money, and the aggregate return to capital is not 

 a third part of the aggregate income of the country, which may be 

 put at not less than £1,200,000,000, and is, I should estimate, not much 

 more than a fourth part. 



It will be interesting, I think, to present these conclusions in the 

 form of an account. We have not, as I have already said, an exact 

 statement of aggregate earnings, either at the beginning or at the end 

 of the period ; but assuming the aggregate income of the people as 

 about £1,200,000,000 now, and that the wages of working-men are per 

 head twice what they were, the aggregates in 1843 and at the present 

 time would compare as follow : 



Progress of National Income. 



Note. — Increase of working income per head, 100 per cent. 



From this it appears that the increase of what is known as work- 

 ing-class income in the aggregate is greater than that of any other 

 class, being ICO per cent, while the return to capital and the return to 



