488 



NATURE 



{Sept. 22, 1887 



sufficient interval had elapsed to show that the statistics them- 

 selves could not be misinterpreted. There has now been ample 

 time to allow for minor variations and fluctuations, and the 

 statistics can be fairly construed. 



I have to begin by introducing a short table dealing with some 



of the principal statistical facts which are usually appealed to 

 as signs of general progress and the reverse, and I propose to 

 go over briefly the items in that table and to discuss along with 

 them a few broad and notorious facts which cannot conveniently 

 be put in the same form. 



Statement as to Production or Consumption of Staple Articles in the United Kingdom in the undermentioned Years, with the Rate 



of Increase in Different Periods compai-ed. 



1855- 



Income-tax assessments, million £ 



Production of coal, million tons 



,, pig iron, ,, 



Receipts from railway goods traffic per head of population. 

 Clearances of shipping in foreign trade, million tons ... 



Consumption of tea per head, lbs. 



„ sugar, ,, ,, 



308 

 64 

 3-2 



10 

 2-3 

 30-6 



1865. 



396 

 98 



4-8 

 iis.^ 

 IS 



3 '3 

 398 



1875. 



571 

 132 

 6-4 



i8j.i 

 24 



4 '4 

 627 



631 

 159 



7*4 

 21 J. 2d^ 



32 

 SO 



74-3 



Ratio of increase per cent. 



1855-65. 1865-75. 1875-85 



28 



S3 

 SO 



50 

 43 



44 

 3S 

 33 

 63 

 60 



33 

 58 



10 



20 



16 



18 



33 



i3i 



19 



^ These figures are for 1860-64, 1870-74, and 1880- J 



The first figures are those of the income-tax assessments. 

 What we find is that if we go back thirty years and compare 

 the amount of income-tax assessments in the United Kingdom 

 at ten years' intervals, there appears to be an immense progress 

 from 1855 to 1875, t^he first twenty years, and since 1S75 ^ much 

 less progress. The total amount of the assessments themselves, 

 stated in millions, was as follows : — 



And the rate of growth in the ten-yearly periods which these 

 figures show is — between 1855 and 1865, 28 per cent. ; between 

 1865 and 1875, 44 per cent. ; and between 1875 ^nd 1885, 10 

 per cent. only. 



Making all allowance for changes in the mode of assessment 

 by which the lower limit of the tax has been raised, for the 

 apparent increase before 1875, which may have been due to a 

 gradual increase of the severity of the collection, and for the 

 like disturbing influences, I believe there is no doubt that these 

 income-tax assessments correspond fairly well to the change in 

 the money value of income and property in the interval. How 

 great the change in the rate of increase is, is shown by the simple 

 consideration that if the rate of increase in the last ten years, 

 instead of being 10 per cent, only, had been 44 per cent., as in 

 the ten years just before, the total of the income-tax assess- 

 ments in 1885, which is actually ;,f 63 1,000, 000, would have been 

 ^882,000,000 ! Something then has clearly happened in the 

 interval to change the rate of increase. 



These figures being those of money values, an obvious explana- 

 tion is suggested which would account in great part for the 

 phenomenon of a diminished rate of increase in such values 

 without supposing a reduction of the rate of increase of real 

 wealth, of the things represented by the money values, to corre- 

 spond. This is the fall of prices of which we have heard so 

 much of late years, and about which in some form or another 

 we shall no doubt hear something at our present meeting. It 

 is quite clear that, if prices fall, then income-tax assessments 

 must also be affected. The produce of a given area of land, for 

 instance, sells for less than it would otherwise sell ; there is less 

 gross produce, and in proportion there is even less net produce, 

 that is, less rent ; consequently the net income appearing in the 

 Income Tax Schedules is either less than it was or does not 

 increase as it did before. The same -with mines, with rail- 

 ways, and with all sorts of business under Schedule D. The 

 things themselves may increase as they did before, but as the 

 money values do not increase, but diminish, the income-tax 

 assessments cannot swell at the former rate. It is the same with 

 salaries and other incomes not dependent so directly in appear- 

 ance on the fall in prices. Salaries and incomes are of course 

 related to a given range of prices of commodities, and a fall in 

 the prices of commodities implies that the range of salaries and 

 incomes is itself lower than it would otherwise be, assuming the 

 real relation between the commodities and incomes to be the 



same after the fall in prices as it would have been if there had 

 been no fall in prices. Hence the income-tax assessments by 

 themselves are not a perfectly good test in a question like the 

 present. The change implied may be nominal only, so far 

 as the aggregate wealth and prosperity of the community are 

 concerned, though of course there can be no great and general 

 fall of prices without a considerable redistribution of wealth, 

 which must have many important consequences. 



This criticism, however, does not apply to the remaining 

 figures in the short table submitted, and to various other well- 

 known facts, which we shall now proceed to discuss. 



The production of coal, then, is found to have progressed in 

 the last thirty years as the income-tax assessments have done. 

 The figures in millions of tons at ten years' intervals are as 

 follows : — 



Million tons. Million tons. 



1855 

 1865 



64 



187s 



132 

 159 



And the rate of growth in the ten-yearly periods which these 

 figures show is between 1855 and 1865, 53 per cent. ; between 

 1865 and 1875, 35 per cent. ; and between 1875 and 1885, 20 

 per cent. only. The rate of growth in the last ten years is much 

 less than in the twenty years just before. The percentages 

 here, it will be observed, are higher than in the case of the 

 income-tax assessments. The increase in the last ten years in 

 particular is 20 per cent, as compared with an increase of 10 per 

 cent, only in the income-tax assessments. But the direction of 

 the movement is in both cases the same. 



I need hardly say, moreover, that coal production has usually 

 been considered a good test of general prosperity. Coal is 

 specially an instrumental article, the fuel of the machines by 

 which our production is carried on. Whatever the explanation 

 may be, we have now, therefore, to take account of the fact that 

 the rate of increase of the production of coal has been less in the 

 last ten years than in the twenty years just before. 



Then with regard to pig-iron, which is also an instrumental 

 article, the raw material of that iron which goes to the making 

 of the machines of industry, the table shows the following par- 

 ticulars of production : — 



And the rate of growth which these figures show is between 

 1855 and 1865, 50 per cent. ; between 1865 and 1875, 33 per 

 cent. ; and between 1875 ^^^ 1885, 16 percent, only. Whatever 

 the explanation may be, we have thus to take account of a 

 diminution of the rate of increase in the production of pig-iron 

 much resembling the diminution in the rate of increase of the 

 production of coal. 



At the same time the miscellaneous mineral production of the 

 United Kingdom has mostly diminished absolutely. On this 

 head, not to weary you with figures, I have not thought it neces- 

 sary to insert anything in the above short table ; but I may refer 



