492 



NATURE 



[Sept. 22, 1887 



studied, and the fall of prices allowed for, it is not in our foreign 

 trade that any check worth mentioning seems to have occurred 

 at all. The diminution in the rate of increase in the movements 

 of shipping is very largely to be accounted for in the way already 

 explained, viz. by the fact that the increase just before 1875 was 

 largely owing to the multiplication of lines of steamers, and that 

 a framework had then been provided up to which the traffic 

 has since grown. Even an increase of one-third in the move- 

 ments in the last ten years may thus show as great an increase in 

 real business as an increase of 50 or 60 per cent, in the move- 

 ments in the twenty years before. Foreign competition, even 

 from natural causes, is thus insufficient to account for the diminu- 

 tion in the rate of increase of our material growth in the last ten 

 years. 



These figures may be put directly another way. The increase 

 of our foreign exports per head between 1860-64 and 1870-74 

 was from;,^4 14^. iid. to £y ys. ^d., or about 55 per cent., and 

 allowing for an average rise of prices between the two dates, 

 may be put as having been at the extreme about 50 per cent. 

 Between 1870-74 and 1880-84, instead of an increase, there is 

 a decrease, viz. from ^7 7^. 5,/. to ;^6 125. gd., but deducting 

 about one-third from the former figure for the fall in prices, the 

 real increase in the last ten years would appear to be as from 

 £4. 16s. id. to £(i \2s. gd., or over 35 per cent. The differ- 

 ence m the rate of increase in the last ten years compared wiih 

 the previous ten is thus the difterence between 35 and 50 per 

 cent, only, equal to about;£'2i, 000,000 annually on the amount of 

 ;£■ 1 40, 000, 000 assumed to represent the value of British industry 

 in our foreign exports, deduction being made for the value of 

 raw material included. A deduction of this sort from the 

 annual income of the country is too small to account for such a 

 check to the rate of our growth generally as that we are now 

 discussing as probable, especially when we recollect that the 

 labour is only diverted, and it is not the whole 2'2i, 000,000 

 that is lost, but only the difference between that sum and what 

 is otherwise earned, which may even be a plus and not a mimis 

 difference. 



To bring the matter to a point, an increase of 40 per cent, 

 in the income of the country in ten years would, on an assumed 

 income of 1000 millions only in 1875— and the figure must 

 then have been more — have brought the income up to 1400 

 millions ; an increase of 20 per cent, would have brought it 

 up to 1200 millions only, a difference of 200 millions, which 

 must have arisen from the alleged difference in the rate of our 

 material growth in question if it had occurred. Clearly nothing 

 can have happened in our foreign trade to account for anything 

 more than the smallest fraction of such a difference. The figures 

 are altogether too small. We may repeat again, then, that it is not 

 the check to our foreign trade which foreign competition may 

 have caused to which we can ascribe the recent check to our 

 general rate of growth. 



I need hardly add that in point of theory foreign competition 

 was not likely to have the effect stated. I have set forih else- 

 where in an elaborate essay (" Essays in Finance," second series, 

 "Foreign Manufactures and English Trade") the reasons for 

 holding this opinion ; why it is, in fact, that as foreign nations 

 grow richer we should be better off absolutely than if they were 

 to remain poor, though relatively they might advance more 

 than we do. But, whatever theory may say, in point of fact the 

 check to the rate of our material growth cannot, for the reasons 

 stated, have been due to anything which has happened to our 

 foreign trade. 



Another explanation which has been suggested, and to which I 

 have myself been inclined to attach considerable weight as being 

 plainly, as far as it goes, a vera causa, is the extent to which the 

 hours of labour have been reduced in many employments in 

 consequence of the improvement in the condition of the working 

 classes in the last half-century, and the growth of a disposition 

 to take things easier, which has been the result of the general 

 prosperity of the country. Such causes, when they exist, and 

 when they are brought into operation, must tend to diminish 

 the rate of material growth in a country as compared with a 

 period just before when they were not in operation. If we could 

 suppose them brought into operation suddenly, all other things, 

 such as the progress and development of invention, remaining 

 the same, such a reduction of hours of labour and growth of a 

 disposition to take things easy must produce a check to the 

 former rate of growth. 



After some consideration, however, although there is no doubt 

 of the general tendency of the causes referred to, I begin to 



doubt whether they would explain adequately such a check to 

 the rate of material growth generally throughout the country 

 as is assumed to have occurred. As regards the shortening of 

 the hours of labour, which is the more definite fact to be dealt 

 with, it cannot but be observed that the shortening has by no 

 means been universal. It has been conspicuous among certain 

 trades organized into trade unions ; but the unions, after all, only 

 include about a tenth part of the labour of the country. There 

 has been no such conspicuous shortening of the hours of labour 

 among professional men, clerks, domestic servants, and many 

 others whose labour is an essential part of the general sum total. 

 Next — and this is perhaps even more important — the shortening 

 of the hours of labour is not coincident with the beginning of 

 the last ten years, though it has been in full operation for the 

 whole of that period, but rather with the beginning or middle of 

 the previous ten years, viz. 1865-75 ; so that it should have beery 

 fully in operation upon the production of 1875 ; and the check 

 to our rate of growth if due to this cause should thus have been 

 felt between 1865 and 1875, rather than between the latter date 

 and the present time. The same with the general disposition to 

 take things easy. This disposition did not spring up in a day in 

 1875, but was probably as effective as a cause of change in the 

 earlier, as in the later, period. It must count for something as 

 a cause of the annual production of the country being less at a 

 given moment than it would otherwise be ; but in comparing two 

 periods what we have to consider is whether the growth of this 

 disposition has been greater in one period than in another ; and 

 there are no data to support such a conclusion as regards the last 

 ten years compared with the previous ten. 



We must apparently, therefore, reject this explanation also. It 

 is not adequate to account for the apparent change that has 

 occurred in the rate of our growth from the year 1875 as com- 

 pared with the period just before. Our progress in periods^ 

 previous to 1875 took place in spite of the operation of causes 

 of a similar kind which were then in operation, and there is 

 no proof at all that the shortening of the hours of labour and 

 tlie growth of a disposition to take things easy have been 

 greater since 1875 ^^ compared with the period just before than 

 they were between 1865 and 1875 as compared with the period 

 just before that. What is wanted is a new cause beginning to 

 operate in or about 1875, and the shortening of the hours of 

 labour and the growth of a disposition to take things easy do not 

 answer that description sufficiently. Something of the apparent 

 change may be due to an acceleration in recent years of the 

 growth of a disposition to take things easy, but on the whole 

 the explanation halts when we make a strict comparison. 



Another cause which may properly be assigned zs,2,vera causa 

 of a check to the rate of material growth in the country is 

 the unfavourable weather to agriculture, and the generally un- 

 profitable conditions of that industry in recent years. Pro tanfa 

 such influences would make agricultural production less to-day 

 than it would otherwise be. Employment in that industry would 

 also be diminished comparatively, and perhaps absolutely, and a 

 check to production generally would take place while labour was 

 seeking new fields. But the check arising in this manner, as far 

 as the general growth is concerned, has obviously not been very 

 great. More land in proportion has been turned into permanent 

 pasture, but very little land has gone out of cultivation altogether, 

 and even the amount under the plough has not much diminished. 

 Agricultural labour, in somewhat greater proportion than 

 before, has been obliged to seek other employments ; the flow 

 of population from country to town has been increased somewhat ; 

 but nothing new has happened to diminish production generally 

 to a serious extent, and it is a new cause, it must be remembered, 

 for which we are seeking. As far as unfavourable weather is 

 concerned, again, that is only a temporary evil. One year wit; 

 another, the weather is not worse now than at any form 

 time ; the remarkably unfavourable weather which lasted froi 

 1874 to 1880 has passed. The other conditions unfavourable 

 agriculture, especially foreign competition, are more enduring 

 but these seem much more unfavourable to rent than to produc 

 tion itself, which is the point now under consideration ; and we 

 do not know that they will be permanent at all when prices and 

 wages are fully adjusted. 



The disturbance to industry by the fall of prices generally is 

 also a vera causa of a check to the rate of material growth. But 

 the effect of such a cause seems to be confined within narrow 

 limits, and it is not a new cause. It occurs in every time of 

 depression due to discredit, being partly the effect and partly the 

 cause of the depression itself. All that is new recently is th( 



is 



I 



