494 



NA TURE 



{_Sept. 2 2, 1887 



no reason why they should not concentrate themselves on the 

 old manufacturing centres. The ruder parts of the coal and 

 iron industry may be attracted to other places, but the higher 

 branches of manufacturing will be at no disadvantage if carried 

 on at the old centres. 



Oh the other hand, the old centres will retain the advantages, 

 which are obviously very great, of climate, accumulated wealth, 

 acquired skill, and concentration of population. That popula- 

 lation under the new Conditions is to go from them merely 

 because they do not grow food which can be transported to 

 them at the cost of a mere fraction of the aggregate income, and 

 because they have not coal and iron in abundance and in juxta- 

 position, that abundance and juxtaposition, owing again to the 

 •diminished cost of conveyance, being no longer so indispensable 

 as it was to the higher branches of manufacturing, appears 

 certainly to be a " large order." What I have to suggest most 

 strongly at any rate is that the advantages I have spoken of as 

 possessed by old manufacturing centres are not unlikely to tell 

 more and more under the new conditions, and that the indis- 

 pensability of coal and iron is no longer to be spoken of as 

 -what it has been in the last century, during which apparently 

 England owed so much of its precedence in manufacturing 

 power to these causes. 



To the same effect we may urge the specially great increase of 

 the efficiency of coal in recent years. Cheap coal in situ cannot 

 be relatively so important as it was in days when five or ten 

 tons of coal were required to do the work which can now be 

 done by one. 



The truth is that the whole change that has been occurring is 

 ■only a continuation of much larger historical changes. There has 

 almost always in English history been some one industry that was 

 supposed to be king. In the Middle Ages it was the growth and 

 ■export of raw wool ; last century it was the woollen manufacture 

 itself; early in this century and down to a very late date cotton was 

 king ; more lately, since the beginning of the railway and steam- 

 ship era, it has been coal and iron. How do we know, how can 

 we know, that coal and iron are to reign indefinitely, any more 

 than wool, or the wool'en manufacture, or cotton themselves have 

 ■done ? Changes are always going on, and for that reason I 

 believe we should attach the more importance to the increasing 

 signs that it is no longer necessary or indispensable for pro- 

 sperous communities to live where their food and raw materials 

 are grown ; that there may be advantages of climate, of accu- 

 mulated wealth, of acquired skill, of concentration of population 

 which are now, under the new conditions, overwhelmingly more 

 important. It would be absurd to dogmatize in such a matter. 

 I hope, however, I have said enough to those who care to reflect 

 to satisfy them that the indispensability even of coal and iron to 

 the continuance of our material growth is no longer to be assumed, 

 that there are wholly new conditions to be considered. 



To come back to the practical point in all this discussion. Not 

 only is there no sign in anything that has yet happened that the 

 apparent check to our former rate of material growth is due to 

 -th^ loss of natural advantages which we once possessed, but the 

 theory of natural advantages itself requires to be revised. Equally 

 in this way as in the other ways that have been discussed, it is 

 impossible to account for the apparent check to the former rate 

 of our material growth which has been observed. 



Having carried matters so far, however, and having found the 

 insufficiency of the various causes which have been assigned for 

 the check to our former rate of material gro\\'th, because they 

 have not produced the sort of effect in detail which they ought 

 to have produced so as to lead to the general effect alleged, or 

 because they existed quite as much when the rate of growth was 

 great as in recent years when a diminution has apparently been 

 observed, it would seem expedient to inquire whether, in spite 

 of the accumulation of signs to that effect, the apparent check to 

 our rate of growth may, after all, not be a real one. To some 

 extent I think we must conclude that this is the case. There 

 are other facts which are inconsistent with a real and permanent 

 check such as has been in question, and a general explanation of 

 the special phenomena of arrest seems possible without supposing 

 any such real check. 



The first broad fact that does not seem quite reconcilable with 

 the fact of a real diminution of the kind alleged in the rate of 

 material growth generally is the real as distinguished from the 

 apparent growth of the income-tax assessments when allowance 

 is made for the fall of prices which affect, as we have seen, all 

 aggregate values. Assuming the fall of prices to be about 20 

 per cent., then we must add one-fourth to the assessments in 



1885 to get the proper figure for comparison with 1875. The 

 total of 631 millions for 1885 would thus become 787 millions, 

 which is a falling-off of 35 millions, or 4 percent, only, from the 

 figure of 822 millions, which should have been reached if the 

 rate of growth had been the same between 1875 and 1885 as 

 between 1865 and 1875. Allowing for the raising of the lower 

 limit of the income-tax in the interval, this is really no decrease 

 at all. 



Of course this comparison may be thrown out if we are to 

 assume the difference made by the fall of prices on the income- 

 tax assessments to be 15 or 10 per cent, only, instead of 20 per 

 cent. But a point like this would involve a most elaborate dis- 

 cussion, for which this address would hardly be the occasion. 

 I hope to find a better opportunity shortly in a continuation of 

 my essay of ten years ago on the accumulations of capital in 

 the United Kingdom. There is no doubt, however, that an 

 allowance must be made for the difference of prices, and when 

 any such allowance is made the rate of material growth would 

 not appear to be so very much less between 1875 and 1885 than 

 in the period just before, as it does in the above figures. 



Another broad fact not easily reconcilable with the fact of a 

 great diminution in the real rate of material growth in the last 

 ten years is the steadiness of the increase of population and the 

 absence of any sign, such as an increase in the proportion of 

 pauperism, indicating that the people are less fully employed 

 than they were. The increasing numbers must either be em- 

 ployed or unemployed, and if there is an increase in the propor- 

 tion of the unemployed the fact should be revealed in the returns 

 of pauperism somehow. The existence of trade unions, no 

 doubt, prevents many workmen coming on the rates who might 

 formerly have done so, but there are large masses of workmen, 

 the most likely to feel the brunt of want of employment, to whom 

 this explanation would not apply. 



What we find, however, is that population has increased as 

 follows : between 1855 and 1865 from 27,800,000 to 29,900,000, 

 or 7i per cent. ; between 1865 and 1875 from 29,900,000 to 

 32,800,000, or nearly 10 per cent. ; and between 1875 and 1885 

 from 32,800,000 to 36,300,000, or over 10 per cent. If it is 

 considered that the figures are not fairly comparable for the early 

 period, owing to the specially large emigration from Ireland, 

 which took away from the apparent numbers of the United 

 Kingdom as a whole, but still allowed of as great an increase in 

 the manufacturing parts of the country as there has been later, 

 then we may take the figures for England only, and what we find 

 is — between 1855 and 1865 an increase from 18,800,000 to 

 21, ICO, 000, or 12^ per cent. ; between 1865 and 1875 from 

 21,100,000 to 24,000,000, or nearly 14 per cent. ; and between 

 1875 and 1885 from 24,000,000 to 27,500,000, or 14I per cent. 

 Whether, therefore, we take the figures for the United Kingdom 

 or for England only, what we find is a greater increase of popula- 

 tion in the last ten years than in either of the previous decades 

 when the rate of material growth seemed so much greater. If 

 there had been such real diminution in the rate of material 

 growth, ought there not to have been some increase in the want 

 of employment and in pauperism to correspond ? 



It is one of the most notorious facts of the case, however, that 

 there has been no increase, but instead a very steady decrease of 

 pauperism, excepting in Ireland, which is so small, however, as not 

 to affect the general result. As regards England the figures are 

 very striking indeed. The average number of paupers and pro- 

 portion to population have been as follows in quinquennial periods 

 in England since 1885 : — 



Number of 

 Paupers. 



1855-59 895,000 



1860-64 948,000 



1865-69 962,000 



1870-74 952,000 



1875-79 753,000 



1880-84 787,000 



Thus there has been a steady diminution in the proportion td^ 

 the population all through, accompanied by a diminution in the 

 absolute numbers between 1865-69 and 1875-79, though there 

 has since been a slight increase. In spite of all that can be 

 urged as to a more stringent Poor- Law administration having 

 made all the difference, it is difficult to believe that a real falling- 

 off of a serious kind in the rate of our material growth in lat| 

 years as compared with the period just before should not havl 

 led to some real increase of pauperism. Change of administraj 



