INTRODUCTION xix 



from the income-tax are yearly growing. Accumu- 

 lated wealth, ever on the increase, is reckoned by 

 thousands of millions, and shows a satisfactory aver- 

 age sum per head of our population.^ This golden 

 image set up to represent the national prosperity is 

 certainly a splendid one, but it has feet of clay. 



Doubtless we are in the front rank as a nation of 

 brokers, bankers, carriers, and other handlers of 

 wealth, but the vital question is, What is our position 

 as a producing country ? Are the productive powers 

 of England increasing, decreasing, or at a standstill .-* 

 That is the real test ; for — to put the case in an 

 extreme way — the man who cultivates in wheat a 

 thousand acres of land hitherto uncultivated creates 

 more real wealth for the country than do all Lombard 

 Street and the Stock Exchange put together. 



We are assured by those economists who deal only 

 with totals — to whom the condition of the units of our 

 population seems to be of small account — that we are 

 the most prosperous nation in Europe. But every- 

 thing depends on what is meant by "the nation" and 

 what is meant by " prosperity." The only true gauge 

 of real prosperity is the condition of the people gene- 

 rally ; and tried by that standard, we are anything but 

 a prosperous country. No doubt England is the hap- 

 piest place in the world for the limited number — the 

 very few millions of wealthy and well-to-do persons. 

 Their motto is naturally *' let well alone." With 

 many of these classes there is a feverish race for 



^ Sir Robert Giften assumes the aggreg^ate income of the United 

 Kingdom to be about 1,750 millions per annum, and the aggregate 

 wealih of the United Kingdom about 15,000 millions. (Paper read 

 before the British Association, 11 September, 1903.) 



