48 PECUNIARY LOSS TO THE STATE. 



efficient through disease. It may he fairly questioned whether 

 we owe the victory more to Lord Howe than to his physician, 

 Dr Trotter, to whose discretion he wisely left the entire sanitary 

 equipment of the fleet. But, in any case, its immediate and ulti- 

 mate effects were not less notable in their sanitary than in their 

 political and diplomatic consequences. 



It is my contention, as you will perceive, that our great opera- 

 tive industrial classes are entitled, equally with the combatant, 

 to be cared for and protected, as to their health, in the pursuit of 

 their avocations. They have a claim to it in respect of their 

 numbers, social and political standing, and usefulness. They are 

 the back-bone and sinews of the nation's strength, and its capital 

 and wealth makers. 



The number of men withdrawn from peaceful occupations for 

 fighting purposes, during the whole of the twenty-two years that 

 our country was engaged in the revolutionary wars, did not 

 exceed a quarter of a million. I estimate that a quarter of a 

 million nearly of these workmen is continuously lost to the State 

 a loss which covers the whole period of each man's work- 

 ing life. For a moment, consider the effects of this from a 

 merely economical point of view. Taking the figures, as I have- 

 already given them, to be two hundred and twelve thousand,, 

 five hundred, and reckoning each man's wages at one pound 

 a week, there is thus a yearly loss in wages to the industrial 

 wage class amounting to upwards of eleven million pounds ! * If 

 we now add to this the loss of the wealth that would have 

 been produced by the workers so cast off, there results the grand 

 total of thirteen millions, seven hundred and fifty thousand pounds, 

 the whole of which is annually lost to the 'country ! In point of 

 fact, that sum, would, in about fifty-seven years, clear off the 

 whole of the national debt. So much for the money aspect of the 

 question. But what of the needless waste of life and its atten- 

 dant sickness : of the consequent impoverishment, pauperism, and 

 demoralisation; and the increasing legacy of hereditary disease 1 ? 



Were I to attempt the rdle of the historic Glendower, and 

 summon spirits from the vasty deep, my performance would, I 



* Taking into account the natural increase of the industrial population* 

 there will be a yearly increase to this money loss of over 20,000. 



