ON RECENT CHANGES IN THE DISTRIBUTION OF WEALTH. 361 
shall we arrive at the number paying income tax under the other sche- 
dules? As I have already stated, Mr. Gripper, of the Inland Revenue, 
in a note on the number and average income of income taxpayers in 
England and Wales, appended to Mr. Dudley Baxter’s paper on national 
income, arrived at the conclusion that the number of persons charged 
under Schedule D being then 297,000, the total number of income 
taxpayers could be taken at 900,000, or three times as many. Adopting 
this method, we come to the conclusion that the 110,000 persons charged 
with income tax under Schedule D in 1850-51, with incomes of 1501. and 
upwards, would represent 330,000 as the entire number of income tax- 
payers ; and that the 353,000 similarly charged in 1879-80 under Schedule 
D would represent 1,059,000 as the whole number of income taxpayers. 
Now multiply these numbers by four and a half to a family, and we have 
1,500,000 in 1850-51, and 4,700,000 in 1879-80, as embraced within the 
income taxpaying population. On the other side of the scale, we have 
the great body of the labouring classes, embracing 70 per cent. of the 
entire population, or 19,300,000 persons, representing 4,300,000 families, 
in 1851, and 24,600,000 persons, or 5,400,000 families, in 1881. Take 
the difference between these two sets of figures, and we have the lower 
middle classes—viz., 6,900,000 persons, or 1,500,000 families, in 1851, 
and 5,900,000 persons, or 1,300,000 families, in 1881. 
Now place against these numbers the income of each class at the 
respective period, adding 6 per cent. for the probably assessable income 
for Ireland in 1851, not then within the Income Tax, and we have the 
following results :— 
1851. 
| Number of Number of | Total gross Income per le 
persons families income family per cent. 
£ 
Income tax- @ 976 ) 
payers. f 1,500,000 330,000 272,000,000 824 44 
pores \| 6,900,000 | 1,500,000 | 120,000,000 go. | | 20 
Labouring i = tp 
a i 19,300,000 4,300,000 224,000,000 52 36 
27,700,000 | 6,130,000 | 616,000,000 £100 100 
1879-80, 
Income tax- | 2 lee “ 
payers — is 4,700,000 | 1,060,000 577,000,000! 544 49 
fewer de } 5,900,000 | 1,300,000 | 143,000,000} 110 LY 
Labouring 1 
Giasscs i 24,600,000 | 5,400,000 448,000,000 83 | 39 
| 35,200,000 | 7,760,000 |1,168,000,000 £150 | 100 
1 In 1882-83 the sum assessed was £601,450,000. 
