TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION F. 



807 



Statement as to production or consumption of stajde articles in the United Kingdom 

 in the undermentioned years, with the rate of increase in different periods 

 compared. 



The first figures are those of the income tax assessments. "What we find is 

 that if we go back tliirty years and compare the amount of income tax assess- 

 ments in the United Kingdom at ten years' intervals, there appears to be an immense 

 progress from 1855 to 1875, the first twenty years, and since 1875 a much less 

 progress. The total amount of the assessments themselves, stated in millions, was 

 as follows ; — 



1855 

 1865 



Millions 



£571 



631 



And the rate of growth in the ten yearly periods wliich these figures show is — 

 between 1855 and 18G5, 28 per cent. ; between 1865 and 1875, 44 per cent. ; and 

 between 1875 and 1885, 10 per cent. only. 



Making all allowance for changes in the mode of assessment by which the 

 lower limit of the tax lias been raised, for the apparent increase before 1875 which 

 may have been due to a gradual increase of the severity of the collection, and for 

 the like disturbing influences, I believe there is no doubt that these income tax assess- 

 ments correspond fairly well to the change in the money value of income and property 

 in the interval. How great the change in the rate of increase is, is shown by the 

 simple consideration that if the rate of increase in the last ten years, instead of being 

 10 per cent, onlj-, had been 44 per cent., as in the ten years just before, the total of 

 the income tax assessments in 1885, which is actually 631 millions, would have 

 been 882 millions ! Something then has clearly happened in the interval to change 

 the rate of increase. 



These figures being those of money values, an obvious explanation is suggested 

 which would account in great part for the phenomenon of a diminished rate of increase 

 in such values without supposing a reduction of the rate of increase of real wealth, 

 of the things represented by the money values, to correspond. This is the fall of 

 prices of which we have heard so much of late years, and about which in some form 

 or another we shall no doubt hear something at our present meeting. It is quite clear 

 that if prices fall then income tax assessments must also be aftected. The produce of 

 a given area of land, for instance, sells for less than it would otherwise sell ; there 

 IS less gross produce, and in proportion there is even less net produce, that is, less rent ; 

 consequently the net income appearing in the Income Tax kschedules is either less 

 than it was or does not increase as it did before. The same with mines, with rail- 

 ways, and with all sorts of business under Schedule D. The things themselves may 

 increase as they did before, but as the money values do not increase but diminish, 

 the income tax assessments cannot swell at the former rate. It is the same with 

 salaries and other incomes not dependent so directly in appearance on the fall in 

 prices. Salaries and incomes are of course related to a given range of prices of 



> These figures are for 1860-64, 1870-74, and 1880-84. 



