808 



EEPOKT — 1887. 



commodities, and a fall iu the prices of commodities implies that the range of salaries 

 and incomes is itself lower than it would otherwise be, assuming the real relation 

 between the commodities and incomes to be the same after the fall in prices as it 

 would have been if there had been no fall in prices. Hence the income tax assess- 

 ments by themselves are not a perfectly good test in a question like the present. 

 The change implied may be nominal onh*, so far as the aggregate wealth and pro- 

 sperity of the community are concerned, though of course there can be no great and. 

 general fall of prices without a considerable redistribution of wealth, which must 

 have many important consequences. 



This criticism, however, does not apply to the remaining figures in the .short 

 table submitted, and to various other well-known facts, which we shall now proceed 

 to discuss. 



The production of coal, then, is found to have progressed in the la^t thirty years 

 as the income tax assessments have done. The figures in millions of tons at ten 

 years' intervals are as follows : — 



Million Tons I Million Tons 



1855 .... 64 ! 1875 . . .132 



1865 .... 08 1 1885 . . .159 



And the rate of growth in the ten yearly periods which these figures show is be- 

 tween 1855 and 1865, 5.3 per cent. : between 1865 and 1875, o5 per cent. ; and 

 between 1875 and 1885, 2U per cent. only. The rate of growth in the last ten 

 ;7ears is much less than in the twenty years just before. The percentages here, 

 it will be observed, are higher than in the case of the income tax assessments. 

 The increase in the last ten years in particular is 20 per cent, as compared with an 

 increase of 10 per cent, only in the income tax assessments. But the direction of 

 the movement is in both cases the same. 



T need hardly say, moreover, that coal production has usually been considered 

 a good test of general prosperity. Coal is specially an instrumental article, the 

 fuel of the machines by which our production is carried on. AVhatever the expla- 

 nation may be, we have now, therefore, to take account of the fact that the rate of 

 increase of the production of coal has been less in the last ten years than in the 

 twenty years just before. 



Then with regard to pig-iron, which is also an instrumental article, the raw 

 material of that iron which goes to the making of the machines of industry, the 

 table shows the following particulars of production : ~ 



1855 

 1865 



Million Tons 



4-8 



1875 



1885 



Million Tons 

 . G-4 

 . 7-4 



And the rate of growth which these figures show is between 1855 and 1865, 50 per 

 cent. ; between 1865 and 1875, 33 per cent. ; and between 1875 and 1885, 16 per 

 cent. only. Whatever the explanation may be, we have thus to take account of 

 a diminution of the rate of increase in the production of pig-iron, much resembling: 

 the diminution in the rate of increase of the production of coal. 



At the same time the miscellaneous mineral productioji of the United Kingdom 

 has mostly diminished absolutely. On this head, not to weary you with figures, 

 I have not thought it necessary to insert anything in the above short table ; but 

 1 may refer you to the tables put in bj- the Board of Trade before the Royal 

 Commission on Trade Depression. Let me only state verj' briefly that while the 

 average annual amount of copper produced from British ores amounted in 1855 to 

 over 20,000 tons, in 1865 the amount was about 12,000 tons only, in 1875 under 

 5,000 tons, and in 1885 under 3,000 tons. As regards lead, again, Avhile the pro- 

 duction about 1855 was 65,000 tons, and in 1865 about 67,000 tons, tiie amount 

 in 1875 bad been reduced to 58,000 tons, and in 1885 to less than 40,000 tons. 

 In white tin there is an improvement up to 1865, but no improvement since, and 

 the only set-oft", a very partial one, is in zinc, which rises steadily from about 

 3,500 tons in 1858, the earliest date for which particulars are given, to about 

 10,000 tons iu 1885, considerably higher figures having been touched in 1881-83 



