TKAN!?ACTI0J;S Of SECTION F. 80J> 



There is notliing, then, in these Hgures as to miscellaneous mineral production to 

 mitigate the impression of the diminution in the rate of increase in the great 

 staples, iron and coal, in recent years. 



Agricultural production, it is also notorious, has been at any rate no better, or 

 not much better, than stationary for some j-ears past, although down to a com- 

 paratively recent period a steady improvement seemed to be going on. Making 

 all allowance for the change in the character of the cultivation, by which the gross 

 produce is diminished, although the net profit is not affected to the same extent, 

 and which might be held to argue no i-eal decline in the rate of general growth if 

 the population, diverted from agriculture, were more profitably employed, yet 

 the facts, broadly looked at, taken in connection with the other facts stated as to 

 diminished rate of increase in other leading industries, seem to confirm the sup- 

 position that there may have been some diminution in the rate of increase 

 generally. 



It is, unfortunately, impossible to state in a simple manner the progress at 

 different dates in the great textile industries of the country. Everything as regards 

 these industries is thrown out by the disturbance consequent on the American War. 

 It does not appear, however, that what has happened as regards the main textile 

 industries, cotton and wool, would alter sensibly the conclusions above stated, 

 drawn from the facts as to other main industries of the country. If we take the 

 consumption of raw materials as the test, it would appear that the growth in the 

 cotton manufacture is from a consumption of 28 lbs. per head in 1855 to about 

 38 lbs. per head in 1875, while in 1885 the consumption is nearly 42 lbs. per head, 

 an increase of 4 lbs. per head in the last ten years, against 10 lbs. per head in the 

 previous twentj'. The percentage of increase in tiie last twentj^ years must there- 

 fore, on the whole, have been less than in the previous twenty, although in these 

 twenty years the great interruption due to the American Civil War occurred. Of 

 course the amount of raw material consumed is not here an absolute test. There 

 may be more spinning and weaving now in proportion to the same quantity of raw- 

 material than was formerly the case. But the indications are at least not so 

 certain and direct as when the consumption of raw material could be confidently 

 appealed to. As regards wool the comparison is unfortunately very incomplete 

 owing to the defect of data for the earlier years ; but what we find is that the 

 amount of wool consumed per head of the population of the United Kingdom has 

 in the last ten years rather declined than otherwise from nearly 11 lbs. per head 

 in the five years 1870-74 to 10 lbs. per head only in the five years 1880-84. Here, 

 again, the explanation suggested as to cotton — viz., that there may be more 

 spinning and weaving now in proportion to the same quantity of raw material than 

 was formerly the case — applies. But the answer is also the same, that at any rate 

 the indications of progress are no longer as simple as they were. The reality of 

 the former rate of advance is not so clearly manifest. 



Of course I need hardly add that in the case of another great textile, silk, there 

 has been no progress, but the reverse, for some years ; that this is also true of linen ; 

 and that the increase in the allied manufacture, jute, can only be a partial set-off. 



In the textiles, then, as in other staple industries of the country, tho rate of 

 advance in the last ten years, measuring by things, and not merely by values, has 

 been less than in the twenty years immediately before. 



We pass on, then, to another set of figures included in the short table above 

 submitted. AVe may look not only at leading industries of production directly, 

 but at the broad figures of certain industries which are usually held to reflect, as 

 in a mirror, the progress of the country generally. I refer to the railway traffics as- 

 regards the home industries of the country, and the entries and clearances of 

 shipping in the foreign trade as regards our foreign business. 



As regards railways what we find is, if we take the receipts from the goods 

 traffic in the form in which they were summarised for the Royal Commission on 

 Trade Depression, viz., reduced to so much per head of the population on the 

 average of quinquennial periods, that in the five years 1860-64, which is as far 

 back as the figiu-es can be carried, the receipts per head were lis. ; ten years 

 later, viz., in 1870-74, the receipts per head were I8s. ; and ten years later, viz.. 



