822 REPOET— 1887. 



last ten years than before, has been more fully employed than before. To make 

 these facts consistent with a check to the rate of our material growth we must 

 contrive some such hypothesis as that employment has been more diffused as 

 regards numbers, but the aggregate amount of it has fallen off: another form of 

 the hypothesis as to the effect of shorter hours of labour already discussed ; but a 

 little reflection will show that any such hypothesis is hardly admissible. It is 

 difficult to imagine any change in the couditions of employment in so short a 

 time which would make it possible for larger numbers to be employed along with 

 a diminution in the aggregate amount of employment itself. 



Another fact corresponding to this decrease of pauperism is the steady increase 

 of savings bank deposits and depositors. These deposits are not, of course, the 

 deposits of working classes only, technically so called. They include the smaller 

 class of tradesmen and the lower middle classes generally. But, quantum valeant, 

 the facts as to a growth of deposits and depositors should reflect the condition of 

 the country generally in much the same way as the returns of pauperism. What 

 we find then is, as regards deposits, that the increase between 1855 and 1865 was 

 from 84,.300,000/. to 45,300,000/., or about one-third ; between 1865 and 1875 from 

 45,300,000/. to 67,600,000/., or about one-half; and between 1875 and 1885 from 

 67,600,000/. to 94,053,000/., or just about 40 per cent. — a less increase than in the 

 previous ten years, but not really less, perhaps, if allowance is made for the fall of 

 prices in the interval, and in any case a very large increase. Then, as regards 

 ■depositors, what we find is an increase between 1855 and 1865 from 1,-304,000 to 

 2,079,000, or 59 per cent. ; between 1865 and 1875 from 2,079,000 to 3,256,000, or 

 66 per cent. ; and between 1875 and 1885 from 3,256,000 to over 5,000,000, or over 

 50 per cent. Whatever special explanations there may be, facts like these are at 

 least not inconsistent with a fuller employment of the population in the last ten 

 years than in the previous ten. 



Yet another fact tending to the same conclusion may be referred to. The 

 stationariness or slow growth of the income tax assessments in general in the last 

 ten years, as cumpared with the rapid increase in the ten years just before, has 

 already been referred to as one of the signs indicating a check in the rate of ad- 

 vance in our material growth. But when the returns are examined in detail there 

 is one class of assessments, more significant, perhaps, than any, of the general con- 

 dition of the nation, viz., houses, which is found to exhibit as great an increase in 

 the last ten years as in the previous decade. Between 1865 and 1875 the increase 

 in the item of houses in the income tax assessments in the United Kingdom was 

 from 68,800,000/. to 94,600,000/., or just about 37 per cent. In the following ten 

 years the increase was from 94,600,000/. to 128,500,000/., or just about 36 per 

 cent. In 'houses,' then, as yet there is no sign of any check to' the general rate 

 of the material growth of the country. Allowing, iii fact, for the great fall in 

 prices in the last ten years, the real increase in houses would seem to have been 

 more in the last ten years than in the ten years just before. 



Other facts, such as the increase of Post Office business, may be referred to as 

 tending to the same conclusion. But there is no need to multiply facts. If no 

 hypothesis is to be accepted except one that reconciles all the facts, then these facts 

 as to the increase of population, diminution of pauperism, increase of savings bank 

 deposits and depositors, increase of liouses must all be taken into account, as well 

 as those signs as regards production and other factors, which have usually been 

 most dwelt upon in discussing the question of the accumulation of wealth and the 

 material growth of the people. If the signs of a check to production in some 

 directions can be reconciled with the fact of an unchecked continuance of the 

 former rate of growth generally, then the later facts cited as to increase of popula- 

 tion, diminution of pauperism, and the like, may be allowed to have their natural 

 interpretation and to be conclusive on the point. 



Such a general explanation, then, of the facts as to production in leading indus- 

 tries and the like, referred to in the earlier part of this address, consistent with 

 the fact that there is no serious falling-off in the rate of our material growth 

 generally, is to be found in the supposition that industry by a natural law is 

 becoming more and more miscellaneous, and that as populations develop the dis- 



