ON THE AMOUNT AND DISTRIBUTION OF INCOME. 191 



50 acres only. Perhaps part of the profits from the 2,000,000 acres 

 of agricultural land in holdings of from 1 to 20 acres in Great Britain 

 should be added to our final estimate; but much belongs to persons 

 already included, and forms part of their estimated incomes. 



If we work out the statistics for Ireland on the same basis as for 

 Great Britain so far as possible, we find that 590,000L pays income- 

 tax, and 2,530,000Z. is exempted. There are 14,700,000 acres culti- 

 vated in Ireland. If the whole of this is reviewed by the tax-surveyors 

 this gives 1?. 12s. rent per acre, if some of it is not reviewed it gives 

 more than 11. 12s. an acre. We will, therefore, make an estimate as 

 if the average rent was 1Z. 12s. an acre, as it is in Great Britain. On 

 this assumption 1,200,000 acres, in holdings of 300 acres and over, 

 pays tax, and belongs presumably to between 2,000 and 4,000 persons. 1 

 The remainder, if we adopt the census figures, is held by nearly 

 400,000 persons, and this is nearly equal to the number holding between 

 5 and 300 acres, the average size of these holdings being 40 acres, which, 

 on the same basis, is yielding somewhat under 21L a year. But, of 

 course, in the small holding of Ireland the peasant lives to a great 

 extent on his produce, and we must put aside these numbers as in the 

 case of England, and make a pure assumption as to their real earnings ; 

 we will take it that the Irish peasant averages 30Z. ± 151. a year, the 

 value of produce sold or consumed from his land, i.e., from 7s. 6d. to 

 22s. 6d. per acre. Where the peasant carries on another occupation 

 the sum named will be purely additional to the amount received from the 

 other occupation, or already accounted for in another class. The cases 

 where the joint income is over 1607. may be neglected. 



Class 21. Agricultural Employers. — These are partly machine 

 proprietors and the like, but mainly gardeners, nurserymen, seedsmen 

 and florists. In the absence of information we will assume that half of 

 this group of employers pays income-tax and the other half does not, 

 but has an income comparable with that of skilled artisans. In any 

 case the aggregate is not great. 



Class 22. Officers of the Merchant Navy. — From p. 306 of the 

 General Beport of the Census of England and Wales in 1901, details 

 are given of the number and ratings of seamen, who should naturally 

 be counted as citizens of the United Kingdom, but are absent for the 

 most part on census day. The persons that come into our class are the 

 masters, mates, engineers, head stewards, and doctors. In the census 

 the engineers are not separated from firemen. We assume, in accord- 

 ance with the only detailed return we have, that the number of engineers 

 is slightly greater than the number of mates, and allowing for the 

 increase since 1901 we have 40,000 persons in this class. We have 

 only three returns from shipping companies, one of which gives 312 

 out of 1,101 officers as receiving over 160L, the second 111 out of 330, 

 and the third 60 out of 720. In the third case there are a very large 

 number of fourth officers and junior engineers receiving less than 60Z., 

 and it is very unlikely that this is the proportion in the merchant service 



1 Fewer than 4,000 persons, for the average must be under 300 acres; more than 

 2,000, for the official statistics show 1,544 persons as holding more than GOO acres, while 

 there are nearly 8,000 persons in the group next given as holding from 200 to 500 

 acres. O 3 



