ON THE PRESENT APPROPRIATION OF WAGES, ETC. 273 



110 means for ascertaining either the absolute income or the true expen- 

 diture of the entire population, and any calculation of the same must, 

 more or less, partake of the nature of an estimate. But even an estimate 

 may be helpful, if founded on proper bases. Given certain data with re- 

 spect to a limited number of cases, it is quite possible, by legitimate induc- 

 tion, to arrive at great results as applied to the whole population. Only 

 let the data which form the bases of the calculation be certain and well 

 established, and the result must be a close approximate to the real truth. 

 What are all calculations regarding the expectation of life, but generalisa- 

 tions from certain given facts ? The Northampton Tab^e, upon which so 

 many millions have been insured, was constructed by Dr. Price on the 

 account kept at Northampton during the years 1735-1780, of the ages at 

 death of only 4,689 persons who were buried in the parish of All Saints. 

 It is not only, however, in matters of life and death that we observe a 

 wonderful unifoi*mity, certainty, and constancy. "We find the Law of 

 Nature operating alike on all men, influencing their moral and intellec- 

 tual qualities, regulating their will, and controlling their habits and 

 manners. And it is the beauty and glory of the statistical method, that 

 it enables us to calculate the seemingly incalculable. With this instru- 

 ment at hand, and with a good grip of the teaching of common experience, 

 that which appears but a dream or a guess to the uninitiated, becomes to 

 the mathematician and statistician a simple, natural, and reliable result. 



Apart, however, from the difficulties attending any genei'al inquiry of 

 this nature, there are special obstacles to the ascertainment of the appro- 

 priation of wages and other income, in that there is a want of agreement 

 in the scientific meaning of the word income, — in that it is not easy 

 to distinguish the gross from the net income, and the income of the nation 

 collectively from the income of the individuals composing it. Many 

 attempts have been made to estimate the total income of the nation of late 

 years. Mr. Gladstone, in one of his addresses, estimated it at 1,000,000,000Z. 

 The late Mr. Dudley Baxter, in his work on National Income, gave 

 it at 813,000, OOOZ. The writer made an estimate of the wages and earnings 

 of the working classes in money or its equivalent, and found them to 

 amount to 418,000,000/., and Mr. Gifien,.in a, paper read before the Statis- 

 tical Society, estimated the recent accumulations of capital in the United 

 Kingdom at the rate of 240,000, OOOf. per annum. More might have been 

 expected from the labours of the International Statistical Congress in this 

 direction. That Congress, at its session at the Hague in 1869, expressed 

 a wish that the delegates of different countries, and especially the heads 

 of their statistical offices, should communicate to the future Congress the 

 elements which the statistics of their countries supply for arriving at a> 

 statistical account, as complete as possible, of the income of the nation,, 

 whether according to the individual method, which implies a valuation of 

 the individual income of the people, or according to the real method, that 

 is, by a valuation of the diSerent branches of production. But this 

 desideratum has not yet been supplied. 



Pecson-al and National ' Income. 



The a.scertained or ascertainable income in the United Kingdom is 

 that assessed to income tax on the declaration of the tax-payers, or upon 

 other incontestable evidence. The unascertained and unascertainable 

 is the amount of income not charged with that tax, which includes 



1881. T 



