ON THE PRESENT APPROrRIATION OF WAGES, ETC. 2<5 



What is Pkoductive and what Unproductive Expenditure. 



What is done with such annual income ? How much of it is pro- 

 ductively and hov? much unproductively expended ? And what amount 

 is set aside as capital for reproduction ? Is, in short, the method of its 

 appropriation consonant with the economic progress of the people of the 

 United Kingdom ? It is not an easy matter to say what amount of 

 national income is productively expended. Productive consumption, said 

 Mr. John Stuart Mill, is what is consumed by productive labourers, in- 

 cluding the labour of direction as well as of execution, in ]i;eeping up or 

 improving their health, strength, and capacity for work. Unproductive 

 consumption is what is expended on pleasure or luxuries, whether by the 

 idle or the industrious. That alone, according to Mr. Mill, is productive 

 consumption which goes to maintain and increase the productive power 

 of the community. But there is labour the end of which is not produc- 

 tion but enjoyment, and yet the expenditure for which, within certain 

 limits, may be perfectly consistent with the greatest efficiency of labour. 

 Not all luxuries, not all enjoyments, are waste in a true economic sense. 

 The human forces, unlike the physical, need rest and renovation, and 

 whatever is expended for the purpose of giving it a fresh impetus for 

 labour, may well be held to be productive expenditure. Any attempt, 

 moreover, to determine wliether the expenditure is productive or unpro- 

 ductive, by the character of the article for which the expenditure is 

 incurred, as by its chemical composition, or nutritive value, would lead 

 us to problems which lie beyond the province of the economist or statis- 

 tician. The consumption of the people is greatly regulated by climate 

 and temperature, by the constitution and habits of the people, and by the 

 nature of their occupation. It is experience, not theory, that must guide 

 us in the determination of the possibilities or impossibilities of certain 

 economies. 



Distribution of Expenditure. 



The principal items of expenditure of a personal character are food 

 and drink, house rent, furniture, fire and light, clothing, tobacco, educa- 

 tion, literature, science and art, church and charity, servants, horses and 

 carriages, and amusements. In calculating the expenditure for articles 

 of food and drink and for clothing, a distinction must be made between 

 the gross expenditure, which includes the expense of distribution and 

 taxation, and the net expenditure, which represents the simple cost of the 

 articles, whether imported or produced at home. Twenty per cent, has 

 been added for the cost of distribution to represent retail prices, that rate 

 not being too high remembering that between the importers and con- 

 sumers there arc always two and often thi*ee profits. The Co-operative 

 Companies have in some cases led to the economy of one at least of 

 these profits, but tlieir dealings are not of sufficient magnitude to afiect 

 materially the calculation for the expenditure of the whole nation. 



Population. 



The population of the United Kingdom has been ascertained by the 

 census of 1881 to be 35,246,562, of which we may estimate 17,000,000 

 males and 18,000,000 females, and as it afiects some of our future calcula- 



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