288 EEPOET — 1881. 



These two sums give an average expenditure per day per head of 

 IG-QSd. as the personal, and 12-71d. as the real or national expenditure, or 

 251. per annum in the one case, and 191. in the other. 



Balance of Income and Expenditure. 



Comparing now these amounts with the personal and national income 



the results are as follows : — 



£ 



Income 915,000,000 



Expenditure 6 85,000,000 



Excess 230,000,000 



The excess of annual income appears very large, but the result 

 arrived at by a method altogether different approaches very nearly 

 that of j\Ir. Giffen by the capitalisation at different times of the different 

 sources of income. 



The different items of espenditnre above enumerated are far, indeed, 

 from exhaustive. The important items of domestic service, medical at- 

 tendance, carriage and horses, travelling by railway and steamboat, by 

 omnibus and tramway,' and charity, would each and all amount to large 

 sums. But the greater part of such expenditure remains iu the country, 

 and consists of a simple transfer from hand to hand, having but little 

 influence on the main question of the national expenditure. 



The expenditure of the people might be classified into expenditure 

 abroad and expenditure at home, expenditure in materials, expen- 

 diture in wages, and expenditure for the necessaries of life and for 

 luxuries. Without attempting any further analysis, and having regard 

 to the facts above stated, in connection especially with what has been 

 recently brought out by the Census, of a continuously increasing 

 population — the effect of an increasing birth-rate and a decreasing 

 death-rate — we may conclude that the present appropriation of wages 

 and other income cannot be said to be opposed to the economic progress 

 of the people of the United Kingdom. A minute examination of the 

 different items of expenditure is, indeed, calculated to remove the im- 

 pression of any great extravagance on the part of tlie people as a whole. 

 A lar^e expenditure in bread, meat, woollen goods, and house-rent is a 

 most economical expenditure. An expenditure of 124,000,000Z. on alco- 

 holic drinks is certainly very large, but reduced to the real expenditure 

 the sum total is 42,000,000?. Thei-e is one element, however, which does 

 not appear from this calculation, which might prove most nnsatisfactoiy 

 if properly inquired into, and it is that the averages arrived at are, in 

 many cases, the mean of two extremes — the extreme of waste and the ex- 

 treme of penury ; for side by side with those living in Inxilry and having 

 no thought of waste, there are large numbers whose conditions of 

 nourishment, state of dwelling-houses and clothing, are of the lowest 

 character. Nothing is gained by exaggerated statements of the national 

 loss arising from the wasteful consumption of this or that article, or by 

 takino- as a national loss that which is in effect nothing more than the 

 transfer of money from one to another ; but a proper regard to the right 

 expenditure of money is of the highest importance to the individual and 

 to the nation, for waste and profligacy are the parent of pauperism, de- 



' In the year ended June 30, 1880, as many as 173,067,103 passengers were con- 

 veyed by tramways, and the amount received from passengers was ], 308,1 14Z. 



