304 EEPOBT — 1882. 



further productioc, in the other the object produced is either useless or 

 utterly -nasted. What is expended productively is never consumed. It 

 reproduces itself again and again. What is expended unproductively is 

 lost. It is the same whether the expenditure is public or private. It 

 is the same whether it is devoted to maintain men or to maintain things. 

 It is the same whether the money is lent to the home Government or to 

 foreign countries. Let money be lent to be expended in wars, it is utterly 

 wasted. Let money be judiciously expended for railways or canals, 

 or for drainage or other productive purpose, and it remains a source of 

 wealth and prosperity. Your Committee have limited their observations 

 to the appropriation of wages and other income. They might have illus- 

 trated the question with the employment of the human forces and with the 

 appropriation of time, the most valuable of human property. Idle habits 

 and an unnecessary number of holidays likewise restrict the productive 

 power of the nation, and rob the same of much of its resources. England 

 labours much and she expends liberally. It is the duty of the nation 

 to use aright its hard-won gains, so that they may minister to the comfort 

 and aiBuence of the people. 



Consumption op Tea and Sugak. 



In a paper laid before Parliament in 1857 on the consumption of tea 

 and sugar in the United Kingdom (184, Sess. 2) there is a report 

 by Sir Charles Pressly, of the Inland Revenue, giving the result of an 

 inquiry made through the excise officers into the proportionate quantities 

 of tea and sugar consumed by the upper, middle, and lower classes in 

 England and Scotland respectively, which were as follows : — 



Tea. 



100 100 100 



Since 1857, however, the condition of the working classes has con- 

 siderably improved, and there is reason to believe that their proportion 

 of consumption is fully 66 per cent, of the whole. 



