152 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES. 
to small and dubious improvement in the next ten years. This is the 
cramped, uneasy, envious, but not impoverished age of Edward. 
None of the indices, indeed, records an actual decline; all still 
show progress however small. Even if the index of ‘ real wages ’ 
—stationary from 1900 to 1910—be accepted without question, the 
workman was slightly better off at the later epoch, since hours of work 
were less; he was getting the same wages for a shorter week. We 
cannot speak of a falling return to labour; at most we see a lower rate 
of increase, such as might, or might not, precede an actual fall. The 
contrast, however, between the Victorian and the Edwardian ages is 
unquestionably disturbing. In Britain, if not in Europe as a whole, 
the turn of the century seems to bring a turn of fortune. What con- 
clusions are we to draw? What remedies, if any, can we apply? We 
shall find reasons for not being too ready to despair of the common- 
wealth. 
The Edwardian Age and its Meaning. 
In the first place, there is ground for optimistic doubts as to the 
figures themselyes. Several of them, particularly the indices of real 
income, real wages and consumption, are elaborate structures based 
largely on estimates ; others are suspect for various reasons; none need 
be believed to the death. And even if the structure be sound, no 
established index of material prosperity can be expected to rise in- 
definitely. Progress involves change. When a nation has reached a 
certain point in the consumption of necessaries, it will utilise further 
purchasing power, not in consuming more of those necessaries, but in 
other ways: in buying bananas and condensed milk instead of more 
bread or meat, in tasting leisure, education, travel, football, cinemas, 
and other delights which do not appear in any index. So there may be 
a saturation-point in production; after putting its growing strength for 
many years into shipbuilding or cotton a nation may find greater need 
for its services in other directions-—in transport, commerce, or finance. 
6 'I'wo special causes of doubt are worth mentioning :— 
(1) The presentation of the figures as averages for particular decades, 
necessary as it is in order to give within reasonable space a summary picture 
of the whole, is deceptive, because the various decades are unequally affected 
by the phases of the trade cycle. The years 1895-1904 contain but one year 
of slight depression (1904) and an undue proportion of ‘ good’ years.. The 
nine years 1905-13 contain the end of the slight 1904-5 depression and the 
whole of the exceptionally severe depression of 1908-9. The course of cyclical 
fluctuation unfairly weights the comparison against the later epoch. 
(2) The falling off of cotton, not only in the last decade but ever since 1880, 
is in large part apparent only. British industry was concentrating more’ and 
more on fine counts, using more spindles and producing more value: for the 
same weight of raw cotton. 
A point on the other side, i.e. making the comparison unduly favourable 
to later epochs, is the change in the age-constitution of the population. The 
population in 1910 included a larger proportion of adults and a smaller pro- 
portion of children than that of 1900; production and consumption ‘per head’ 
should have been slightly higher to maintain the same standard in relation 
to capacity. The correction to be applied on: this account is too small to 
disturb the comparison appreciably, . ote ors 
