F.— ECONOMIC SCIENCE AND STATISTICS. 141 



satisfactory ; the second ought to be the best, but, in fact, is not. The call 

 of spending on a small income is great, and it is difficult to save perma- 

 nently for fixed capital assets. One man with £10,000 and 500 with £100 

 per annum may save £8,000 with its improvement in the future incomes 

 of the 500, but on even distribution 501 people will each have £119, and 

 they are not likely to save £16 each and spend only £103. This is where 

 the redistribution due to heavy taxation is affecting our present aggregate 

 savings to-day. Although the workers are saving more, they are not 

 making up the gap so caused. The real rival to nineteenth-century saving 

 is the saving that goes on silently through company reserves, &c., and that 

 never actually becomes anyone's spendable resources at all. 



■4. Inequalities of wealth appear to be statistically less in France and 

 probably in Germany, and certainly in Italy. In all these the average 

 standard of life is lower than in the countries where inequality is greatest. 

 There is, therefore, no statistical correlation between extremes of 

 inequality and poverty of standard. The association is probably in the 

 opposite direction, but this is, of course, no proof of actual or causal 

 connection. 



5. The comparative rapidity of increase in total national wealth can 

 be tested by statistics to only a limited extent {vide ' Wealth and Taxable 

 Capacity'). We can enquire back to 1850 with the United States, whether 

 other factors than inheritance are so powerful, but some research 

 would be needed to give good comparisons for the countries with 

 limited rights of bequest, France, drermauy, &c. 



6. Coming now to the second group of questions. No. (3, Dr. Dalton 

 has auatysed some of the causes of inequality besides inheritance in the 

 work referred to. But quantitatively we know little of their relation. 

 Probably 110 years ago, when the income from property was to the income 

 from business as 100 to 60, instead of 100 to 400 as it is to-day,^ the effect 

 of inheritance and accumulation on distribution was far greater than to-day, 

 when many of the highest fortunes have generally been made within the 

 lifetime of the holder, without significant initial resources. I think there 

 is considerable room for statistical research upon this matter in different 

 countries. 



7. The proportion of people in the higher ranks of income who have 

 income from occupations or businesses in which they are actively engaged, 

 and also the amount of the income so earned in relation to the total income 

 in each class, is, I believe, as follows : Speaking generally for the total 

 incomes of those with from £10,000 to £100,000, there has been a tendency 

 for the proportion of income coming from earned sources to increase, and 

 it would now be about 30 per cent. The proportion of the incomes over 

 £100,000, of c ourse, is rather lower. I have no means of knowing how much 

 of this 70 per cent, comes from savings accumulated within the lifetime 

 of the possessor, and how much from inherited wealth ; but having regard 

 to the rate of increase of the national wealth in the past fifty years, and 

 the rate of increase of the inheriting population, it is probably a much 

 smaller proportion from inheritance than is popularly supposed. 



But when we come to consider how many of the rich people have an 

 occupation earning income, there are over 70 per cent, earning and under 

 ''' Vide British Incomes and Properiy. 



