Taxation as affecting the Agricultural Interest. 393 = 127 
bills of farmers testify, makes it seem no exaggeration to assume 
that 58,000,000/. of income, or something like an average of 
■24s. per cultivated acre, or 14^. a week for each worker, is now 
innually received in the shape of wages or their direct equivalent 
by the farm-labourers of the three kingdoms. 
It may thus be assumed that the agricultural interest em- Ratio of 
braces not less than eight and a-half million persons * possess- persons and 
ing 2,300,000,000/. of aggregate capital, and enjoying among ^Xed in agri- 
them a yearly revenue of 158,000,000/. What ratio do these culture to the 
figures bear to the population, wealth and income on which the "^^^^^^^ ^''^'^ ^ 
whole taxation of the United Kingdom is imposed ? To the ^jjg jjingiom. 
first point an answer has already been given. The agriculturists 
and their immediate dependants are one-fourth of the people. 
Less easy of statistical demonstration is the proportion borne by 
their capital to the general wealth of the nation. Whether the 
calculation be made by the methods employed in 1845 by Mr. 
Porter, in 1860 by an able writer in the ' Edinburgh Review,' 
or in 1867 by Mr. Dudley Baxter, it would now be difficult to 
reduce the estimate of British realised wealth much below 
8,600,000,000/., a figure which, I believe, it very probably ex- 
ceeds.! Of this amount the agricultural classes may claim to 
own rather more than one-fourth. 
Ten years ago, Mr. Baxter's widely accepted estimate of 
national income placed the gross revenue of all classes of the 
people at 814,000,000/. It seems impossible at the present 
moment to reckon the aggregate gross income of all classes of 
the population at a less figure than between 1,000,000,000/. and 
I, 100,000,000/. Ten years ago 280,000,000/. of the whole in- 
come of the country was held to arise from capital, and the rest 
from earnings. Now there is some ground to believe that 
370,000,000/. springs from the former and the balance from the 
latter source. The total income of the agricultural classes 
(158,000,000/.) thus represents about one-seventh of that received 
hy the nation as a whole, while probably one-half of this agricul- 
tural income springs from the invested property of owners or occu- 
piers, and half from the earnings of the tenant and the labourer. 
II, therefore, the approximate accuracy of these estimates be 
admitted, it would appear that the income returned by the com- 
bined capitals of the landowner and the farmer (80,000,000/.) is 
no more than 3^ per cent., in contrast with the average of 4^ per 
cent, yielded by all descriptions of British capital. 
* Namely, 2,800,000 persons engaged in agricultiu-e, and two dependent 
individuals upon each, see ante, " Number of agriculturists with independent 
incomes." 
t Mr. Giffen, Principal of tlie Statistical Department of the Board of Trade, 
has, since this estimate was framed, submitted another to the Statistical Society 
of London, whicli offers, as the most moderate computation of British capital, a 
sum of 8,548,000,000Z. 
