CHAPTER XXIV

CONCLUSION

Lest there be any lack of perspective in our view of the distribution of wealth and of the material progress of the working classes, I preface this concluding chapter with a note upon former investigations of the national income.

In 1868, Dudley Baxter, in his classical paper on the National Income read to the Royal Statistical Society, estimated that in 1867, the population being 30,000,000, the manual workers, then estimated to number 10,960,000, took £325,000,000 out of a total national income of £814,000,000. Thus the average wage of the manual workers (men, women and children) was estimated at nearly £30 per head per annum.

Professor Leone Levi estimated the amount of wages taken by the manual labourers in 1866 at £418,000,000, but he allowed for "play" only four weeks in the year, whereas Baxter, for very excellent reasons which he stated in his paper, allowed for 20 per cent. of lost time. Thus a great part of the difference in the two estimates is accounted for.

In the "Economic Journal" for Sept. 1904, Professor A. L. Bowley, basing his calculations of the total amount paid in wages largely upon the figures of the Board of Trade Wages Census of 1886, making allowance for enforced leisure, and also for the army of casuals and incompetents, arrived at £350,000,000 as the sum paid in wages in 1867. This is a striking confirmation of Dudley Baxter's estimate, for it is arrived at by an entirely different route.

If, then, we adopt the estimate of Baxter we shall probably be as near the truth as is now possible. Accepting it, we find that the manual workers in 1867 took about 40 per cent. of the national income.

The manual workers in our present population of 44,000,000 maybe estimated at 15,000,000 and they take, as we have seen, about £700,000,000 out of a total estimated income of £1,840,000,000, or less than 40 per cent. of the whole.

Thus the position of the manual workers, in relation to the general wealth of the country, has not improved. They formed, with those dependent upon them, the greater part of the nation of 1867,—forty-three years ago,—and they enjoyed but about 40 per cent. of the national income according to the careful estimate of Dudley Baxter. To-day, with their army of dependents, they still form the greater part of the nation, although not quite so great a part, and, according to the best information available, they take less than 40 per cent. of the entire income of the nation.

But, as will be seen from the figures given, the actual income of the manual workers has increased. In 1867 it amounted to about £30 per head. At the present time it amounts to about £46, 15s. per head.

And not only have money wages thus risen, but the purchasing power of money has considerably increased in the last generation. The retail cost of food, clothing, and furniture has fallen; but, on the other hand, coal and rents have risen.

Between the increase in money wages and the increase in the purchasing power of money there can be no question that the actual position of the wage-earner has considerably improved in the last forty years. Amongst other results, the death-rate has fallen, paupers have decreased, and criminals have decreased. These and other important facts are shown in the table on page 332.

SOME ITEMS IN MATERIAL PROGRESS 1867-1908

------------------------------+-----------------+------------ | 1867. | 1908. ------------------------------+-----------------+------------ Population | 30,500,000 | 44,500,000 | | Average earnings of manual | | workers (men, women and | | children) | £30 | £46, 15s. | | Consumption of imported | | food per head: | | (_a_) Wheat per head, lbs.| 140 | 272 (_b_) Sugar " " lbs.| 44 | 76 (_c_) Rice " " lbs.| 6 | 18 (_d_) Tea " " lbs.| 3¾ | 6 | | Consumption of Beer | | (Gallons per head) | 27.78 26.62 | | (1881 earliest | |figure available)| | | Deaths | 634,008 | 676,634 | | Death-rate (per 1,000) | 20.8 | 15.2 | | Criminals convicted | 19,450 | 15,500 | | Paupers (England and Wales) | | Jan. 1st | 958,824 | 911,588 | | Deposits in Post Office and | | Trustee Savings Banks | £46,283,132 |£245,600,000 | | Price of bread per 4 lb. loaf | 8d. | 5.8d. | | Board of Trade consumption | | Index number (prices of | | 45 commodities expressed | | as percentages of those of | | 1900) | 136.0 | 102.8 | (1871) | ------------------------------+-----------------+------------

With our knowledge of the conditions of the present, these facts are only relatively satisfactory, and serve but to fill us with horror of the past. We see that more bread is consumed to-day than in 1867, but remember that 40 persons perish from exposure and starvation in the streets of London year by year.[62] We see that the death-rate has declined from 20.8 per 1,000 to 15.2 per 1,000 between 1867 and 1908, but remember that in the latter year as many as 113,000 children perished in England and Wales under the age of twelve months. We see that the average wage has risen, but also that it now amounts to but £46, 15s. per annum on a liberal estimate. We see that prices have fallen, but remember that, in 1908, one-third of our population, in spite of lower prices, have not sufficient means to command a proper supply of the common necessaries of existence, no matter how severe their thrift.

Writing in 1868, in the paper already referred to, Baxter wrote, in dealing with the question of real earnings as distinguished from nominal rates of wages, a passage which strikingly illustrates the conditions of labour in his day:[63]

"Another point is the age at which a manual labourer ceases to be an effective. I am afraid that 60 years is about the average; six or seven years earlier than the Middle Classes. After that age a man becomes unfit for hard work; and if he loses his old master, cannot find a new one. In some trades, a man is disabled at 55 or 50. A coal-backer is considered past work at 40. I have endeavoured to be on the safe side by taking 65 as the termination of their working life, and have excluded all above that age from my calculation of wages.

"But the most important point of all is the allowance which must be made for what workmen call 'playing'; that is to say, being 'out of work,' from whatever cause, whether forced or voluntary. It is here that I am at issue with Professor Levi. He estimates the lost time at no higher average than 4 weeks out of the 52, and thinks it sufficiently covered by omitting from the wage-computation all workmen above 60 years old, i.e. the non-effectives. If this were the real state of things, England would be a perfect Paradise for working men! If every man, woman, and child returned as a worker in the census had full employment, at full wages, for 48 weeks out of the 52, there would be no poverty at all. We should be in the Millennium! Far other is the real state of affairs; and a very different tale would be told by scores and even hundreds of thousands, congregated in our large cities, and seeking in vain for sufficient work.

"I will take a good average instance (and a very large one) of the way in which wages are earned in the building trades. These trades form a whole, and include carpenters, bricklayers, masons, plasterers, painters, and plumbers, and number in England and Wales, about 387,000 men above 20 years of age. In London their full time wages average 36s. a week. In the country they are lower, 30s. to 28s. or 26s.; growing less the farther we go northward. The full-work average may be taken at 30s. But it is only the best men, working for the best masters, that are always sure of full time. These trades work on the hour system, introduced at the instance of the men themselves, but a system of great precariousness of employment. The large masters give regular wages to their good workmen, but the smaller masters, especially at the East End of London, engage a large proportion of their hands only for the job, and then at once pay them off. All masters, when work grows slack, immediately discharge the inferior hands, and the unsteady men, of whom there are but too many even among clever workmen, and do not take them on again till work revives. In bad times there are always a large number out of employment. In prosperity much time is lost by keeping Saint Monday, and by occasional strikes. There are also 40,000 men between 55 and 65 years of age, who, in the building trade, are considered as past hard work, and who suffer severely by want of employment....

"Let us turn to another great branch of industry, the Agricultural Labourers: whose numbers are, men, 650,000; boys, 190,000; women, 126,000; and girls, 36,000. Continuous employment has largely increased since the New Poor Law of 1834, and good farmers now employ their men regularly. But in many places such is not the custom. Near Broadstairs, in Kent, I was told that, on an average, labourers are only employed 40 weeks in the year.... Turn next to the cotton manufacture, including 143,000 men, 82,000 boys, 150,000 women, and 121,000 girls; altogether, 496,000. We all know their periodical distresses. It may be said that these were accidents. They are not mere accidents, but incidents, natural incidents, of our manufacturing economy. They are sure to recur under different forms; either from gluts, or strikes, or war; and they must be allowed for in computations of earnings.

"I come lastly to instances from trades at the East End of London, where I have lately had a great deal of experience. It is there that the struggle for existence is most intense, from London being the resort and refuge of the surplus population of other parts of the country. The London Dock Labourers earn, when on full time, 15s. a week; but so great is the competition that even in ordinary years they are employed little more than half their time. During the past year 5s. a week has been considered tolerably lucky....

"Cabinet-makers stand well in the lists of trades, their nominal wages for the Kingdom being set down at 30s. a week. But the cabinet-makers at the East End, a very numerous body, are in what is called the 'slop trade,' and are ground down by the dealers, who own what are called 'slaughter-houses,' in which they take advantage of the necessities of the small manufacturers (expressively called 'garret masters') and compel them to sell their upholstery at little above the cost of materials. Between dealers and want of work, I am told that numbers of the 'slop' cabinet-makers are not earning 7s. 6d. a week.

"None but those who have examined the facts can have any idea of the precariousness of employment in our large cities, and the large proportion of time out of work, and also, I am bound to add, the loss of time in many well paid trades from drinking habits. Taking all these facts into account, I come to the conclusion, that for loss of work from every cause, and for the non-effectives up to 65 years of age, who are included in the census, _we ought to deduct fully 20 per cent. from the nominal full time wages_.

"I will cite one more fact in confirmation. The average number of paupers at one time in receipt of relief in 1866 was 916,000, being less than for any of the four preceding years. The total number relieved during 1866 may, on the authority of a Return of 1857, be calculated at 3½ times that number, or 3,000,000.[64] All these may be considered as belonging to the 16,000,000 of the Manual Labour Classes, being as nearly as possible 20 per cent. on their numbers. But the actual cases of relief give a very imperfect idea of the loss of work and wages. A large proportion of the poor submit to great hardships, and are many weeks, and even months, out of work before they will apply to the Guardians. They exhaust their savings, they try to the utmost their trade unions or benefit societies; they pawn little by little all their furniture; and at last are driven to ask for relief. I am not astonished at their reluctance, for what do they get? After waiting in a crowd and in the most humiliating publicity, they get an order for the stoneyard, with 6d. a day, and a loaf per week of bread for each of their family. Sometimes, rather than accept the relief, they die of starvation."

These words were written over forty years ago, but it would need little emendation to give them application to-day. The growing strenuousness of modern industry makes it more and not less difficult for the ageing to earn a living. The increased use of machinery and the greater division of labour have made experience of less value than of yore. The ageing man resorts to hair dye to conceal the honourable age which is to rob him of his livelihood. Baxter's remarks about the building trades are absolutely true of to-day, but they now apply not to 400,000 men, but to 1,000,000. "All masters, when work grows slack, immediately discharge the inferior hands.... In bad times there are always a large number out of employment." The position of agricultural labourers has improved, but chiefly because their rapidly decreasing numbers have placed a premium upon their services. Even so, in parts of the country removed from coal-mines, the most pitiable conditions prevail. Kettle broth is still part of the menu of the Wiltshire labourer.

In the East End of London the economic position of the dock and riverside labourers is much the same as Baxter described it, while in the furniture trade the "garret masters" are still with us. True—most honourably true—it is also that still the workers endure great hardships before they will apply to the Guardians. "They exhaust their savings, they try to the utmost their trade unions or benefit societies; they pawn little by little all their furniture; and at last they are driven to ask for relief."

The Board of Trade, after a careful examination of the question of unemployment in 1904, arrived at the general conclusion that "The average level of employment during the past four years has been almost exactly the same as the average of the preceding forty years" (Cd. 2,337). The conditions of employment, the want of security of tenure, are very much what they were in 1867.

As for pauperism, it is difficult to congratulate ourselves upon improvement since 1867 when we remember that in England and Wales alone 1,500,000 to 2,000,000 persons are in receipt of relief in the course of a single year. This statement rests upon ascertained facts, as will be found by reference to the statistics given in our examination of the question of Old Age Pensions. The population of England and Wales being about 36,000,000 (1910) this means that _one person in every twenty_ has recourse to the Poor Law Guardians during a single year.

If our national income had but increased at the same rate as our population since 1867 it would, in 1908, have amounted to but about £1,200,000,000. As we have seen, it is now about £1,840,000,000. Yet the Error of Distribution remains so great that while the total population in 1867 amounted to 30,000,000, we have to-day a nation of 30,000,000 poor people in our rich country, and many millions of these are living under conditions of degrading poverty. Of those above the line of primary poverty, millions are tied down by the conditions of their labour to live in surroundings which preclude the proper enjoyment of life or the rearing of healthy children. The comparatively high wages of London are accompanied by rents high in proportion and frequently by waste of income and time upon travelling expenses. In so far as the manual labourers have been reduced in proportion to population it has been to swell the ranks of black-coated working men, clerks, agents, travellers, canvassers, and others, whose tenure of employment is precarious, whose earnings are very low, and whose labour as we have already noted is largely waste.

We have won through the horrors of the birth and establishment of the factory system at the cost of physical deterioration. We have purchased a great commerce at the price of crowding our population into the cities and of robbing millions of strength and beauty. We have given our people what we grimly call elementary education and robbed them of the elements of a natural life. All this has been done that a few of us may enjoy a superfluity of goods and services. Out of the travail of millions we have added to a landed gentry an aristocracy of wealth. These, striding over the bodies of the fallen, proclaim in accents of conviction the prosperity of their country.

There leaps to the mind the mordant lines in which Ruskin, thirty years ago, wrote a "modern version" of the Beatitudes[65]:—

Blessed are the Rich in Flesh, for theirs is the Kingdom of Earth.

Blessed are the Proud, in that they _have_ inherited the Earth.

Blessed are the Merciless, for they shall obtain Money.

There is no whit of exaggeration in these lines. The passage of thirty years has but added to their sting. Thirty years of accumulation of the results of toil in hands other than those of the toilers have had for consummation the accusing series of facts which are examined in the early chapters of this book. Deprivation for the many and luxury for the few have degraded our national life at both ends of the scale. At the one end, "thirteen millions on the verge of hunger," physically and morally deteriorated through poverty and unloveliness. At the other, the inheritors of the earth, "senseless conduits through which the strength and riches of their native land are poured into the cup of the fornication of its capital."

Blessed indeed are the Rich, for theirs is the governance of the realm, theirs is the Kingdom. Theirs is a power above the throne, for it has been a maxim of British politics that our government should be a poor government, and a poor government cannot contend in the direction of affairs with the imperium of wealth. This may be illustrated by our attempts to "educate" the mass of the people. For a few brief years the government, with small funds raised with timorous hands, does a little to form the mind and character of the child. Even in these early years it consents that the future proud citizen of Empire shall be improperly fed and badly housed. These early moments passed, the mockery of "education" ceases, and the child, taught by the State to read, to write, and to cipher, becomes a unit of industry. At this point begins the serious training of the citizen. Forthwith he is inducted into some more or less worthy employment, that employment, as we have seen, resulting from the great expenditure of the few and the poor expenditure of the many. Careers are thus chiefly shaped by the wealthy, for theirs is the greatest call. The demand for luxuries is too great; the demand for necessaries is too small; the unit of industry is fortunate, therefore, if he is inducted into useful service. The State washes its hands of his development. The educational sham over, the real education of life begins. So far as the State calls for privates of industry it is chiefly to make them soldiers, sailors, makers of guns, builders of battleships. The development of all things useful, of railways, of canals, of roads, of cities, of houses, is resigned to the blind call for commodities and the intelligence of individuals who, in search of private gain, seek, without regard to the national well-being, to profit by that blind call.

Yet the manner in which its people are employed matters everything to a nation. It is not sufficient to give the child a smattering of knowledge. We need to take a collective interest in the general education of our citizens, and that education is the result of expenditure. The consumer gives the order. Given a fairly equable distribution of income, the call will be as to the greater part for worthy things, as to the smaller part for luxuries. Given a grossly unequal distribution, and the call for luxuries will be so great as to divert a considerable part of the national labour into channels of waste and degradation.

To keep a government poor is to keep it weak. The poor government may resolve to educate, but it will have no means to carry out its resolve; its teachers will be underpaid; its schools inefficient. The poor government may pass Housing Acts; it will but call for better houses that will not come when it does call for them. The poor government may piously resolve to create small holdings; there will be no means to carry out the pious resolve. The poor government may, at periodic intervals, look the question of Unemployment in the face; its legislation will but reflect its poverty, and be in its provisions an acknowledgment that the power to employ, the power to govern, is in other hands.

Even those who have striven to hold fast the curious faith that civilization comes, not through collective service, but through individual strife, are constrained to admit that much waste is going on. It is noteworthy that Sir Robert Giffen, in one of his last essays on Taxation, said:[66]

"When the proportion (of income appropriated by the state) becomes one-tenth or less it is doubtful whether the state can do best for its subjects by making the proportion still lower, that is, by abandoning one tax after another, or whether equal or greater advantage would not be gained by using the revenue for wise purposes under the direction of the state, such as great works of sanitation, or water supply or public defence. In other words, when taxes are very moderate and the revenue appropriated by the state is a small part only of the aggregate of individual incomes, it seems possible that individuals in a rich country may waste individually resources which the state could apply to very profitable purposes. The state, for instance, could perhaps more usefully engage in some great works, such as establishing reservoirs of water for the use of town populations on a systematic plan, or making a tunnel under one of the channels between Ireland and Great Britain, or a sea-canal across Scotland between the Clyde and the Forth, or purchasing land from Irish landlords and transferring it to tenants, than allow money to fructify or not fructify, as the case may be, in the pockets of individuals. Probably there are no works more beneficial to a community in the long run than those like a tunnel between Ireland and Great Britain, which open an entirely new means of communication of strategical as well as commercial value, but are not likely to pay the individual _entrepreneur_ within a short period of time."

Here we have a reflection of the uneasy feeling that all is not well in the disposition of the income of the community. Very true it is that "individuals in a rich country may waste individually resources which the State could apply to very profitable purposes." Even were the means by which "Captain Roland fills his purse" moral, we should need to look to Captain Roland's expenditure. The effects of the robbery do not end with the impoverishment of the despoiled. The despoiler proceeds to spend the contents of his fat purse, and in spending he buys bodies and souls, and builds up vested interests in degrading occupations.

In the foregoing pages I have pointed both to mere palliatives of existing evils and to real remedies which go to the root of things. Our attempts to reform, our strivings towards organization, must in practice have regard both to palliatives and to remedies. We have to keep in mind both the impoverished and sometimes degraded creatures which are effects of past and existing causes, while dealing drastically and radically with the causes themselves. At present the greater part of the labours of social reformers are directed to dealing with a succession of distressful effects. Here are slums; how shall we rehouse their inmates? Here are paupers; what shall we do with them? Here are unemployed; how shall we keep them going until they find employers? Here are aged poor; can we, should we, give them pensions? We owe a present duty in all these and many other matters. The effects must be dealt with and ameliorated. It is beyond question that there is a clear call to succour the aged, to care for the weak, to aid poor women in their time of trouble. The sufferer, the affected individual, the disease, must be dealt with. But ever we must keep before us the causes which bring into being the raw material of our social problems; ever we must have clear vision of the crime of poverty in a wealthy country; ever we must seek to come to grips with the original sin.

To deal with causes we must strike at the Error of Distribution by gradually substituting public ownership for private ownership of the means of production. In no other way can we secure for each worker in the hive the full reward of his labour. So long as between the worker and his just wage stands the private landlord and the private capitalist, so long will poverty remain, and not poverty alone, but the moral degradations which inevitably arise from the devotion of labour to the service of waste. So long as the masses of the people are denied the fruit of their own labour, so long will our civilization be a false veneer, and our every noble thoroughfare be flanked by purlieus of shame.

There is already a beginning made. A few hundred millions have been applied as public capital in the ownership by many municipalities of such services as tramways, gasworks, and waterworks. As we saw in our examination of the national wealth, such capital is yet but a tiny fraction of the whole, and it still bears a great mortgage and pays interest to private hands. That interest, in process of time, will disappear through the operation of sinking funds, and then, as to certain services, the community will enter into its own with no tribute to pay to private usurers. From the small beginnings made we must seek to advance, nor need we be deterred by those who implore us to hasten slowly. If Rome was not built in a day, Washington was built in not many days, and the factory system itself is little more than a century old. The lapse of a single generation might see well advanced the building of our new city.

It would be a great pity if anyone were to imagine that the changes necessary to secure the just reward of all forms of labour are either difficult to effect or likely to cause dislocation in the making. As has been pointed out, the greater number of our industrial concerns are already shaped in the form of limited liability companies, the shareholders in which are dumb, while the management is in the hands of paid officials. In 1902-3, while private firms were assessed to Income Tax on £193,000,000, public companies were assessed on £239,000,000. In 1907-8 the respective figures were £183,000,000 and £259,000,000. The re-shaping proceeds apace. The reform which needs to be effected is to substitute the community at large for the dumb shareholders. Management, ability, invention, would be properly rewarded, as they are now rewarded in some cases, and as they are not now rewarded in many cases. The only change would be the gradual substitution of the community for the shareholders, and the consequent disappearance of unearned incomes. Such portions of the product as were necessary for application as new capital would be so applied by the community. For the rest, the whole of the product would go to labour. Saving, the necessary saving, without which labour would go without tools, would be simply and automatically effected, and capital would take its true and rightful place as the handmaiden of labour.

Let us not go further without a vision and a hope. That vision, that hope, is not of a regimented society, but of a community relieved from nine-tenths of its present irksome routine and carking care. If the individual is to be set free it can only be in a society so organized as to reduce the labour employed in the production of common necessaries to a minimum. That minimum cannot be secured without the organization of each of the great branches of production and distribution. Common needs can be satisfied with little labour if labour be properly applied. The work of a few will feed a hundred or supply exquisite cloth for the clothing of fifty. The work for a few hours per day of every adult member of the community will be ample to supply every comfort in each season to all. Thus set free, the lives of men will turn to the uplifting, individual work which is the pride of the craftsman. The dwellings of men will contain not only the socialized products within common reach, but the proud individual achievements of their inmates. The simple and beautiful clothing of the community will chiefly be made of fabrics woven in the socialized factories, but it will often be worked by the loving hands of women. A happy union of labour economized in routine work and labour lavished upon individual work will uplift the crafts of the future and the character of those who follow them. The abominations of machine-made ornament will disappear, and art be wedded to everyday life. Each new invention to save labour in mining, or tilling, or building, or spinning, will be hailed with joy as a release from toil and a gift of more time in which to do individual work. The inventor, the originator, now unhappily compelled to hunt for a capitalist and bow low his genius before some individual distinguished only for that gift of acquisitiveness, that business ability, which is the lowest attribute of mankind, will see his idea put to the test and reap not unholy gains, but the honour of his fellows if it is not found wanting. The painter, no longer compelled to paint the portraits of the rich and not necessarily beautiful, will ally his gifts with the common life of men and be carried in triumph before the enduring monuments of his genius. The organizer, the man of arrangement, will be invited to exercise his talent, not in over-reaching and despoiling his fellows, but in planning their welfare in a thousand new schemes of development. No host of wasteful workers will be found in the industrial camp. Accounts will be simple and clerks few. No travellers, agents or touts will be needed to push doubtful commodities. The sham and the substitute will be found only in museums. It will be obviously ridiculous to employ any but good materials, for labour can only be economized by producing the things which are the best of their kind. Policies of insurance, those typical documents of a community of prey, will be read in the public archives with much the same feelings as we now read a warrant for the burning of a Bruno. The young men who now waste their time in ruling up books in banks and insurance offices or in serving writs will find manly and useful work. The production of commodities will be commensurate with the labour put forth, unemployment will be one of the few crimes known to the statute-book, and last, but not least, the economic dependence of woman will cease.

The attainment of such ends will only be difficult as long as we refuse to apply scientific methods to the ordering of common affairs. It is in the domain of politics alone that men refuse to apply first principles to the solution of problems. The mental daring which has accomplished so much in engineering, in astronomy, in surgery, in every department of science, is replaced in the sphere of politics by a timorous tinkering with admitted evils. With things the scientist has worked marvels in a single century. With those marvels the politician has done little. The scientist has applied his skill to locomotion; the politician has refused to avail himself of that skill in order to distribute the population healthily. The scientist has stated the conditions of health; the politician has refused to create those conditions. The scientist has supplied the tools; the politician has neglected to take them up.

The problem of riches and poverty is of the simplest. It presents none of the difficulties which attach to the measurement of the mass of the sun, or the treatment of such a disease as cancer. Science has presented us with such instruments that we can easily create a tremendous superfluity of commodities if we choose to do so. We know how to produce; we know how to transport the results of our production. The appliances at our command, wielded by the labour of 44,000,000 people, could furnish many more foot-tons of work than are needed to give proper housing, suitable clothing and good food to every unit of the community. There is here no impenetrable secret; we have read enough in the book of Nature to control her forces to effect; our power of production is not too small, but already greater than our need. As I have pointed out in an earlier page, if invention went no further if science now came to a standstill, we should have tools more than adequate to abolish poverty.

Unfortunately the politicians and the economists have never discussed the question of poverty from this point of view. They have found men buying and selling, and as buyers and sellers hunting for profits they have discussed them. Volumes have been written on such subjects as "rent," "interest," or "value," but nothing has been done to inquire how much work is needed to feed, clothe and house a community, and how best that work may be accomplished. In designing an engine, the man of science considers the work to be done and the known means to do it. Is it too much to ask that in ordering the affairs of a nation, statesmen should consider the quantity of commodities needed to give material happiness and the known means to produce and distribute them? To make the best use of our energies, to profit fully by the discoveries and inventions of the living and the dead, we must come to a common agreement as to the work which needs to be done and determine that that work shall be accomplished. For want of that agreement and determination, for want, that is, of a wise collectivism, the greater number of our people are poor.

It is probable that the earliest readers of this book will be of those who, like myself, are amongst the favoured few whose work brings them pleasure and the means of happiness. To these the first appeal. Is it a good thing, is it an honourable thing, to be one of the few whose bark is borne upon the waters of wretchedness, whose fortunes float upon a sea of unfathomable depths of despair? Look downwards and you shall see monsters that once were human, frailties that once were women, devils that once were children. These are the product of the individual strife in which it is not always the noblest thing to succeed, but in which it is ever a terrible thing to fail. Is success worth having which is purchased at such a price?

The last appeal shall be to the poor. It is no escape from labour which the thinking man offers the people. There are no honourable avenues to ease and luxury in the organization which would abolish poverty. It is a world of service which a civilization would substitute for a world of serfdom and pain. But if, realizing that the world has no room for the idle, the people would rise to a freedom only bounded by the knowledge of, and necessity for, collective decision, then there is the broadest avenue for hope and the clearest call to action. The achievements of those who are gone, these are the inheritance of the people. The only true riches of the nation, men and women, these are the people themselves. The people have but to will it, and we set our faces towards a civilization.

[Footnote 62: "Deaths from Starvation or Accelerated by Privation (London)." Issued Sept. 14th, 1904.]

[Footnote 63: Quoted from Dudley Baxter's "The National Income," by kind permission of the publishers, Messrs Macmillan & Co.]

[Footnote 64: In saying this Dudley Baxter committed one of the few errors which can properly be laid to his charge. See Chapter 19.]

[Footnote 65: "Usury," a preface re-published in "On the Old Road."]

[Footnote 66: "Encyclopædia Britannica," Volume 33, page 200.]

INDEX

Abatements, Income Tax, 36, 297

Accidents, Industrial: Engineering Works, 137 Factories and Workshops, 127, 128 Mines, 133 Railways, 136 Ships, 137 Total, all Trades, 138

Advertising, 253

Afforestation, 248

Aged Poor, 272

Agricultural Labourers' Wages, 109, 155

Agricultural Land, Value of, 62, 68

Agriculture, as Field for Employment, 240

Anderson, Miss A. M., on Maternity Funds, 180

Andrew, George, Report on German Schools, 192

Anthrax, 130

Area, Control of, 242

Area, Distinguishing Attribute of Land, 81

Area of United Kingdom, 81

Army Material, Value of, 66

Ashby, Dr Hy., on Poor Mothers, 174

Asquith, H. H., Death Duties, 321 Differentiates Income Tax, 303 Old Age Pensions Act, 284

Average Wage, 29

Back-to-Back Houses, 214

"Back to the Land," 242

Bateman, John, on Landowners, 82

Bathing in Schools, 193

Baxter, Dudley, on Conditions of Labour in 1868, 333 On Income Tax Evasion, 13 On Loss of Wages, 26 On National Income in 1867, 330

Beaulieu, M. Leroy, on Eliminating Middlemen, 254

Beer Consumption, 332

Belgian State Railways, Success of, 265

Bentham, Jeremy, Suggested Exemption of Small Incomes from Taxation, 317

Births, in United Kingdom, 173

Board of Trade, Estimate of Wages, 30 Wage Census, 21

Boot Trade, 147, 156

Bournville Garden City, 223

Bowley, A. L., Estimate of Wages, 30 On Loss of Wages, 26 On Wages in 1867, 330

Boy Labour in Mines, 136

Bradford School Children, Condition of, 194

Bread, Fall in Price of, 332

Bricklayers' Wages, 108

British Association, Committee on Small Incomes, 21

British Government, Poverty of, 326

Budget, Is an Annual Debate Necessary?, 315 Tradition of Secrecy Unnecessary, 315

Building Societies' Funds, 56

Burns, John, Housing Act, 221

Campbell-Bannerman, Sir H., on Poverty, 5

Canals, Value of, 64

Capital, In Few Hands, 79 In Relation to Housing, 229 Of United Kingdom, 62 Of Working Classes, 57, 80 Waste of, 158

Capitalization of Usury, 101

Carpenters' Wages, 108

Casual Workers, Earnings, 27

Census, Inadequacy of, 123 Of Incomes, Importance of, 308, 312, 315 Of Wages, 21

Charity Organization Society, Thought Old Age Pensions Too Costly, 283

Children, National Responsibility for, 173 Should be the Chief Care of the Reformer, 173 Underfed, 196

Clerks, 18 Number of, 253

Coal Distribution, should be Municipal, 269 Miners, Number of, 268 Production, 267

Collectivism, Assisted by Joint-Stock Principle, 344 By Economizing Labour Creates Individual Freedom, 345 Necessity of, 343 And Revenue, 326

Combination Accentuating Error of Distribution, 269

"Comfortable" Persons, Number of, 48

Commercial Travellers, 19 Number of, 252

Commons, Value of, 66

Company Promotion, 166

Competition Disappearing, 269 Waste through, 255

Compositors' Wages, 109

Consumption of Food, Growth of, 332

Continuation Schools Advocated, 204

Co-operative Societies' Funds, 56

Cost of Living, 115

Cotton Trade, 143

Criminals, Decline of, 332

Crowley, Dr R. H., on Bradford School Children, 193

Cunningham, Professor D. J., on Physical Deterioration, 173

Customs Duties, 3

Death Duties: And Length of Life, 73 Assessments, Stationariness of, 76 Avoidance of, 53, 54, 77 Described, 320 Do they Waste Capital?, 323 Still Low, 323

Death-rate, Fall of, 332

Deaths from Mining Accidents, 132

Deaths in United Kingdom, 54

Declaring Incomes, Importance of, 308

Differentiation of Income Tax, 303

Diseases of Occupations, 129

Distribution, Combination in, 256 Of Capital, 79 Of Income, 32, 47, 48 Of Land, 82, 83 Of Wealth in Practice Illustrated, 94

Doctor, in the School, 193

Dressmaking, 151

Dundee, Physical Deterioration, 139

Education, 181, 190 Children should be Trained in Expression, 201 Continuation Schools Necessary, 204 Importance of Training in Observation, 199 Science Teaching, 202

Education (Provision of Meals) Act, 198

Eichholz, Dr A., on Poor Children, 174

Electricity Should be Publicly Controlled, 257

Employers Compelled to Disclose Employees' Incomes, 311

Engineers, Unemployment amongst, 28 Wages, 109

Estate Duties. See Death Duties

Estates, 1904-1908, 52 Classified by Nature, 78 Classified by Size, 52, 74 Passing Per Annum, 52, 55 Of Rich and Poor, 51

Expectation of Life, 211

Expenditure Directs Labour, 141

Factories, Accidents in, 127

Factory and Workshop Act, 125 And Maternity, 178

Factory Inspection, 126

Farmers' Capital, 63, 69 Profits, 19

Finance Act, 1907, 14, 302

Fiscal Policy, 3

Food, Consumption, Growth of, 332 Duties for Revenue, 289 Expenditure on, 154 Price of, 115

Foreign Competition and Education, 202, 204

Foreign Investments, 14

Fox, Arthur Wilson, on Agricultural Wages, 155

Friendly Societies' Funds, 56

Furniture, Value of, 64, 70

Gas Companies' Profits, 105

Gas Works, Value of, 64

Genius not a Class Possession, 191

George, Henry, on Necessary Monopolies, 255

Germany, Large Revenue from Socialism, 328

Giffen, Sir Robert, Estimate of Aggregate Wages, 1886, 25 On Wages, 22 On Waste of Capital, 341

Government by the Rich, 270

Growth of National Income, 17

Hackney, Unemployed in, 119

Harcourt, Sir Wm., Death Duties, 321

Horsfall, T. C., on Town Planning, 221

Houses, Clue to Income Tax Payers, 42 In Great Britain, 40, 43 Value of, 62, 68

Housing, 88, 209 Loans Proposed, 231

Hunter, Robert, on American Poverty, 5

Hygiene Should be Taught in Schools, 181

Income, Average in 1908, 32

Income Tax, Abatements, 36, 297 As it is, Illustrated, 307 Assessments, 12, 33 Assessments, 1893-1908, 10 Chapter on, 291 Differentiation, 14, 303 Evasion, 13 Graduation Advocated, 312 History of, 291 Origin of Schedules, 292 Payers, Growth of, 37, 112 Payers Measured by House Rent, 42 Payers, Number of, 44 Payers over £700, 44 Provisions Summarized, 306 Reaches Unearned Increment, 296 Reforms Advocated, 308 Schedule A Described, 298 Schedule B Described, 299 Schedule C Described, 300 Schedule D Described, 300 Schedule E Described, 302 Successor of "Land Tax," 291

Incomes, between £160 and £700, 39 Of Lower Middle Classes, 20 Of Middle Classes, 36 Revealed by Employers, 311

Individual Freedom through Collectivism, 345

Industrial Accidents, 125

Infant Mortality, 177

Inhabited House Duty, 40, 89 Described, 302

_Inter Vivos_ Avoidance of Death Duties, 77

Interest and Distribution, 93

Invalidity Insurance, 286

Inventions, Foreign Progress, 202

Iron Works, Value of, 64

Ironfounders' Wages, 109

Jews and Maternity, 185

Labour Exchanges, 124

Labour Party and Unemployment, 124

Land, and Town Planning, 218 Nationalization, 242 Of United Kingdom, 81 Recovery in Agricultural Values, 246

Land-Tax, was an Income Tax, 292

Land Values, 86

Landowners, 82, 83

Lead Poisoning, 130

Legal Profession, Persons Employed, 254

Levi, Leone, on Manual Labourers' Earnings in 1866, 330 On Unemployment, 25

Living, Cost of, 115

Lloyd George, D., Death Duties, 321 Grants Special Abatement in Respect of Children, 314 Income Tax Reforms, 303

Local Loans, 62, 67

London, Area of, 92

Lower Middle Classes, Incomes of, 17

Luxuries, Expenditure on, 160

McCleary, Dr G. F., on Milk Supply, 260

Mackenzie, Dr Leslie, on Milk Supply, 260

Malins, Dr E., on Poor Children, 174

Manual Workers, Number of, 21

Marshall, Professor A., on Waste, 158

Maternity amongst Poor, 178

Maternity Fund, Suggestion for a National, 184, 185

Medical Officers of Health, 183

Middle Classes, Small Incomes of, 36

Middlemen, Waste through, 253

Milk Distribution, Waste in, 259

Milk Supply, Should be Publicly Owned, 261

Mill, John Stuart, on Principle of Graduation, 317

Miners' Wages, 108

Mines, Value of, 64

Mining, Accidents, 130 Employment, 268 Royalties, 85

Misdirection of Labour, 150

Monopoly, Economy of, 256

Monopoly of Capital, 72

Monopoly of Wealth a Danger to the State, 141, 158, 324

Multiple Shops, 19, 254

Municipal Trading, Case for, 264 Success of, 262

National Capital, 61

National Debt, 62, 63, 67

National Dividend, how Distributed, 47, 48

National Housing Loans Proposed, 231

National Income, Growth of, 50 How Distributed, 47, 48 In 1908, 31 What it is, 8

National Medical Service, 183

National Property, 62, 65

Nationalization of Land, 219, 242

Navy, Value of, 66

Notification of Births, 184

Occupations Influenced by Wealth Distribution, 141

Old Age Pensioners, Number of, 285

Old Age Pensions, 272 Cost of Not "Expenditure," 286

Old Age Pensions Act, 284

Organization of Industry, 124, 250

Overcrowding, 212

Oversea Investments, 14, 65, 160

Paupers, Day Counts of, 274 Decline of, 332 Relieved in a Year, 275, 276

Physical Deterioration, 139

Physical Training, 192

Poor, Property of, 57

Population, Growth of, 332

Poverty, Campbell-Bannerman quoted, 5 In Old Age, 272 Line, 153 Measured, 49, 50 Now Unnecessary, 347 Of British Government, 340 Shortens Life, 211

Power Supply, Should be National, 256

Prices, Fall of, 332 Index Number, 332

Production, Combination in, 256

Production and Waste, 251

Profits Examined, 94 Growth of, 111, 112

Progress since 1867, 332

Prosperity and Fiscal Policy, 3

Prussian State Railways, 329

Public Ownership, the only Path to Equitable Distribution, 262

Public Works and Unemployment, 124

Railway Capital, Watering of, 102 Fares under Nationalization, 266 Servants, Accidents, 136

Railways, Value of, 63

Rates, in Nature of Rent-charge, 90

Rent, and Profit, 97 Estimate of Aggregate, 84, 85, 86 Why Small Relatively to Profits, 86

Revenue without Taxation, 326

Rich, Estates of, 58 Number of, 48, 50

Right to Work Bill, 123

Roads, Value of, 66

Rowntree, Poverty Line, 153

Rural Depopulation, 234

Ruskin, John, His modern version of the Beatitudes, 339

Savings, 55, 56, 80 Growth of, 332

Savings Banks' Funds, 56

Science, Important to Teach, 202

Seamen, Accidents, 137

Segregation of Unfit, 187

Shop Assistants, 18

Shopkeepers, 18, 254

Site Value, 87

Smith, Adam, on Taxation, 287

Socialism, Reduces Taxation, 328

Super-Tax, 305

Taft, President, on Inheritance Duties, 324

Taxation and Distribution, 289 Direct, Advocated, 318 Doctrine of Ability, 288 Indirect, Deprecated, 317 Not the Only Means of Revenue, 326 Should be Simplified, 318

Teachers, 18

Thrift Institutions, 56

Town Planning, 217, 221

Trade Capital, Value of, 63, 69

Trade Unions, Expenditure on Unemployment, 121 Funds, 56 Superannuation, 280 Unemployment, 116

Tradesmen, 254

Transport should be a National Function, 256

Trust Rule, 269

Unemployed, Probable Number of, 122

Unemployment, 28, 107 Amongst Trade Unionists, 116 Cost of, 121 During 40 Years, 337 In America, 5 In Middle Classes, 122 Insurance, 123 Only to be Remedied by Public Ownership, 270 "Remedies" for, 123, 124

Unfit, Segregation of, 187

United Kingdom, Area, 81

United States, Industrial Fatalities, 6 Poverty of, 5

Usury, 101

Wage Census, 21

Wage Earners, Number of, 21

Wage, Average, 29, 331 Growth of, 332

Wages, 115 Aggregate in 1908, 29 Average in 1908, 27 In 1886, 23 Movement of, 27, 108, 111, 112 Not Raised by High Profits, 101 Stationariness of, 50

Waste of Labour, 251

Waterworks, Value of, 64

Wheat, Imports of, 245

Wheat Prices, 247

Whitehaven Colliery Explosion, 131

Woollen Trade, 145

Women Health Inspectors, 182

Women Workers in America, 6

Workhouse Inmates Classified, 281

Working Class "Capital," 80

Working Classes, Material Progress of, 330