a number of statistical inquiries choked it.  Prof.  Leone Levi, Mr. Giffen, and a number of careful investigators, showed a vast improvement in the industrial condition of the working-classes during the last half century.  It was pointed out that money wages had risen considerably in all kinds of employment; that prices had generally fallen, so that the rise in real wages was even greater; that they worked shorter hours; consumed more and better food; lived longer lives; committed fewer crimes; and lastly, saved more money.  The general accuracy of these statements is beyond question.  The industrial conditions of the working-classes as a whole shows a great advance during the last half century.  Although the evidence upon this point is by no means conclusive, it seems probable that the income of the wage-earning classes as an aggregate is growing even more rapidly than that of the capitalist classes.  Income-tax returns indicate that the proportion of the population living on an acknowledged income of more than L150 a year is much larger than it was a generation ago.  In 1851 the income-tax-paying population amounted to 1,500,000; in 1879-80 the number had risen to 4,700,000.  At the same time the average of these incomes showed a considerable fall, for while in 1851 the gross income assessed was L272,000,000, in 1879-80 it had only risen to L577,000,000.

Though the method of assessing companies as if they were single persons renders it impossible to obtain accurate information in recent years as to the number of persons enjoying incomes of various sizes, a comparison made by Mr Mulhall of incomes in 1867 and 1895 indicates that, while the lower middle-class is growing rapidly, the number of the rich is growing still more rapidly.  While incomes of L100 to L300 have grown by a little more than 50 per cent., those from L300 to L1000 have nearly doubled, those between L1000 and L5000 have more than doubled, and incomes over L5000 have more than trebled.

But though such comparisons justify the conclusion that the upper grades of skilled labour have made considerable advances, and that the lower grades of regular unskilled labourers have to a less degree shared in this advance, they do not warrant the optimist conclusion often drawn from them, that poverty is a disease which left alone will cure itself, and which, in point of fact, is curing itself rapidly.  Before we consent to accept the evidence of improvement in the average condition of the labouring classes during the last half century as sufficient evidence to justify this opinion we ought to pay regard to the following considerations—­

1.  It should be remembered that a comparison between England of the present day with England in the decade 1830-1840 is eminently favourable to a theory of progress.  The period from 1790 to 1840 was the most miserable epoch in the history of the English working-classes.  Much of the gain must be rightly regarded rather as a recovery from sickness, than as a growth in normal health.  If the decade 1730-1740, for example, were to be taken instead, the progress of the wage-earner, especially in southern England, would be by no means so obvious.  The southern agricultural labourer and the whole body of low-skilled workers were probably in most respects as well off a century and a half ago as they are to-day.