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.