“Competition is fast crushing us!” the tradesman exclaims as he drives
you out to his elegant villa behind his seventy-guinea gelding. “Wheat
at forty shillings a quarter is ruin!” groans the farmer, while dallying
with his champagne glass. “_We_ are all going to the workhouse.”—“A
diamond necklace, my dear?” replies the mill-owner to a lovely
Lancashire witch, whose smile is on other occasions law—“What? two
hundred pounds for a bauble, while calico is only three farthings a
yard, and cotton-spinning on the brink of bankruptcy. Impossible!”
Should these gentlemen ever meet it is ten to one that on comparing
notes they resolve unanimously that the whole country is going to the
dogs; but it is also ten to one that this resolution is passed at a
public dinner to which they have each cheerfully contributed
one-pound-one: besides another guinea to the occasion of the feast:—some
plethoric, bloated, routine charity.
Considering their patriotic despondency in regard to the utterly
hopeless condition of the nation, it is wonderful to observe the
contented complacency with which these gentlemen eat their filberts and
sip their claret. Neither is this stoic philosophy confined to them
alone. All sorts of predicted want and impending misery are borne with
exemplary fortitude by all sorts of Englishmen. The skilful artisan
seldom allows a week to pass without deploring the inadequacy of wages;
but, although he manages to get a good Sunday’s dinner some fifty times
a year, and once or twice in the twelvemonth indulges his family with a
healthful pleasure trip in the country, he is able to scrape up a few
pounds in the savings’ bank. Yet if you ask him touching the state of
things in his particular line, he will tell you that “Times never were
so bad.” So universally is the propensity to depreciate things as they
are, that if a commission were appointed to inquire into the state of
the nation, their report, if derived solely from the evidence of
well-to-do witnesses, would be lugubrious in the extreme. It is only the
very poor who gaze cheerfully into the future; for their existence is a
condition of hope. They apprehend nothing, for they have nothing to
lose; whatever change fortune may bring, must be, they believe, for the
better.
Happily, better testimony, to the real condition of the industrious
classes is producible than that dark cloud of witnesses who speak out of
the fulness of an Englishman’s privilege—grumbling. That testimony has
been lucidly sifted, and was adduced by Mr. G. R. Porter at the recent
meeting of the British Association in Edinburgh. It consisted—in proof
of the well-being and continued progress of our country—of a comparison
between the income tax returns in respect of incomes derived from trades
and professions in 1812, and the like returns in 1848, excluding from
the former period the incomes below one hundred and fifty pounds; which,
under the existing law, are allowed to pass untaxed. The total amount
thus assessed, after deducting exemptions, was, in 1812, about
twenty-one millions and a quarter; while, in 1848, the amount was nearly
fifty-seven millions; showing an increase, in thirty-six years, of about
thirty-five millions and three-quarters, or one hundred and sixty-eight
per cent.; being at the rate of upwards of four and a half per cent.,
yearly:—an increase very nearly three-fold greater than the increase
during the same period of the population of Great Britain; where, alone,
the income tax flourishes in full bloom.
But how has this three-fold prosperity been distributed? Have the rich
grown richer, and the poor, poorer; or has Fortune taken off her bandage
and rewarded honest industry, with a discriminating hand? Have the bulk
of the people shared in the productive wealth which thirty-six years
have accumulated? In order to answer these questions, Mr. Porter entered
into a series of elaborate and interesting calculations, which prove the
pleasing fact that the great progressive wealth _has_ been shared among
the middle and working classes.
He found that the returns of 1812 as well as those of 1848 gave the sums
assessed to Income Tax in various classes; and, for the purpose of his
examination, he distinguished the incomes thus given:—those between one
hundred and fifty pounds and five hundred pounds; those between five
hundred pounds and one thousand pounds; incomes between one thousand
pounds and two thousand pounds; incomes between two thousand pounds and
five thousand pounds; and those above five thousand pounds. Adhering
strictly to these distinctions, Mr. Porter perceived, in 1848, a
positive increase in incomes between one hundred and fifty and five
hundred pounds per annum, of thirteen millions seven hundred thousand
pounds, over the incomes assessed in 1812. Between five hundred pounds
and one thousand pounds per annum, the increase since 1812 has been five
millions. On incomes between one thousand pounds and two thousand
pounds, and incomes between two thousand pounds and five thousand
pounds, there is an increase of upwards of four millions respectively;
while in the highest class, which includes all incomes above five
thousand pounds per annum, the increase is found to be no more than
eight millions and three-quarters. Comparing the highest with the lowest
class, the increase has been greater in the lowest by nearly five
millions—or fifty-six per cent.
This improvement in circumstances, however, descends to no lower a class
of society than persons in the receipt of at least one hundred and fifty
pounds per annum. It was necessary to dig a little lower in the strata
of private circumstances, in order to show the progress of wealth among
the working classes; and Mr. Porter had recourse to the returns from
savings’ banks; these being chiefly used by the humbler orders. From
data thus derived it was ascertained, that, while the deposits in
England, Wales, and Ireland, proportioned to the whole population,
amounted in 1831 to twelve shillings and eightpence per head; in 1848
they had risen to twenty shillings and eleven-pence per individual. The
largest amount of these savings occurred in 1846; when they reached, in
England alone, to more than twenty-six millions and three-quarters, and
in the three Kingdoms, to more than thirty-one millions seven hundred
thousand pounds, being equal to twenty-four shillings per head on the
population of England, Wales, and Ireland, and ten shillings and one
penny per head on that of Scotland.[1]
Footnote 1:
The comparative smallness of the deposits in Scotland arises from two
causes: first, the system of allowing interest upon very small sums
deposited in private and joint-stock banks; and, secondly, the more
recent connexion of savings’ banks with the Government in that
division of the kingdom. Hence, there is no reason for supposing that
the labouring-classes of Scotland are less saving than those of
England or Ireland.
The exceeding moderation of this estimate will be observed when we
mention another description of savings’ banks which Mr. Porter has taken
no account of—we mean Friendly Societies. Of these, there are fourteen
thousand in Great Britain, regularly enrolled according to Act of
Parliament, consisting of one million six hundred thousand members, with
a gross annual revenue of two millions eight hundred thousand, and
accumulated capital amounting to six millions four hundred thousand
pounds sterling. To this must be added the capital belonging to
unenrolled benefit societies (exclusive of those in Ireland), which has
been estimated at a greater amount than those which exist “as the Act
directs;” namely, at nine millions sterling, belonging to two millions
and a half of members. It is indeed a most gratifying proof of the
prudential, and therefore moral, as well as pecuniary advance which this
country has made during the past thirty years, that half our labouring
male population belong to Friendly Societies. The operative classes of
Great Britain alone possess, at this moment, capital in savings’ banks
and friendly societies, the total of which reaches the enormous sum of
forty-two millions of money. How very like national ruin _this_ looks!
In further proof of the greater distribution of means among the humbler
than the higher orders, we can turn once more to Mr. Porter, who assures
us that in proportion as the savings of the industrious poor have
augmented, the dividends received at the Bank by the “comfortable” and
the rich have decreased.
The test of the dividend-books of the Bank of England, to which Mr.
Porter next brought his calculations, varies essentially from that
afforded by the progress of savings’ banks; inasmuch as it excludes all
evidence of actual saving or accumulation, while it offers a strictly
comparative view of such saving as between different classes of the
community. The accounts furnished to Parliament by the Bank of the
number of persons entitled to dividends upon portions of the public
debt, divide the fund-holders into ten classes, according to the amount
of which they are so entitled. Mr. Porter contrasted the numbers in each
class as they stood on the 5th of April and 5th of July of the years
1831 and 1848, respectively. He then went on to show, that there has
been a very large addition between 1831 and 1848 to the number of
persons receiving under five pounds at each payment of dividends, and a
small increase upon the number receiving between five pounds and ten
pounds, while, with the exception of the largest holders—those whose
dividends exceed two thousand pounds at each payment, and of whom there
has been an increase of five—every other class has experienced a
considerable decrease in its numbers. There has been a diminution of
more than Eight per cent. in the numbers receiving between three hundred
pounds and five hundred pounds; of Twelve and a half per cent. of those
receiving between five hundred pounds and one thousand pounds; and of
more than Twenty per cent. among holders of stock yielding dividends
between one thousand pounds and two thousand pounds; this would seem
conclusively to prove that, at least as respects this mode of disposing
of accumulations, there is not any reason to believe that the already
rich are acquiring greater wealth at the expense of the rest of the
community.
All evidence proves, then, that the great accession of wealth which has
been accumulated in this country during the past thirty years, has been
most distributed amongst the middle classes. The natural effect of a
change from agricultural to manufacturing industry—a change which has
come over this country during the roll of a single century—is to
increase the wealth of the manufacturing and trading elements of the
community, in proportion as these are called into activity. The “great
fortunes” of the old time were nobles and land-holders; the millionaires
of to-day are merchants, bankers, and mill-owners. Forty years ago a
rich retail tradesman was a rarity; his dealings with the wholesale
trade were chiefly carried on by means of bills at long dates, in which
large sums were included for risk and interest; charges which decreased
his profits, and increased the price of all articles to the consumer.
Now the more frequent rule amongst retailers is prompt payment,
discounts in their own favour, and affluence. In our “nation of
shopkeepers,” it is industry which has prospered and had its reward.
Turning from the British Association to the Poor-Law Board—from Mr.
Porter to Mr. Baines—we shall see that in the scramble for wealth,
pauperism itself has benefited; that, in fact, the highest grades in the
scale of society have benefited as little as the very lowest. It is true
that in the progress of accumulation by manufactures, the necessity of
bringing large masses of operatives into confined _foci_, and of
providing work for them at all times and seasons, has caused temporary
spasms of poverty, that have occasionally almost defied relief; but
despite the rapid increase of the population, the ranks of what may be
called permanent pauperism have not been augmented. Consequently the
increased wealth of the country has descended even to the lowest ranks
of the people. In the year 1813, when the population of England and
Wales was only ten millions, the sum expended for the relief of the poor
amounted to six millions and a half sterling. From the return of the
Poor-Law Board, now before us, it appears that during the year which
ended on Lady Day, 1849, and with a population in England and Wales of
one-third more—or nearly fifteen millions—the exactions for poors’-rates
amounted to no more than five millions, seven hundred and ninety-two
thousand, nine hundred and sixty-three pounds—three-quarters of a
million less than was drawn for the pauperism of 1813. The poor have
ceased to regard the rich, as a class, as their natural enemies. We hear
no more, now, of a “grinding oligarchy.”
Besides the decrease of poor rates, other taxes have diminished. Let the
three grumblers with whom we started be pleased to remember that, no
longer ago than 1815, when war had done its worst on the lives and
fortunes of our fathers, they were taxed at the enormous rate of five
pounds four shillings and ten pence a head to each individual of the
population, from the centegenarian to the latest born baby; while we, in
this day and generation of “ruin,” pay per head, only fifty shillings
and eleven-pence, or scarcely one-half.
It is the strength and safeguard of the English nation, that its most
prominent elements are industry and commerce; for, tending as they do,
to the general dissemination, as well as to the general accumulation of
wealth, they effect a fusion of interests—a union of classes, and a
dependence of each upon the others—which is true national power. At the
moment at which we write, we learn from local sources of information,
the accuracy of which we have never had occasion to question, that
skilled labour of nearly every kind is in demand in the manufacturing
districts; and that all sorts of capable “hands” can have work.
Everything indicates improvement. If, indeed, our friends the Croakers
will only look their phantom “Ruin” boldly in the face, his gaunt form
will soon assume the smiling semblance of Prosperity.