Transcriber's Note:
Obvious printer errors have been corrected. Hyphenation has been
rationalised.
Small capitals have been replaced by full capitals. Italics are
indicated by _underscores_.
Very wide tables have been split into two.
RICHES AND POVERTY
BRITISH INCOMES IN 1908-9
+--------------+------------------------------------------+
| RICH | |
| 1,400,000 | COMFORTABLE |
| persons | 4,100,000 persons |
| £634,000,000 | £275,000,000 |
+--------------+------------------------------------------+
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| POOR |
| |
| |
| 39,000,000 persons |
| |
| |
| £935,000,000 |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
+---------------------------------------------------------+
_The Aggregate Income of the 44,600,000 people of the United Kingdom in
1908-9 was approximately £1,844,000,000. 1,400,000 persons took
£634,000,000; 4,100,000 persons took £275,000,000; 39,000,000 persons
took £935,000,000. (See Chapters 2 and 3.)_
RICHES AND POVERTY
(1910)
BY
L. G. CHIOZZA MONEY, M.P.
ELEVENTH EDITION
METHUEN & CO. LTD.
36 ESSEX STREET W.C.
LONDON
_First Published_ (_5s. net_) _October 1905_
_Second Edition_ _December 1905_
_Third Edition_ _July 1906_
_Fourth and Cheaper Edition_ (_1s. net_) _January 1908_
_Fifth Edition_ (_1s. net_) _February 1908_
_Sixth and Seventh Editions_ (_1s. net_) _March 1908_
_Eighth Edition_ (_1s. net_) _May 1908_
_Ninth Edition_ (_1s. net_) _December 1909_
_Tenth Edition, Revised_ (_5s. net_) _March 1911_
_New and Cheaper Issue_ (_1s. net_) _June 1913_
_Eleventh Edition_ (_5s. net_) _March 1914_
TO MY WIFE
PREFACE TO THE TENTH (REVISED)
EDITION, 1910
The present edition of "Riches and Poverty" revises my estimates of the
distribution of the wealth of the United Kingdom down to the year 1908.
The effect of the revision is to show that in the five years that have
elapsed since this work was first published, the distribution of wealth
has grown even more unequal. The comparative stationariness of money
wages of late years is a fact upon which the labourers themselves, and
not less the nation of which they form by far the greater part, are to
be commiserated. I write at a time when a great deal of discontent is
becoming evident amongst large masses of the population; it may be well
for those, and they are many, who have written in condemnation of that
discontent, to ponder the following pages, and in particular to compare
the profits recorded by the Inland Revenue Commissioners with the
evidence as to wages collected by the Labour Department of the Board of
Trade.
My own view of the subject is, that the massing of capital in large
units has so considerably strengthened the hand of capital in its
dealings with labour that in recent years Trade Unions have
comparatively lost much ground. To-day the masters in many of our
industries can exercise collective powers much more effectively than
Trade Unions. Combination amongst employers in some trades has reached a
point at which it has become possible to rule alike the price of
products and the price of labour.
While since 1900 nominal or money wages have been at a standstill, the
cost of living has continued to rise. The retail cost of food in London
rose 9 per cent. in 1900-1908. Therefore British real or commodity wages
have fallen heavily since 1900. A London platelayer, when he has the
privilege of working seven days a week, can earn 21s. a week in 1910 as
in 1900, but the real value of the 21s. has fallen by about 9 per cent.;
in effect, that is, he earns 1s. 10d. a week less than in 1900. Now 19s.
2d. is not a just wage for a London platelayer.
The statements which were made in the 1905 edition of "Riches and
Poverty" proved to be uncomfortable reading for many, and I have now a
great many books on my shelves in which they have been discussed. The
attempts to refute them have entirely failed. It is now generally
accepted that the number of Income Tax payers is approximately what I
stated it to be, and the increase of Income Tax assessments indicates
that my estimates of the income of the rich did not err on the side of
liberality.
Work such as is attempted in these pages ought, of course, to be
entrusted to the hands of a permanent Census Department, empowered to
collect information, and instructed to analyse and diffuse it. In the
absence of such a Department, and in the lamentable condition of our
national statistical records, the conclusions of a private investigator
are only too likely to be called in question by those who do not stomach
what he has to say. It may be said that the disagreeable estimates I
have presented in the frontispiece of this volume rest upon private
authority, and that they cannot be accepted without great reservation. I
should like to direct attention, therefore, to a series of facts which
_are_ official, which _cannot_ be denied, and which rest upon the basis
that they _represent masses of property actually taxed_.
I refer to the estates which pass at death in the United Kingdom year by
year, and which are valued for the purposes of the death duties. The
following facts, to which I called attention for the first time in
"Riches and Poverty," can be easily memorized, and every one ought to
know them.
Year by year, as regularly as the seasons, properties pass at death in
the United Kingdom, free of all debts, absolutely net, to the value of,
in round figures, £300,000,000. Of this £300,000,000, the aggregate of
approximately 80,000 separate estates, as much as £200,000,000, or
thereabouts, is left by about FOUR THOUSAND (4000) PERSONS.
I repeat that these figures are not my estimates, but the official
figures ascertained and published by the Inland Revenue Commissioners.
They can be verified by any reader of this book by reference to the
latest Official Report of the Commissioners of His Majesty's Inland
Revenue (Cd. 4868. Price 1s. 7d.).
Those who are acquainted with the facts know, as Mr Balfour recognized
in reply to me in a debate in the House of Commons on September 13th,
1909, that the official figures I have quoted would be larger but for
the passing of property _inter vivos_ in avoidance of the death duties.
But, to take the figures as they are, an under statement of the wealth
of the rich, I put this question to those who come to consider the
estimates I have made:
_If, in the United Kingdom, out of £300,000,000 a year passing at death,
as much as £200,000,000, or two-thirds of the whole, is left by only
4000 persons, does it not follow, as the night the day, that the
distribution of the national income must necessarily proceed on some
such lines as those estimated in the frontispiece to this volume?_
And with that question I once more issue these pages to the public.
L. G. CHIOZZA MONEY
CHALDON, SURREY
_October 1910_
CONTENTS
PAGE
BOOK I
THE ERROR OF DISTRIBUTION
CHAPTER I
THOUGHTS ARISING OUT OF A GREAT CONTROVERSY
The false assumption that customs duties can determine prosperity 3
Evidences of riches and poverty as "arguments" 4
"Thirty per cent. of our population underfed" 5
A question of distribution 7
CHAPTER II
THE NATIONAL INCOME
The total product consists of goods and services 8
The exchanged product can be measured 9
Income Tax assessments; my 1905 estimate confirmed 11
The income eluding taxation 13
Income from abroad 15
Aggregate of incomes exceeding £160 per annum 16
Growth of Income Tax income in five years 17
Aggregate of small incomes lying between Income Tax payers
and wage-earning classes 20
Aggregate of incomes of manual workers 29
Aggregate of the national income 31
The Income Tax exemption limit bisects the total product 31
CHAPTER III
DISTRIBUTION OF THE NATIONAL INCOME
The average family income 32
Investigation of number of Income Tax payers 33
Number of incomes under £700 39
Number of incomes over £700 measured by number of large houses 43
Approximate number of Income Tax payers 44
Persons with respectively more and less than £160 per annum 47
One-half of entire product taken by 12 per cent. of the population 47
One-third of entire product taken by one-thirtieth of population 48
A poor people thinly veneered by the well-to-do 49
The movement in 1903-1908 50
CHAPTER IV
THE ESTATES OF RICH AND POOR
The graduated Estate Duty of Sir William Harcourt 51
Deaths per annum in the United Kingdom 54
Numbers and values of estates passing at death in recent years 55
Savings of the poor 57
Rich and poor estates in an average year 59
CHAPTER V
THE NATIONAL ACCUMULATION
Estimate of the accumulated wealth of the United Kingdom 62
Public property, Imperial and local 65
The national and local debts private mortgages upon public
assets 67
British wealth in private hands 68
Foreign wealth in British hands 71
Average wealth per head 71
CHAPTER VI
THE MONOPOLY OF CAPITAL
Living property owners estimated from Death Duty records 73
Growing avoidance of Death Duties 77
120,000 persons own two-thirds of the national capital 79
The alleged "capital" of the working classes 80
Those rule who own 80
CHAPTER VII
THE AREA OF THE UNITED KINGDOM
Area the fundamental attribute of land 81
Almost the entire area in private hands 82
One-half the area owned by 2,500 persons 83
The number of landlords 84
Estimate of land rents 86
Why the aggregate of land rents is relatively small 87
The cheapening of food 87
The small areas of the town 88
The rent-charge formed by local rates 90
CHAPTER VIII
THOSE WHO WORK AND WHOSE WHO WAIT
Effect of congestion of capital upon distribution 93
Practical examples of the distributive process 94
Capital largely divorced from business ability 99
Schedule D profits compared with paid-up capitals 100
Effect of appreciation of securities upon position of the
wage-earners 101
Railway profits and railway wages 102
Calculating the labour factor 103
Capital takes the lion's share 106
CHAPTER IX
PROFITS, BAD TRADE AND UNEMPLOYMENT
Growth of profits in recent years 107
Rise and fall of wages in recent years 108
Growth of profits compared with rise and fall in wages 110
Labour bears the brunt of depression 115
Records of unemployment of Trade Union members 116
The Trade Union unemployment rate probably representative 119
How Trade Unions keep the tools sharpened 121
The great majority of the British people lack security of tenure
of employment 122
"Remedies" for unemployment 123
Insurance against unemployment 123
Labour Exchanges no remedy 124
CHAPTER X
PART OF THEIR WAGES
Accident and disease concomitants of wages 125
Laxity of factory inspection 127
Accidents in factories and workshops 127
Diseases of occupations in factories and workshops 129
Accidents in mines and quarries 130
Accidents on railways 136
Accidents on ships 137
Accidents in certain engineering works 137
Aggregate of reported accidents and cases of industrial
disease 138
Phthisis as an industrial disease 139
Physical deterioration not an accident 140
CHAPTER XI
CONSEQUENCES
The governance of the rich 141
The direction of life and labour through expenditure 143
The cotton trade and the fate of its products 144
The demand for woollens 145
The call for boots 147
The waste of labour of nominally useful workmen 149
The parable of the temporary supper-room 149
The parable of the Ascot frock 151
Mr Rowntree's primary poverty line 153
The possible call for commodities by the poor 154
The agricultural labourer's call 155
The boot employee as a customer for the textile employee 156
The Error of Distribution connotes the misdirection and
degradation of labour 156
CHAPTER XII
THE WASTE OF CAPITAL
The national accumulations small in relation to the national
income 159
More evidences of poverty than of wealth 159
The moral of oversea investments 160
Six thousand millions of capital wasted in forty years 163
The demand for luxuries misdirects capital 164
The waste of capital in the game of competition 166
The waste of capital in weak and bogus company promotion 166
BOOK II
TOWARDS ORGANIZATION