The Dominion WEDNESDAY, JULY 21, 1909. BRITISH PROGRESS.

Dominion, Volume 2, Issue 565, 21 July 1909, Page 6

The Dominion WEDNESDAY, JULY 21, 1909. BRITISH PROGRESS.

It is a fairly general conviction in this young country that Britain is on the down-grade. .Wo hear raucous pamphleteers crying to John Bull to "wake ■up"; there^is a certain qlass of colonial who tells us, on his return from a. vjsit to England, that "poor old England is played out," and he wins the applause of satisfied vanity when he declares that Britain is "too slow." When Lord Roskbery talks of the perils that ..beset i'.'this' little England," he is taken to mean that Britain is fighting in the last ditch against triumphant circumstance.' A. certain kind of colonial politician thrives by leading the unthinking to believe that if only Britain were as clever, as vigorous, and as enthusiastic New, Zealand, it would rise again to its ancient eminence. And, finally,' a ycertain political propaganda has been pushed rhetorical lamentations over the general decay and stagnation of. the Mother Country. •It is no. wonder that the delusion about Britain's . decay •is so widespread.;. To those who will be glad to know that the talk of Britain's decadence is nonsense, it may be profitable to submit a few facts and figures from a notable BlueBook issued last month; by the Local Government Board. This volume, which •is called "Public Health and Social Conditions," contains an, enormous mass of_ statistics-covering the life of the. British people, during the past fifty years. Although" here and there one .'may find a change 1 in the figures that one would rather not see, the general effect of the statistics is to demonstrate in a quite overwhelming way that Britain has made that sound and great progress which is possible only to vigorous maturity.

In 1908 there were 44,539,593 persons in the United Kingdom; there wero 27,368,736 . in iB5l. Although the birth-, rate has on the whole declined, the deathrate has also declined, .with the result that the "average annual natural.' increase,". 11.3 per thousand of the population, is a point higher than in 1851. It is worthy of note that the death-rate of infants under one year has doclincd from 146 per thousand births to 118 per'thousand, and of children below the .age of five years from 67.8 to 40.9. As to causes of death, typhus and smallpox have almost disappeared,' and there has been a large dccrea.se in the mortality, due to scarlet-fever and 1 phthisiq. These figures reflect the progress of; sanitation and the improvement of the treatment of the sick. A regrettable fact is the greater concentration of ;the peoplo in urban areas. While the population of London has doubled, and that of eighty-four large urban areas taken in the mass has nearly trebled itself, there has been a decline of five per cent, in fourteen rural counties' taken for illustration. But the improvement of the conditions of life in; the cities has prevented ,the, bjuUßatioa' of the nation-from resulting

in an increased death-rato. There has been a notable decrease in tho number of tenements and the people living in them ovon in tho laßfc ten years. So far from having become tho home of pauperism that sorno of our Belf-satisfiod colonials like to believo it, Britain is able to show a doorcase of pauperism and poverty. In 1850, the paupers in rcceipt of relief numbered 56.6 per thousand of the population; the proportion had fallen in 1908 to only 22.1 per thousand. The cost of poor relief, while of course increasing absolutely, has declined relatively to rateable value, which has risen from some £77,000,000 to £277,000,000. Wo may .end the list of indications of social progress by noting that tho number of married men unablo sign their names has decreased from 225 to fourteen in every 1000, and that the number of persons per thousand tried for indictable offencos has fallen from 2.08 to 1.70.

Tho Bluc-Book does not contain tho figures of Britain's trade, but it abounds with proof of the growth of tho resources of society. . Tho total deposits in the Post Office and trustee'saving banks —always a good / index—increased from £29,000,000.in-1850! to £209,000,000'' in 1907, or from £l Is. to £4 15s. Id. per head of the population. The income-tax yielded £6,368,125 in 1870-71; in 1900-7 it yielded £32,002,412. The funds of the trades unions increased from £107,290, in 1872 .to £5,864,342 in "1906, and of ' tho friendly societies from £14,000,000 in 1877 to £50,000,000 in 1905. The rate of wages has increased materiallyi The average rate during th'c seven years 19007 was .40 per cent, greater than during the seven years 1860-7. Now, whatever else the' figures in' thiß document may point to, they establish beyond all doubt the great material progress of the nation. Britain, in fact; is a flourishing concern, as the phrase goes. If it is mature, and incapable of "gold-rush" inflations in respect, of its statistics, : it is at least strong in its maturity, i The current practice of referring to Britain as a worn-out nation would'be of little real consequence if it did not go hand-in-hand with a fatuous carelessness about the future of our own country. iThoso who are fond of proaching at the Mother Country may be assisted to cease their outcry and settle down to serious endeavour by the knowledge that the foundations of Britain arc, deep'and; sound. ■