CHEERFUL ARITHMETIC.

Lyttelton Times, Volume I, Issue 18, 10 May 1851, Page 2

CHEERFUL ARITHMETIC.

(From "Household Words," by Charles Dickens.)

" Competition is fast crushing us!" the 'tradesman exclaims as lie 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 healthl ful 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 universal 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 lias 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 sixtyeight 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 eight-pence 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.*

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 ghalf 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 the portions of public debt, divide the fund-holders into ten classes, according to the

• 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.

amount to which they are so entitled. Mr. Porter contrasted the numbers in each class as/ they stood on the sth of April and sth 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 tivfe 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 lias been an increase of five—every other class has experienced a considerable decrease in its num- v bers. There has been a diminution of in«re 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 heen accumulated in this country during the past thirty years, has heen 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 centuryI—is1—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 ciriefly 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 societyhave 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/oci, 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 millioii^ 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 fortune! of our fathers, they were taxed at the enormovi rate of five pounds four shillings and ten pence ahead 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 elevenpence, 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 — I which is true national power. At the moment lat which we write, we learn from local sources lof information, the accuracy of which we have Wver 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 " Euin" boldly in the face, his gaunt form will soon assume the smiling semblance of t Prosperity.