who made it. At one large lunatic asylum the system is so perfect that the night superintendent, sitting in his own room, can follow the movements and whereabouts of all his men. Clocks have also been designed for registering the gross aggregate or integral of daily temperatures or barometric pressures. In the former case a watch is used, and has a balance compensated the wrong way, so that the effects of changes of temperature are magnified. In the latter case a barometer is used as the pendulum.

Until three years ago there was no public institution in Great Britain where a serviceable authentic trial of the performance of a watch under varying conditions as regards temperature and changes of position could be obtained. At that date, however, under the auspices of the Royal Society, a department of the Kew Observatory was established for the purpose. It satisfied a want which had long been felt, and provided with every requisite for

FIG. 10.-Brocot's Perpetual Calendar.

timing both in temperatures and positions, a considerable and increasing number of watches are regularly sent there for the purpose of obtaining its certificates. In Class A (the first class) merit-marks are awarded in addition to the certificates, in the following proportions: 40 for a complete absence of variation of daily rate, 40 for absolute freedom from change of rate with change of position, and 20 for perfect compensation for effects of temperature.

different stations he has to visit, he is enabled to get printed off upon the paper dial a mark or letter showing the time at which he was at the station. In the latter case the clock is provided with a large drum or cylinder, and wires lead to it from the different stations; and when a button at any station is touched, a mark follows upon the cylinder, indicating the where and when of the person

The subject of the application of the balance-spring, and the process of timing, which is subsequent, must be

sufficient interval had elapsed to show that the statistics themselves could not be misinterpreted. There has now been ample time to allow for minor variations and fluctuations, and the statistics can be fairly construed.

of the principal statistical facts which are usually appealed to as signs of general progress and the reverse, and I propose to go over briefly the items in that table and to discuss along with them a few broad and notorious facts which cannot conveniently

And the rate of growth in the ten-yearly periods which these figures show is-between 1855 and 1865, 28 per cent. ; between 1865 and 1875, 44 per cent. ; and between 1875 and 1885, 10 per cent. only.

Making all allowance for changes in the mode of assessment by which the lower limit of the tax has been raised, for the apparent increase before 1875, which may have been due to a gradual increase of the severity of the collection, and for the like disturbing influences, I believe there is no doubt that these income-tax assessments correspond fairly well to the change in the money value of income and property in the interval. How great the change in the rate of increase is, is shown by the simple consideration that if the rate of increase in the last ten years, instead of being 10 per cent. only, had been 44 per cent., as in the ten years just before, the total of the income-tax assessments in 1885, which is actually £631,000,000, would have been £882,000,000! Something then has clearly happened in the interval to change the rate of increase.

These figures being those of money values, an obvious explanation is suggested which would account in great part for the phenomenon of a diminished rate of increase in such values without supposing a reduction of the rate of increase of real wealth, of the things represented by the money values, to correspond. This is the fall of prices of which we have heard so much of late years, and about which in some form or another we shall no doubt hear something at our present meeting. It is quite clear that, if prices fall, then income-tax assessments must also be affected. The produce of a given area of land, for instance, sells for less than it would otherwise sell; there is less gross produce, and in proportion there is even less net produce, that is, less rent; consequently the net income appearing in the Income Tax Schedules is either less than it was or does not increase as it did before. The same with mines, with railways, and with all sorts of business under Schedule D. The things themselves may increase as they did before, but as the money values do not increase, but diminish, the income-tax assessments cannot swell at the former rate. It is the same with salaries and other incomes not dependent so directly in appearance on the fall in prices. Salaries and incomes are of course related to a given range of prices of commodities, and a fall in the prices of commodities implies that the range of salaries and incomes is itself lower than it would otherwise be, assuming the real relation between the commodities and incomes to be the

same after the fall in prices as it would have been if there had been no fall in prices. Hence the income-tax assessments by themselves are not a perfectly good test in a question like the present. The change implied may be nominal only, so far as the aggregate wealth and prosperity of the community are concerned, though of course there can be no great and general fall of prices without a considerable redistribution of wealth, which must have many important consequences.

This criticism, however, does not apply to the remaining figures in the short table submitted, and to various other wellknown facts, which we shall now proceed to discuss.

The production of coal, then, is found to have progressed in the last thirty years as the income-tax assessments have done. The figures in millions of tons at ten years' intervals are as follows:

:

And the rate of growth in the ten-yearly periods which these figures show is between 1855 and 1865, 53 per cent. ; between 1865 and 1875, 35 per cent.; and between 1875 and 1885, 20 per cent. only. The rate of growth in the last ten years is much less than in the twenty years just before. The percentages here, it will be observed, are higher than in the case of the income-tax assessments. The increase in the last ten years in particular is 20 per cent. as compared with an increase of 10 per cent. only in the income-tax assessments. But the direction of the movement is in both cases the same.

I need hardly say, moreover, that coal production has usually been considered a good test of general prosperity. Coal is specially an instrumental article, the fuel of the machines by which our production is carried on. Whatever the explanation may be, we have now, therefore, to take account of the fact that the rate of increase of the production of coal has been less in the last ten years than in the twenty years just before.

Then with regard to pig-iron, which is also an instrumental article, the raw material of that iron which goes to the making of the machines of industry, the table shows the following particulars of production :

And the rate of growth which these figures show is between 1855 and 1865, 50 per cent.; between 1865 and 1875, 33 per cent. ; and between 1875 and 1885, 16 per cent. only. Whatever the explanation may be, we have thus to take account of a diminution of the rate of increase in the production of pig-iron much resembling the diminution in the rate of increase of the production of coal.

At the same time the miscellaneous mineral production of the United Kingdom has mostly diminished absolutely. On this head, not to weary you with figures, I have not thought it necessary to insert anything in the above short table; but I may refer

you to the tables put in by the Board of Trade before the Royal Commission on Trade Depression. Let me only state very briefly that while the average annual amount of copper produced from British ores amounted in 1855 to over 20,000 tons, in 1865 the amount was about 12,000 tons only, in 1875 under 5000 tons, and in 1885 under 3000 tons. As regards lead, again, while the production about 1855 was 65,000 tons, and in 1865 about 67,000 tons, the amount in 1875 had been reduced to 58,000 tons, and in 1885 to less than 40,000 tons. In white tin there is an improvement up to 1865, but no improvement since, and the only set-off, a very partial one, is in zinc, which rises steadily from about 3500 tons in 1858, the earliest date for which particulars are given, to about 10,000 tons in 1885, considerably higher figures having been touched in 1881-83. There is nothing, then, in these figures as to miscellaneous mineral production to mitigate the impression of the diminution in the rate of increase in the great staples, iron and coal, in recent years.

Agricultural production, it is also notorious, has been at any rate no better, or not much better, than stationary for some years past, although down to a comparatively recent period a steady improvement seemed to be going on. Making all allowance for the change in the character of the cultivation, by which the gross produce is diminished, although the net profit is not affected to the same extent, and which might be held to argue no real decline in the rate of general growth if the population, diverted from agriculture, were more profitably employed, yet the facts, broadly looked at, taken in connexion with the other facts stated as to diminished rate of increase in other leading industries, seem to confirm the supposition that there may have been some diminution in the rate of increase generally.

It is, unfortunately, impossible to state in a simple manner the progress at different dates in the great textile industries of the country. Everything as regards these industries is thrown out by the disturbance consequent on the American War. It does not appear, however, that what has happened as regards the main textile industries, cotton and wool, would alter sensibly the conclusions above stated, drawn from the facts as to other main industries of the country. If we take the consump tion of raw materials as the test, it would appear that the growth in the cotton manufacture is from a consumption of 28 lbs. per head in 1855 to about 38 lbs. per head in 1875, while in 1885 the consumption is nearly 42 lbs. per head, an increase of 4 lbs. per head in the last ten years, against 10 lbs. per head in the previous twenty. The percentage of increase in the last twenty years must therefore, on the whole, have been less than in the previous twenty, although in these twenty years the great interruption due to the American Civil War occurred. Of course the amount of raw material consumed is not here an absolute test.

case.

There may be more spinning and weaving now in proportion to the same quantity of raw material than was formerly the But the indications are at least not so certain and direct as when the consumption of raw material could be confidently appealed to. As regards wool the comparison is unfortunately very incomplete owing to the defect of data for the earlier years; but what we find is that the amount of wool consumed per head of the population of the United Kingdom has in the last ten years s rather declined than otherwise from nearly 11 lbs. per head in the five years 1870-74 to 10 lbs. per head only in the five years 1880-84. Here, again, the explanation suggested as to cotton-viz. that there may be more spinning and weaving now in proportion to the same quantity of raw material than was formerly the case-applies. But the answer is also the same, that at any rate the indications of progress are no longer as simple as they were. The reality of the former rate of advance is not so clearly manifest.

Of course I need hardly add that in the case of another great textile, silk, there has been no progress, but the reverse, for some years; that this is also true of linen; and that the increase in the allied manufacture, jute, can only be a partial

set-off.

In the textiles, then, as in other staple industries of the country, the rate of advance in the last ten years, measuring by things, and not merely by values, has been less than in the twenty years immediately before.

We pass on, then, to another set of figures included in the short table above submitted. We may look not only at leading industries of production directly, but at the broad figures of certain industries which are usually held to reflect, as in a mirror, the progress of the country generally. I refer to the railway

traffics as regards the home industries of the country, and the entries and clearances of shipping in the foreign trade as regards our foreign business.

As regards railways what we find is, if we take the receipts from the goods traffic in the form in which they were summarized for the Royal Commission on Trade Depression, viz. reduced to so much per head of the population on the average of quinquennial periods, that in the five years 1860-64, which is as far back as the figures can be carried, the receipts per head were IIS.; ten years later, viz. in 1870-74, the receipts per head were 18.; and ten years later, viz. 1880-84, the receipts per head were 21s. 2d. The rate of growth shown in the first ten years' interval is 63 per cent. ; in the second ten years' interval it is only 18 per cent. ; and in the last year or two, I may add, there has been no further improvement. Here the question of the value of money comes in again, but this would only modify partially the apparent change. There is also a question as to railway extension having been greater in the earlier than in the later period, so that growth took place in the earlier period because there were railways in many districts where they had not been before, and there was no room for a similar expansion in the later period. But the difference in the rate of growth it will be observed is very great indeed, and this explanation seems hardly adequate to account for all the difference. At any rate, to repeat a remark already made, the indications are no longer so simple as they were. There is something to be explained.

The figures as to the number of tons of goods carried are not in the above table; nor are such figures very good, so long as they are not reduced to show the number of tons conveyed one mile. But, quantum valeant, they may be quoted from the Board of Trade tables already referred to. The increase, then, in minerals conveyed between 1855 and 1865 is from about 40 million to nearly 80 million tons, or 100 per cent. ; between 1865 and 1875 is from 80 to about 140 million tons, or 75 per cent.; and in the last ten years it is from 140 to 190 million tons only, if quite so much, or about 36 per cent. only. As regards general merchandise, again, the progression in the three ten-yearly periods is in the first from about 24 to 27 million tons, or rather more than 50 per cent. ; in the second from 37 to 63 million tons, or 70 per cent. ; and in the third from 63 to 73 million tons, or 16 per cent. only. As far as they go there is certainly nothing in these figures to oppose the indications of a falling-off in the rate of increase in the general business already cited.

Coming to the movement of shipping in the foreign trade, the series of figures we obtain are the following, which relate to clearances only, those relating to entries being of course little more than duplicate, so that they need not be repeated: 1855, 10 million tons; 1865, 15 million tons; 1875, 24 million tons; 1885, 32 million tons. And the rate of growth thus shown is between 1855 and 1865 no less than 50 per cent. ; between 1865 and 1875 no less than 60 per cent. ; and between 1875 and 1885 about 33 per cent. only-again a less rate of increase in the last ten years than in the period just before. Here, too, it is to be noticed, what is unusual in shipping industry, that in the last few years the entries and clearances in the foreign trade have been practically stationary. The explanation no doubt is in part the great multiplication of lines of steamers up to a comparatively recent period, causing a remarkable growth of the movement while the multiplication of lines was itself in progress, and leaving room for less growth afterwards because a new framework had been provided within which traffic could grow. here again it is to be remarked that the whole change can hardly, perhaps, be explained in this manner, while the remark already made again applies, that the fact of explanation being required is itself significant.

But

The figures of imports and exports might be treated in a similar manner, as they necessarily follow the course of the leading articles of production and the movements of shipping. But we should only by so doing get the figures we have been dealing with in another form, and repetition is of course to be avoided.

The short table contains only another set of figures, viz. those of the consumption of tea and sugar, which are again commonly appealed to as significant of general material progress. What we find as regards tea is that the consumption per head rises between 1855 and 1865 from 2-3 to 3.3 lbs., or 43 per cent.; between 1865 and 1875 from 33 to 4'4 lbs., or 33 per cent.; and between 1875 and 1885 from 44 to 5 lbs., or 13 per cent. In sugar the progression is in the first period from

30.6 to 398 lbs. per head, or 30 per cent. ; in the second period from 39'8 to 62.7 lbs., or 58 per cent.; and in the third period from 627 to 74'3 lbs., or 19 per cent. only. In the last ten years in both cases the rate of increase is less than in the twenty years before.

These facts, I need hardly say, would be strengthened by a reference to the consumption of spirits and beer, the decline in the former being especially notorious. In tobacco again in the last ten years there has been no increase of the consumption per head; which contrasts with a rapid increase in the period just before-viz. from about 131 lb. per head in 1865 to 1'46 lb. per head in 1875.

No doubt the observation here applies that the utmost prosperity would obviously be consistent with a slower rate of increase per head from period to period in the consumption of these articles, and with, in the end, a cessation of the rate of increase altogether. The consumption of some articles may attain a comparatively stationary state, the increased resources of the community being devoted to new articles. But here, again, we have to observe the necessity for explanation. The indications are no longer so sure and obvious in all directions as they

were.

It is difficult, indeed, to resist the impression made when we put all the facts together, leaving out of sight for a moment those of values only. We are able to affirm positively-(a) That the production of coal, iron, and other staple articles has been at a less rate in the last ten years than formerly; (b) that this has taken place when agricultural production has been notoriously stationary, and when the production of other articles such as copper, lead, &c., has positively diminished; (c) that there has been a similar falling-off in the rate of advance in the great textile industries; (d) that the receipts from railway traffic and the figures of shipping in the foreign trade show a corresponding slackening in the rate of increase in the business movement; and (e) that the figures as to consumption of leading articles, such as tea, sugar, spirits, and tobacco, in showing a similar decline in the rate of increase, and, in some cases, a diminution, are at least not in contradiction with the other facts stated, although it may be allowed that there was no antecedent reason to expect an indefinite continuance of a former rate of increase.

From these facts, however we may qualify them--and many qualifications have already been suggested, while others could be added-it seems tolerably safe to draw the conclusion that there has probably been a falling-off in the rate of material increase generally. The income-tax assessment figures, though they could not be taken by themselves in such a question, are, at least, not in contradiction, and there is nothing the other way when we deal with these main figures only. I should not put the conclusion, however, as more than highly probable. Some general explanation of the facts may be possible on the hypothesis that there is no real decline in the rate of growth generally at all; that the usual signs for various reasons have become more difficult to read; that owing to the advance already made the real growth of the country and, to some extent, of other countries, has taken a new direction; and that the utmost caution must be used in forming final conclusions on the subject. But the conclusion of a check having occurred to the former rate of growth may be assumed meanwhile for the purposes of discussion. The attempted explanation of the causes of change, on the hypothesis that there is a real change, may help to throw light on the question of the reality of the change itself.

Various explanations are suggested, then, not only for a decline in the rate of our progress, but for actual retrogression. Let us look at the principal of these explanations in their order, and see whether they can account for the facts: either for actual retrogression, or for a decline in the general rate of material growth equal to what some of the particular facts above cited, if they were significant of a general change in the rate of growth, imply-a decline, say, from a rate of growth amounting to 40 per cent. in ten years to one of 20 per cent. only in the same period.

One of the most common explanations, then, as we all know, is foreign competition. The explanation has been discredited because of the exaggeration of the alleged evil to be explained; but it may possibly be a good enough explanation of the actual facts when they are looked at in a proper way. In this light, then, the assertion as to foreign competition would be found to mean that foreigners are taking away from us some business we should otherwise have had, and that, consequently, although our business on the whole increases from year to year, it does

not increase so fast as when foreign competition was less. Those who talk most about foreign competition have actually in their mind the unfair element in that competition, the stimulus which the Governments of some foreign countries give or attempt to give to particular industries by means, on the one hand, of high tariffs keeping out the goods we should otherwise send to such countries, and giving their home industry of the same kind a monopoly which sometimes enables them to produce a surplus they can sell ruinously cheap abroad; and by means, on the other hand, of direct bounties which enable certain industries to compete in the home market of the United Kingdom itself, as well as in foreign markets. But there is a natural foreign competition as well as a stimulated foreign competition to be considered, and it may be the more formidable of the two.

Dealing first with the stimulated competition, the most obvious criticism on this alleged explanation of the recent decline in the rate of increase of our material progress is that the stimulus given by foreign Governments in recent years has not been increasing, or at any rate not materially increasing, so as to account for the change in question. People forget very quickly; otherwise it would not be lost sight of that after 1860, as far as European nations are concerned, there was a great reduction of tariff duties-a change, therefore, in the contrary direction to that stimulus which is alleged to have lately caused a change in the rate of our own development. Since about five or six years ago the movement on the Continent seems again to have been in the direction of higher tariffs. France, Italy, Austria, Germany, and Russia have all shown protectionist leanings of a more or less pronounced kind. Some of our colonies, especially Canada, have moved in the same direction. But, on the whole, these causes as yet have been too newly in operation to affect our industry on a large scale. As a matter of fact, with one exception to be presently noticed, the period from 1860 to 1880 was one in which the effect of the operation of foreign Governments in regard to their tariffs could not be to stimulate additional competition of an injurious kind with us in the way above described, but to take away, if anything, from the stimulus previously given. The changes quite lately brought into operation, if big enough, and if really having the effects supposed, might stimulate foreign competition in the way described in the period now commencing; but, as an explanation of the past facts, it is impossible to urge that foreign competition had recently been more stimulated by additions to tariffs than before, and that in consequence of this stimulus our own rate of advance had been checked.

Imme

The one exception to notice is the United States. diately after 1860 the civil war in that country broke out, and that war brought with it the adoption of a very high tariff. Curiously enough, however, that tariff operated most against us in the very years, that is, the years before 1875, in which our rate of advance was greater to all appearance than it has lately been. In 1883 there was a great revision of the tariff, having for its general result a slight lowering and not an enhancement of the tariff, and it is with this reduction, that is, with a diminution of the alleged adverse stimulus, that the diminution in our own rate of advance has occurred.

Of course the explanation may be that, although Governments have not themselves been active till quite lately in adding to their tariffs, yet circumstances have occurred to make the former tariffs more injurious in recent years than they were down to 1875. For instance, it may be said that, owing to the fall of prices in recent years, the burden of specific duties has become higher than it was. The duty is nominally unchanged, but by the fall of prices its proportion to the value of the article has become higher. This is no doubt the case to a large extent. On the other hand, ad valorem duties have been lowered in precisely the same way. The fall of prices has brought with it a reduction of duty; and especially on articles of English manufacture, where the raw material is obtained from abroad, the reduction of duty, being applicable to the whole price, must certainly have had for effect to render more effective than before the competition of the English manufacturer. Whether on the whole the reduction of ad valorem duties consequent on the fall of prices has been sufficient throughout the range of our foreign trade to compensate the virtual increase of the weight of specific duties from the same cause seems to be a nice question. This being the case, it must be very difficult indeed to show that on the whole the weight of foreign tariffs, apart from the action of foreign Governments, has been increased in recent years so as to affect our own growth injuriously.