Labour and the Popular Welfare

by W. H. Mallock

Of a total of eleven hundred and seventy million pounds, perishable goods count for five hundred and twenty million pounds, durable goods and chattels for two hundred and fifty million pounds, and services and uses for four hundred million pounds. Thus, less than a quarter of what we call the national income consists of material things which we can keep and collect about us; little less than half consists of material things which are only produced to perish, and perish almost as fast as they are made; and more than a third consists of actions and services which are not material at all, and pass away and renew themselves even faster than food and fuel.

◆1 A large part of the national income consists of things that are imported.

◆2 Most of our food is imported.

◆¹ This is how the national income appears, as seen from one point of view. Let us change our ground, and see how it appears to us from another. We shall see the uses and the services—to the value of four hundred million pounds—still grouped apart as before. But the remaining elements, representing nearly eight hundred million pounds, and consisting of durable and perishable material things, we shall see dividing itself in an entirely new way—into material things made at home, and material things imported. We shall see that the imported things come to very nearly half;[17] and we shall see further that amongst these imported things food forms incomparably the largest item. But the significance of this fact is not fully apparent till we consider what is the total amount of food consumed by us; and when we do that, we shall see that, exclusive of alcoholic drinks, actually more than half come to us from other countries.[18] The reader perhaps may think that this imported portion consists largely of luxuries, which, on occasion, we could do without. If he does think so, let him confine his attention to those articles which are most necessary, and most universally consumed—namely bread, meat, tea, coffee, and sugar—◆² and he will see that our imports are to our home produce as ninety to seventy-three. If we strike out the last three, our position is still more startling;[19] and most startling if we confine ourselves to the prime necessary—bread. The imported wheat is to the home-grown wheat as twenty-six to twelve: that is to say, of the population of this kingdom twenty-six millions subsist on wheat that is imported, and only twelve millions on wheat that is grown at home; or, to put the matter in a slightly different way, we all subsist on imported wheat for eight months of the year.

◆1 Thus the national income is a product of infinite complexity.

◆¹ And now let the reader reflect on what all this means. It means that of the material part of the national income half consists, not of goods which we ourselves produce, but of foreign goods which are exchanged for them; and are exchanged for them only because, by means of the most far-reaching knowledge, and the most delicate adaptation of skill, we are able to produce goods fitted to the wants and tastes of distant nations and communities, many of which are to most of us hardly even known by name. On every workman’s breakfast-table is a meeting of all the continents and of all the zones; and they are united there by a thousand processes that never pause for a moment, and thoughts and energies that never for a moment sleep.

◆1 Its amount also varies owing to infinitely complicated causes,

◆¹ A consideration of these facts will be enough to bring home to anybody the accuracy of the simile of which I made use just now, when I compared the income of the nation to the column thrown up by a fountain. He will see how, like such a column, it is a constant stream of particles, taking its motion from a variety of complicated forces, and how it is a phenomenon of force quite as much as a phenomenon of matter. He will see that it is a living thing, not a dead thing: and that it can no more be distributed by any mechanical division of it, than the labour of a man can be distributed by cutting his limbs to pieces.

This simile of the fountain, though accurate, is, like most similes, incomplete. It will, however, serve to introduce us to one peculiarity more by which our national income is distinguished, and which has an even greater significance than any we have yet dealt with.

In figuring the national income as the water thrown up by a fountain, we of course suppose its estimated amount or value to be represented by the volume of the water and the height to which it is thrown. What I am anxious now to impress on the attention of the reader is that the height and volume of our national fountain of riches are never quite the same from one year to another; whilst we need not extend our view beyond the limits of one generation to see that they have varied in the most astonishing manner. The height and volume of the fountain are now very nearly double what they were when Mr. Gladstone was in Lord Aberdeen’s Ministry.[20]