◆1 Which are quite independent of the growth of population;
◆¹ Some readers will perhaps be tempted to say that in this there is nothing wonderful, for it is due to the increase of population. But the increase of population has nothing to do with the matter. It cannot have anything to do with what I am now stating. For when I say that within a certain period the income of the nation has doubled itself, I mean that it has doubled itself in proportion to the population; so that, no matter how many more millions of people there may be in the country now than there were at the beginning of the period in question, there is annually produced for each million of people now nearly twice the income that was produced for each million of people then. Or in other words, an equal division now would give each man nearly double the amount that it would have given him when Mr. Gladstone was beginning to be middle-aged.
◆1 As we may see by comparing the income of this country with the income of others.
◆¹ But we must not be content with comparing our national income with itself. Let us compare it also with the incomes of other countries; and let it in all cases be understood that the comparison is between the income as related to the respective populations, and not between the absolute totals. We will begin with France. It is estimated that, within the last hundred and ten years, the income of France has, relatively to the population, increased more than fourfold. A division of the income in 1780 would have given six pounds a head to everybody: a similar division now would give everybody twenty-seven pounds. And yet the income of France, after all this rapid growth, is to-day twenty-one per cent less than that of the United Kingdom. Other comparisons we shall find even more striking. Relatively to the respective populations, the income of the United Kingdom exceeds that of Norway in the proportion of thirty-four to twenty; that of Switzerland, in the proportion of thirty-four to nineteen; that of Italy, in the proportion of thirty-four to twelve; and that of Russia, in the proportion of thirty-four to eleven. The comparison with Italy and Russia brings to light a remarkable fact. Were all the property of the upper classes in those countries confiscated, and the entire incomes distributed in equal shares, the share of each Russian would be fifty per cent less, and of each Italian forty per cent less than what each inhabitant of the United Kingdom would receive from a division of the income of its wage-earning classes only.
We find, therefore, that if we take equal populations of men,—populations, let us say, of a million men each,—either belonging to the same nation at different dates, or to different civilised nations at the same date, that the incomes produced by no two of them reach to the same amount; but that, on the contrary, the differences between the largest income and the others range from twenty to two hundred per cent.
◆1 The causes of these differences in income are not differences of race,
◆¹ Now what is the reason of this? Perhaps it will be said that differences of race are the reason. That may explain a little, but it will not explain much; for these differences between the incomes produced by equal bodies of men are not observable only when men are of different races; but the most striking examples,—namely, those afforded by our own country and France—are differences between the incomes produced by the same race during different decades—by the same race, and by many of the same individuals.
◆1 Nor of soil or climate,
◆¹ Perhaps then it will be said that they are due to differences of soil and climate. But again, that will not explain the differences, at various dates, between the incomes of the same countries; and though it may explain a little, it will not explain much, of the differences at the same date between the incomes of different countries. The soil and climate, for instance, of the United Kingdom, are not in themselves more suited for agriculture than the soil and climate of France and Belgium; and yet for each individual actually engaged in agriculture, this country produces in value twenty-five per cent more than France, and forty per cent more than Belgium. I may add that it produces forty-six per cent more than Germany, sixty-six per cent more than Austria, and sixty per cent more than Italy.[21]
◆1 Nor of hours of labour,