[17] The total annual imports are about four hundred and twenty million pounds. The amount retained for home consumption is about three hundred and sixty-five million pounds.
[18] The approximate value of the food consumed annually in the United Kingdom (exclusive of alcoholic drinks) is two hundred and ninety million pounds. The total value of food imported is over one hundred and fifty million pounds.
[19] The number of persons fed on home-grown meat was twenty-three millions one hundred thousand. The number fed on imported meat was fourteen millions seven hundred thousand. In other words, the number of persons who subsist on imported meat now is about equal to the entire population of the United Kingdom in 1801.
[20] From the year 1843 to 1851, the annual income of the nation averaged five hundred and fifteen million pounds, according to the calculations of Messrs. Leone Levi, Dudley Baxter, Mulhall, and Giffen.
[21] The actual figures are as follows:—In 1887 the estimates of the value of agricultural products per each individual actually engaged in agriculture were: United Kingdom, ninety-eight pounds; France, seventy-one pounds; Belgium, fifty-six pounds; Germany, fifty-two pounds; Austria, thirty-one pounds; Italy, thirty-seven pounds.
[22] It is understating the case to say that the British operative to-day works one hundred and eighty-nine hours less annually than his predecessor of forty or fifty years ago, and one hundred and eighty-nine hours = three weeks of nine hours a day. To this must be added at least a week of additional holidays.
[23] The hours of labour in Switzerland are, on an average, sixty-six a week.
[24] The agricultural population in France is about eighteen millions; in this country, about six millions. The produce of France is worth about four hundred and fourteen million pounds; of this country, two hundred and twenty-six million pounds.
[25] According to Eden it was about seventeen hundred million pounds at the beginning of the present century. Twenty-five years previously it was, according to Young’s estimate, eleven hundred million pounds.
[26] I have not mentioned Profits. They consist, says Mill, of Interest on Capital and Wages of Superintendence; to which he adds compensation for risk—a most important item, but not requiring to be included here.