[7] The number of females over fifteen years of age is about _twelve millions_. Those who work for wages number less than _five millions_. [8] Mr. Giffen’s latest estimates show that not more than twenty-three per cent of the wage-earners in this country earn less than _twenty shillings_ a week; whilst seventy-seven per cent earn this sum and upwards. Thirty-five per cent earn from _twenty shillings_ to _twenty-five shillings_; and forty-one per cent earn more than _twenty-five shillings_. See evidence given by Mr. Giffen before the Labour Commission, 7th December 1892. [9] The reader must observe that I speak of the _rent_ of the land, not of the land itself, as the subject of the above calculation. I forbear to touch the question of any mere change in the occupancy or administration of the land, or even of any scheme of nationalising the land by purchasing it at its market price from the owners; for by none of these would the present owners be robbed pecuniarily, nor would the nation pecuniarily gain, except in so far as new conditions of tenure made agriculture more productive. All such schemes are subjects of legitimate controversy, or, in other words, are party questions; and I therefore abstain from touching them. I deal in the text with facts about which there can be no controversy. [10] It is also every year becoming more unimportant, in diametrical contradiction of the theories of Mr. H. George. This was pointed out some twelve years ago by Professor Leone Levi, who showed that whereas in 1814 the incomes of the landlord and farmer were fifty-six per cent of the total assessed to income-tax, in 1851 they were thirty-seven per cent, and in 1880 only twenty-four per cent. They are now only sixteen per cent. [11] See Local Government Board valuation of 1878. [12] Recent falls in rent make it impossible to give the figures with actual precision; but the returns in the New Doomsday Book, taken together with subsequent official information, enable us to arrive at the substantial facts of the case. In 1878 the rental of the owners of more than _a thousand_ acres was _twenty-nine million pounds_. The rental of the rural owners of smaller estates was _thirty-two million pounds_; and the rental of small urban and suburban owners was _thirty-six million pounds_. The suburban properties averaged _three and a half_ acres, the average rent being _thirteen pounds_ per acre.