[49] The part played in national progress by the mere business sagacity of investors, amounts practically to a constant criticism of inventions, discoveries, schemes, and enterprises of all kinds, and the selection of those that are valuable from amongst a mass of what is valueless and chimerical. [50] See Mr. Giffen’s Inaugural Address of the Fiftieth Session of the Statistical Society. [51] The gross amount assessed to income-tax in 1891 was nearly _seven hundred million pounds_; now more than _a hundred million pounds_ was exempt, as belonging to persons with incomes of less than _a hundred and fifty pounds_ a year. Mr. Giffen maintains (see his evidence given before the Royal Commission on Labour, 7th December 1892) that there is an immense middle-class income not included amongst the wages of the labouring class. This, according to the classification adopted above, which divides the population into those with incomes above, and those with incomes below _a hundred and fifty pounds_, would raise the collective incomes of the latter to over _seven hundred million pounds_. [52] See Mr. Giffen’s Address, as above. [53] If the number of employers does not increase, it is true that they, unlike the employed, will be richer in proportion to their numbers; but they will be poorer in proportion to the number of men employed by them. [54] Thus the old theory of the wage-fund, which has so often been attacked of late, has after all this great residuary truth, namely, that the amount of wealth that is spent and taken in wages is limited by the total amount of wealth produced _in proportion to the number_ of labourers who assist in its production. That theory, however, as commonly understood, is no doubt erroneous, though not for the reasons commonly advanced by its critics. The theory of a wage-fund as commonly understood means this—that if there were eight labourers and a capital of _four hundred pounds_, which would be spent in wages and replaced within a year, and if this were distributed in equal shares of _fifty pounds_, it would be impossible to increase the share of one labourer without diminishing that of the others; or to employ more labourers without doing the same thing. But the truth is that if means were discovered by which the productivity of any one labourer could be doubled during the first six months, the whole _fifty pounds_ destined for his whole year’s subsistence might be paid to him during the first six months, and the fund would meanwhile have been created with which to pay him a similar sum for the next six months—the employer gaining in the same proportion as the labourer. So, too, with regard to an additional number of labourers—if ability could employ their labour to sufficient advantage, part of the sum destined to support the original labourer for the second six months of the year might be advanced to them, and before the second six months’ wages became due there might be enough to pay an increased wage to all.