◆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. [Sidenote ◆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. [Sidenote ◆1 Its amount also varies owing to infinitely complicated causes,]