But though such comparisons justify the conclusion that the upper grades of skilled labour have made considerable advances, and that the lower grades of regular unskilled labourers have to a less degree shared in this advance, they do not warrant the optimist conclusion often drawn from them, that poverty is a disease which left alone will cure itself, and which, in point of fact, is curing itself rapidly. Before we consent to accept the evidence of improvement in the average condition of the labouring classes during the last half century as sufficient evidence to justify this opinion we ought to pay regard to the following considerations-- 1. It should be remembered that a comparison between England of the present day with England in the decade 1830-1840 is eminently favourable to a theory of progress. The period from 1790 to 1840 was the most miserable epoch in the history of the English working-classes. Much of the gain must be rightly regarded rather as a recovery from sickness, than as a growth in normal health. If the decade 1730-1740, for example, were to be taken instead, the progress of the wage-earner, especially in southern England, would be by no means so obvious. The southern agricultural labourer and the whole body of low-skilled workers were probably in most respects as well off a century and a half ago as they are to-day. 2. The great fall of prices, due to cheapening of production and of transport during the last twenty years, benefits the poor far less than the rich. For, while the prices of most comforts and luxuries have fallen very greatly, the same is not true of most necessaries. The gain to the workers is chiefly confined to food prices, which have fallen some 40 per cent since 1880. Taking the retail prices of foods consumed by London working-class families we find that since 1880 the price of flour has fallen about 60 per cent., bread falling a little more than half that amount; the prices of beef and mutton have fallen nearly to the same extent as flour, though bacon stands in 1903 just about where it stood in 1880. Sugar exhibits a deep drop until 1898, rising afterwards in consequence of the war tax and the Sugar Convention; tea shows a not considerable drop. Other groceries, such as coffee and cocoa, and certain vegetables are cheaper. A careful inquiry into clothing shows a trifling fall of price for articles of the same quality, while the introduction of cheaper qualities has enabled workers to effect some saving here. Against these must be set a slight rise in price of dairy produce, a considerable rise in fuel, and a large rise in rent. A recent estimate of the Board of Trade, having regard to food, rent, clothing, fuel, and lighting as chief ingredients of working-class expenditure, indicates that 100 shillings will in 1900 do the work for which 120 shillings were required in 1880. The great fall of prices has been in the period 1880-1895, since then prices all round (except in