Social Transformations of the Victorian Age: A Survey of Court and CountryEscott, T. H. S. (Thomas Hay Sweet)
History
Social Transformations of the Victorian Age: A Survey of Court and Country
Escott, T. H. S. (Thomas Hay Sweet)
Great Britain -- Civilization -- 19th century; Great Britain -- Social life and customs -- 19th century
The interesting analysis of the resources of the different orders of the
community contained in Mr W. H. Mallock's 'Classes and Masses' supplies
tolerably conclusive evidence that the results of mining and railway
enterprise have been distributed not very unequally between the rich and
the poor, or, as Mr Mallock rather puts it, between income tax payers on
£1,000 or upwards a year and those who, earning less than £150 a year, pay
no income tax at all. His estimate is that the population of England
contains seven hundred thousand families, equal to a total of three
million souls, 'with means of subsistence, insufficient, barely
sufficient, or precarious.' Although these figures represent the entire
population at the Norman conquest, Mr Mallock is able to show that
relatively to all inhabiting this realm the necessitous class has
decreased, not increased. In the seventeenth century, one-third of the
dwellers in Sheffield, then (1615) as to-day a great manufacturing centre,
were dependent on charity. Thirteen years after the Queen's accession
(_i.e._ 1850), out of every two hundred of our population nine were
paupers. In 1882 the proportion of pauperism was only five. Between 1850
and 1897 the population has increased from twenty-eight millions to
thirty-eight millions. The income-tax payers have increased from one
million and a half to nearly eight millions.[8] Incomes between £150 and
£1,000 have increased from three hundred thousand to nine hundred and
ninety thousand. Incomes above £1,000 have increased from twenty-four
thousand to sixty thousand; or, as this authority finds it more convenient
to put it, the middle class has grown by six hundred and ninety thousand.
The rich have been re-inforced by only thirty-six thousand. On the other
hand Mr Mallock is able to dispose of the fallacy that during the present
reign the very richest class have grown richer still. In 1850 the incomes
of fifty thousand pounds and upwards were seventy-two thousand; in 1897
they are nearer a hundred thousand; thus while the fairly well-to-do
middle classes have increased by hundreds of thousands, the professional
plutocrats measure their increase only by a few simple thousands. Briefly
summarized, the arithmetical argument of Mr Mallock is as follows. In
1800 the whole wealth of the country was two hundred and forty million
pounds. Of that amount the workers took one hundred and eleven million
pounds, leaving for the middle classes and the rich one hundred and thirty
million pounds. Three quarters of a century later, or more exactly in
1881, Mr Mallock's latest date, making his argument still more applicable
to 1897, the total of national wealth was one thousand three hundred
millions. Of this the workers had six hundred and sixty millions. The
working classes had thus, from being twenty millions behind the rich at
the opening of the century, advanced twenty millions beyond the rich
towards its close. From these figures, the inference is fair, and indeed
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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