The best measure of comparative wealth would be a statistical statement of accumulations. On this subject there are many wild guesses. The _Manufacturers' Record_ in January, 1907, makes claims for the South which deserve especial examination: "England's wealth, according to the London _Express_, is increasing at the rate of $7,000,000 a week. That is less than one seventh of the rate of the increase of wealth in the South. The increase in the true value of Southern wealth in the past twelve months was $2,690,000,000, or about $7,300,000 for every day in the year, including Sundays and holidays. Not only is the speed of increase in the South so much greater than that in England, but the South possesses resources, agricultural and mineral, that make certain in the future even a much greater rate of increase than England." Except poor old poverty-stricken New England, all the world will welcome this prodigious accretion of wealth. Think how many opera tickets you might buy for two and a half billions of dollars! The only attempt at exact figures of our national wealth is the estimate of the _Statistical Abstract_, published about every four years, and not based on any exact figures. Such as it is, it is relied upon by the Southern writers; and it sets forth that in the four years from 1900 to 1904 the total national wealth increased by less than 20 billions, an average of 5 billions a year; it is hardly likely that a third of the population, which in other respects is below the Northwest, was contributing more than half this annual gain. The only ground for the assertion seems to be an alleged increase in the Southern tax valuation from 7 billions in 1906 to 8 billions in 1907; assuming that the average proportion of valuation to actual value is forty per cent, you have your two billions and a half. The first comment on this statement, which is selected as typical of the broad claims which float through the Southern press, is that the figures furnished the _World Almanac_ for 1908 by the state authorities show that the Southern valuations in 1906 were 7,813 millions, and in 1907, 8,474 millions; so that the increase of assessments is 650 millions instead of 1,000 millions. In the second place, the estimated true value by the _Statistical Abstract_ in 1904 was about 20 billions for the whole South; and on a basis of comparison of the valuations of 1904 and 1907, the increase in the whole three years would be at best only two and a half billions. In the next place, two and a half billions a year means that every man, woman, and child, black and white, is on the average laying up a hundred dollars, which is an amazing rate of saving.