gross animal income is, and has been, distributed amongst the few who possess the annual tens of thousands, down to the many who possess from a hundred to it hundred and fifty; we can tell the exact proportion of the population amongst which these incomes are divided. If we deduct the amount assessed to income-tax from the gross national income, and the number of those who have to pay income-tax from the total national population, we get at the income and number of the poorer or working classes. It is true we can only get an average, but we get data of sufficient value to answer the question negatively or affirmatively, as to whether, in the distribution of the national income, the working classes are receiving less or more as the nation progresses in its material prosperity.

"To actual figures, then, let us now turn; and looking back over the last fifty years, let us see what facts are definitely known and recorded; first, as to the increase in the gross income of the country ; and secondly, as to the manner in which this increase has been distributed. Let us begin by taking the four following periods, as to which it so happens that we can speak with exceptional certainty-1813, 1851, 1864, and from 1880 to 1883-and let us note what at each period was the gross income of the nation. In 1843 it was, in round numbers, £515,000,000, in 1851 it was £616,000,000, in 1861 it was £814,000,000, and since 1880 it has reached, or perhaps somewhat exceeded, £1,200,000,000. These figures, directly or indirectly, are all of them guaranteed by those very authorities (Mr. Giffen, Mr. Mulhall, Mr. Dudley Baxter, and Professor Leone Levi) to whom Mr. Hyndman refers as final. Let us now take, in each of the above-mentioned years, the amount that was assessed to income?