but the production is none the less real. If a nation chooses to produce more largely in this form as it becomes more prosperous, so that there is less development than was formerly the case in what were known as staple industries, it need not be becoming poorer for that reason; all that is happening is that its wealth and income are taking a different shape.

It is quite conceivable, then, and is in truth not improbable, that a check to the former rate of material growth in certain directions may have taken place of late years without any corresponding check to the rate of material growth generally, which would seem to be inconsistent with such facts as the growth of population, diminution of pauperism, increase of houses, and the like. The truth would seem to be that with the growth of staple industries, such as cotton, wool, coal, and iron, up to a point, there being reasons for the remarkably quick development of each for many years up to 1875, there comes a growth of new wants, the satisfaction of which drafts a portion of the national energy in new directions. Just because certain staples developed themselves greatly between 1855 and 1875 the time was likely to arrive when they would grow not quite so fast. For the same reason the rapid increase for a certain period in the consumption per head of articles like sugar and tea was likely to be followed by a less rapid increase, the wants of consumers taking a new direction. Probably owing to the more and more miscellaneous character of modern industry, it will become more and more difficult to follow its development by dealing with staple articles only, while changes in aggregate values are untrustworthy as indications of real changes owing to changes in prices. Already there seems to be no doubt the staple articles are no longer a sufficient indication.

A supplementary explanation may be added which helps to explain another difficulty in the matter by which people are puzzled. I can imagine them saying that is all very well to pooh-pooh the non-increase or slower increase of the production of staple articles, and to assume that industry is becoming more and more miscellaneous; but other countries go on increasing their production of these same staple articles. The increase of the manufactures of cotton, wool, coal, and iron in Germany and the United States, they will say, has in recent years been greater in proportion than in England, which is undoubtedly true. The explanation I have to suggest, however, is that the competition with the leading manufacturing country, which England still is, is naturally in the staple articles where manufacturing has been reduced to a system, the newer and more difficult manufactures and the newer developments of industry generally falling as a rule to the older country. Even in foreign countries, however, there

are signs of slower growth of recent years in the staple articles as compared with the period just before. In Germany, for instance, the production of coal increased between 1860 and 1866 (I take. the years which I find available in Dr. Neumann Spallart's "Uebersichten") from 12,300,000 tons to 28,200,000, or nearly 129 per cent.; between 1866 and 1876 the increase was from the figure stated to about 50 million tons, or about 77 per cent. only; between 1876 and 1885, another period of ten years, from the figure stated to 74 million tons, or less than 50 per cent.—a rapidly diminishing rate of increase. In the United States of America the corresponding figures for coal are 15, 22, 50, and 103 million tons, showing a greater increase than in Germany, but still a rather less rate of increase since 1876 than in the ten years before. The experience as to the iron production would seem to be different, the increase in the United States and Germany having been enormously rapid in the last ten years; but I have not been able here to carry the figures far enough back for comparison. Still the facts as to coal in Germany are enough to show how rapidly the rate of increase of growth may fall off when a certain point is reached, and that the experience of the United Kingdom is by no means exceptional. As the staple articles develop abroad the rate of increase in such articles will diminish too, and foreign industry in turn will become more and more miscellaneous.

The conclusion would thus be that there is nothing unaccountable in the course of industry in the United Kingdom in the last ten years. In certain staple industries the rate of increase has been less than it was in the ten years just before, but there would seem to have been no increase or little increase in the want of employment generally, while there is reason to believe that certain miscellaneous industries have grown at a greater rate than the staple industries, or have grown into wholly new being, and that there has also been some diversion of industry in directions where the products are incorporeal. These facts also correspond with what is going on abroad, a tendency to decline in the rate of increase of staple articles of production being general, and industry everywhere following the law of becoming more miscellaneous. Abroad also, we may be sure, as nations increase in wealth the diversion of industry in directions where the products are incorporeal will also take place. What the whole facts seem to bring out, therefore, is a change in the direction of industry of a most interesting kind. If we are to believe that the progress of invention and of the application of invention to human wants continues and increases, no other explanation seems possible of the apparent check to the rate of material growth which seems

to be so nearly demonstrated by some of the statistics most commonly appealed to in such questions.

At the same time I must apply the remark which I applied at the earlier stage to the opposite conclusion that there had been a real check to the rate of increase in our material growth. When the main statistics bearing on a particular point all indicate the same conclusion, it is not difficult to reason from them and to convince all who study them; but when the indications are apparently in conflict it would be folly to dogmatise. I have indicated frankly my own opinion, but I, for one, should like the subject to be more fully threshed out. It is a very obvious suggestion, moreover, that one may prove too much by such figures—that it is an outrage on common-sense to talk of there being no check to the rate of growth in the country when times are notoriously bad and everybody is talking of want of profit. What I should suggest finally, by way of a hypothesis reconciling all the facts, would be that probably there is some check to the rate of material growth in the last ten years, though not of the serious character implied by the first set of figures discussed; that this check may even be too small to be measured by general statistics, though it is sufficient to account for no small amount of malaise; and that the malaise itself is largely accounted for, as I have suggested on a former occasion, by the mere fall of prices, whatever the cause, as it involves a great redistribution of wealth and income, and makes very many people feel poorer, including many who are not really poorer, but only seem so, and many who are really richer if they only allowed properly for the increased purchasing power of their wealth. All these facts are quite consistent with the fact of a very slight real diminution in the rate of our material growth generally, and with that change in the direction of the national industry, significant of a general change beginning throughout the world which would seem to have occurred.

To some extent also it ought to be allowed that the tendency in the very latest years seems unsatisfactory, and that the developments of the next few years should be carefully watched. Up to now there is nothing really alarming in the statistics when they are analysed and compared. It may be the case, though I do not think it is the case, that causes are in operation to produce that great check and retrogression which have not as yet occurred, though many have talked as if they had occurred. The exact limits of the discussion should be carefully kept in mind.

Fortunately, however, there is no doubt what some of the conclusions on practical points should be. If it be the case that the hold of an old country like England on certain staple industries of the world is less firm than it was, and, as I believe, must be less

and less firm from period to period, owing to the natural development of foreign countries and the room there is among ourselves for development in new directions, then we should make assurance doubly sure that the country is really developing in new directions. If our dependence must be on the new advantages that have been described, such as acquired manufacturing skill, concentration of population, and the like, then we must make sure of the skill and of the best conditions of existence for the concentrated population. If, in point of fact, shorter hours of labour and taking things easy have contributed to check our rate of progress slightly, there is all the more reason for improving the human agent in industry so as to make work in the shorter hours more efficient. Looking at the stir there now is about technical education and such matters, and the hereditary character of our population, I see no cause to doubt that the future will be even more prosperous than the past. The national life seems as fresh and vigorous as ever. The unrest and complaints of the last few years are not bad signs. But the new conditions must be fully recognised. The utmost energy, mobility, and resource must be applied in every direction if we are only to hold our own.

SUMMARY of several MALE LIFE TABLES.

By Dr. WILLIAM OGLE, M.A., M.D., F.R.C.P.

THE following compendious table has been drawn up in a form that will facilitate ready comparison between several life tables, based on the mortality of males, either in different ranks of life, or living under different conditions of time or place, or selected as being in a healthy condition at the date when they first came under observation. It has been thought that such a summary table may be of use to those who are interested in the question of class mortality—a subject that has been recently discussed before this Society.

The table gives in its successive columns the percentage of males of 10, 15, 20, &c., years of age, who, according to the data in the several life tables, survive 5, 10, 15, &c., years.

The life tables thus summarised are

(1.) The New English Life Table.-This is a table based on the mortality of all males in England and Wales in the decennium 1871-80. It was constructed by myself, and published in the supplement to the Forty-fifth Annual Report of the RegistrarGeneral.

(2.) The Old English Life Table.-This is the well known table constructed by Dr. Farr, on the basis of the mortality in England and Wales in the seventeen years 1838-54.

(3.) The Healthy Males Table.-This is the Healthy Males table of the Institute of Actuaries, and is based on the experience of the principal insurance societies in regard to insured, and therefore exceptionally healthy, lives.

(4.) The Healthy Districts Table.-This is a table constructed by Dr. Farr, on the basis of the male mortality in 1849-53 in sixty-three selected districts of England and Wales, in none of which had the mean annual death-rate during the decennium 1841-50 exceeded 17 per 1,000. It is printed in the Thirty-third Annual Report of the Registrar-General.

(5.) The Upper Class Experience Table.-This is a table constructed by Mr. C. Ansell, from data collected by him as to men in the upper and the professional classes. It is given in his "Statistics of Families in the Upper and Professional Classes."

(6.) The Clerical Experience Table.-This is a table based on data collected by the Rev. John Hodgson as to rather more than 5,000 clergymen who lived between 1760 and 1860. The table is