Page:Indian Journal of Economics Volume 2.djvu/256

 244 H. STANLEY JEVONS consumption of the necessaries of life, absolnte and con- venional, o such .n extent as to impair le efficiency ot he people as woikers. The very great variation o! wants as between different persons makes it., oi course, impossible to arrive at ny .1)recise mesnre or een a really precise deftnit. ion of taxable Calmcity. Many persons, for example, will e'en rednee tieir consnmption of tle necessaries of life below what is reqnisite for efficiency rather than entirely forego lxnries; and again, a. very great difference exists between differen pple as to the degree ot efficiency obtainable by distt'ibuting the exlendihre of their vailable i.come on necessaries. The income which wonld serve te keep one family fnlly efficient may be insnffiien for another family o! eqnal size, simply owing to the nnwise distrib. tion of xpenditure mde by the latter. In economic ideas of this class it is necessary to deal with average resnit. s, taldng the hnman leings'ot the commnnity in the mass. By doing this we are really tking short cnt. s in tle analysis of the effects of legal mesnres npo. the l)eople, and it must not be forgotten that a complete nalysis will demand an enqniry into the hateits of varions classes of individnals. For my prese. t pnrpose, lowever, it is snfficient to deal with broad general averages, and to 'give oly an occasional or inciden.al indication of effects nl)o. the different classes of the popnltion. A practicable capacity of any nethod of popnlatio. estimating the may lm songht. by some taxable fnrher analysis of social income. The people may be regarded as diided into two classes: (1) Government servants of the civil and military services whose salaries are paid out of the taxes and laud revenue and tenths received. by Governmen (to whom the term Govern- ment sernts will be confined here); ('2) the t.st ol the population, including all Governmen employees in