Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 25.djvu/49

 of partnerships to which individuals belonged, or from partnerships as a rule comprising a greater or less number of individuals. Using the figures with all these qualifications, we get the following comparison:

Here the increase in all classes, from the lowest to the highest, is between two and three times, or rather more than three times, with the exception of the highest class of all, where the numbers, however, are quite inconsiderable. Again a proof, I think, of the greater diffusion of wealth so far as the assessment of income to income-tax under Schedule D may be taken as a sign of the person assessed having wealth of some kind, which I fear is not always the case. If the owners of this income, at least of the smaller incomes, are to be considered as not among the capitalists, but among the working-classes—a very arguable proposition—then the increase of the number of incomes from £150 up to say £1,000 a year is a sign of the increased earnings of working-classes, which are not usually thought of by that name. The increase in this instance is out of all proportion to the increase of population.

In giving these figures I have omitted the incomes under £150. There is quite a want of satisfactory data for any comparison, I think, except as regards incomes actually subject to assessment, and the data at the beginning of the period are specially incomplete.

Whichever way we look at the figures, therefore, we have this result, that while the increase of personal property per head of the capitalist class, according to the probate returns, is comparatively small, being only about 15 per cent, yet there is an increase of the number