At the outset of our inquiry, it might seem well to avoid such debatable ground.

But the importance of the subject will not permit it to be thus shirked.

The following calculation presents what is, in fact, a compromise of various views, and can only claim to be a rough approximation to the truth.
Taking the four ordinary divisions: Rent, as payment for the use of land, for agriculture, housing, mines, etc.; Interest for the use of business capital; Profit as wages of management and superintendence; and Wages, the weekly earnings of the working-classes, we find that the national income can be thus fairly apportioned-- Rent L200,000,000.
Interest L450,000,000.
Profits L450,000,000.
Wages L650,000,000.[1] Total L1750,000,000.
Professor Leone Levi reckoned the number of working-class families as 5,600,000, and their total income L470,000,000 in the year 1884.[2] If we now divide the larger money, minus L650,000,000, among a number of families proportionate to the increase of the population, viz.
6,900,000, we shall find that the average yearly income of a working- class family comes to about L94, or a weekly earnings of about 36s.

This figure is of necessity a speculative one, and is probably in excess of the actual average income of a working family.
This, then, we may regard as the first halting-place in our inquiry.

But in looking at the average money income of a wage-earning family, there are several further considerations which vitally affect the measurement of the pressure of poverty.
First, there is the fact, that out of an estimated population of some 42,000,000, only 12,000,000, or about three out of every ten persons in the richest country of Europe, belong to a class which is able to live in decent comfort, free from the pressing cares of a close economy.