Income-tax returns indicate that the proportion of the population living on an acknowledged income of more than L150 a year is much larger than it was a generation ago.

In 1851 the income-tax-paying population amounted to 1,500,000; in 1879-80 the number had risen to 4,700,000.

At the same time the average of these incomes showed a considerable fall, for while in 1851 the gross income assessed was L272,000,000, in 1879-80 it had only risen to L577,000,000.
Though the method of assessing companies as if they were single persons renders it impossible to obtain accurate information in recent years as to the number of persons enjoying incomes of various sizes, a comparison made by Mr Mulhall of incomes in 1867 and 1895 indicates that, while the lower middle-class is growing rapidly, the number of the rich is growing still more rapidly.

While incomes of L100 to L300 have grown by a little more than 50 per cent., those from L300 to L1000 have nearly doubled, those between L1000 and L5000 have more than doubled, and incomes over L5000 have more than trebled.
But though such comparisons justify the conclusion that the upper grades of skilled labour have made considerable advances, and that the lower grades of regular unskilled labourers have to a less degree shared in this advance, they do not warrant the optimist conclusion often drawn from them, that poverty is a disease which left alone will cure itself, and which, in point of fact, is curing itself rapidly.

Before we consent to accept the evidence of improvement in the average condition of the labouring classes during the last half century as sufficient evidence to justify this opinion we ought to pay regard to the following considerations-- 1.