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104 ECONOMIC INQUIRIES AND STUDIES
these figures show is between 1855 and 1865, 53 per
cent.; between 1865 and 1875, 35 per cent.; and be-
tween 1875 and 1885, 20 per cent. only. The rate of
growth in the last ten years is much less than in the
twenty years just before. The percentages here, it will
be observed, are higher than in the case of the income
tax (!.ssessments. The increase in the last ten years in
particular is 20 per cent. as compared with an increase
of 10 per cent. only in the income tax assessments.
But the direction of the movement is in both cas~ the
same.
I need hardly say, moreover, that coal production
has usually been considered a good test of general
prosperity. Coal is specially an instrumental article,
the fuel of the machines by which our production is
carried on. Whatever the explanation may be, we
have now, therefore, to take account of the fact that
the rate of increase of the production of coal has been
less in the last ten years than in the twenty years just
before.
Then with regard to pig-iron, which is also an in-
strumental article, the raw material of that iron which
goes -to the making of the machines of industry, the
table -shows the following particulars of production:

Million Tons., Million Tons.
1855. . .• 3. 2 1875. 6·4
1865. . . 4.8 1885. • 7-4

And the rate of growth which these figures show is
between 1855 and 1865, 50 per cent.; between 1865
and 1875, 33 per cent.; and between 1875 and 1885,
16 per cent. only. Whatever the explanation may be,
we have thus to take account of a diminution of the
rate of increase in the production of pig-iron, much
resembling the diminution in the rate of increase of
the production of coal.
At the same time the miscellaneous mineral produc-
tion of the United Kingdom has mostly diminished