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RECENT RATE OF MATERIAL PROGRESS IN ENGLAND 105
absolutely., On this head, not to weary you with figures.
I have not thought it necessary to insert anything in
the above short table; but I may refer you to the
tables put in by the Board of Trade before the Royal
Commission on Trade Depression. Let me only state
very briefly that while the average annual amount of
copper produced from British ores amounted in 1855
to over 20,000 tons, in 1865 the amount was about
12,000 tons only, in 1875 under 5,000 tons, and in
1885·under 3,000 tons. As regards lead again, while
the production about 1855 was 65,000 tons, and in
1865 jlbout 67,000 tons, the amount in 1875 had been
reduced to 58,000 tons, and in 1885 to less than
40,000 tQns. In white tin there is an improvement up
to 1865, but no improvement since, and the only set-
off, a very partial one, is in zinc, which rises steadily
from about 3,500 tons in 1858, the earliest date for
which particulars are given. to about 10,000 tons in
1885, considerably higher figures having been touched
in 1881.83. There is nothing, then, in these figures as
to miscellaneous mineral production to mitigate the
impression of the diminution in the rate of increase in
the great staples, iron and coal, in recent years.
Agricultural production, it is also notorious, has
.been at any rate no better. or not much better, than
stationary for some years past, although down to a
comparatively recent period a steady improvement
seemed to be going on. Making all allowance for the
change in the character of the cultivation, by which
the gross produce is diminished, although the net
profit is not affected to the same extent, and which
might be held to argue no real decline in the rate of
general growth if the population, diverted from agri-
culture, were more profitably employed, yet the facts,
broadly looked at, taken in connection with the other
facts stated as to diminished rate of increase in other
leading industries. seem to confirm the supposition that
there may have been some diminution in the rate of
increase generally.