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RECENT RATE OF MATERIAL PROGRESS IN ENGLAND 109
and 1875 no less than 60 per cent.; and between 1875
and 1885 about 33 per cent. only-again a less rate of
increase in the last ten years than in the period just
before. Here, too, it is to be noticed, what is unusual
in shipping industry, that in the last few years the
entries and clearances in the foreign trade have been
practically stationary. The explanation no doubt is in
part the great multiplication of lines of steamers up to
a c~paratively recent period, causing a remarkable
growth of the movement while the multiplication of
lines was itself in progress, and leaving room for less
growth afterwards because a new framework had been
provided within which traffic could grow. But here
again it is to be remarked that the whole change can
hardly, perhaps, be explained in this manner, while
the remark already made again applies, that the fact of
explanation being required is itself significant.
The figures of imports and exports might be treated
in a similar manner, as they necessarily follow the
course of the leading articles of production and the
movements of shipping. But we should only by so
doing get the figures we have been dealing with in
another form, and repetition is of course to be avoided.
The short table contains only another set of figures,
viz., those of the consumption of tea and sugar, which
are again cO!Jlmonly appealed to as significant of
general material progress. What we find as regards
tea is that the consumption per head rises between 1855
and 1865 from 2.3 to 3.31bs., or 43 per cent.; between
1865 and 1875 from 3· 3 to 4·4 Ibs., or 33 per cent.;
and between 1875 and 1885 from 4.4 to 5 lbs., or 131
per cent. In sugar the progression is in the first period
from 30.6 to 39.8 lbs. per head, or 30 per cent.; in the
second period from 39.8 to 62.7 Ibs., or 58 per cent.;
and in the third period from 62.7 to 74.3 lbs., or 19 per
cent. only. In the last ten years in both cases the rate
of increase is less than in the twenty years before.
These facts, I need hardly say. would be strengthened
by a reference to the consumption of spirits and beer,