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RECENT RATE OF MATERIAL PROGRESS IN ENGLAND J I I
From these {acts, however we may qualify them,
and many qualifications have already been suggested,
while others could be added, it seems tolerably safe to
draw the conclusion that there has probably been a
falling-off in the rate of material increase generally.
The income tax assessment figures, though they could
not be taken by themselves in such a question, are, at
least, not in contradiction, and there is nothing the
othe; way when we deal with these main figures only.
I should not put the conclusion, however, as more than
highly probable. Some general explanation of the
facts may be possible on the hypothesis that there is
no real decline in the rate of growth generally at all ;
that the usual signs for various reasons have become
more difficult to read; that owing to the advance
already made, the real growth of the country and, to
some extent, of other countries, has taken a new direc-
tion; and that the utmost caution must be used in
forming final conclusions on the subject. But the con-
clusion of a check having occurred to the former rate
of growth may be assumed meanwhile for the purposes
of discussion. The attempted explanation of the causes
of change, on the hypothesis that there is a real change,
may help to throw light on the question of the reality
of the change itself.
II.
Various explanations are suggested, then, not only
for a decline in the rate of our progress, but for actual
retrogression. Let us look at the principal of these
explanations in their order and see whether they can
account for the {acts; either {or actual retrogression,
or for a decline in the general rate of material growth
equal to what some of the particular {acts above cited
if they were significant of a general change in the rate
of growth imply-a decline, say, from a rate of growth
amounting to 40 per cent. in ten years to one of 20 per
cent. only in the same period. -
One of the most common explanations, as we all