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RECENT RATE OF MATERIAL PROGRESS IN ENGLAND I2I
1 have set forth elsewhere in an elaborate essay I the
reasons for holding this opinion; why it is, in fact,
that as foreign nations grow richer we should be better
off absolutely than if they were to remain poor, though
relatively they might advance more than we do. But,
whatever theory may say, in point of fact the check to
the rate of our material growth cannot, for the reasons
stated, have been due to anything which has happened
to oult foreign trade.
Another explanation which has been suggested, and
to which I have myself been inclined to attach con-
siderable weight as being plainly, as far as it goes, a
vera causa, is the extent to which the hours of labour
have been reduced in many employments in conse-
quence of the improvement in the condition of the
working classes in the last half· century, and the growth
of a disposition to take things easier, which has been
the result of the general prosperity of the country.
Such causes when they exist, and when they are brought
into operation, must tend to diminish the rate of ma-
terial growth in a country as compared with a period
just before when they were not in operation. If we
could suppose them brought into operation suddenly,
all other things, such as the progress and development
of invention, remaining the same, such a reduction of
hours of labour and growth of a disposition to take
things easy, must produce a check to the former rate
of growth.
After some consideration, however, although there
is no doubt of the general tendency of the causes re-
ferred to, I begin to doubt whether they would explain
adequately such a check to the rate of material growth
generally throughout the country as is assumed to have
occurred. As regards the shortening of the hours of
labour, which is the more definite fact to be dealt with,
it cannot but be observed that the shortening has by
no means been universal. It has been conspicuous
I See my It Essays in Finance," 2nd series, .. Foreign Manufactures
and English Trade," p. 240.