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RECENT RATE OF MATERIAL PROGRESS IN ENGLAND 133
eitherof the previous decades when the rate of material
growth seemed so much greater. If there had been
such real diminution in the rate of material growth,
ought there not to have been some increase in the
want of employment and in pauperism to correspond?
It is one of the most notorious facts of the case,
however, that there has been no increase, but instead
a very steady decrease of pauperism, excepting in
Ireland, which is so small as not to affect the general
result. As regards England, the figures are very
striking indeed. The average number of paupers and
proportion to population have been as follows in quin-
quennial periods in England since 1855:
Number of Proportion to
Paupers. Population per cent.
18 55-59 895,000 4.7
1860-64 948;000 4.7
186 5- 69 962,000 4·5
18 70-74 952,000 4.2
18 75-79 753,000 3.1
1880-84 787,000 3.0
Thus there has been a steady diminution in the pro-
portion to the population all through, accompanied by
a diminution in the absolute numbers between 1865-69
and 1875-79, though there has since been a slight in-
crease. In spite of all that can be urged as to a more
stringent poor-law administration having made all the
difference, it is difficult to believe that a real falling-off
of a serious kind in the rate of our material growth in
late years as compared with the period just before
should not have led to some real increase of pauperism.
Change of administration may do much, but it cannot
alter the effect of any serious increase in the want of
employment in a country.
The corresponding figures ?os to Scotland are much
the same:
Number of Proportion to
Paupers. Population ~r cent.
18SS'59 123,000 4·2
1860.64 125,000 4. 2
1865- 69 131,000 4·3