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136 ECONOMIC INQUIRIES AND STUDIES
£68,800,000 to £94,600,000, or just about 37 per
cent. In the following ten years the increase was from
£94,600,000 to £128,500,000, or just about 36 per
cent. In" houses," then, as yet there is no sign of any
check to the general rate c,f the material growth of the
country. Allowing, in fact, for the great faU in prices
in the last ten years, the real increase in houses would
seem to have been more in the last ten years than in
the ten years just before.
Other facts, such as the increase of Post Office busi-
ness, may be referred to as tending to the same con·
elusion. But there is no need to multiply facts. If no
hypothesis is to be accepted except one that reconciles
all the facts, then these facts as to the increase of
population, diminution of pauperism, increase of sav-
ings bank deposits and depositors, increase of houses
must all be taken into account, as well as those signs
as regards production and other factors, which have
usually been most dwelt upon in discussing the ques-
tion of the accumulation of wealth and the material
growth of the people. If the signs of a check to pro-
duction in some directions can be reconciled with the
fact of an unchecked continuance of the former rate of
growth generally, then the later facts cited as to in-
crease of population, diminution of pauperism, and the
like, may be allowed to have their natural interpreta-
tion and to be conclusive on the point.
Such a general explanation, then, of the facts as to
production in leading industries and the like, referred
to in the earlier part of this address, consistent with
the fact that there is no serious falling-off in the rate
of our material growth generally, is to be found in the
supposition that industry by a natural law is becoming
more and more miscellaneous, and that as populations
develop, the disproportionate growth of the numbers
employed in such miscellaneous industries, and in what
may be called incorporeal functions, that is, as teachers,
artists, and the like, prevents the increase of staple
products continuing at the former rate.. This supposi-