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384 ECONOMIC INQUIRIES AND STUDIES
of distribution and less taxes, and to show the cost of distribution
and the expense of national services as separate items. The final result
is, of course, the same as that followed in 1881; but it is important
to realize that, taking the community in mass, when a man buys a
pound of tea, for instance, or a gallon of spirits, he pays only part of
the sum b,e gives for the tea or the spirits, and that the remainder is
paid either for government services or for the expense of bringing it
from the wholesale dealer who receives it from the producer, or from
the producer himself when there is no intermediary, to the door of
the consumer.
It will be observed that two items tare added in italics in order to
show a correspondence between the aggregate income and aggregate
expenditure. But this is merely to "round off," and there is no
pretence at exact statement. The question of how professional and
domestic services should be dealt with is, of course, a controversial
one, but as they are included in the income, an equal sum should
appear in the expenditure, less amounts paid for such services in-
cluded in the cost of production and distribution. The services, as
for builders and others, which result in permanent works, really
represent an investment of capital, to which the services of a certain
portion of the community have been appropriated. They have created
so much' which is not consumed:, The increase of capital since 1885
having been about 5,000 million £, or 277 million £ per annum,
the figure of 264 million £ here shown as the annual investment at
the present time is fairly justified. Probably the figure is lower than
it ought to be, and a higher estimate of income should have been
worked up to.
With regard to particular items, I have to make the following
observations supplementary to the information contained in the table
itself:
Bread.-The value of wheat and wheat flour imported in 1902 was
36 million £ sterling, the quantity being 81,000,000 cwts. of wheat
and 19t million cwts. of flour, or about 108,000,000 cwts. in
equivalent cwts. of wheat -alone, giving a price of 6s. 8d. per cwt.,
and about 29S' per quarter. The home produce, estimated at 7,000,000
quarters, gives a sum at the same price of about 10 million £-total,
46 million £, making, with the addition for manufacture, etc., a total
of about 60 million £ as here stated. It is an omission, perhaps, as
it was in the Report of 1881, that nothing is put down for oats and
other grains used as food, but the omission seems immaterial for the
present purpose, especially as we should have to make a deduction,
if the matter was gone into minutely, for home wheat consumed by
cattle and not used as human food. The heading " bread" of course
includes biscuits and other manufactures from wheat.
Potatoes.-Imports, about £5 lOS. per ton, 1.6 million £. Home
production for hOllsehold use at 2 cwts. per head of population,
4,200,000 tons at, say, £5 per ton-total 23 million £. The
estimate of 2 cwts. per head of popUlation was given by Mr. Turnbull