RICHER OR POORER.

Timaru Herald, Volume XL, Issue 3197, 24 December 1884, Page 3

RICHER OR POORER.

(Macmillan's Magazhic.) That the rich aro growing richer and the poor poorer is the exact reverse of the truth. The aggregation of vast individual wealth m the midst of general poverty is the characteristic, not indeed of barbarism, for barbarians, chiefs and people, are all alike miserably poor, but of a low or arrested civilisation, like that of ancient Egypt and modern India. EiiormoUß palaces and temples, vast public monuments like the Pyramids, attest not lcds thd . pressure of woalth than that of poverty. They exist where the resources of tho State are great 'byt gathered m a few hands, where labor . is miserably paid, recklessly and unproductively laviahed. When the first English adventurers wore dazzled by the splendour of ludinn courts, the hoarded gold and jewels of royal treasuries, the vast empire of the Mogols was probably less wealthy than the realm of Elizabeth or the Stuarts. The handloom weavers of Yorkshire, the peasants of Dorsetshire, lived m what would have seemed to the growers of coffee and silk, the weavers of Cashmere shawls and Persian carpetß, increditable wealth and luxury. The same rule holds good m the comparison of ages as m that of countries. There are m Europe and America fortunes that our grandfathers would have deemed literally fabulous ; ten or a dozen, perhaps, of from ten to twenty millions each. But there are thrico as many millionaires, ten times aa mnny wealthy, and incomparably inoru well-provided families. The returns of our own income-tai are conclusive on this point. Tho total income subject to the tax has multiplied threefold m forty years. Without entering into the statistics amassed by calculators like Profeßsor Levi,' it is clear that only a few great landowners, chiefly m or near great cities, have doubled or trebled their rental ; a few score of hereditary bnsineßs fortunes of the first order have grown, chiefly by saving, ip the same or greater proportion. But these constitute a very small fraction of the trebled income of the upper and middle classes. A much greater part of that inorease beJongß to families now rich whose father* and grandfathers wero well-to-do ot possibly poor ; tho largest by far tc families which, within a couple of generations, have risen from poverty to competence. In a' word, the realised wealth of the country is diffused among s greater number of wealthy, a far greatot nnmbor of well-to-do folk than forty 01 fifty years ago. The rich doubtless nr( growing richer ; the fortunate among th( poor have jjrown rich or woll-tp-do. An the poor poorer? Assuredly not. Monaj wages havo risen rapidly, and on th« whole steadily. The proportion of skillec laborers is constantly increasing am their remuneration rising. Tn manufac hires paid by the piece the payment pc pound of yarn, iron, or coal, per yard o cloth may not be higher, ,may m com instances have fallen, but tho wenkl; earnings of tho irtißtin have certainly m creased. The use of machinery has boei extended, its efficiency vastly improved and the advantage has hot fallen solely perhaps not even chiefly, to the capitalist With the same or less labor, m the sam Or shorter hours, the piece-worker ca turn out a much larger total, and th prioe, if not increased, has never bee diminished i/i anything like the same pro portion. Even that which is classed 11 unskilled labor js on the whole far both paid.' In the neighborhood of Londo and other large towns for example, tr more laborer receives 3b Od to 4b pi diom m lieu of 2» Od. Tho peasai gats 10s, 12s, or 16s instead of 7« or 10 Apd. money jragei go jmioh farther tfu

of old. Nothing except town rent, en butcher's meat, and dairy produce has P- riaen m cost. Course clothing, bread, 9t9 sui.'ar, tea, nearly every considerable item )n > of expenditure m families with an income l j' less than 40s a week, has fallen from 20 q - to 50 per cent. Even meat may be had sts at prices quite as much or more within . the reach of such families than thirty or !„{ forty years back. Australian mutton, j ft . American beef, are liturally as good as, if ;2, not better than, the home-fed or liveed imported butcher's meat which prejudice has raised to such extravagant prices, or Many, we may suspect, pay the exorbitant English prices for meat really raised on the ranges of New South Wales or the as prairies of Texas. Most home-grown " meat is forced : is the flesh of young "• animals stimulated to unnaturally rapid T * development. The full-grown animals of the States and Colonies, noirrished on , scantier herbage, have the firmer flesh, n t the superior flavor so highly prized m ag Welsh mutton and Highland venison. ]c One article of food alone, fish, is mon•t strously and unnaturally dear, owing d, partly no doubt to its exceedingly perishable character, partly to an absurd s, and unrighteous monopoly, fostered by arrangements which thoughtful and 3s philanthropic men and women have striven m vain to defeat, partly to the 5 » prejudice of the poor themselves. A large ts popular demand might be met at prices marvellously moderate. There can be no a > reasonable doubt that the laboring poor, as a rule, are far better paid, more cheaply le clothed, better and more cheaply fed than their fathers and grandfathers. In overy )( . sense but one they are richer. Unhappily, n m great cities, and above nil m London, they are, if not worse, certainly more ex- - i> pensively lodged. Even here, however, I. there is much exaggeration. Tho disap--11 pearance of the cellar dwellings of Liverpool and other cities bears significant testi1, mony to the growing wealth of one of the poorer, if not, unhappily, the poorest >> section of the poor. Paupers are certainly better treated, better cared for, though pauperism is more strictly defined and relief more sternly and 0 wisely regulated than of old. Un- , e fortunately, between the lowest ranks of regular labor and the frontiers of actual pauperism or crime, there lies a large and very miserable class dependent on s precariousemployment, occasional charity, s mendicancy, and chance pilfering — the s denizens of our rookerieß, the occupants s of the casual wards of our workhouses, s It would bo rash to pronounce that these 3 are either less or more miserable than a their fathers. s —^—^— —^__^_^__