agricultural land with farm buildings, is probably too low.Sir R.Giffen estimates the value of public property at .500: and he omits public loans held at home, on the ground that the entries for them would cancel one another, as much being debited under the head of public property as is credited under that of private property.But Mr Money reckons the gross value of public roads, parks, buildings, bridges, sewers, lighting and water works, tramways etc.at .1,650: and, after deducting from this .1,200 for public loans he gets .450 for the net value of public property; and he thus becomes free to count public loans held at home under private property.He estimates the value of foreign stock exchange securities and other foreign property held in the United Kingdom at .1,821.These estimates of wealth are mainly based on estimates of income: and, as regards the statistics of income, attention may be directed to Mr Bowley's instructive analysis in National progress since 1882; and in The Economic Journal for September 1904.
Sir R.Giffen estimates the wealth of the British Empire in 1903 (Statistical Journal, Vol.66, p.584) thus:
United Kingdom.......15,000
Canada........." 1,350
Australasia........." 1,100
India........." 3,000
South Africa......" 600
Remainder of Empire..." 1,200
A tentative history of changes in the relative wealth of different parts of England has been deduced by Rogers from the assessment of the several counties for the purpose of taxation.
Le Vicomte d' Avenel's great work L'Histoire 蒫onomique de la Propri閠?&c.1200-1800 contains a rich store of materials as to France; and comparative studies of the growth of wealth in France and other nations have been made by Levasseur, Leroy Beaulieu, Neymarck and de Foville.
Mr Crammond, addressing the institute of Bankers in March 1919, estimated the national wealth of the United Kingdom to be .24,000, and the national income to be .3,600.He reckoned the net value of the country's foreign investments to have fallen to .1,600, she having recently sold securities amounting to .1,600; and borrowed another .1,400.On the balance she appeared to be a creditor to the amount of .2,600: but a great part of this amount cannot be reckoned as adequately secured.
NOTES:
1.A short but suggestive study of the growth of wealth in its early forms, and of the arts of life, is given in Tylor's Anthropology.
2.Bagehot (Economic Studies, pp.163-5), after quoting the evidence which Galton has collected on the keeping of pet animals by savage tribes, points out that we find here a good illustration of the fact that however careless a savage race may be for the future, it cannot avoid making some provision for it.
A bow, a fishing-net, which will do its work well in getting food for to-day, must be of service for many days to come: a horse or a canoe that will carry one well to-day, must be a stored-up source of many future enjoyments.The least provident of barbaric despots may raise a massive pile of buildings, because it is the most palpable proof of his present wealth and power.
3.The farm implements for a first class Ryot family, including six or seven adult males, are a few light ploughs and hoes chiefly of wood, of the total value of about 13 rupees (Sir G.