Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1895-11-15
DATA
It IS Required to Settle the Economic
Questions Of the Day.
COMMISSIONER HARRIS LECTURE
Some Accepted Theories Shown
to Be Upon False Bases.
WAGES AND PRODUCTION

WAGES AND PROD UCTION
DR.. W. T. Harris, commissioner Of educa-
| ton, lectured Tuesday evening at the Co
| lumbien University on 1.-The Need of Sta
| tistical Data Required to Settle the Eco
nomic Questions of the Day." DR.. Harris
| has been annoyed to learn that an erro-
| neous impression of the intent Of his lee
| ture had gained some currency. The pur-
port of his remarks, he said, was to point
out the need of more full statistics in order
| to ascertain the exact condition of the Ia
| borer at the present day compared with the
| laborer of past generation or generations,
and that with only data now in the hands
CT statisticians a correct comparison on
this subject cannot be made.
Not Against Trades Unions.
"My lecture was not lecture against
trades unions, Knights of Labor or rail-
road unions, or anything of that kind"
said DIR. Harris to a Star reporter today.
ut goes without saying that free Ameri-
can people have right to combine and do
the best they for themselves. am
thorough believer in the rights OF Ameri-
cans to combine in that or any other way.
MY wish is to point out as strongly as
possible the necessity for statisticians to
! collect certain lines of statistics which will
settle certain classes of economic cues
tiCns These statistics should be taken
with such pains as to make the results re-
liable. So long as the results are mere es-
Inmates the questions are left open.
IF it is true, as Karl Marx maintains in
the first volume of his work on capital, that
the rich are growing ficher and fewer and
the poor sre growing poorer and more
numerous. while the middle classes are dis
appearing in the poorer classes, 1t is evil
dent that our Industrial civilization Is
failure and that we have revolutions be-
fore us sooner or later. The first statistics
flo$ of tic.
tics relating to the distribution of wealth.
We should have the numbers of people
composing the rich class, the middle class
and the poor class, and these statistics
should be compare tive. We should know
| whether, as Henry George tells US, there Is
| a wedge driven between the upper and
| lower classes, so as to depress the poor and
| lift the rich.
Statistics should show comparison be-
| tween the distribution of wealth fifty years
| ago, when the steam transportation began,
and some recent date, say 1880 or 1880.
| Then there should be other comparisons
dating back to the beginning of the use of
| labor-saving machinery.
Distribution OF Wealth.
| "In countries where there is a careful
| record for purposes of an income tax, pretty
| fair estimates may be made. In Great Bril-
| tain, for example, where Karl Marx wrote
| his revolutionary book, Dudley Baxter pub
| lished in 1867 an investigation of this very
subject of the distribution of wealth. Leoni
| Levi published book about the same time
| Robert Giffin. the head of the Statistical So
| ciety of Great Britain. has discussed in his
| judicial manner the statistics of these two
| writers. In a later time Mulhall collated a
| dictionary of statistics. the last edition of
| which was in 1891. Such estimates as have
| been made on the data of the income tax
| and confirmed by the data derived from pro-
| bate courts of Great Britain, concerning the
| size of estates which pass from one hand to
| another by DEVISE show that in thirty years
| the number of the very wealthy has in
! creased to three times the former number
| The number of the wealthy has increased at
| the same rate, showing that the middle class
| has sent over a large quota into the class
| of rich people. The middle class has in
| creased nearly as much, that is to say, per-
| sons receiving from $3.50 family up to $1,000
| a year. This class is nearly three times
| large it was thirty years ago.
| The only class that has diminished in its
| ratio is the poor class. The poor class has
| sent up from below many of its number into
| the middle class. 1t is most interesting to
| note that the income of poor people, those
| not paying an income tax, had increased
! from $265 per annum in 1850 to $415 in 1881.
Wages and National Product.
at would seem that Karl Marx could have
| found it possible in England, where he lived.
| to disprove his dismal statistics An inves-
| tigation of the United States census for 1880,
comparing the results with 1850. showed
| that the total production for the United
States for 1880 was 40 cents per day for each
| inhabitant while the total production for
each inhabitant in 1850 was only % cents
| per day, thus showing an increase Of 60 per
| cent in the production of the people. The
| socialists propose to have distribution of
| the products of the whole nation in an
| equitable manner so that each person shall
| receive his numerical pro rata. 1t is inter-
esting to note that with nothing set apart
| for the rental Of the land used for the capi
| tai employed in business and with no extra
tiny1 fny~d nnyx hQ nta1
wages distributed to those persons engaged
| in gainful occupations in 1890 would
| amount to only $50 a week. or $1.35 for
each working day. l mention this in
| teresting, because much of the agitation
which lies at the bottom Of strikes arises
from a conviction in the minds of members
of labor unions to the effect that they are
entitled to much larger sums than they
ceive. and that a fair distribution would in
crease their wages materially. But the fair
| inference from the data of the census opera
lions shows that most of the persons en-
gagged in mechanical and mercantile en-
pigments, and also in transportation, are
receiving at the present time wages much
above the average product Of the whole
nation, without setting apart anything for
land, capital or skilled directive power Is
it not evident that there should be careful
investigation made by statisticians into
these data?
Land Values and improvements.
Another question on which there should
be accurate statistical data Is that of the
ratio between the value of land and the
value of the improvements on it. The Henry
George question and the single tax question
hinge on this. and we have inadequate sta
tistics. Otherwise the question would have
long since ceased to he live one in local
politics. A fair estimate, based upon the
imperfect statistics which the census gives,
shows that while the average profit per in
dividual in this country was so. 40, the rental
of the land amounted to only two and one
fifth cents per day per inhabitant. If the
land absorbs only one-eighteenth of the total
income, it is evident enough that there is no
basis for Henry Georges issue. Even in
England it seems that the rental of the land
absorbs less than two and one-half cents
per day for each inhabitant."