Page:The reciprocity craze.djvu/23

Bearing in mind what was said under "Imports and Exports," a glance at this table shows that, fast as our population has increased, its command of wealth, and purchasing power in the world's markets has increased still faster; and that they exercised this power may be seen by the following table, which shows the consumption per head of population of some of those articles which our working classes consume most:—

Consumption per Head of Population of Imported and Exciseable Articles.

					1870.		1875.		1880.
Imported only, and exclusive of native.	$\scriptstyle {\left\{{\begin{matrix}\ \\\\\ \\\ \\\ \ \end{matrix}}\right.}$	Bacon	lbs.	...	1.98	...	8.26	...	15.96
		Butter	,,	...	4.15	...	4.92	...	7.42
		Cheese	,,	...	3.67	...	5.46	...	5.66
		Potatoes	,,	...	2.80	...	16.05	...	31.63
		Wheat	,,	...	122.90	...	197.08	...	210.42
		Rice	,,	...	6.74	...	11.68	...	14.14
		Sugar (raw)	,,	...	41.40	...	53.97	...	54.22
		Sugar (refined)	,,	...	5.83	...	8.88	...	9.46
		Tea	,,	...	3.81	...	4.44	...	4.59
		Spirits imported and excisable	gals.	...	1.01	...	1.30	...	1.09
		Malt (British)	bushels	...	1.84	...	1.95	...	1.65	(1879)

Now let us take pauperism.

2.—Pauperism.

Ireland.

1870	$\scriptstyle {\left\{{\begin{matrix}\ \\\ \end{matrix}}\right.}$	Number of Paupers First weeks in January		$\scriptstyle {\left.{\begin{matrix}\ \\\ \end{matrix}}\right\}\,}$	73,921
1873		,,	,,		79,649
1878		,,	,,		85,530
1879		,,	,,		91,807
1880		,,	,,		100,856
1881		,,	,,		109,655

Scotland.

1870	...	14th May	...	126,187
1873	...	,,	...	111,996
1878	...	,,	...	94,671
1879	...	,,	...	97,676
1880	...	,,	...	98,608