href="@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@38655@[email protected]#fnanchor_146-6" class="pginternal" tag="{http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml}a">[146-6] When an artist who earns $10,000 per annum appears in a country, the gross national income increases in a way similar to that in which it increases when a new commodity is found which would have a yearly increase of value equal to $10,000 over and above that of the raw material. Cost of production in the case of such a virtuoso is scarcely to be alluded to. Nearly his entire income, with the exception of his traveling expenses, etc., is net, and the greater portion of it free. An income tax would affect his hearers after as it did before, and in his income, find a completely new object. Per contra, see Saggi economici, I, 176 f.

[146-7] For purposes of taxation, where a relative valuation is more the question than an absolute one, it would be sufficient to assume that every household consumed clothing, utensils, etc., in proportion to the rest of their income. Hence, these items might, unhesitatingly, be omitted altogether.

[146-8] Mathematically demonstrated by Fuoco, Saggi economici, II, 102 ff.

[146-9] The gross income of British Europe is estimated by Pebrer, Histoire financière et statistique générale de l'Empire Br., 1834, II, 90, at £514,823,059, viz.: agriculture, £246,600,000; mining, 21,400,000; manufactures, after deduction made of the raw material, £148,050,000; internal and coast trade, £51,975,060; foreign commerce and navigation, £34,398,059; banking, £4,500,000; interest from foreign countries, £4,500,000. By Moreau de Jonnés, Statist de la Gr. Br., 1837, I, 312, it is estimated at 18,000,000,000 francs, from which, however, the raw material used in industry is not deducted. The net income of Great Britain was estimated by Pitt, in 1799, at £135,000,000, of which £25,000,000 were received by landowners for rent, £25,000,000 by farmers, £5,000,000 were tithes, £3,000,000 from forests, canals, and mines, £6,000,000 from houses, £15,000,000 from state funds, £12,000,000 from foreign commerce, £28,000,000 from inland commerce and manufactures, £3,000,000 from fine arts, £80,000,000 from Scotland, £5,000,000 from foreign countries. (Gentz, Histor. Journ., 1799, I, 183 ff.) Lowe, England in its present Situation, 1822, p. 246, speaks of 255,000,000. About 1860, the incomes subject to taxation alone, that is, all above £100, amounted to 335,000,000. The remainder was certainly worth one-half of this. (Statist. Journ., 1864, 121.) Baxter, in 1867, assumed it to be £825,000,000. Compare L. Levi, on Taxation, 6.

In France, about forty years ago, according to Chaptal, Doudeauville, Balbi and others, about 6,500,000,000 francs gross national income could be counted on. Schnitzler speaks of 7,000,000,000 francs (Creation de la Richesse en France, 1842, I, 392), after deduction made of the raw material of manufacture. According to Wolowski, Statistique de la Fr., 1847, it was more than 12,000,000,000 francs. M. Chevalier, Revue des deux Mondes, March 15, 1848, has it 10,000,000,000 at most. In these four estimates, only material products are taken into account. Ch. Dupin thinks the income per capita was, in 1730, = 108 francs; in 1780, = 169; in 1830, = 269. Cazeaux, Eléments, 163, estimated the net national income, in 1825, at 5,000,000,000 francs; Cochut, in 1861, at 16,000,000,000. (Revue des deux Mondes, XXXVII, 703.)

In Spain, Borrego, Nationalreichthum, etc. Spaniens, 1834, 33, estimated the income from agriculture at 2,284,000,000 francs; from industry, etc., 361,000,000; commerce, 124,000,000; from houses, 186,000,000; canals, streets etc., 8,500,000; personal services, 75,000,000; money in circulation (probably loaned capital), 85,000,000.

In the United States, in 1840, the national income was estimated at over $1,063,000,000; from agriculture, over $654,000,000; from manufactures, nearly $240,000,000; commerce, almost $80,000,000; mining, over $42,000,000; from lumber (Wäldern), almost $17,000,000; and from the fisheries, almost $12,000,000. The per capita amount of income was $62. It was largest in Rhode Island—$110; in Massachusetts it was $103; in Louisiana, $99; and in Iowa, smallest, $27; in Michigan, it was $33. Compare Tucker, Progress of the United States, 195 ff. The census of 1860 assumes the national wealth, slaves not included, at $14,183,000,000, that is $451 per capita, with a per capita annual income of $112. According to Czörnig, the gross income of Austria, from agriculture, the chase and fisheries, in 1861, was 2,119,000,000 florins; from mining, 41,000,000; from the industries, 1,200,000,000. In Prussia, the net national income, not including the revenue from state property, nor the income of the royal household, seems, from the returns of the income and class tax, to have been about 2,458,000,000 thalers, in 1874. Engel, Preuss. Statist. Ztschr., 1875, 133. The majority of the above estimates are obviously unreliable.

SECTION CXLVII.

NATIONAL INCOME.—ITS STATISTICAL IMPORTANCE.
(CONTINUED.)

The question frequently discussed, whether it is more advantageous to increase the gross income or the net income[147-1] of a people, may be readily answered with the assistance of our tripartite division. Since economic production has no other object than the satisfaction of human wants, the mere increase of the gross income of a people is a matter of indifference. An increase of the net income puts a people in a condition to increase either their numbers or their enjoyments. (See §§ 163 and 239.) The most desirable condition is where both these results are produced. It is fortunate for a people when the free income of the nation increases by reason of the absolute or relative decrease of the cost of production, which adds nothing to enjoyment. But it is politically and morally to be lamented when it increases at the expense of the satisfaction of man's necessary wants, especially if the majority of the people deny themselves in this respect to produce that end. Sir Thomas More called the sheep of his time, to make place for which so many farm houses were razed to the ground, ravenous beasts, which devoured men and laid waste city and country.[147-2]

[147-1] The greater number of writers, at bottom, understand by this question only whether greater efforts should be made to increase the wages of the lower classes or the rent and rate of interest on capital paid to the higher. (Schmoller, in the Tüb. Zeitschrift,