Note 43 — Chapter I

By labouring classes is meant all those families having incomes of less than a hundred and fifty pounds a year. The substantial accuracy of this rough classification has already been pointed out. No doubt they include many persons who are not manual labourers; but against this must be set the fact that, according to the latest evidence, there are at least a hundred and eighty thousand skilled manual labourers who earn more than a hundred and fifty pounds. And, at all events, whether the classes in question are manual labourers or not, they are, with very manifest exceptions, wage-earners—that is to say, for whatever money they receive they give work which is estimated at at least the same money value. A schoolmaster, for instance, who receives a hundred and forty pounds a year gives in return teaching which is valued at the same sum. School teaching is wealth just as much as a schoolhouse; it figures in all estimates as part of the national income; and therefore the schoolmaster is a producer just as much as the school builder.