Note 51 — Chapter II

The gross amount assessed to income-tax in 1891 was nearly seven hundred million pounds; now more than a hundred million pounds was exempt, as belonging to persons with incomes of less than a hundred and fifty pounds a year. Mr. Giffen maintains (see his evidence given before the Royal Commission on Labour, 7th December 1892) that there is an immense middle-class income not included amongst the wages of the labouring class. This, according to the classification adopted above, which divides the population into those with incomes above, and those with incomes below a hundred and fifty pounds, would raise the collective incomes of the latter to over seven hundred million pounds.