The Change in the Distribution of the National Income, 1880-
1913. By Professor A. L. Rowley. (Clarendon Press. 2s. net.) —Professor Bowley's dispassionate study of the national income in the generation before the war is a valuable summary of facts. He concludes that the national income grew more rapidly than the population, so that the average man's income, salary, or wages increased by a third. The rich were not growing richer and the poor poorer, but all classes shared alike. Professor Rowley thinks, however, that the " intermediate " class between wage-earners and Income Tax payers received a somewhat larger proportion of the national dividend than it had done before 1880. " The constancy of so many of the proportions and rates of movement found in the investigation seems to point to a fixed system of causation and has an appearance of inevitableness." It is far too soon to say whether the disturbance occasioned by the war has affected this " fixed system.".—Some Changes in the Distribution of the National Income during the War. By J. E. Allen. (Royal Statistical Society, 9 Adelphi Terrace.)— This instructive paper supplements Professor Bowley's- study of the national income before the war, though it does not profess to be more than an approximation to the truth. Mr. Allen sums up the recent changes as " (1) a serious diminution in the real income from pre-war wealth, (2) a rise in the money value of small salaries which has hardly kept pace with the depreciation of the currency, and a diminishing rise in the higher grades of salaries, (3) a large increase in. wages which in the lower grades more than keeps pace with the depreciation of the currency." " On the whole, therefore, it appears that the wage-earning classes receive a larger share of the national income than they did before the war." Mr. Allen's investigation thus confirms the general belief that the workman has profited most by the war. We are very glad to know that he has, but it is odd that his leaders should attack other classes as " profiteers."
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