Question ID:PT8 S3 Q26 Passage:A conventional view of nineteenth-century Britain holds that iron manufacturers and textile manufacturers from the north of England became the wealthiest and most powerful people in society after about 1832. According to Marxist historians, these industrialists were the target of the working class in its struggle for power. A new study by Rubinstein, however, suggests that the real wealth lay with the bankers and merchants of London. Rubinstein does not deny that a northern industrial elite existed but argues that it was consistently outnumbered and outdone by a London-based commercial elite. His claims are provocative and deserve consideration. Rubinstein’s claim about the location of wealth comes from his investigation of probate records. These indicate the value of personal property, excluding real property (buildings and land), left by individuals at death. It does seem as if large fortunes were more frequently made in commerce than in industry and, within industry, more frequently from alcohol or tobacco than from textiles or metal. However, such records do not unequivocally make Rubinstein’s case. Uncertainties abound about how the probate rules for valuing assets were actually applied. Mills and factories, being real property, were clearly excluded; machinery may also have been, for the same reason. What the valuation conventions were for stock-in-trade (goods for sale) is also uncertain. It is possible that their probate values were much lower than their actual market values; cash or near-cash, such as bank balances or stocks, were, on the other hand, invariably considered at full face value. A further complication is that probate valuations probably took no notice of a business’s goodwill (favor with the public) which, since it represents expectations about future profit-making, would today very often be a large fraction of market value. Whether factors like these introduced systematic biases into the probate valuations of individuals with different types of businesses would be worth investigating. The orthodox view that the wealthiest individuals were the most powerful is also questioned by Rubinstein’s study. The problem for this orthodox view is that Rubinstein finds many millionaires who are totally unknown to nineteenth-century historians; the reason for their obscurity could be that they were not powerful. Indeed, Rubinstein dismisses any notion that great wealth had anything to do with entry into the governing elite, as represented by bishops, higher civil servants, and chairmen of manufacturing companies. The only requirements were university attendance and a father with a middle-class income. Rubinstein, in another study, has begun to buttress his findings about the location of wealth by analyzing income tax returns, which reveal a geographical distribution of middle-class incomes similar to that of wealthy incomes revealed by probate records. But until further confirmatory investigation is done, his claims can only be considered partially convincing. Stem:Which one of the following studies would provide support for Rubinstein’s claims? Correct Answer Choice:DChoice A:a study that indicated that many members of the commercial elite in nineteenth-century London had insignificant holdings of real property Choice B:a study that indicated that, in the nineteenth century, industrialists from the north of England were in fact a target for working-class people Choice C:a study that indicated that, in nineteenth-century Britain, probate values of goods for sale were not as high as probate values of cash assets Choice D:a study that indicated that the wealth of nineteenth-century British industrialists did not appear to be significantly greater when the full value of their real property holdings was actually considered Choice E:a study that indicated that at least some members of the official governing elite in nineteenth-century Britain owned more real property than had previously been thought to be the case