474 PROCEEDINGS OF SECTION F. 



hand, and assume that the official record of failures in one 

 country at one time means the same thing as the official record of 

 . failures in a totally different country at the same or another time. 



Here, too, I would also demur to the test of bankruptcy itself 

 as indicative of the general commercial character of a people, 

 even if figures for comparison could be correctly ascertained. 

 More bankruptcy in the one case than in the other may simply 

 mean greater enterprise making more opportunity for failure, 

 and not an excess of dishonesty in the one compared with 

 another. It may also mean that the industries carried on in. 

 the one country, and which are suitable to be carried onin it, are 

 essentially more fluctuating at a given period than the different 

 industries of another country. Farming is often the most 

 fluctuating of all industries. A country dependent on farming 

 may suffer more from bankruptcy at a given date than a country 

 less dependent. In turn, a manufacturing or commercial country 

 may suffer more from catastrophies like war or invasion than 

 an agricultural country would suffer. Perhaps even these diffi- 

 culties could be overcome or evaded, and bankruptcy statistics 

 be handled so as to indicate differences of character between 

 two peoples ; but the labour of the comparison would be very 

 considerable indeed if anything is to be made of it at all. 



I come finally to the last bi'anch of statistics referred to as 

 being often used to compare the character of two peoples, viz., 

 the statistics of thrift or the diffusion of property among the 

 masses. Here the temptation is to take some one form of 

 saving, such as savings banks, or the holding of land, or invest- 

 ment in Government stocks, and roughly judge one people by 

 their habits as to this one form of saving. So far as I have 

 observed, the usual comparisons in detail, even as to the one 

 branch of saving selected for comparison, are most erroneous. 

 Thus, I have seen the number of separate inscriptions of French 

 Rentes in the books of the French Ministry of Finance treated 

 as the number of separate holders. The truth is that the 

 question of the number of inscriptions of rentes, the inscrip- 

 tions being anonymous, is purely a formal matter, depending 

 upon the sub-divisions which are most convenient for dealing. 

 One individual may, and as a rule does, hold many inscriptions. 

 When the French issued new loans in 1871 and 1872 to pay the 

 war indemnity to Germany, and in subsequent years to re-equip 

 their army and extend their railways, the number of inscrip- 

 tions in the books of the Ministry of Finance enormously 

 increased, but it did not follow that the number of separate 

 holders of French rentes increased in the same degree, or even 

 increased at all. The same with the holding of land. A broad 

 distinction has to be drawn between the number of separate 

 occupiers and the number of separate occupations, the latter 

 (as in Ireland) being often far more numerous than the former. 

 But admitting that the figures as to one branch only can be got 

 hold of, it is plain that unless saving habits in all directions 

 can be compared, no useful comparison can be made at all. 

 What is done by friendly societies, building societies, insurance 

 companies and the like, must all be taken into account, as weU 

 as the savings banks, which are most often quoted, or the 



