476 PROCEEDINGS OF SECTION F, 



pointed out to them what different values the figures might 

 have. But the dictionaries themselves could often put inquirers 

 on their guard. 



INDUSTRIAL STATISTICS. 



I pass on next to a class of statistics which are still more 

 frequently used for international comparison, viz., the statistics 

 of production, industry, and trade. There is money in the 

 comparisons here. There are competing policies whose merits 

 are supposed to be capable of judgment by statistics. Or a 

 country may wish to advertise its resources so as to attract 

 immigrants or capital. There is also the patriotic bias or 

 sentiment to be gratified or stimulated, or the anti-patriotic 

 bias, which is really an in\erted form of the patriotic bias itself. 



The leading statistics thus used may be classed under the 

 heads of agricultural production, manufacturing production, 

 imports and exports, including shipping, wages, and finally 

 accumulated wealth. The divisiDn is not a logical one, but it 

 apjiears convenient for the present purpose, which is to explain 

 the principal dangers into which the unwary in dealing with 

 the vast branches of statistics included in this department are 

 apt to fall. 



As regards agricultural production then the initial difficulty 

 of all the statistics is that which we have already had in dealing 

 with population itself— the diftei'ent value of the units which go 

 by the same name. The wheat, oats, aud barley of one country, 

 though called by the same names, are not the same as the wheat, 

 oats, and barley of another country. There are the very 

 greatest difiei'ences in quality, as any price list of London or 

 other market, where grain from every part of the world is sold, 

 would show. Yet nothing is so common as comparisons of the 

 world's production of wheat, for instance, in which this 

 diflerence of quality is ignored, and fine reasonings are indulged 

 in where this difference of quality might seriously affect the 

 result. Yf hat is true of grain is as true, if not more true, of live 

 stock. There are sheep and sheep, cattle and cattle, horses and 

 horses ; in truth the agricultural live stock of any two countries, 

 instead of being susceptible of ready comparison, can hardly be 

 compared directly at all. The point is notoriously of great 

 importance in historical investigations. In comparing England 

 of the present day with the England of previous cen- 

 turies the difierence of the average weight and qualities 

 of the live stock called by the same names has 

 always to be considered. In nothing in recent years, as I 

 understand, have some continental countries such as France 

 made more remarkable improvement than in the quality of 

 their live stock, so that with no increase in numbers, or little 

 increase, there has been an enormous advance in real production. 

 But the point is of equal importance in international com- 

 parisons If Australia is to reckon with competitors in wool 

 production, like the Argentine Republic, the average clip per 

 sheep in the respective countries is obviously a necessary co- 

 efficient in the calculation, and it becomes of great importance 

 to study in what countries the average is increasing or di- 



