484 PROCEEDINGS OF SECTION F. 



WEALTH STATISTICS. 



Finally I have some remarks to make on the dangers of com- 

 parisons between nations as to their aggregate wealth. 



Apart from all other difficulties that of the data themselves is 

 here very great. It is hardly possible to obtain an account of 

 the wealth of any country on any basis that can give a 

 minutely accurate result, and it is the more difficult to obtain 

 such accounts for any two nations made up in exactly the same 

 way. If one country, therefore, is made out to have an aggre- 

 gate wealth of about £250 per head and another £300 per head, 

 it may well be that, owing to the necessary want of 

 exactness in the calculation itself for any country 

 and the differences of method employed in each 

 case, the facts represented by these figures may either 

 be much the same, or the country whose wealth is com- 

 puted at the smaller figure may really be the richer of the two. 

 Before any comparisons can be made at all, then, the methods 

 observed in each case must be carefully followed, and particu- 

 larly it must be observed whether they are likely to give a rack 

 valuation or not. My own impression is that, except where the 

 difierences are enormous by almost any method of calculation, 

 but little can be made of differences between country and 

 country. Figures that are within sight of each other as much 

 a,s are £250 and £300 per head, provided much the same methods 

 have been followed, are practically much the same thing. 



The comparison, also, is of little value unless accompanied by 

 statistics of relative income, statistics of the sources of the 

 wealth or income, and the like information. Accumulated 

 wealth is only one element of economic strength. 



A special point of great difficulty is how to deal with the 

 wealth of a community which includes individuals having large 

 investments abroad, and with the wealth of another community 

 which is indebted to persons resident abroad in its public 

 capacity, and whose individual members are also indebted to 

 members of other communities. To a certain extent the foreign 

 investments of a community in the first case are not available 

 resources. Suppose the investments to be made in a foreign 

 country with which it goes to war, the whole resources which 

 are counted part of its wealth would really count on the other 

 side. In the same way a country which has borrowed largely 

 has the whole wealth really available for many purposes with- 

 out any deduction for what it has borrowed. In war with a 

 community from which it had borrowed this would at once be 

 apparent, but in other contingencies, also, the indebtedness is 

 not a real deduction, the wealth belonging to the foreign 

 non-resident never being really taxable as if he were 

 resident. I have thought it expedient in my own calculations 

 of the wealth of the United Kingdom to include the foreign in- 

 vestments of the members of the community at home as far as 

 possible, and similarly I would make a deduction in the case of 

 an indebted community equal to the amount of its indebtedness. 

 All this, however, would be on the assumption of a continuation of 

 peace and sub jec t to the qualifications tha t in certain circumstances 

 a different calculation would practically requireto be made. 



