486 



PROCEEDINGS OF SECTION F. 



able. The negative results which are the effect of the criticism 

 applied to the rough and ready methods of amateur statisticians 

 are also valuable and important. There are so many errors 

 about respecting the conditions of most communities, partly 

 derived from, and partly nursed by, the rash use of statistics 

 with a more or less conscious bias towards a desired conclusion, 

 that it clears the air to have a demonstration of the 

 impossibility of these errors being proved to be true. 

 When one knows, for instance, how intrinsically difficult 

 it is to prove statistically the greater prosperity of one country 

 than another when the differences between them are not very 

 great, it is not difficult to estimate at its due weight any argu- 

 ment in which the difficulties are ignored and statistics are 

 dealt with by short cuts when they seem to support the side on 

 which the arguer has ranged himself. If we help by this dis- 

 cussion to strengthen the wholesome attitude of doubt, and to 

 discredit the short cuts of the amateur partisan, the discussion, 

 it may be hoped, will not have been wholly in vain. 



TABLE A. 

 Total Population, and Total Male Population above age of 20, in the 

 Undermentioned Countries (according to the latest information 

 available). 



TABLE B. 

 Statement showing the Value of Imports and Exports into and from each 

 of the Australasian Colonies during the year 1889 from and into (1) 

 the remaining Australasian Colonies and (2) all other Countries. 



