32 STATISTICS OF EXPENDITURE AND CONSUMPTION DAVIDSON. 

 INDEX NUMBER OF CONSUMPTION IN CANADA. 



The year 1880 is evidently not an average year, and there 

 were probably trade influences at work inducing a small 

 importation. And it is to be remarked that the figures on which 

 these index numbers are originally based are figures of trade 

 and not of consumption. In order to attain something like strict 

 accuracy by eliminating the effects of anticipatory importations 

 to avoid a threatened tax, and such like influences visible in 

 all trade returns, it would be necessary to make the consumption 

 for each year the average of a period of three or four years 

 thus the figures for 186 would be the average of 1884, 1885 

 and 1880 ; the figures for 1887 the average of 1885, 188G, 1887. 

 But such exactitude would be tedious, and the process might be 

 liable to the objection that it sought to attain a greater degree 

 of accuracy than the nature of the subject admits. 



Within the limits set down this index number illustrates the 

 steady growth of the national prosperity and well-being a 

 movement not uniform or without backward steps but none the 

 less indicating that the command the nation has over the material 

 sources of satisfaction has increased. 



