XXVI POLITICAL REMINISCENCES 3 



the rental and the value of land, estimated in gold, have 

 fallen 20 per cent. Now, if gold has risen 30 per cent, 

 and land estimated in gold has only fallen 20 per cent., 

 it follows that the fall in rents is only nominal, and that, 

 so far from any real fall, there has been an actual rise 

 of 10 per cent. 



If, on the contrary, as Sir R. Paget and the Agri- 

 cultural Conference, I believe correctly, maintain, there 

 has been a real fall in the rental and value of land of 

 20 per cent., it obviously follows that there can be no 

 such appreciation of gold as Mr. Chaplin supposes. — I 

 am, your obedient servant, John Lubbock. 



The following comment on the above appeared 

 in the Western Daily Press : 



Not since the puzzle which the late Mr. J. K. Cross, 

 once Under-Secretary for India, put to the economic 

 heretics who argued that an excess of imports over 

 exports was a national loss has a neater difficulty been 

 suggested than was yesterday propounded to Mr. Chaplin 

 by Sir John Lubbock. Perhaps Mr. Cross's puzzle, 

 although often quoted at the time, may be restated. It 

 was this : A merchant exports from the Tyne a cargo of 

 coal, worth on the spot a thousand pounds. It is sold 

 in Calcutta for fifteen hundred and the sum purchases 

 jute of that value. Thus the export of a thousand is 

 paid for by an import of fifteen hundred ; how could it 

 possibly have benefited this country for the import value 

 to have been no greater than the export ? Sir J. Lub- 

 bock's problem is addressed to bi-metallists. Gold, they 

 say, has appreciated thirty per cent, since 1874, hence 

 the troubles of landlords. But the rental and value of 

 land estimated in gold have during that period fallen 

 twenty per cent. Hence, if Mr. Chaplin's statement be 

 correct, the fall in rents has been only nominal, while 

 actually they have risen ten per cent.^ 



Mr. Chaplin answers the riddle set him thus — 

 disputing the major premiss on which it is based : 



» Western Daily Prens, Jan. 27, 1893. 



