HOME TRADE STATISTICS 85 



articles, owing to the certainty of a serious rise 

 in prices, no duty should be levied. 



Railway traffic returns, published every week, 

 might appear to give information as to the state 

 of the home trade; but those returns do not 

 disclose to what extent the goods carried belong 

 to the home trade and to what extent to the 

 foreign trade, nor could anything be learned 

 from the returns respecting the production of 

 manufactured articles. 



In a similar way, although a bad state of the 

 labour market signifies that the home trade is 

 also in a bad state, from such an indication no 

 details of production can be inferred. 



A rise in prices is a probable accompaniment 

 of an improvement in the home trade ; but some- 

 times prices rise though there is no improvement 

 in trade. Large discoveries of gold would cause 

 a general rise of prices, owing to the consequent 

 reduced buying power of money. 



The careful details of imports, shown in the 

 Board of Trade statistics of foreign trade, might 

 also appear to indicate where the home market is 

 ill-stocked. So they do, but they do not show 

 what the total production of each article by 

 British manufacturers amounts to year by year. 

 There is, therefore, only one way of obtaining 

 the required information — by the good offices of 

 the Board of Trade. 



Certain statistics of home production are pub- 

 lished from time to time, but these, though 

 interesting, are of no use to the tariff reformer, 

 for they give only some details, and do not show 

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