ON THE USE OF INDEX NUMBERS. 867 
from a maintenance of the prices obtained in former years. They in 
every case exceed the actual differences between the index numbers, and 
consequently the money value of the several years, which being deducted 
from the apparent increase which represents the bulk, the remainder will 
show the diminution in the value of this branch of our trade in 1883 from 
that of the other quoted years. This will be made more distinctly appa- 
rent by disregarding the use of the index numbers and showing the sums 
which they represent. In the following table, column (A) is the total 
value of the exports in the years previously noted ; (B) the excess or defi- 
ciency of the figures of 1883 over or below those amounts ; (C) the addi- 
tional sums which would have accrued in 1883 had each former year’s 
prices remained; and (D) the consequent net remunerative advantage or 
disadvantage to our whole export trade in 1883, as compared with the four 
earlier and one subsequent year, regard being had to both quantity and 
price.— 
F B C 
at 1883 1883 D 
Million £ i= Fee 
1883 239-80 
1879 191°53 + 48-27 syne + 46° 
1875 223-47 + 16°33 = olf — 50: 
1873 25516 SeieBEU hive bs HLR: — 127° 
1865 165-84 + 73:96 ms Lae py 
| 
1884 with 83 232:93 BovgBe OU uss taba: or 3? 
Prior to the publication by the Board of Trade in 1879 of its first 
report, to which that already referred to relating to the trade of 1883 is 
a successor, the ‘ Economist’ compiled tables arriving at much the same 
results by av independent method. In these, without resorting to an 
index number, the value of the goods of the later year was directly 
calculated at the prices of the former, to show how much the bulk would 
have realised had there been no change of price, the difference being 
the gain or loss from having obtained higher or lower prices. Thus the 
difference between these computed sums and the actual values manifested 
the gain or loss due to greater or smaller quantities. These tables have 
been continued from year to year, and being drawn from the figures of 
the monthly trade account published seven days after the last day of each 
month, the readers of that paper have before them, within a month after the 
termination of each year, a pretty accurate comparison with the trade of 
its predecessor in imports as well as exports. Calculations for exports on 
the same plan between 1883 and 1873, and dealing with articles repre- 
‘sented in the later year by 166,000,000/., showed that the prices of the 
earlier one would have given 8:,000,000/. more than they realised, 
-and the actual difference in the values of the two years, 23,000,000/., was 
thus shown to give 60,000,0001. as the loss from diminished value 
lessened by the increase in volume. The value of the non-enumerated goods 
being assumed to have followed the same course will give results agreeing 
with index number method, and so confirm the accuracy of both. 
Similar figures, to be found in that paper for 31st January last, are for 
_ the present used in the foregoing tables to show that whereas the exports 
for 1884 were valued at 232,928,0001., as against those of 1883, the gain 
3 K°*2 
