TRANSACTIONS OF THE SECTIONS. 123 



has been variously interpreted by those who transmitted their reports to the Poor 

 Law Board ? But as the retui-ns published in this parliamentary paper are of con- 

 siderable interest, it may be confidently expected that the facts will be tabulated 

 in a fuller manner hereafter, as they are keenly criticised at present. 



The progress of statistical inquiry is not due to the direct action of the Govern- 

 ment only, great and important as have been the aids which the various public 

 departments have conferred on this branch of social learning. Among the scien- 

 tific bodies who hold sittings in the metropolis and issue reports of their meetings 

 and their labours, none is more industrious, more impartial, and more useful, than 

 the Statistical Society of London. Its Journal, now in the thirty-second year of 

 its existence, contains a mass of exceedingly important monographs and well-di- 

 gested summaries, and is continually enriched by laborious and thoughtful com- 

 munications. During the past year, this Journal has published more than its 

 customary amount of statistical facts which illustrate the social condition of various 

 European nations. There is a special value in information such as that given by 

 my distinguished friend Dr. Farr on the mortality of children, for there cannot, 

 I conceive, be a better gauge of the moral, the social, and the material progress of 

 a people than a low death-rate among children. The labours of Mr. Walton and 

 INLr. Hyde Clarke have thrown light, the former on the condition of France, a 

 country which asserts a great social and intellectual place, and certainly occupies 

 a commanding political influence ; the latter on that of Turkey, the lowest and 

 apparently the most iiTeclaimable of European communities. 



I cannot but feel a lively interest in such inquiries as those which have been 

 imdertaken by Mr. Jevons. The interpretation of prices, when the facts are large 

 enough to preclude the influence of exceptionally disturbing causes, is one of the 

 most interesting as well as the most instructive among the whole range of eco- 

 nomical investigations. Nothing, I believe, is more likely to correct those hasty 

 generalizations which ha'ce formed peculiar temptations to some of om* most dis- 

 tinguished economists than the careful analj'sis of prices. The illustrious cory- 

 pheus of political economy, .Vdam Smith, was as laborious in collecting facts as 

 he was subtle in gathering inferences; and I have been constantly struck, in 

 following out certain researches into the history of prices, by the remarkable sagacity 

 with which Smith occasionally anticipated or suggested the facts of social life 

 many centuries ago. 



It might be expected that there would be a close conformity between values at 

 A'ery remote periods of social history. The proportions subsisting between the prices 

 of labour and food are, or should be, so close and unvarying, that we may always 

 suspect, in fully settled countries at least, that any marked discrepancy' between 

 values at difterent periods is suggestive of removeable evils. For instance, if the 

 price of food is considerably in excess of the average rate of wages, some cause, 

 which may be elmunated or corrected, can almost always be assig-ned for the phe- 

 nomenon. I may mention here in illustration of this rule, that during the thirteenth 

 and fourteenth centuries the prices of barley and oats, wheat being taken at 100, 

 are represented by the numbers 73-14 and 42-05, and that ^vithin the last ten years 

 the numbers have been 70 and 46-95. Close as this relation is, the slight discre- 

 pancy may, I think, be accoimted for by the incidence of the malt tax in the first case, 

 and the gi-eat increase in the number of horses kept in the second. Other con- 

 current causes may, I make no doubt, be detected, but these I think are likely to 

 be the most dominant. 



Estimates as to depreciation and exaltation in the value of the precious metals 

 are, however, to be made with extreme caution, because they are liable to many 

 fallacies. Some of us may remember the alarms entertained by M. Chevalier as 

 to consequences likely to be eftected on prices by the gold discoveries. It is not, 

 I think, too much to say that these fears, though natural, were grossly exaggerated ; 

 for in order that such inductions should be valid, they should be taken from a 

 very -wide area, and many disturbing causes should be accounted for or eliminated. 

 The eflects of unfavourable seasons and interrupted importations— it is only twenty 

 years since the country accepted the principles of free trade, several years less than 



