728 REPORT— 1901. 



Section F. —ECONOMIC SCIENCE AND STATISTICS. 

 Pbesident of the Section— Sir Robekt Giefen, K.O.B., F.R.S. 



THUBSDAY, SEPTEMBER 12. 



The President delivered tlie following Address : — 



The ImjMrtance of General Statistical Ideas. 



I trust you will excuse me, on an occasion like the present, for returning to a 

 topic which I have discussed more than once — the utility of common statistics. 

 "While we are indebted for much of our statistical knowledge to elaborate special 

 inquiries such as were made by Mr. Jevons on prices and the currency, or have 

 lately been made by Mr. Booth into the condition of the Loudon poor, we are 

 indebted for other knowledge to continuous official and unofficial records, which 

 keep us posted up to date as to certain facts of current life and business, without 

 which public men and men of business, in the daily concerns of life, would be very 

 much at a loss. What seems to me always most desirable to understand is the 

 importance of some of the ideas to be derived from the most common statistics of 

 the latter kind — the regular records of statistical facts which modern societies 

 have instituted, especially the records of the census, which have now existed for a 

 century in most European countries and among peoples of European origin. 

 Political ideas and speculation are necessarily coloured by ideas originating in 

 such records, and political action, internationally and otherwise, would be all the 

 wiser if the records were more carefully observed than they are, and the lessons to 

 he derived widely appreciated and understood. 



I propose now to refer brietly to one or two of these ideas which were taken 

 up and discussed on former occasions,' and to illustrate the matter farther by a 

 reference to one or two additional topics suggested in the same manner, and more 

 particularly by tlie results of the last census investigations, which complete in this 

 rfispect the record of what may be called the statistical century ^wr e.rce^/ence — 

 the century which has just closed. 



Increase of Euro])ean Population during last Century. 



The first broad fact then of this kind, which I have discussed on former occa- 

 sions, is the enormous increase of the population of European countries and of 

 peoples of European origin during the century just passed, especially the increase 

 of the English people and of the United States, along with the comparative 

 stationariness of the population of one or two of the countrie.s, particularly France, 

 at the same time. The growth all round is from about 170 millions at the begin- 

 ning of the century to about .510 millions (excluding South American countries and 

 Mexico) ; while the growth of the United States alone is from a little over 5 to 

 nearly 80 millions, and of the English population of the British Empire from 

 about lo to 55 millions. Germany and Russia also show remarkable growth — 



' Cf. Essays in Finance, 2nd series, pp. 275-364, and Proceedings of Manchester 

 Statistical Society, October 17 1900. 



