18-4 EEroKT— 1888. 



previously. The whole calculation was very rough, but it conveyed a 

 sound historical idea which was useful and fruitful in the absence of 

 a better. It also may be held to justify the action Bishop Fleetwood 

 suggested in the case of conscience referred to. 



Adam Smith, substituting wheat alone as a standard, was able to 

 show changes in the purchasing power of money, though, of course, it 

 would have been better to use more articles. Still the conclusion for 

 wheat alone, considering its great importance in those times, was good 

 enough to prove a change in the value of money. 



Sir George Evelyn's index-number, submitted to the Royal Society in 

 1798, led to a broad conclusion not substantially different from those of 

 Adam Smith and Fleetwood. 



In later times the researches of Professor Jevons and the index- 

 numbers of the Economist, Sauerbeck, and others, have demonstrated 

 conclusively that there has been a common movement in the prices of 

 leading wholesale commodities, proving a variation in the value of money, 

 relative to an aggregate of these leading commodities, which can, no 

 doubt, be made use of by historians and economic students when they 

 wish to give meaning to the money expi-essions of different periods. 

 There is, no doubt, a great lack of quantitative exactness in the past 

 discussions, and it may be fairly urged that more consideration should 

 be given to the question of how to allow for the changes in the efficiency 

 of the human unit — a question raised by Adam Smith's selection of 

 wheat on the express ground that the labour employed in producing a 

 quarter of wheat had remained unchanged ; but to suggest that a parti- 

 cular method which has produced useful ideas may be improved upon 

 and made to yield more exact results is not to show that it is useless. 



The Gazette average prices of grain used for the tithe averages have 

 also proved conclusively, on a large scale, that a currency different from 

 money may be practically made useful in deferred payments — that the 

 process can be put into a working Act of Parliament. 



The considerations we have to suggest as now most important 

 practically, in preparation for more exact and complete measurements in 

 the future, are the following : — 



1. In the absence of retail prices — which it would be most convenient 

 to use in forming a standard of desiderata — use must necessarily be made 

 of wholesale prices only. No other prices are obtainable, and those prices 

 must be preferred, in the selection of typical articles, where the records 

 are best. 



It appears, however, fi-om the best consideration of the subject, that 

 the differences likely to be made from the true result which would be 

 obtained from a more complete record of prices are not likely to be 

 material. On this head the Committee would refer to a paper by Mr. 

 Edgeworth, which has been prepared for their use, and which is appended. 

 The prices of articles taken without bias from a group are likely to be 

 fairly representative of the average course of prices of that group. 



2. While an index-number assigning relative weight to diffei'ent 

 articles so selected is an important means of arriving at a useful result, 

 it cannot be said, in the present state of the data on the subject, to be an 

 altogether indispensable means. The articles as to which records of 

 prices are obtainable being themselves only a portion of the whole, nearly 

 as good a final result may apparently be arrived at by a selection with- 



