314 REPORT—1904. 
In balancing imports and exports, every part of x,—a#, must be 
accounted for—that is, it must be known how each part is dealt with. 
How far the trade accounts of the United Kingdom allow this is dis- 
cussed in the next section. 
H. The Accuracy of the Figures of the United Kingdom. 
Having described the meaning of the statistics published by the 
various countries and their relations to two of the problems (sections F 
and G) for which they are often used, the next question to be considered 
is how far the figures published really represent the facts. We have no 
means of knowing the correctness of the figures published by foreign 
countries, and will confine ourselves to considering the possible insufficien- 
cies or inaccuracies in those published by our Board of Trade. 
Quantities and Description. 
Imports.—Dutiable goods are weighed and measured with the utmost 
exactness. Free goods are in general weighed or measured at the docks, 
and the invoice return is generally checked by the customs-house official, 
who obtains the exact return from the importing agent after the goods are 
examined. Corrected returns of this sort are sent to the Statistical 
Department in large numbers. 
Exports.—These are not checked except (by way of test) in a percent- 
age of cases. There is no doubt great possibility of carelessness on the 
part of exporters ; where an invoice is incorrect for any reason, it is not 
likely they will go to the trouble of making another and different state- 
ment for the sake of statistical accuracy, if they can avoid it. It does 
not follow, however, that in general reliance may not be placed upon the 
returns where the exporters have no motive to deceive. Stories which 
we have no reason to doubt, have reached us as to intentional mis- 
statement in regard to particular articles of trade, but we have no means 
of verifying them and estimating what weight should be attached to this 
source of error. 
Description of goods.—The Board of Trade classification allows the 
possibility of a great change in quality without any corresponding change 
in the category under which goods are described. Thus, cotton cloth 
is only registered by length, and a thousand willion yards are given 
under one heading ; but cloth is not of uniform width, fineness, weight, or 
finish, and, in particular, cloth is often split after manufacture into half- 
widths. This process would double the quantitative return without any 
appreciable increase in the labour spent on the goods. 
In the case of woollen cloth, there is a more complete subdivision 
into heavy and light, broad and narrow, but goods may undergo great 
improvement in quality, weight, fineness, and finish without crossing the 
arbitrary line dividing narrow from broad, &ec., and therefore without 
showing any difference in the returns. A careful examination of the 
statistics of the woollen exports shows that there has probably been a very 
considerable increase in quality without any increase shown in the 
returns.! Similar difficulties probably occur in very many other trades. 
1 See ‘An Inquiry in the Woollen and Worsted Trades,’ by C. Ogden and 
P. T. Macaulay, Bradford (1903). 
