36 • REPORT— 1876. 



in general, regarded as a larger income-tax, is equtdl)' in want of a common 

 measure with the income-tax proper. So far from the measurement of the 

 income-tax proper being dependent on the measurement of general taxation, 

 the measure that underlies them both is one and the same ; and, indeed, the 

 tnie view of an income-tax is that it should be a perfectly just and equal 

 tax in itself, rather than an imperfect tax compensating the imperfections of 

 other taxes. 



Common measure of value necessary for finding national income andtuealth : 

 fallacies from its absence. — The evil consequences of a want of a common 

 measure of value, seen in the comparison of incomes for purposes of taxation, 

 is also seen when they are added togetlicr for the exhibition of the amoi;nt 

 of national income and wealth. To find this national income, the government 

 returns of the income-tax have been taken, and to this miscellaneous aggre- 

 gate the exempted incomes of the country, including manual-labour wages, 

 ■have been added, as if all were of one equal and uniform denomination. 

 Much of such income, however, as has been repeatedly pointed out, is only 

 the consumption of capital. Within the period of a generation, say thirty 

 years, all the value of human labour, pZus the cost of maintaining it, passes 

 into the category of labour-income. Within longer but varying periods the 

 value of all houses, j^Iks the cost of repairing them, passes into the categorj' 

 of house-income. Within still more varying periods all the mining wealth 

 of the country must pass into the category of mining-income and disappear ; 

 and all capital of terminable annuities passes into terminable income. By 

 some writers this medley of so-called income (but no more income than the 

 payments for exj)orts are income, or drafts on bankers are income) has ever 

 been capitalized at one (and that an extreme) rate, to get the national wealth, 

 the result of the whole process being an exaggerated and practically mis- 

 chievous estimate of national income, of national wealth, and of the nation's 

 capacity to bear taxation. Probably no better example than this could be 

 given of the necessity of a common measure of value. Common measures 

 (common units) are the souls of statistics, as, indeed, they are of knowledge 

 generally. Without them statistics are a mere incoherent mass of facts, 

 usurping the semblance and function of exact science. A common measm'e 

 of income, discovering the amount of the element common to rent, wages, 

 profits, and interest, determines the true increment of wealth considered in 

 its widest sense, and expresses both the extent and the ratio of economic 

 progress. This common measure may be briefly described as interest-vahie : 

 it is an essential, if not the fundamental, basis of taxation. 



Report of the Committee, consisting of Professor Clerk Maxwell, 

 Professor J. D. Everett^ and Dr. A. SciiusteRj for testing experi- 

 mentally Ohm's Laiv, 



TnE statement of Ohm's laAV is that, for a conductor in a given state, the 

 electromotive force is proportional to the current produced. 



The quotient of the numerical value of the electromotive force divided by 

 the numerical value of the current is defined as the resistance of the con- 

 ductor ; and Ohm's law asserts that the resistance, as thus defined, docs not 

 vary with the strength of the current. 



