TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION F. 837 



for deaths in institutions in census returns ; and wbetlier, comparing year witk 

 year and hospital with hospital, hospital mortality could be prevented or reduced. 



The ' Starvatio7i' Returns. — 'Twenty-nine cases were referred in 1888 to direct 

 and obvious starvation.' The figures for 1888 were the smallest then on record. 

 This is not noted. It is a common error to take one year's returns only and to ignore 

 the historical context of a return. Further, cases, as entries in the returns show, 

 are not due ' to direct and obvious starvation,' but to many other causes besides. 

 The correctness of the verdict, too, is sometimes very doubtful, as instances show. 



The Poor-law Eeturns. — -'One in eleven of the whole metropolitan population 

 is driven to accept Poor-law relief.' This includes admission to Poor-law 

 infirmaries, lunatic asylums, and the idiot and imbecile asylums of the Metropolitan 

 Asylums Board, and so on. So that the statement, as it stands, is quite misleading. 

 Besides, probably 2, and not 3i, is the multiplier to obtain, from the number of 

 paupers in a day, their number in a year. The multiplication by 3|^, a moot point, 

 ifi known to be very doubtful. 



Conclusions : that returns should not be used without reference to their 

 historical and social context, and should be analysed before use so that the reality 

 ■of their definitions may be tested, and differences as well as similarities in the units 

 on which they are based clearly shown. 



The Compilation of Returns. — The need of more care in the compilation of 

 returns is shown by reference to Mr. Burt's return of aged paupers, the recent return 

 {May 1892) on the same point, and the yearly and day census of pauperism, Lord 

 Lymington's return on the number of members of friendly societies who are paupers, 

 and the return of the Charity Commissioners on the application of charitable funds 

 to elementary education. It is suggested that when, on general grounds, it has 

 been decided to compile a return, the form of it might be settled by a select com- 

 mittee after talring expert evidence ; that if the information desired cannot be 

 supplied, as evidence might show, in the form of a return, the proposed return 

 might be abandoned ; that some kind of preface might be affixed to a return, 

 showing (I) the method on which it was compiled ; giving (2) explanatory matter, 

 as, e.g., supplied by the Local Government Board in their Appendix E; and (3) 

 references to previous returns of a similar nature ; also (4) short accounts of the 

 ofiicial proceedings in certain returns, e.g., the ' starvation ' returns. A complete 

 catalogue and subject index might be compiled of papers in some departments of 

 social work by such a society as the Statistical Society. 



Limitation of the Returns System. — Many returns at every point touch the 

 domain of character. It is a question whether we do not err in classifying, e.g., by 

 wages, &c. (cf. the classes A, B, C, &c., of Mr. C. Booth's tables) ; and whether we 

 would not get truer results by analysing or counting by types. Social science can 

 show few results of long-continued impartial investigation such as in natural 

 science can frequently be found. 



6. The Relation of Ethics to Economics. By J. S. Mackenzie, M.A. 



Political economy, being a practical science, falls entirely within the sphere in 

 which ethical considerations apply, and it is consequently affected by ethics at 

 every point ; but the chief points of contact may be conveniently summed up 

 under four headings : — 



I. The Place of Ecojiomics in Social Science. — Political economy has had an 

 exaggerated prominence, which, from an ethical point of view, cannot be justified. 

 This prominence is partly due to the recent development of industrial life, and 

 partly to the fact that economic study lends itself more readily to abstract treat- 

 ment than the other aspects of social life. An effort must be made to correct this 

 one-sidedness, and to treat economic questions in subordination to questions of 

 social well-being in the larger sense. 



II. Eco7iomic Methods. — There are, broadly speaking, three different methods 

 of economic study : — (1) The historical method, considering what is and has been. 

 (2) The analytic method, investigating what tends to be. (3) The moral method, 

 «ndeavouring to discover what ought to be. Without disparaging the two former 



