2 Flux, Costs of Sea Transport in proportion to Values. 



The investigation of this question on a thoroughly 

 satisfactory basis seems hardly possible, even were the 

 information available far more abundant and reliable than, 

 in reality, it is. One section of the inquiry has been 

 taken up by Mr. W. E. Bear and others, and it appears 

 to have been established, if the figures quoted are really 

 fair representative figures of prices and freights, that, great 

 as has been the fall in the cost of carriage of wheat by 

 sea, it has no more than kept pace with the fall in the 

 wholesale price of wheat in English markets. 



My attention was attracted to another mode of 

 examining the question than that of taking quotations of 

 freights and comparing them with the price-variations of 

 the leading commodities one by one. The course of 

 inquiry I propose to lay before you is by no means one 

 which is unencumbered with numerous pitfalls. In fact, 

 it has seemed to me that to pick one's way safely and 

 securely through the various difficulties of the official 

 returns which must be used, is a task which may be com- 

 pared with that of riding a pneumatic-tyred bicycle along 

 a country lane strewn with prickly twigs from the hedges 

 on either side. He must exercise great care who would 

 succeed in getting through the lane without a serious 

 puncture. 



The method I propose to adopt is to compare the 

 values of the totals of the trade between selected pairs of 

 countries, as represented by the returns of the Customs 

 Houses at either end of the journey. On the one side we 

 shall have recorded the values of goods exported from 

 country A to country B, on the other the values of the 

 same goods regarded as imports to country B from 

 country A. If we could rely on the accuracy of both 

 estimations, the differences shown would represent the 

 various charges for freight, insurance, and commissions or 



