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



of the goods handled, so far as sea-carriage is concerned. 

 No conclusion as to railway charges or cost of carriage 

 by road is here even suggested. If we are compelled, by 

 facts relating to actual charges, to reject this conclusion, 

 we are left in the uncomfortable situation of being com- 

 pelled to distrust the indications of the progress and 

 distribution of our country's trade which we have believed 

 to be, not indeed thoroughly trustworthy in detail, but 

 at any rate roughly accurate, sufficiently so to enable a 

 tolerably correct judgment of the actual progress of trade 

 with different parts of the world to be framed upon their 

 indications. 



I hoped to be able to put before you some actual 

 comparisons which might help to decide which of these 

 alternatives was the closer to the truth. As yet, how- 

 ever, the material for this has not come to hand. I hope 

 I may obtain it before long. 



The object of comparing the various trade movements 

 b>y value with the shipping recorded as concerned in them 

 was, originally, to gain some clue to the progress of trade 

 not too much involved in price-changes, in accordance 

 with the well-known methods of Sir Rawson Rawson. 

 The actual comparisons made in the final columns of 

 the preceding tables must not be read as efforts to 

 determine the average freight paid in each class of trade. 

 Apart from all liabilities to error, in many, if not in most, 

 cases, several other items of charge will be included in the 

 amounts there named. Unless the nature of the errors 

 entering into the returns are such as to have undergone 

 considerable changes in amount during the twenty years 

 considered, however, the question of growth or diminution 

 of such charges in the aggregate should be reflected in 

 these figures, even though the actual magnitude of the 

 charges be totally misrepresented in every case. It is 



