Manchester Memoirs, Vol. xli. (1897), No. 1&. 7 



trary ; I have chosen to assume the import price-variations 

 to be of only one-third the importance of the export price- 

 variations, and can only offer the following partial justifi- 

 cation . Three times the value of domestic exports, together 

 with the value of retained imports, give a figure of some 

 1 150 millions on the average of the last five years. Now, 

 though this falls short by about one-fifth of the estimate 

 given by Mr. Mulhall, in his recently-published work, of the 

 total income of the inhabitants of the United Kingdom, 

 we must remember that our figures deal with wholesale 

 prices, while the incomes of the people are spent on 

 retailed articles. If we chose to give the domestic export 

 prices four times the weight of the import prices, it would 

 make little difference. On the ground that the import 

 prices themselves have a certain reflected effect in the 

 export prices of the goods made from the imported raw 

 materials, we may be satisfied with the basis chosen. It 

 is worthy of remark that the index number thus obtained 

 from the import and export prices is one which is remark- 

 ably close in its variations to the index number prepared 

 on Mr. Sauerbeck's data. (See Plate 14.) It will not be 

 far from the truth to say that the price-levels of 1876 and 

 1896 were in the proportion of 3 to 2. The Economist 

 index number shows a change which is more nearly 

 expressed by 4 to 3. 



Another mode of regarding price-changes has been 

 adopted by Sir Rawson Rawson. He regards the 

 tonnage entered or cleared with cargoes as a fair 

 measure of the change in volume of the trade, and the 

 value per ton as a measure of price-variation. Re- 

 calculating these values, and including transhipped goods 

 in the lading of ships entered or cleared, the value per 

 ton of the imports turns out to have been, in 1876, 26% 

 greater than in 1886, to have steadily decreased to 1886, 

 and after that to have moved somewhat irregularly. 



