STATISTICAL AND ECONOMICAL FALLACIES.

IrrntrnrrABLE facts are certainly few in number. Is there one in the world that has not been challenged or disputed ? Justice, morals, forms of government, statistics and economical results, are all precarious, without determinate stability or immutable gauge ; and in reasoning or acting upon them we are liable to perpetual col- lisions or misunderstandings. For this anarchy of opinions causes may doubtless be assigned : first, in the nature of things, which are undergoing unceasing, often imperceptible changes ; and next, in the nature of ourselves. No two men see, hear, or feel alike, or have exactly the same experiences. Not only do objects differ, and our perceptions of them, both sensuous and intellectual, but the language by which they are expressed is in a course of con- stant vicissitude, and the words used today rarely convey pre- cisely the meaning of yesterday. If to these sources of divarication be added the conventional ones produced by diversities of interests, education, and religions, what other than the present can be anti- cipated for the future, or that mankind will not always continue, much as they now are, divided and subdivided into endless sects, parties, and coteries ? But though in the more ideal sciences unanimity may be hope- less, there are certain branches of knowledge, dependent on figures or positive facts, in which it might be supposed little scope exists for doubt or mistakes. Of this sort the materialities of commerce, finance, and the customhouse, may be cited. Yet even in these agreement is by no means common ; in fact, we will show from an example or two, that in no departments are greater confusion and disappointments to be apprehended than in political economy, political arithmetic, and revenue returns.

In economical science, for the last half century, the terminal feli- city generally aimed at has been the augmentation of productive wealth. Apart from this, everything else—morals, education, crime, pauperism—has been held secondary or extraneous. Well, the goal has been reached—possession has been obtained ; we are the richest people in the world in ships, colonies, commerce, and the precious metals. What then ? Accumulation of capital "anyhow" does not seem to comprehend everything ; it is only the means, not the end, and that must be sought. What is it? More equality of condition, more leisure, more food for the indigent. What, it is urged, is the good of oppressing the few by supera- bundance, leaving the reasonable wants of the many. unsatisfied ? General, not individual or sectional happiness, is the summum bonum ; and to that issue what avails our vast acquisitions and inventions, if the masses have not gained a mouthful more food, or one hour's abatement of daily toil ? Healthy distribution is the thing needed, not partial heaping up of superfluities. There is plausibility in this way of stating the case : indeed, the most urgent want of society appears to be distribution for in the aggregate there is enough for all, failing only a more adequate ap- portionment. But even this attests that the course of the country has been the true one in the first instance, since it is manifest that before the harvest can be shared or enjoyed it must be reaped ; and such preliminary to fruition has been undeniably consummated by the energetic activity, mental and material, of the last forty years. There are, however, those who doubt the solidity of our com- mercial prosperity—who think it in great part illusive, and appeal to facts for confirmation. Take our boasted exports, say they, and what do they amount to ? They have increased little or nothing in substance during the last forty-five years ; in 1805 they amounted to 38,099,1441., and in 1850 to only 63,596,0001. What are twenty-five millions of increase in so long a term ? it does not amount to one half the yearly internal consumption of British manufactures. True, another account of the Customhouse—for they speak in cloven tongues—tells a different tale, and makes our exports prodigious ; but it is no proof. It is the real not the offi-

cial of the commodities exported that affords the true test; the antiquated rigmarole of clerks and tidewaiters being wholly delusive.

Nothing in this can be gainsaid; it is literally correct, but mis- leading. Mr. Cayley, however, seems inclined to avail himself of these twofold representations of trade, and has one of them in am- bush for his Malt-tax repeal motion. According to a return he has obtained this session, the total imports of the United King- dom in 1819 amounted to 99,170,6021., and the exports to only 60,152,6091. Of course at this rate of adverse Interchange the nation will soon stop payment. But the process is wholly imagi- nary. Against the official value of 99,170,6021. of imports, Mr. Cayley ought to place for the same year the official, not declared value, of 164,539,5041. of exports, and the balance would then appear on the other side. A brother Protectionist and M.P., Mr. Newdegate, has fallen into a similar mare's nest in his recent Letters to the President of the Board of Trade. The fact, how- ever, is incontrovertible that we now sell to foreigners three or four bales of merchandise for the same price that thirty or forty years past we sold them one. A similar monetary revolution has occurred in the home trade of the kingdom. In bulk double the quantity of the same kind of goods is exchanged for the same value in money. But this is no disproof of progress—it confirms it; for it is the quantities of the commodities produced, not their sale-prices, that measure the powers of a nation—its resources of employment, subsistence, clothing, and other consumeable articles.

At the same time it may be remarked, that an undue importance is often attached to statements of imports and exports both in their declared and their official enumeration. It seldom happens that foreign trade forms the largest proportion of the commerce of a nation. Of the entire produce of British manufactures two-thirds are consumed by ourselves and only one-third exported. A com- munity, like the Chinese for instanee, may have no foreign trade, yet make an extraordinary advance in internal wealth and industry. It is a fact shown both by the tables of Mr. Porter and Mr. Speak- man that the foreign trade of France since the peace has increased in a fourfold ratio to that of England. But the -United States of America offer a contrast to both, which confirms what has been re- marked of China, that a country may be rapidly advancing inter- nally contemporaneously with little or no advance in external in- terchanges. This appears to have been the ease with America; in home prosperity she -has unquestionably outstripped England and France, but her proportionate increase of trade has been less than either. In the five years ending in 1844, her average imports of 22,000,000/. stood at the same amount as in the five years ending in 1820; and her exports in the interval had only augmented 62 per cent, while those of France had increased 143 per cent and those of England 30 per cent. We subjoin the comparative average progress of each country for five years.

England France

United States 1816 to 1820 ....

1840 to 1844 ....

1816 to 1820 ....

1840 to 1844 ....

1816 to 1820 ....

1840 to 1844 ....

Imports.

£31,273,309 ....

70,510,112 ....

13,045,168 ....

45,564,747 ....

22,391,982 ....

22,206,071 ....

Exports.

£40,211,045 52,256,963 17,420,900 41,242,251 12,900,429 20,448,221

Without positive untruths, statistics may snbserve to the most erroneous inferences. No one can doubt the unequalled progress of America, but it does not appear from the above statement of her commerce. France, in her relative advances, seems to have outstripped England ; but this again is deceptive, and arises from her less amount of trade immediately subsequent to the peace. Small numbers may obviously be more easily multiplied than large numbers ; consequently the almost threefold greater trade of Eng- land than of France appears to have made less proportionate ad- vances than that of her neighbour. Averages are a frequent source of statistical fallacies. Figures, in fact, of the description mostly used by politicians and econo- mists may be packed, and often are packed, to suit any purpose. It is only numbers rising or falling in arithmetical progression that ad- mit of fair comparative averages being drawn at any distance from the two extremes of the series. But returns of revenue, trade, crimes and pauperism, are not arithmetical series ; they do not vary 1;yr regular steps or a fixed ratio, but by jumps; and numbers or years may mostly be selected to tally with any desired result or foregone conclusion.