by it. As a rule, indeed, when one set of persons, confessedly competent to form a judgment, decide that a law dealing with commerce is wise and useful, and another set of persons equally competent declare that it is foolish and mischievous, it will generally be found, in course of time, that the latter are in the right. Such was the case with the colonial system, with the corn laws, with the navigation laws, with the sinking fund, with the laws regulating or prohibiting the exportation of coin, with bounties, with export duties, with the favoured nation clause in commercial treaties.

It has been stated, but not I think proved, that the cause of the present crisis has been excessive or over-trading. As far, however, as can yet be discovered, it seems to be due far more to imprudent action on the part of certain banks, who have made advances at long dates, or on securities not readily convertible. The distrust which has followed on the failure of some among these banks has led to the absorption of a large amount of the note currency by the solvent banks, with a view to making their position impregnable. But this retention of notes, as it has limited the amount of accommodation, has indirectly raised the rate of discount, and thus it follows that as long as the rate is high the notes are hoarded, and as long as the notes are hoarded the rate will be high. It is worth the attention of the Section to consider whether the contingency of such a dead-lock as the present may not, concurrently with the restrictions of the Act of 1844, or independently of them, be rendered more frequently imminent by the increased inducements in the shape of high rates of interest offered to the public on deposit accounts.

At all events, the present state of affairs is without parallel. Once, in 1857, the rate of discount touched 9 per cent., just before the relaxation of the Act. It has stood on the present occasion for some weeks at 10; and unless British commerce is now conducted under far more favourable circumstances than it could have been nine years ago, the effect must ultimately be ruinous to the trader— must speedily be followed by a great rise in general prices, and in all probability by a glut of capital at no distant date.

The discussion, however, of purely economical questions forms in effect at least, but generally the most exciting, among the topics laid annually before this Section. Its largest business lies, and will, it may be hoped, constantly lie, in the direction of statistical inquiry.

The statistics published by the various government departments are annually of increasing fulness, of larger importance, of improved method. Their utility cannot be overrated, their value to those who are led to familiarize themselves with these certain and unprejudiced witnesses is of the highest character.

During the past year two papers have been issued, both, I believe,

from the Poor Law Board, or at least compiled by means of its machinery, which have had a considerable public interest. I allude to the returns of live stock, and to the statistics of the borough franchises. The first of these is, we understand, to be continued, and to be accompanied by general agricultural statistics.

The origin, as we all know too well, of these returns of live stock is to be found in the incidence of the cattle murrain. The preventive measures employed to check the disease, and the scheme of compensation accorded to those whose cattle were sacrificed in order to save those of other cattle owners, almost necessitated a rough cattle census. Such a census has been taken in other countries for some time past, and, in common with other agricultural statistics, has been regularly supplied for Ireland. It is to be hoped that the prejudice which agriculturists have entertained against the supply of these and similar returns will speedily be obliterated. It may, I presume, be taken for granted that no administration wishes to use these facts for any other purpose than that of general information as to the domestic resources of the nation at large.

The value of agricultural statistics does not lie simply in the aid which they may afford in indicating the probable course of the market, and in saving it from needless fluctuations, but in suggesting what is the probable annual deficiency in supply. Many years have passed since this country grew enough food for its inhabitants. That its prosperity may be uninterrupted, it will be necessary that it should rely increasingly on foreign produce. That its people should be well fed, it is necessary that every facility should be given for the growth and importation of live stock and meat.

The table of statistics giving information of the amount of cattle, sheep, and pigs on the 5th of March, 1866, on the presumption that the returns are accurate, is singularly instructive. In drawing any inference on this subject, we should treat Great Britain separately from Ireland, as the importation of cattle from this part of the United Kingdom is more difficult than it would be from Belgium or France, and nearly as difficult as from Denmark and the Elbe. In round numbers, the population of Great Britain is nearly twentyfour millions.

In one particular only, that of sheep, is Great Britain on a general level with other countries. There is nearly a sheep to every head of population. But of horned cattle there is only one to about every five; of pigs only one to every nine. Were the amount of horned cattle in France proportionate only to that of Great Britain, France would have a little more than six millions, in fact it has rather more than fourteen millions. The same may be said of Austria. In many of the German States the proportion is higher still. In Denmark the cattle are not very much less numerous than

the population. In the United States there is rather more than one head to every two of population.

With pigs, as I have stated, Great Britain is very scantily provided. In France and Prussia pigs are one to seven; in Austria one to four and a-half. Taking the whole of Europe the proportion is one to six. In the United States there are more pigs than population.

Had the returns supplied us with information as to poultry, the deficiency would have been still more striking. In the year 1865 this country imported more than 400 millions of eggs, if the hundred of eggs be taken, as it has been from the earliest time, at 120.

I need hardly inform my hearers of the fundamental canon of prices-that when the supply of any necessary of life falls short of the demand, the price rises in a proportion which I may perhaps venture on calling geometrical; that is, the quantity available for sale is worth increasingly more, according to the deficiency, than the normal or natural supply would be. The statistics of the cattle returns supply the key towards interpreting the high price of meat, and we may be sure that the price would be higher than it actually is were it not for those improvements in stock-keeping by which cattle become more available for consumption at earlier datesimprovements which are yearly developed.

This deficiency is not greatly supplemented by importation. Small as the stock of cattle is, the annual importations do not amount to more than one-twentieth of the ordinary stock, while that of sheep is, as a rule, but one-fiftieth. During the present year even these quantities must have undergone a serious diminution. Nor is the import of meat large. The most important item is that of bacon. But even here the largest estimate will not give more than the equivalent of 300,000 pigs. The beef seems to be about equal to the supply of 50,000 oxen.

It is matter of regret that no facts have been collected by which we might compare the present and past supply of live stock in Great Britain. It is of course always dangerous to trust to impressions, or to memory; but I cannot but be convinced that there has been a general and considerable diminution in the amount of live stock in Great Britain for some years past. It is now comparatively seldom that agricultural labourers are able to keep pigs; it is still more rare that they breed poultry. The enormous importation of eggs suggests that the fowls kept in Great Britain are comparatively scanty. But it is probable that the maintenance of insect - eating birds is an important provision in agricultural economy, and that when we find fault with the destruction of small birds, we forget that our practice is dispensing with a still more important means for checking the ravages of insects, as well as for supplying that great deficiency in

live stock which seems to characterise our domestic economy. It is possible, too, that the abandonment of much pasture in the northern part of the island to deer forests and grouse moors, has considerably lessened stocks of lean cattle and mountain sheep.

It is a little dangerous to offer any comment on the second important contribution to the statistical information of the present year. Under existing circumstances we must, if we allude to the electoral statistics, remember the caution of the Roman poet :"Incedis per ignes Suppositos cineri doloso."

It will be clear, however, that valuable as the blue book is to which I am adverting, and singular as were some of the obvious inferences from its contents, the facts are imperfect and the tabulation still more so. One would have desired to see, along with the figures declaring the value of lands and tenements as estimated for income tax, other similar charges, such as the proportion of assessed taxes, and the amount of the poor rate. It would have been well also had the distribution of the 25 per cent. of "working classes among the several constituencies been distinctly indicated. Thus, for instance, the persons designated by this name amount to nearly half the constituency at Birkenhead; at not much less in Nottingham; whereas at Birmingham they are taken at less than a fifth, at Bradford considerably under a tenth. Is it possible that the expression working classes" has been variously interpreted by those who transmitted their reports to the Poor Law Board? But as the returns published in this parliamentary paper are of considerable interest, it may be confidently expected that the facts will be tabulated in a fuller manner hereafter, as they are keenly criticised at present.

The progress of statistical inquiry is not due to the direct action of the government only, great and important as have been the aids which the various public departments have conferred on this branch of social learning. Among the scientific bodies who hold sittings in the metropolis, and issue reports of their meetings and their labours, none is more industrious, more impartial, and more useful than the Statistical Society of London. Its Journal, now in the thirty-second year of its existence, contains a mass of exceedingly important monographs and well-digested summaries, and is continually enriched by laborious and thoughtful communications. During the past year, this Journal has published more than its customary amount of such statistical facts, as illustrate the social condition of various European nations. There is a special value in information such as that given by my distinguished friend Dr. Farr on the mortality of children, for there cannot I conceive be a better gauge of the moral, the

social, and the material progress of a people than a low death-rate among children. The labours of Mr. Welton and Mr. Hyde Clarke have thrown light, the former on the condition of France, a country which asserts a great social and intellectual place, and certainly occupies a commanding political influence; the latter on that of Turkey, the lowest and apparently the most irreclaimable of European communities.

I cannot but feel a lively interest in such inquiries as those which have been undertaken by Mr. Jevons. The interpretation of prices, when the facts are large enough to preclude the influence of exceptionally disturbing causes, is one of the most interesting as well as the most instructive among the whole range of economical investigations. Nothing I believe is more likely to correct those hasty generalizations which have formed peculiar temptations to some of our most distinguished economists than the careful analysis of prices. The illustrious Coryphæus of political economy, Adam Smith, was as laborious in collecting facts as he was subtle in gathering inferences; and I have been constantly struck, in following out certain researches into the history of prices, by the remarkable sagacity with which Smith occasionally anticipated or suggested the facts of social life many centuries ago.

It might be expected that there would be a close conformity between values at very remote periods of social history. The proportion subsisting between the prices of labour and food are, or should be, so close and unvarying, that we may always suspect, in fully settled countries at least, that any marked discrepancy between values at different periods is suggestive of removable evils. For instance, if the price of food is considerably in excess of the average rate of wages, some cause, which may be eliminated or corrected, can almost always be assigned for the phænomenon. I may mention here in illustration of this rule, that during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries the prices of barley and oats, wheat being taken at 100, are represented by the numbers 73°14 and 42'05, and that within the last ten years the numbers have been 70 and 45'95. Close as this relation is, the slight discrepancy may I think be accounted for by the incidence of the malt tax in the first case, and the great increase in the number of horses kept in the second. Other concurrent causes may, I make no doubt, be detected, but these I think are likely to be the most dominant.

Estimates as to depreciation and exaltation in the value of the precious metals are, however, to be made with extreme caution, because they are liable to many fallacies. Some of us may remember the alarms entertained by M. Chevalier as to consequences likely to be effected on prices by the gold discoveries. It is not I think o much to say that these fears, though natural, were grossly