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50 ECONOMIC INQUIRIES AND STUDIES
sickness, and larger consumption of certain necessaries
and luxuries, in a new country than there is in an old
country measured per head. But so far as this explana-
tion holds, there is no superiority in the race of the new
country over the old. As far as rates of mortality are
concerned, statisticians in Australasia are familiar with
the fact,_ and quote rates not upon the actual population,
but upon it standard population in which the totals are
redistributed according to age, but the correct4>n is
rc;:quired in many oth~r directions as well. ~
Moreover, although statisticians are usually correct
when they deal with such figures, the point is not with-
out practical importance. I have seen arguments at
home, for instance, in which the attempt has been made
to prove the superiority of Australians to the people of
the United Kingdom in respect of health by means of
statistics of the general rate of mortality among the two
populations, no account being taken of the different
distribution of the populations-according to age. The
comparisons I have in my mind failed on another point,
being based upon a hypothesis as to the connection
between mortality rates and the sickness of a population
which had not been proved to be true generally; but
even if the hypothesis had been generally true, the
neglect of the point of distribution-1tccording to age
made it entirely misleading.

Mortalz'ty Statz'stz'cs.
\ I pass on to other statistics. Reference has already
~een made to mortality statistics in connection with
t~e special point of the constitution of populations ac-
cor~ng to age, but there are many other traps in using
such ~tatistics for a comparison between nations. The
mere Q\l+estion of how the deaths are recorded, and along
with tha-t, the births, as far as many inferences from the
mortality· "etatistics are concerned, here b,ecomes.. im-
p01""'lnt. B~~fore. the statistics of two countries can be