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60 ECONOMIC INQUIRIES AND STUDIES
proper proportion of saving for a working class com-
munity is itself a subject which requires some study.
These points are of special interest in new com-
munities where the working classes have large means.
No good is done by using unsound arguments even for
so excellent an object as the promotion of thrift. I f ex-
amples are to be taken from other countries such as
France, the so-called example should first of all be
adequately explained, and a true comparison made,
and then an inquiry made as to whether and how far
the French example is sound and worthy of imitation.
The fact already brought out as to the larger propor-
tion of old life in France than there is in either Ger-
many or the United Kingdom may also render saving
a greater necessity there in order that as much may be
got out of life as in the neighbouring countries. The
requirements as to saving may thus be essentially
different.
To sum up this branch of the discussion: what we
may say is that the rough comparison of communities
as regards moral characteristics based on statistics of
education, crime, insolvency, and the like, is entirely
useless and mischievous because the figures are of
such a kind that values can only be assigned to them
by the most careful study. To take them haphazard
from statistical abstracts and dictionaries, and assume
that figures called by the same names in different
countries have exactly the same values, is either foolish
or dishonest. Dictionaries are for reference, and are
not intended to give all the materials for discussion j and
when they are used for purposes for which they are not
intended, all who are interested in the subjects under
discussion must look out. Some dictionaries, however,
might be made more useful than they are by the addi-
tion of a few notes to the figures, referring to such
points as the nature of the legislation applied to the
subjects of the figures, the mode of collecting the latter,
and other vital qualifications of the figures themselves.
I may claim the credit of privately stifling many an