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64 ECONOMIC INQUIRIES AND STUDIES
industries makes any real comparison between the two
as a rule impossible, except so far as it can be done in
money. To make the comparison in money, again, pre-
sents new difficulties. The value of different kinds of
production cannot well be reckoned up. A country
like England, with the machinery of its income tax,
has special facilities for reckoning up its income as far
as possessed by individuals above a certain minimum;
but it has little official knowledge, by comparisl)n, of
incomes below that limit. France, again, has a ~pecial
knowledge of its agricultural wealth, by means of the
cadastre, and the system of registration and taxation
of transfers of property, but it has not equal means of
estimating its income from manufacturing. Money also
is itself variable in value from time to time, as measured
by the average of the commodities or services it is used
to exchange, and in comparing two countries, as regards
their production measured in money, no little care would
be needed. I have seen few attempts to do so in which
attention has been paid to the necessary conditions and
difficulties, or in which the existence of such dangers and
difficulties has even been recognized. The Americans
in their census have attempted a great deal in this
direction, but the least that can be said is that the
result has not been encouraging.
Coming next to imports and exports, the point I
would urge first is the initial difficulty of a bare com-
parison of the figures themselves. Imports and exports,
instead of giving us easy statistics for many of the
- jmtposes for which they are used, are really very
diffi~t. I refer especially to the values. Imports ar~
stated ir.. one country at the value of the goods as at
the place Clf shipmeat; in another, as at the place of
arrival. In-~ne country the basis of the statement is a
declaration of, the value by the importer, checked by
the Customs aut.horitiesi in another there is an efficient
commission of values, which takes note of market prices.
and fixes official pr!ce~ for everything at more or less
frequent intervafs. The same with the exports. The-