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ON INTERNATIONAL STATISTICAL COMPARISONS 75
include the foreign investments of the members of the
community at home as far as possible, and similarly I
would make a deduction in the case of an indebted
community equal to the amount of its indebtedness.
All this, however, would be on the assumption of a
continuation of peace, and subject to the qualification
that in certain circumstances a different calculation
would practically require to be made.
'(here is one point in addition to be noticed in regard
to tht! method of these calculations. Where property in
two countries appears to be subject to a tax like probate
duty or income tax on apparently much the same basis,
the temptation is very strong to apply the calculated
amount of such property per head to each nation re-
spectively, but nothing could be more dangerous owing
to the difficulty of the data. The laws and" their ad-
ministration in the respective countries compared would
need careful examination before any such short cut
could be used, and even then one ought not to be too
sure of any single method. Unless some detail could
be given, no such method should be employed except
as a check on a more detailed method. Such a method
is also specially dangerous when the wealth of a com-
munity is arrived at without any items being given;
by such a method, for instance, as that of dividing the
average wealth subject to probate duty in a year by the
numbers dying in a year, assuming the wealth per head
thus arrived at to be the average wealth per head of
the community, and then multiplying the numbers of
the community by that figure so as to arrive at the
aggregate wealth. The method may yield useful results
if care be taken to establish aliunde what is the relation
between the wealth per head of those members of a
community who die within a year, and the wealth per
head of the members of a community as a whole, but
when no such care is taken, and communities are com-
pared whose probate and income-tax laws are not really
the same, the result of the comparisons may be the
merest chance.