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THE UTILITY OF COMMON STATISTICS 3
which the constituent elements of the money market
are described, and the theory of a bank reserve is set
forth and illustrated; but the number and variety of
topics in Mr. N ewmarch's book, and the way in which
the variQus economic movements of the time are
grasped and set in one picture, make it of unique
value. Whether it is the effect of the gold discoveries
in bringing new resources into the money market, and
giving a vast impetus to trade, or the effect of a great
movement of migration on the trade of old and new
countries alike, or tbe financial consequences of a great
war, Mr. Newmarch is at home in the discussion.
Apart also from the light it throws .on the special
questions treated, and as regards which it may be of
course superseded by fuller and later statistics, and by
wholly new circumstances, the book must long remain
of value, I believe, as a specimen of method and of
what can be done by the use of statistics. Indirectly,
I believe, it has been the· beginning of much financial
writing, as it is really the parent of a book like M.
Neumann-Spallart's cc Annual Review of the World's
Trade," on the one hand, and of much of that writing
on cc trade and finance II and those columns of .. City
notes" which we now see in many newspapers. Mr.
N ewmarch, in fact, popularized the idea that the daily
changes in the movement of business can be generalized
and referred to the working of the laws of human
nature, and in a thousand ways the idea has been
worked out and made useful to the world. That in
the end the course of business will be better under-
stood generally, with useful results both to business
men and to society, there can be little doubt.
Besides thus recognizing Mr. N ewmarch's special
place as a statistician, we are bound to say a few words
here on his special services to the Society. Among
these I would place in the first rank his labours as
editor of the" Journal." Looking over the back num-
bers, it may be perceived that from the time he took the
cc Journal" in hand there was not only a considerable