case in point has until now been known to two or three individuals only, one a personage of eminence who put into my hands in October, 1878, an optimist pamphlet, or rather paper, by the late Mr. Wm. Newmarch, F.R.S., an esteemed member of the Statistical Society, manager of a department in the Bank of Messrs. Glyn and Co., and a distinguished authority in trade and currency questions. This paper is entitled "The Progress of the Foreign Trade of the United Kingdom 1856—1877," and is to be found in vol. 41 of the Statistical Society's Journal. Table XV. on page 221 gives the following abstract (substantially, though in a more perplexing form)
| Total Imports during the twenty-two years | 6196 | million pounds. |
| „ Exports „ „ „ „ „ | 3900 | |
| Apparent Excess of Imports | 2296 |
Mr. Newmarch next reduces this enormous excess by
| Sundry purely arbitrary allowances amounting to | 686 | |
| Thereby bringing down the figures to | 1610 | million pounds. |
He then proceeds as follows upon page 222:—"From this total of one thousand six hundred and ten million pounds sterling we may take away one hundred for excess of imports of bullion, leaving one thousand five hundred and ten million pounds sterling as the excess of imports of merchandise; and when the whole subject is considered the wonder will be, not that in twenty-two years there has been a total excess of one thousand five hundred and ten million pounds sterling, but that it has not been greater"! Here is simply an assumption, but so calmly made that nobody is likely to stop and examine it
justifying Mr. Giffen in saying that it only showed a charge of 15s., it really showed £7 7s. per cent, for cost of conveyance.
"Mr. Giffen—I find it should be £7 10s. per cent., not 15s. (Loud laughter.) "Captain Thompson remarked that there was another gross miscalculation in the next paragraph, where Mr. Giffen said that the figures;£ 130, 000, 000 showed a gross earning of £8 per ton on the total tonnage of the world, sailing and steam together. In his tables he had put the total tonnage at 28,000,000, and on that amount the gross earnings would be £4 11s. per ton instead of £8. "Mr. Giffen—I think that 28,000,000 is reduced to equivalents in sailing tons. "Captain Thompson said he thought not; and added that if Mr. Giffen's other calculations were as little to be relied upon as those he had now quoted his voluminous paper would not be of much use" (Morning Post report of the adjourned discussion on Mr. Giffen's paper, entitled "The use of Import and Export Statistics," held at the rooms of the Statistical Society on April 4, 1882). In the month of June following, Mr. Giffen was elected President of this Society.