20
INTRODUCTION
British ports, but may not be British in any other respect. It would,
for example, include trade in Australian wool bought in Sydney on
account of a Hamburg merchant, sent to London in a French sailer,
and thence despatched to Hamburg in a German vessel.
46. Statistics of external commerce usually include statements as to
the description of the goods exported or imported, the quantities, the
countries of origin or destination of the goods, and the value. In the
case of many articles, and especially those most largely imported and
exported, such as food-stuffs and raw materials, the description of the
article presents no difficulty, so that one may deal with returns as to
such commodities in making comparisons between period and period in
the trade of the same country, or between different countries for the
same or different periods without fear of being misled. But in many
cases it is otherwise, and difficulties in making comparisons for the
same country for long periods are constantly being made by tariff
changes necessitating different classifications, and even where there are
no tariff changes alterations in the classification of goods are often made
simply with the view of giving a more satisfactory statement of the
facts of commerce. However useful such changes may be from one
point of view, it has always to be remembered that they have the draw-
back referred to. This drawback arises, it should be added, even when
increased care is used, and hence increased accuracy arrived at in the
collection of the original data.
47. Notes are also given on the individual tables as to the various
practices in stating the countries of origin and destination. In some
cases the practice with regard to values has been, and in one case still
is, even more misleading than any of the practices that have prevailed
with respect to the point just mentioned. In England the earliest
attempts at the systematic collection of commercial statistics appear to
have been made in 1697. From that time down to 1797 inclusive the
values entered for English commerce and, after the union of the Parlia-
ments in 1707, for that of Great Britain, were official values based on
the prices of 1694 and for new articles on the price of the first year of
their introduction. The so-called values were, accordingly, not true
values, but for each commodity served to give indications of changes
in quantity from year to year, while the totals had little meaning at
all. - From 1798 in the case of exports declared values were added, not
substituted, so that we have the absurdity in Porter’s Progress of the
Nation 1 of two tables giving professedly the same thing, the value to
the last pound of exports from the United Kingdom from 1801 to 1849,
yet utterly divergent from one another, showing from 1820 onwards
a steadily growing excess of official over declared values till in 1849 we
have
Official Value
Declared Value
>
- Edition 1851, p. 356.
wl
. £164,539,504
. 63.596,0256