CHAPTER 20
GREAT Britain, I
THE international trade of Great Britain during the nineteenth
century and the earlier years of the twentieth gives opportunity for
illustrating and testing some conclusions of theory.
An inspection of the course of the imports and exports for the
entire period, roughly a century, from 1830 to 1914, shows that a
striking change in the relations between the two took place about
the middle of the nineteenth century. During the first half of that
century, until 1853, the recorded exports regularly exceeded the
imports. After 1853, however, the contrary relation appears:
the imports exceed the exports. = The excess of imports is moderate
at first, being from thirty to forty millions of pounds during the
third quarter of the century. Beginning about 1873 it becomes
more marked, increases irregularly but with hardly an interruption,
often by leaps and bounds, and toward the end of the century rises
to extraordinary dimensions.
The turning point came in the middle of the nineteenth century ;
and on the face of the figures it came abruptly. In the year 1854,
the recorded imports suddenly exceed the recorded exports. But
this dramatic change — hardly to be expected on general prin-
ciples, especially in view of the circumstance that the year was
not one of crisis or other sharp overturn — proves on inquiry to be
the evidence only of a change in statistical procedure. Until
1854 imports had been recorded on a basis of “official value” —
arbitrary price figures for the goods. A change toward a more
accurate reckoning, on the basis of the actual prices, was then
made.? Thereupon the recorded import value shot up suddenly.
1 Figures for the entire period are in the U. S. Statistical Abstract for Foreign
Countries, of which the first number (and for a long while the only number) was
issued in 1909. See pp. 40 et seq.
2 See R. Giffen’s Essays in Statistics, pp. 76-77. I know of no inquiries on the
real relations between imports and exports during the earlier period.
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