demands for home productions. It is discreditable to the country that these opportunities of expending capital at home should be neglected. One of our first duties, therefore, should be to inquire into and remove the impediments to this outlay, whether they consist in difficulties of transfer of land, of expense in dealing with it by mortgage or otherwise, or in its being tied up in quantities beyond the means of, and without the motive to, its ostensible owners to deal with and expend capital on it, or in the insufficient security to tenants for the outlay of capital where it is not forthcoming from the owner. It is in this direction that a remedy may be found for the present ills of the farming class, rather than in a wild goose chase after protection, in the shape of reciprocity, to which they are encouraged by some of their advisers. In the coming decade it is not easy to see how the plant of our manufacturers can be increased as it has been in the past decade; but many millions a-year might easily and profitably be spent on land improvement, and would supply employment for a large increase of our population.

The subject, however, of our agricultural produce and the possibility of the economic employment of more labour on the land might well form the matter for a special paper and discussion before this Society. I will only conclude, that in what I have said to-night, I have exemplified to the best of my ability the work of the Society, for I have taken my facts to a great extent from the able papers read in our last session, papers which for research, lucidity, fairness, and philosophic inquiry, have never, I venture to think, been excelled. I have made use of them, I hope, in the same spirit. If in the forthcoming session as good use of our time is made as in the past, I feel no fear for the continued success of the Society, or that it will lose its present position as one of the learned societies, studying the conditions, progress, and habits of man-a study as truly scientific, I venture to think, as that of the habits of ants or apes. The study, however, of our own race is one in which we cannot hope to arrive at such certain and absolute conclusions, as in the study of these inferior beings. We can at best analyse some of the causes, and predict some of the results or tendencies which will mark their progress; but the time may come when in the advance of this science, the future may be more under our view and control than at present, and till then we must be content to believe with Pope that—

All nature is but art unknown to us;

All chance, direction which we cannot see ;
All discord, harmony not understood;

All partial evil, universal good.

APPENDIX.

TABLE A.-In Explanation of the Excess Value of Imports over Exports in ead Is from 1865 to 1877, showing 1st (Cols. 1, 2, and 3), the Gross Amount of Impr as recorded in the Board of Trade Returns, the Value of Foreign and Coloni Goods Re-Exported, and the Net Imports being the Difference between these Te Amounts; 2nd (Col. 4), the Increase or Decrease of the Value of the Net Impor as Compared with the preceding Year; 3rd (Cols. 5 and 6), the Value of the Expert of British and Irish Produce as recorded in the Board of Trade Returns, with th Increase or Decrease on the preceding Year; 4th (Col. 7), the Difference in Valu between the Net Imports, Col. 3, and the Exports of British and Irish Proder Col. 5, being the apparent Excess of Imports over Exports according to the Boar of Trade Returns; and 5th, the Calculated Real Excess of Imports over Expan (Col. 9) after Deducting from the Apparent Excess as stated in Col. 7, a Sum equi to Five per Cent. on the Imports, and Ten per Cent. on the Exports (Col. 8), vizs is assumed to be necessary to allow for Freights Earned, and for Imports & recorded being Valued at Port of Arrival, and Exports at the Port of Shipmes. [000,000's omitted.]

Note.-It might be possible to render the table more minutely accurate in appearance by adding to the net imports the net imports of bullion in the period, &c., but this is com sidered unnecessary, as the table is only designed to show roughly and approximately the course of trade for the ten years.

TABLE B.-In further Explanation of the Excess of Imports over Exports in each Year from 1865 to 1877, showing 1st (Col. 1), the Estimated Amount of Interest Due on British Capital Invested Abroad in Government and other Public Loans; 2nd (Col. 2), the Estimated Amount of Remittances on Account of the Indian Government for Home Expenses, and by Civil Servants Abroad, and the Remittances on Account of Trade Profits; 3rd (Col. 3), the Aggregate of the Interest Due and other Remittances as in Cols. 1 and 2; and 4th (Col. 5), the Difference between the Total in Col. 3 and the Calculated Real Excess of Imports over Exports as stated in the previous Table, Col. 9, and now repeated here in Col. 4; this Difference being Estimated to represent the Amount Annually Due to this Country which is not actually Brought Home, and which has therefore been Reinvested Abroad in each Year, the Total of the Column being the Estimated Amount of Investments Abroad between 1865 and 1877.

*It is assumed that these investments are made at 6 per cent.

+ This amount nearly corresponds with the amount of 65,000,000l. at which Mr. Giffen in his paper "On the Accumulation of Capital," computed the interest on British capital invested in foreign securities.

Note. There is a steady increase in the amounts in Col. 1 of this table, corresponding to the estimated increase of foreign investments as in Col. 5. The amounts in Col. 2 also increase through the increase of Indian remittances, &c.

TABLE C.-Showing Increase or Decrease in Pauperism, Investments in Savings Banks, and other particulars in each of Last Ten Years.

The great exemptions in respect of incomes under 150l., conceded in 1877, make it impossible to compare the year 1877-78 with previous years.

REMARKS on the STATISTICAL USE of the ARITHMOMEter.
By PROFESSOR W. STANLEY JEVONS, F.R.S., &c.

[Made before the Statistical Society, 19th November, 1878.]

It seems desirable to draw the attention of statists to the great saving of time and mental labour, which may be effected by the use of the Arithmometer, or French calculating machine. There is no great novelty in this machine. In principle it is the same as the original arithmetical machine invented by Blaise Pascal,* at the age of 19 or 20, about the years 1642-45, and imitated by several later mechanicians. The Arithmometer too, as actually manufactured by the late M. Thomas, of Colmar, has been a good deal used by actuaries, engineers, and others. It was made known to many people at the Paris Exposition of 1867, and to many more at the recent Exposition. English astronomers are now just beginning to use it for the tedious computations continually going on in observatories. Yet mercantile men, statists, and the English public at large remain unaware of the immense saving of labour which may be derived from the expenditure of 167. or 20l. upon this beautiful machine.

It is true that the machine is of little use except for simple multiplication and division. The work proceeds entirely by addition and subtraction, which, when repeated time after time, constitute multiplication and division. But there is seldom any saving of time by employing the machine to perform simple addition or subtraction, because a computer of very moderate skill accomplishes this work rapidly on paper, and the transfer of the numbers from paper to the machine would occupy a good deal of time. The machine may be used also to extract square and cube roots; but it only does so by going through all the steps of the ordinary arithmetical processes, which are lengthy, and when not done on paper, liable to blunders. For these and various other operations,

logarithms would be more advantageous.

Nevertheless, the most common and troublesome operations of the computer consist in multiplication and division, and it is in this work that the machine can render inestimable service. A long sum can be put on the machine in ten seconds, and then a few turns of the handle give the product or quotient almost infallibly correct, and to as many places of figures as can possibly be required. The work for which the statist will find the machine most useful, is that of drawing percentages or ratios. There is little or no significance in any statistical number, except as compared with some other similar number, and in almost all cases that "Euvres Complètes de Blaise Pascal," vol. iii, pp. 185-208, &c. Paris, 1864.