ECCENTRIC OFFICIAL STATISTICS. II.
IN the January number of the JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY the writer called attention to the eccentric character of census sta- tistics of production and wages. The purpose of the present article is a criticism of census statistics of capital and wealth which seem equally eccentric. In The Margin of Profit Mr. Edward Atkinson says :
Mr. Chamberlain attempts to sustain his position by making the common blunder, which he shares with many members of Congress who ought to know better, by trying to find out what were the profits of manufacturing in 1 880 from the figures of the census. For such a purpose the figures of the census are mere rubbish. If the questions had been put in such a way that the profits of the different arts investigated would have been disclosed, manufacturers would either have returned no answer whatever or would not have given correct and complete answers. The taking of the census had no such purpose and it would be impossible to carry it out if it had. All that you have in the census and I know of what I speak, for I framed the forms of many of the ques- tions, especially in the department of which I took the census myself I say all that you have in the census which is of value and which can be used with safety is the gross value of manufacturing production, the cost of the materials, the number of employes and the sum of their wages. 1
In the eleventh census we find adopted the very plan which Mr. Atkinson declares it would be impossible to carry out, for besides miscellaneous expenses in addition to cost of material and wages which were not reported at the tenth census, it was attempted to obtain the full amount of capital employed in man-
1 The value of even these items may be doubted when we find so noted a sta- tistician as Mr Atkinson quoting the sum of manufactured products as the value of manufacturing production. This Mi. Atkinson does in an article in the Chicago Record Q( December II, 1896, sa \ cording to-the census of manufactures the
total value in 1890 was $9,372,437,283, number of employe's 4,712,622, average earnings $484."
The value of the products of manufacturing industry i.s thus <|uoteil for the pur- pose of showing the relative insignificance of products with \vhii h it is compared. The >f such statements was shown in the writer's preceding article.
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