A CYCLOP2EDIA OF STATISTICS.* MRS. BREWER has undertaken a most
laborious and praiseworthy task. There is no publication in existence equal to Dr. Kolb's Handbook of Comparative Statistics, for the range and corn-
* The Condition of Nations, Social and Political, with Complete Comparative Tables of Universal Statistics. By G. F. Kolb. Translated, Edited, and Collated to 1980 by Mrs. Brewer ; with Original Notes and Information by Edwin W. Streeter, F.R.G.S. London : G. Bell and Sons.
pleteness of its information on the social and political well- being of the modern world; but it is a work comparatively little known in this country. The last edition of it was issued in a condensed form in 1879, and appears to have been, on the whole, carefully revised. Mrs. Brewer has compiled her work—whose title, by the way, is much more pretentious than that of the original—partly from that edition, and partly from the more extended edition of 1875. We are naturally unable, in the time and space at our command, to make anything like a complete analysis of so extensive a work ; but we have tested Mrs. Brewer's translation carefully in several places, comparing it with the original of both the late editions. The result of this examination, we regret to say, has been to convince us that Mrs. Brewer has undertaken a task beyond her powers, either as a translator or as a statistician. Like nearly all German statistical publications, Mr. Kolb's book is capable of a good deal of condensation, and the translator appears to have recognised this ; but she has not succeeded in judiciously condensing, she has only omitted wholesale, when omission suited her. There is no sense of proportion or fitness in her deal- ings with the immense masses of figures which overload Kolb's pages. The result is, that many comparatively useless tables of figures are printed, while not unfrequently a good deal of the elucidatory text is mercilessly cut away. At times, too, Mrs. Brewer takes to amplifying her author in a manner that is the reverse of happy, as in the following example :—Mr. Kolb writes at the close of his essay on the "Philosophy of Statistics," an essay written as long ago as 1864, and incorporated in the edition of the Handbuch published in 1875, as follows :—
" Wir haben oben allerdings zunacbst nor eine Reihe von Fragen iiber Gesundheit und Gedeihen des Menschen erwahnt. Die Statistik beschrankt sich aber keineswegs aid diese Punkte, sic breitet sich vielmehr ilber alle Verhaltnisse, elle Phanomene des physischen,
moralischen, und intellectnellen Lebens ; sin =feast das gauze Wirken und Sein eller Klassen, Volker und Nationen ; sie dringt in Tiefen welche der menschlichen Berechnung vor Kurzem noch der- massen unnahbar scbienen, dass man Jeden der em Vordringen in diese Gebiete behauptet hatte far einen Phantasten erkliirt haben wiirde. Dies des Gebiet der Statistik."
Mrs. Brewer renders these simple, dignified sentences thus :— " Hitherto, we have but glanced at a few of the facts which vitally concern the wealth and prosperity of mankind. Statistics are not limited to such considerations only ; they extend to all conditions, and to all the physical, moral, and intellectual phenomena of life ; they comprehend the whole range of human occupations and actions ; they throw light upon the interests, well-being, and decay, with the cause of each, in all classes, peoples, and nations. They penetrate into the depths and mysteries of Nature where but a few years ago it was thought calculation must be baffled, while those who set themselves to explore and classify these phenomena were characterised as idle dreamers, impracticable fanatics. But the very domain of statistics includes these researches, among many others which they have reduced to order, rescuing them from obscurity and meaninglessness, and ren- dering their study at once simple and useful."
After reading such a jet of verbiage as this, wherein the meaning of the original is largely travestied, one cannot help feeling a distrust towards the translator as a guide. This feeling deepens the further one goes into the book. Mrs. Brewer appears to have worked mostly on the edition of 1875, and afterwards patched her compilation up from that of 1879. Hence the introductory essay from which we have quoted. Kolb himself omitted it in his last edition, but Mrs. Brewer gives a hash of it, without mentioning the date at which it was written. As a general result of this mode of working, the statis- tics are by no means brought up to date with any degree of uniformity or trustworthiness.
It may be said that we are unreasonable in expecting uni- formity of this kind in any such work. No two countries pub- lish their statistics at the same date, and some nations, like the French and Spanish, are extremely tardy in furnishing figures of a detailed or proximately authentic kind. We admit all that can be fairly urged on this score, but that does not justify much that is done or omitted to be done by Mrs. Brewer. A very little care on her part would, for instance, have enabled her to give the statistics relating to Great Britain accurately and up to date. Had she but taken the statistical abstracts compiled by Mr. Giffen into her hand, she could not have made the irritating blunders which we have constantly come upon in look- ing over this part of her book,—blunders that cause us to lament that she should have wasted her labour on work so obviously outside the range of her powers. We shall take, in justification of this statement, a few examples at random. In dealing with the public revenues and expenditure of the United Kingdom, she gives the gross revenue of the Post-
Office down only to 1875, but that of the Telegraphs down to 1878. Her account of the Income-tax is a hopeless muddle. She states that Sir Robert Peel's Ministry "again imposed it," but omits the date ; and in giving the tax schedules, amongst other blunders, translates Richter " tenant-farmer ," although Kolb, in his 1875 edition, is careful to explain that the term means "occupier," as distinct from "owner." The annual value of property and income of all kinds assessed for Income-tax in the United Kingdom is not given beyond 1876, but Mrs. Brewer gives the yield of the Customs down to 1878. On the other hand, the total taxation of the United Kingdom per head of the population given on p. 52 is £2 18s. 111 per head in 1873-4, and on p. 57 as £2 8s. 2d. only for 1873, the larger figures being in this latter case put against 1876 and 1877, and utterly wrong. Other portions of the section dealing with the United Kingdom are somewhat better done, but in no instance is the work com- plete or reliable. This is a great pity, for Mrs. Brewer has evidently worked very hard ; but her knowledge of German is imperfect, and she appears to be extremely ignorant of sources of information outside the volumes of Kolb. Thus she has, in many cases, been at the trouble to reconvert Kolb's figures into their English equivalents, with results disastrous to the reliability of her work. No one can be sure, therefore, without verifica- tion elsewhere, that a single figure relating to the United King- dom is correct. How it may be with statistics relating to the other parts of the world we have not had time to examine, but the "general survey" at the end of the book, into which we have looked, does not bear the test much better than the part relating to British statistics. This section, and the one that follows it, giving a universal comparative review of the life of mankind, are quite the most valuable portions of the original work ; but they fare badly in the hands of the translator, by whom they have been cut, garbled, and transmogrified in a fashion that is quite heartrending. Figures relating to popula- tion, creeds, revenue, crec., are altered in a seemingly arbitrary way from the original, and no authority cited for the changes. In the part relating to creeds, for instance, the totals of the edition of 1879 are mainly furnished, but the relative proportions are taken from the edition of 1875. The population of the United States of North America, however, is placed at 46,000,000 in the Handbuch, of 1879, and at 38,925,598 only, by Mrs. Brewer. The Handbuch places the number of Christians of all kinds on the earth at 413,000,000; Mrs. Brewer makes them 400,750,000 ; and so on.
Her totals relating to the revenues of European States, are either all wrong or absolutely useless for purposes of comparison, insomuch as no dates are attached to the figures for each particular country. She, for example, gives the total for 1875 for Great Britain in a table professedly brought up to date. And the income and expenditure of Turkey are set down without a hint that the figures are probably purely imaginary. So with the figures relating to the commerce of nations,—tables are given without dates, and comparisons are impossible. The figures relating to Great Britain are wrong both as to her total trade and her railways. One could easily multiply almost indefinitely examples of this kind, but it would be a needless cruelty to the translator and to our readers. We should have much greater pleasure in setting forth a few ex- cellences than in finding fault, but the worst of books of this kind is that when they are found unreliable in part, it becomes impossible for one to use them for any purpose. There is a great deal, to take an example, that one would like to say upon the question of European debts and armaments, their effects on the peoples who have to submit to the burden they impose, and the tendencies towards misery which they induce, or the different national characteristics they evolve ; but such a work as this presents no safe basis for reasoning upon a question of that kind. Kolb himself estimates the total cost of European armies and navies in time of peace at about £154,000,000, and the annual cost of European debts at nearly £170,000,000 more, or £320,000,000 in all. This is, however, purely an esti- mate, and not a very recent one ; but take it as approximately representing the facts, it indicates that the armaments and debts of Europe cost the population kl per head all told. This is wholly irrespective of the burden thrown on such nations as Germany and France, through the immense number of labourers whom the military system abstracts from useful industries. The direct tendency of burdens such as these must surely be to augment the miseries of a, people, and some very interesting facts might be brought to light by a careful consideration of statistics
bearing on this question What effect has these crushing weights on Germans and Frenchmen ? Why do the men of one race flee the country to escape conscription, while those of the other stay at home, and bear their burdens as best they may ? What are the social and moral effects of conscription upon a people. These and many other questions occur to one, in looking at some of the figures that Kolb gives relative to death- rates, poverty, taxation, and so forth ; but neither in Kolb himself, nor in this unfortunate rendering of his work, are there data sufficient for their answer. Enough facts are not, perhaps,. in existence, and we must not lay the blame of imperfections of this kind on Mrs. Brewer's head ; but what statistics she- does give might have been made at least as reliable and full as those of the original work, and the elucidations of Kolb might have been placed before the English reader in a full and in- telligent way. Comparative statistics on any subject are but in their infancy, and we therefore regret the more deeply that the one work in existence which has attempted a complete risume of such statistics should have been presented to the English reader in a manner which makes it nearly useless for reference, and in not a few places bald and uninteresting in the extreme.
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