He should also like to ask a question about the importation of wheat into France. The author said the price of wheat in France was due to a certain extent to the competition due to the importation of foreign wheat. Was this really the case? He would point out that the price of any wheat that went in France was regulated by the market value of the wheat of the world. All the wheat that went into France from abroad had to return, not only the price we had to pay here, but that price with the duty added to it. It did not matter what the price of wheat in France was, the foreign wheat had to bear the full amount of the tax levied by the French Government.

The PRESIDENT said that was an interesting confirmation of what they had heard. With regard to the duty being added to the price, the best illustration he knew of was the weekly fixing of the price of steel in France. Meetings were held in Belgium, and the price fixed in Belgium was telegraphed to France, and the French duty was added to it.

Mr. SANSOME asked whether the increase of taxation had so encouraged the production of wheat in France and Germany that it had brought down the price of corn to a less amount than when they had free imports. France had free importation of corn for seven years, and Germany for about twelve or fourteen years.

The PRESIDENT, in proposing a vote of thanks to the author, said the object of the paper was not to lay down principles, but to give facts. No one had attempted to shake the facts which the author had brought forward; and, therefore, it must be taken that they stood. Whether the deductions drawn from them were too sweeping was another matter, and very possibly they would not all agree with him; but, as regards the facts, they could but thank him for having contributed so largely to the statistical information in their possession.

Mr. ROSENBAUM, in reply, said he had only one or two questions to answer. With regard to the question whether there had been any change in the price of a glass of beer, the only information. available as to the consumption of beer was the number of standard barrels that paid excise duty; and it was not at all impossible that, if they knew something about the strength of the beer in those standard barrels, or the quantity of actual liquid or fluid barrels that was consumed, there was really no decrease at all. It was sufficient for his purpose to find that when the duties were raised the gross revenue derived did not show the same rate of expansion. He thought the figures did show that, from that point of view, the revenue had become absolutely inelastic.

With regard to the difference between a conventional tariff and the minimum, those terms only indicated a difference in the mode in which the two arose. The minimum tariff of France was one which they fixed first of all and then offered to various countries

who were willing to reciprocate, or else they granted it by law. The conventional tariff of Germany arose in a different way. Germany started with a general tariff; then they went to a country like Italy, and Italy said that they required certain concessions on certain items. That created a reduction in a number of items ; then some other country required concessions on other items, and that created a further reduction in other items. Until, finally, they made up a combination tariff of lowest rates that became the conventional tariff of Germany. M. Yves Guyot had replied to the question of the Chairman about the coffee duties.

The PRESIDENT said the secret came out when they examined the French accounts as to why there was such a very small effect produced by Preference; for, though everybody wrote up Martinique coffee, there was a very small amount of it sold-it was nearly all foreign.

Mr. ROSENBAUM (continuing) said the question of wheat which went from Canada through the United States and on to this country as flour had been answered in the House of Commons on the previous day, when the President of the Board of Trade gave the figures. It appeared that in the recent year about 86,000 quarters of wheat passed from Canada into the States, was there milled and sent out again, probably to this country, as flour, a drawback being paid upon the total quantity amounting to almost exactly the duties originally paid.

He did not know what certificates of origin were required, but the information given by Mr. Rutter seemed to satisfy that. M. Guyot's criticism of the suggestion that France could, if desired, raise further revenues from liquor taxation rested entirely upon administration difficulties. If these could be overcome, then presumably his objections would disappear.

The following were elected Fellows of the Society :—

Allen, H. C.

Bellom, Maurice.

Clarke, John Joseph.

Eldridge, Ernest E. B., A.I.A.

Manohar Lál.

Phelps, Edward Bunnell.
Schmidt, Arno.

Shakir Ali, Mahomed.

REPORT OF THE COUNCIL

For the FINANCIAL YEAR ended 31st December, 1907, and for the SESSIONAL YEAR ending 16th June, 1908, presented at the SEVENTY-FOURTH ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING of the ROYAL STATISTICAL SOCIETY, held at the Society's Rooms, 9, Adelphi Terrace, Strand, W.C., London, on the 16th of June, 1908.

THE Council have the honour to submit their Seventy-fourth Annual Report.

The roll of Fellows on the 31st December last as compared with the average of the previous ten years was as follows:

Since the 1st January last, 19 new Fellows have been elected, I Fellow has been elected an Honorary Fellow, and the Society has lost 27 by death, resignation, or default, so that the number on the list, excluding Honorary Fellows, on 16th June, 1908, is 852.

The Society has to deplore the death since June last year of Sir James Hector, K.C.M.G., New Zealand, and the Hon. John Eliot Sanford, United States, both Honorary Fellows; and of the undermentioned Fellows :-

Templeton, Col. J. Montgomery, C.M.G., V.D., F.I.A. 1906

During the same period the following new Fellows have been

Two Honorary Fellows were also elected:

*Life Fellow. c Ex-Member of the Council. d Donor to the Library. p Contributed a Paper to the Society's Transactions.

The financial condition of the Society is shown in the Auditors' report [vide Appendices A(i), A(ii)]. In the estimate of assets [A(ii)], the values of the invested stocks held by the Society have been taken at current prices. On 1st January, 1907, there was a balance from 1906 of 9391. 6s. 6d. ; the receipts of the year were 2,1791. 5s. 9d., and the expenditure was 2,400l. 128. 6d., (including 5881. 1s. 9d. for the purchase of 6ool. Great Northern Railway Preferred Converted Ordinary stock), leaving a balance of 7171. 198. 9d. on 31st December, 1907. Details for the last twenty-five years are given in Appendix B. The cordial thanks of the Council have been tendered to the Auditors for their honorary services in auditing the Treasurer's accounts for the past year.

In March last the Council decided that the interest accruing from the Guy Bequest Fund (now invested in Consols) should be regularly invested and added to the capital amount; and accordingly, in order to repay to the Fund the amount of the interest received up to 31st December, 1907, Consols to the amount of 6281. 14s. were in March transferred to the Guy Bequest Fund from the General Funds of the Society.

At the Ordinary Meeting on 14th April it was reported that the sum of rool. had been bequeathed to the Society's Building Fund by the late Honorable John Eliot Sanford, of Boston, U.S.A., who had been an Honorary Fellow since 1870; and a resolution was unanimously passed, expressing the Society's appreciation of this generous bequest. This amount has been duly invested, along with the rest of the Building Fund, in Metropolitan Consolidated 31. 10s. per cent. stock.

The contributions to the Society's transactions presented at the Ordinary Meetings of the Session, 1907-08, have been as follows:

1907.

I.-19th November

....

DILKE, Right Hon. Sir Charles W., Bart., M.P.
Presidential Address: "On Official Statistics."

II.-17th December.... THOMPSON, Robert J. An Inquiry into the Rent of Agricultural Land in England and Wales during the Nineteenth Century.

1908.