OCR Rendition - approximate

1877.] Economic Science and the British Association. 469 " 1. The principles on which Statistics are founded are derived from the theory of probabilities, and have exercised, and will still exercise, the ingenuity of many generations of the ablest mathe maticians. " 2. The Section concerns itself with an important part of human knowledge, which ought not to be ignored in a general association of scientific men. " 3. Its subject matter is less removed from the general interests of the public than that of any other of the Sections ; consequently it attracts large audiences of both sexes who desire to take part in the Association, but who have not the special knowledge that would enable them to appreciate the technical memoirs read in other Sections. " 4. It affords an opportunity of enlisting into the service of the Association, as Presidents or Vice-Presidents of a Section, persons of local influence and of political importance. " A just idea of the character of the subjects now discussed in the Section may be obtained by collecting the titles of the memoirs read before it in three recent consecutive years, and sorting them, in so far as their great diversity admits, into cognate groups. The following is the result, the longer titles being in a few cases abbreviated : " Papers Read before Section F, Economic Science and Statistics, in the Years 1873-75. " Economic Law of Strikes. " Commercial Panics. " Science of Capital and Money. " Capital and Labour. " Laws affecting Prices of Commodities and Labour ; and on Strikes and Lockouts. " Free Trade in Labour. " Poor Law and its Effect n Thrift. " Cause of Insolvency in Life Insurance Companies. " Relation of Banking Reserve of Bank of England to Current Rate of Interest. " Increase of Price of certain Necessaries and its Relation to Rates of Wages, &c. " Income Tax Question. " Income Fallacies and some of their consequences. " The future of the United States. " The privileges over Land wrongly called Property. • Agricultural Statistics and Waste Lands. " Ulster Tenant Right. " Progress of the Coal Question. " Statistics and observations of the National Debt from 1680. " Compilation of Statistics, illustrated by the Irish Census Returns. • Government Accounts, with further Suggestions for establishing a Domesday Book. " Indian Railways and Indian Finance. • Railways Amalgamated in Competing Groups.