The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1899-05-15
POLITICS AND STATISTICS.

ears ago the treasury department De-
gan compiling and. publishing reports of
our exports and imports of merchandise.
Until President Cleveland called Mr..
Worthington C. Ford to the Office of sta
tistician the place was considered as one
of the many snug harbors in Washington
for men who had done effective party
work, and who, looking upon their place
and its salary as compensation for work
previously done and not paid for, very
naturally did as little work as possible,
and that in the most perfunctory man.
ner. No student of economics but learned
to place little dependence upon the sta
tistics given, even in the restricted range
covered But when Mr.. Ford came in
it very soon became apparent that a
man was at the head who thoroughly
understood his business, who had the
statistical instructor one hardly dare
apply the term genius to such ability
and Immediately the publications took on
a value that made them economic treas
ures
But with the advent of this administra-
ton there was a relapse to the old prac-
tice, and Mr.. Hanna rewarded the gen.
tleman who had managed his wonderful
literary bureau with Mr.. Ford's place
He follows in Mr.. Ford's tracks with
legs that are painfully short" but re-
mains the partisan, and defects his
monthly summary to party ends. We find
in the current Forum an article by him
on the Colonies of the World" in which
he drops into statistics and gives the i'm
ports and exports of, among others, the
Philippines for 1885, stating the former at
$2S O75 and the latter at $S3, 4S1, 4S4. the
United States furnishing $4,9S2,S57 of the
imports Mr.. Austin knew, or should have
known that the values were stated In
Mexican dollars. a fact that cuts them
In half, and reduces the value of our
exports to the islands to less than 50, 500
600. This willingness to omit an important
fact In order to magnify the value of
the administrations acquisition in the
Pacific suggests a reference to his Feb
ruary report. of trade and commerce.
where he devotes a large space to- the
Philippines. We find there, page 1875. the
total imports of the Philippines in that
year to have been $40, ESQ, and the
exports to have been $20, lie, 900. In his
Forum article the percentage of Philip
pine imports from this country in 1895 is
put at 30 per cent and the exports thence
eto this country at 1890 per cent. In the
table given on page 1875 the percentage of
imports is stated at ] SO, and of exports
at 24.5'. Again, on page 1897 we have
still another statement of the commerce.
OF the Philippines. credited to the bureau
of foreign commerce of the department
of state, which gives Philippine exports IN
all countries in 1896 as $19,7O2,S19 and the
imports from all countries at 50 174oee
The figures on page 1875 accord with those
OF the Stateman's Yearbook exactly when
the latter are reduced to our CURRENCY
at par of exchange, $4.S6 to the pound
But what can be said of or for a statis-
ticlan who puts into the same issue of
his statistics of commerce three diffarin,,
amounts of the imports and exports of the
philippines for the same year, other than
that it demonstrates that man NOV bo
very able conductor of a political ltt
erary bureau and a very inaccurate or
careless StatiStician7