e and more occupied by industrial and social
statistics, and I was, in my colleague's opinion, concerning myself too
much with matters which were over the heads of the people.

For several reasons my view of the matter was not quite the same as his.
It was, therefore, settled that this statistical work should be
prosecuted by myself independently, and in something like two years I
issued, at the rate of two or three a month, a series of pamphlets
called "Statistical Monographs," addressed especially to Members of
Parliament. Three of these pamphlets dealt with the land of the United
Kingdom, the number of owners and the acreage and value of their
holdings. Two of them dealt with the number and value of the houses
which had been annually built during the past ten or fifteen years. Two
of them dealt with coal-mining and the ratio in that industry of wages
to net profits. Each was a digest of elaborate official figures, which
an average speaker, if left to his own devices, could hardly have
collected in a twelvemonth, but which when thus tabulated he could
master in a couple of days.

Many of these monographs, as I know, were used in practical controversy;
but the Conservative party, as a whole--this is my strong
impression--was but partly awake to the importance of statistics as a
basis of political argument. The use of systematic statistics was at
that time left to Socialists, and wild misstatements as to figures
formed at that time their principal and most effective weapon. The issue
of these monographs was continued till the outbreak of the recent war,
when conditions were so suddenly and so completely changed that the then
continuance of the monographs would not have been appropriate, even if
it had not been rendered impossible. Being, however, unfit for active
service, I devoted myself to a volume applicable, so I hoped, to
conditions which were bound to arise after the war was over. This volume
was _The Limits of Pure Democracy_, to the composition of which I
devoted the labor of four years. It has gone through four editions. A
translation of it has been published in France. Increased costs of
production have rendered a price necessary which would once have been
thought prohibitive, but if conditions improve the intention is to
reissue it in a cheaper form, when certain of its arguments will be
illustrated by events which have taken place since its last page was
completed.

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