This file is a single-author journal essay from Die Woche (1905). Its occasion is the London session of the International Statistical Institute, but its scope is methodological: Inama-Sternegg asks what trade statistics can, and cannot, reveal about world commerce. His main thesis is that international trade statistics have improved, yet remain dangerous when read as self-evident economic truth rather than as products of differing administrative methods.
Die festgeschlossenen Zahlenreihen der Statistik üben nun einmal auf den Laien einen eigentümlichen Zauber aus.
English translation: The tightly closed series of figures of statistics exert a peculiar magic on the layman.
The essay begins by attacking this “Zauber.” The problem is not statistics themselves, but their parliamentary, journalistic, and commercial misuse: balances are constructed as if all recorded values were comparable, while precious metals, repair traffic, processing trade, or transit goods may be counted in ways that falsify the economic picture. Correct reading therefore requires knowledge of statistical construction.
Wer in diesem Buch richtig lesen will, muß doch zum mindesten wissen, wie die Daten der Handelsstatistik gewonnen sind und nach welchen Grundsätzen die Zusammenfassung jener zu den Hauptübersichten des auswärtigen Handels erfolgt.
English translation: Anyone who wishes to read this book correctly must at the very least know how the data of trade statistics are obtained and according to which principles they are compiled into the principal summaries of foreign trade.
The central section is a compact catalogue of obstacles to comparison. State territory and customs territory diverge; countries classify origin, destination, shipment, import, and export differently; values may be official, declared, or based on market prices; freight, insurance, duties, temporary admission, processing traffic, and transit are treated inconsistently. These differences do not make trade statistics useless, but they make any direct international comparison conditional.
Inama-Sternegg then shifts from technique to political economy. Trade statistics offer two main series, quantities and values. Values are attractive because they aggregate unlike goods and seem to express national gain or loss, but they are often estimates or declarations; quantities are firmer facts, yet cannot by themselves yield an overall balance.
Die 1000 Stück Mastochsen (oder ihr Lebendgewicht) sind unanfechtbar; ob aber die Million Mark, mit der sie etwa in den Handelsausweisen figurieren, auch nur ungefähr richtig ist, kann täglich bezweifelt werden.
English translation: The 1,000 head of fatstock oxen (or their live weight) are unassailable; but whether the million marks with which they may figure in the trade returns is even approximately correct can be doubted every day.
This contrast produces one of the essay’s key conceptual moves: the monetary balance must be checked against the commodity balance. A rise in trade value may conceal a fall in physical exchange, because price movements arise outside the trade movement itself. But physical measures also have limits.
Kohlen und Diamanten, rohe Baumwolle und Brüsseler Spitzen sind nicht addierbar.
English translation: Coal and diamonds, raw cotton and Brussels lace cannot be added together.
The deeper question is the relation between national economy and world economy. Imports and exports alone do not measure a country’s position in world trade; they must be related to domestic production, the real basis of economic power.
Entscheidend für den Einsatz, den ein Land im Welthandel zu geben vermag, ist in letzter Linie doch seine Eigenproduktion, der eigentliche Nährboden der wirtschaftlichen Größe eines Landes.
English translation: What ultimately determines the contribution a country is able to make to world trade is, in the last analysis, its own production, the true seedbed of a country's economic greatness.
For raw materials this relation can sometimes be measured through harvest, forestry, mining, metallurgy, or livestock statistics. For industry, however, production quantity and value remain largely inaccessible, so demands for consumption statistics are premature. Inama-Sternegg therefore turns to imperfect substitutes: per-capita trade values, origin and destination patterns, colonial and sphere-of-influence relations, and broad commodity groupings that may show movement from agrarian to industrial structure.
The conclusion is cautious and programmatic. Trade statistics are indispensable, but only as one part of a wider account of international value movement.
Das Ergebnis unserer kurzen Betrachtung ist also, daß die Handelsstatistik für die Beurteilung des Welthandels nur eine beschränkte Bedeutung hat und nur mit großer Vorsicht zur Gewinnung vertiefter Einsicht in das Gefüge des Welthandels verwendet werden kann.
English translation: The result of our brief consideration is therefore that trade statistics have only a limited significance for judging world trade and can be used only with great caution to gain deeper insight into the structure of world trade.
Its relevance lies in this early balance-of-payments perspective: migration, money, credit, and other international transfers must supplement merchandise statistics. Inama-Sternegg’s core move is thus anti-fetishistic rather than anti-statistical: numbers illuminate world trade only when their categories, exclusions, and limits are made visible.
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