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THE NATIONAL WEALTH.
25
in the possession of the nation and of the individuals who compose it, and
constituting the means of subsistence of both.
A calculation of a nation’s revenue and wealth is one of the most difficult
tasks that statistics can have to deal with. And indeed it is impossible at the
present moment to supply a perfectly exact investigation of this nature. But
even an approximate estimate is of the greatest interest. It furnishes, so to
speak, a balance-sheet and inventory of a nation’s assets and property in general,
or, to employ another metaphor, a snap-shot of them. And even if the
individual features are not quite distinct, yet nothing can present such a concise
general view of the economic status of a nation as an estimate of its total
assets, in movable and real property, in natural products and the yield of work.
The best method of computing the wealth of a nation is to specify as
accurately as possible the different items of which it is composed, and then to
endeavour to ascertain the value of each separate item, basing the estimate on
the prices which prevail in purchase and sale, or, where that is not feasible, to
take the net yield, the cost of production, or insurance values.
This is the so-called "objective method", a more detailed account of which
will be found in the following works: P. Fahlbeck, Sveriges nationalförmögenhet,
Stockholm 1890, and Sveriges nationalförmögenhet orn]ering dr 1908 och dess
utveckling sedan mitten av 1880-talet, Finansstatistiska utredningar utg. av
Kungl. Finansdepartementet, "V. Stockholm 1912, the latter by I. Flodström.
Assessments of the national wealth of Sweden on this basis have been made
at three different dates, viz. in 1885, 1898, and 1908. In order to obtain
complete commensurability between these three calculations, it has been necessary
in some cases, in making the later assessments to rectify the earlier. Thus
the value of landed property and of the crown lands included under that head,
which in 1885 had been put at 2 744 million kronor was in 1898 raised to
3 093 million kronor; similary stores, machines, and personal movable property
were raised from 1 130 to 1 380 million kronor. Again in the total estimate for
the year 1908 the figures for the live and dead stock of agriculture in the
assessment of the year 1898, which in this case was merely a rough calculation,
were raised from 441 and 139 million kronor to 500 and 180 million kronor
respectively, and in conformity therewith stores, machines, and personal movable
property were lowered from 2 324 to 2 272 million kronor. On the other hand,
in the assessment ot the year 1908 certain adjustments have been made as
regards fisheries and fishing-waters, as well as means of communication, specie,
and foreign claims, in order to obtain complete uniformity with previous
assessments. With respect to these rectifications, and to the method of calculation
as a whole for each separate item, the reader may- be referred to the
above-named works, and to pp. 454 foil, of the first edition of this work.
Putting together these three estimates, and noting that objects of art,
war material, the vessels of the royal navy, and fortifications are
entirely excluded, we obtain the values in Table 7.
The advance in national wealth to which these figures point is a very
considerable one, both in proportion to the population, the quota per head,
and in each separate item. A remarkable point is the great difference in
percentage of annual increase during the two periods 1885—1898 and
1898—1908. In the main the great increase during the later period is
doubtless quite genuine, particularly with regard to "other real property"
(house-building in the cities), stores and machines etc., as well as mines.
During this decade Swedish industry, and mechanical industry in parti-
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