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Numbers traditional in England . This is not equallytrue of America . The methods of approach character-istic of C. M. Walsh, Irving Fisher and Wesley Mitchell are virtually free from the “ taint ” which I attributeto Jevons , Edgeworth and Dr. Bowley. Nevertheless,whilst the Americans have not worshipped the mythi-cal creature, they have not (with the exception, per-haps, of Mr. Walsh) actively combated him or draggedhim out of the twilit cave where Edgeworth judiciouslykept him . 1 At any rate it is necessary for the com-pleteness of this discussion that I should endeavour tomake my point explicit, and to bring the difference, ifthere is one, to a head . 2

According to the Jevons-Edgeworth conception,the fluctuations in the prices of individual things aresubject to two distinct sets of influences—one setdue to “ changes on the side of money ” which(subject to friction in the dimension of time) affectall prices equally in direction and in degree, the otherset due to “ changes on the side of the things ”which affect prices relatively to one another. Nowas regards the second set, changes in the prices ofthings relatively to one another can involve no absolutechange in the value of money itself. Changes in relativeprices may, of course, affect partial index-numberswhich represent price changes in particular classesof things, e.g. the index of the cost of living of the

1 In the long controversy waged between Mr. Walsh and Edgeworth,in the pages of the Economic Journal and elsewhere, on the appropriatenessof the application to Price Index-Numbers of certain ideas drawn fromthe Calculus of Probabilities, I am, in main substance, on the side of theformer. Prof. Allyn Young , who was previously inclined to lean slightly tothe “ tainted ” British School , subsequently (1923) went over to the otherside (vide his Economic Problems, pp. 294-296). On the Continent, inItaly Professor Gini (Metron, 1925) and in Austria Dr. Haberler (op. cit.,1927) are taint-free ; whilst in Prance Lucien March (Metron, 1921) is“tainted”, but Divisia (op. cit. pp. 847-858) notably free. Prom certainallusions I believe Marshall to have been free; but he never discussed thematter in explicit terms.

2 I first endeavoured to deal with this point, though inadequately, inan Essay on Index-Numbers which gained the Adam Smith Prize in theUniversity of Cambridge in the year 1907.

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