Economic barometers

Abstract

At the annual meeting of the Association of Chambers of Commerce of the Irish Free State this year the Chairman stated that "in the absence of adequate reliable data it is very difficult to give an accurate survey of the conditions of trade in the Free State." That represents in a nutshell the position of anyone desiring to make an economic survey of the country. Not that there is anything very exceptional in this. It is equally difficult to make a concise economic survey of, say, Portugal or Scotland. The only fairly up-to-date measurements which are available to the ordinary man are our foreign trade, bank clearings and railway statistics.