394 On Agi'icultural Statistics 



in the machinery of Government a vis inertice extremely difficult 

 to overcome, and when any pressure is applied to it, its wheels 

 creak and groan in indignant protestation against the disturbing 

 power. 



This has been in a remarkable degree verified by the fate 

 of Agricultural Statistics in England. 



Twenty-seven years ago the late Mr. G. R. Porter, then the 

 chief of the Statistical Department of the Board of Trade and 

 Secretary of the Statistical Society of London, thus wrote : — 



" If througliout the whole range of material interests that affect the 

 well-being 'of a community, there be any one subject of greater im- 

 portance than another — which, more than any other, exercises an 

 influence over the condition, the progress, and the happiness of all 

 classes of society — without doubt that subject is the adequate supply 

 of food for the people ; and yet this is a subject which in our coimtry 

 has never hitherto been considered to any useful or practical end. 

 What should we think of a general who should make no inquiries 

 into the means that existed for the daily feeding of the army committed 

 to his charge ? and yet we supinely acquiesce in the apathy which has 

 allowed the English Government to remain in ignorance of those 

 means, with reference to the sustenance of the millions of which the 

 nation is composed. Nay, more : we have allowed jealousies, preju- 

 dices, and the uudefinable aj)prehensions of ignorance, to oppose every 

 attempt at inquiry in this direction. The amount of our ignorance 

 upon this most important subject is so great, that to this day the 

 public is without any authentic document from which to know even 

 the quantity of land imder cultivation in any county of England."* 



Mr. Porter subsequently remarks that — 



" The importance of accurately knowing the provision made for the 

 sustenance of the people is siu-ely not less than that of knowing the 

 yearly produce of various articles of commerce, which are employed 

 as accessories in manufacturing processes. The condition of the crop 

 of indigo in Bengal is accurately communicated to the merchants in 

 London at the earliest moment when it can be known ; and the infor- 

 mation thus given has, through its influence upon the market price, 

 an immediate effect in checking or promoting consumption. The like 

 residt is known to attend upon the collection of information concerning 

 the growth of hops in this country, the extent of land devoted to the 

 cultivation of that article being known through the records of the 

 Excise Office, which is intrusted with the collection of the hop duty." 



It could not have been otherwise than galling to so eminent a 

 statistician as Mr. Porter to know that his country contrasted 

 unfavourably with others of less political significance in this 

 deficiency of knowledge as to its food produce. In Belgium 

 and Holland, he adds, " every kind of information connected with 



* Statistical Society's Journal, vol. ii. p. 291. 



