406 On Agricultural Statistics 



It may be remarked here, parenthetically, that, although the 

 whole of the labour of preparing the return had devolved on 

 the Inland Revenue Department, the signature attached to the 

 Report was that of the Head of the Statistical Branch of the 

 Board of Trade. 



The Return of Live Stock was made public on the 7th of May, 

 and in view of its special relation to the class constituting the 

 readers of this Journal, I propose to comment briefly on some of 

 its leading features. I am, 1 think, quite justified in remarking 

 on what is " conspicuous by its absence," namely, those necessary 

 explanatory observations without which the return is in many 

 respects deprived of its full value, inasmuch as the key to the 

 elucidation of many doubtful points is thereby wanting. Nothing 

 is given but the bare figuies of the return, which are thrown, 

 as though grudgingly, before the public, like the pieces of a 

 child's puzzle, to be put together by the light of our unaided 

 judgment. We are not told how many schedules were dis- 

 tributed, and how many defaulters there were; the limit of 

 holding, the number of owners, the modus operandi, the estimate 

 of stock unreturned, the cost — all matters of interest and import- 

 ance, as so many beacons to warn us from erroneous inference — 

 upon all these points we must just come to the best conclusion 

 we can, for the officials, who had these items before them in 

 black and white, were uncommunicative. The fact is, the Board 

 of Trade knew nothing, and therefore had nothing to say, whilst 

 the Revenue Department is so accustomed to official reserve in 

 its ordinary transactions that, apparently, it could not shake off its 

 traditions under circumstances wherein publicity was an essential. 



This reticence is the more to be wondered at when there is 

 great reason to believe that nothing but credit attaches to the 

 Revenue officers in respect of the cattle returns. In some 

 instances they must have encountered great difficulties in remote 

 districts, where the postal arrangements are so defective that 

 more than a week has been known to elapse in the delivery of a 

 letter. In the Welsh districts varying jjatois in dialects of the 

 Celtic tongue are still the language of the people, and one would 

 especially like to know how such a formidable obstacle as this 

 was overcome. 



The mischief is that, in the absence of any reliable statement 

 of the defects of the Cattle Census, everybody is at liberty to 

 assume for himself the existence of such defects as seem to him 

 probable. Hence confused and contradictory conclusions will no 

 doubt be drawn, as they will be based not on the general average 

 defects for the whole kingdom, but on the defects of special 

 localities. 



We know, for instance, that the lambs in many counties were 

 not included, as the returns were made before- the lambs in back- 



