109 



No one, who has not studied the subject of statistical 

 details, as affecting ordinary matters, can form anything 

 like a proper estimate of their value on so serious a con- 

 tingency as that now under our notice. It was said by a 

 banker of great celebrity, that no monetary panic was ever 

 foreseen, and he argued upon the assumption, that any 

 such peril foreseen was sure to be averted. Now, precisely 

 the same reasoning-, in the present state of our commercial 

 laws and relations, and immense agricultural resources, will 

 apply to a food panic ; and it follows, as a matter of course, 

 that the longer we can foresee the evil, the more easy and 

 natural will be the working of the remedy. 



In France and America they have authorized and 

 published Government statistics of agriculture ; iu the 

 former country they are most complete, and are applicable 

 to cattle as well as to the produce of the land. In Belgium, 

 I understand, the Government collect statistical information 

 on the subject, but I am informed by a friend who wrote 

 for me to that country, that the Government is very 

 jealous concerning such kind of information, and that 

 the results are not published. This kind of privacy 

 may be a very wise regulation when the Government 

 undertakes to supply any deficiency ; but, when it has to 

 depend upon the enterprise of the merchant, and the 



way ; and that the results be published in a collective form, say for 

 each parish, hundred, or division as may be fixed upon. The 

 information might be collected through the medium of the Poor 

 Law collectors, or registrars, without the addition of any new ma- 

 chinery, and there should be some penalty inflicted upon parties 

 neglecting to give the information when required, and also for wil- 

 fully giving it incorrectly. 

 Mr. Baines has further allowed me to state it as his most decided opinion, 

 that had such statistical information been collected during the past ten years, 

 the disease which has been so fatal to the potato, and which has been the great 

 cause of our present deficiency of food, would have been known in sufficient 

 time to be provided against. It has been gradually increasing during the 

 whole of that period ; and Mr. Baines himself and many farmers have indivi- 

 dually, acting upon their own experience, taken warning in time and substi- 

 tuted other crops. 



