636 PROCEEDINGS OF SECTION G (l.). 



relative to the possibilities of various localities for speculation or 

 enterprise. Here it is, more than elsewhere, of importance that the 

 figures should be, as much as possible, up to date, since the fluctuations 

 of trade and production have an immediate bearing on any transac- 

 tions that may be in hand or contemplated. The scientific aspect is 

 undoubtedly still present, but it is vastly overshadowed by the 

 purely informative. Take, for instance, gold-producing states like the 

 Transvaal or Western Australia. It would be idle to indulge in scien- 

 tific statistical speculation as to the possibility of their gold yield 

 increasing or decreasing according to some experimentally deduced 

 law. The conditions governing its rise or fall are so largely subject 

 to momentary and unforeseen change, that the past would afford 

 scarcely any clue to the future, which may reveal deposits hitherto 

 completely unknown, to be discovered either by science or by accident. 

 This almost ephemeral character cannot, of course, be predicated of 

 other, more stable branches of industry and commerce. But most of 

 them are undoubtedly largely influenced by temporary causes, and it is, 

 therefore, imperative for persons depending on them to be constantly 

 armed with the very latest information relative to their general and 

 local development. 



The need for complete up-to-date information in such cases is 

 obvious, and it was due to considerations of this nature that the Western 

 Australian Statistical Department, in July, 1900, started the issue of 

 its " Monthly Statistical Abstract," which has since been acknowledged 

 by the united press of Australia and elsewhere to be one of the most 

 valuable and useful statistical publications for local general information 

 to be obtained anywhere in the world. 



In addition to the speculative interest of the commercial man, 

 there is still also the general interest of the public in subjects on which 

 the latest obtainable information may afford a means of detecting 

 without delay, and perhaps remedying, certain facts detrimental to 

 the public welfare, or of making immediate use of others of a possibly 

 beneficial tendency. Thus, for instance, it was recently noticed that 

 the infant mortality in Western Australia was higher than elsewhere, 

 and the more speculative physicians immediately set to work accounting 

 for this fact, and suggesting what seemed to them the true remedy — 

 that of preaching to the mothers the doctrine of natural feeding. Or, 

 again, mortality statistics may show that some special locality is 

 particularly favorable to the cure of consumption, and it consequently 

 becomes possible for the authorities to advertise this characteristic. 



The information conveyed by statistics is usually presented in 

 arithmetical terms. The word " statistics " at once conjures up the 

 vision of tabular statements of figures. Yet, in addition to the arith- 

 metical method of presentation, there is also the graphical, which is, 

 or should be, geometrical in its essence. The reason for using the 

 latter is generally that of appealing more directly to the imagination 

 through the perceptive sense, as it is well known that the mind re- 

 quires unusual aptitude and arithmetical training to be able to fully 

 appreciate at a glance the relative proportions in a comparative state- 



