PAPERS READ IN SECTION Gl. 



1 SOME STATISTICAL SIDELIGHTS ON AUSTRALIAN MORALITY. 



By J. STONHAM, M.A., Commonwealth Bureau of Census and Staiistic.i, Melbourne. 



{Rede zvenig_, aber ztahr, vieles Red en hringt Gefahr — Goethe) 



1. Introductory.— Necessity for Statistical Illumination of the 

 Subject. — The truth and wisdom of Goethe's advice were perhaps 

 never more apparent than during these latter days, especially in 

 connection with problems of such complexity as the various aspects 

 of the moral condition of the community. A widespread tendency 

 is increasingly evident to " Vieles Reden " on all sorts of subjects, 

 a tendency from which even the leaders in Australian public affairs 

 cannot plead complete immunity. Moreover, the hosts of argu- 

 ments and opinions, sometimes expressed with great charm of 

 diction, prove on analysis to be in many cases pure ex cathedra 

 statements, or else have their foundation in invalid assumption, 

 or a limited personal experience. That the last-mentioned basis 

 is a very unsafe one on which to build up a superstructure of fixed 

 opinion has been proved times without number, even in the law 

 courts. It has been proved, too, in regard to persons, such as 

 renowned legal luminaries, whom one might naturally class as 

 skilled observers. Failure to recognise the limitations of argu- 

 ment from personal experience leads very easily to the common 

 fallacy of arguing from the particular to the general, where such 

 experience does not consist of a sufficiency of carefully garnered 

 and rigidly correlated facts. (Mr. Foster Fraser fell into some 

 curious errors of this nature in his recent book on Australia.) 



In dealing with the question of the advance or retrogression 

 in the moral conditions of the community, arguments or opinions 

 of the nature hereinbefore alluded to are found to be exasperatingly 

 common. How frequently, for example, one finds disparaging 

 statements in regard to various aspects of morality nowadays, as 

 compared with the " good old days," or in respect of social con- 

 ditions here and in the " old country." But when the matters in 

 question come to be examined scientifically it is found that the 

 " good old days " were, to a large extent, comparatively bad old 

 days, and that the particular conditions in the old country are 

 no whit better than in Australia. 



What, then, does this scientific examination of social or moral 

 conditions connote ? It connotes, primarily, an analysis based 

 on accurately compiled and carefully considered statistical data. 



