432 PROCEEDINGS OF SECTION F. 



enquiries, can scarcely ever be got at by persons who have 

 not access to State documents, and who do not possess the 

 authority to collect information. But the State ought to supply 

 machinery adequate to the purpose, and should not allow the 

 preparation of statistics to be mixed up with other duties, such as 

 for instance investigating the titles to, and regulating the dealings 

 with real property. Where this is done, the chances are that the 

 statistics will suffer, as the attention of the departmental head 

 will almost certainly be diverted from an abstract, though most 

 important subject, to one which deals with the px'essing demands 

 of every day life ; and it is, moreover, only natural to suppose 

 that the best of the subordinate officers will be called upon to 

 attend to the latter, to the obvious disadvantage of the former. 



It seems to me that in new countries it is even more important 

 that statistics should be efficiently recorded than in older ones, as 

 events move so fast in the former, that without a properly 

 organized statistical system, correct accounts of progress are 

 afterwards difficult to trace, or may perhaps be entirely lost. Mr. 

 Giffin, the eminent English statistician has spoken of the doubling 

 of the population of the United States in so short a period as 

 twenty-five years, as " a fact unprecedented in history," and as 

 "fairly bewildering as to its probable consequences." It is not 

 perhaps generally realised that in spite of the enormous emigra- 

 tion to America from the countries of the old world to which it 

 is in such close proximity, the population of Australasia is 

 increasing still faster than that of tlie United States. Between 

 the censuses of 1871 and 1881, the increase was forty-two per 

 cent. ; and a very simple calculation will show that an increase of 

 forty -two per cent, in ten years, means an increase of rather over 

 one hundred per cent, in twenty years ; tlierefore if this rate of 

 increase should be kept up — and there is reason to believe it is 

 being more than kept up now — the population of Australasia will 

 double in five years less time, than even the unprecedently short 

 time in which the population of the United States has doubled. 

 How essential is it therefore, that our statistical records should be 

 accurate and complete. 



To my brother statisticians I may perhaps be allowed to say — 

 before all things record your facts honestly, and I would add — 

 place them before the public in such a manner as to cause them 

 to be convincing. It is not sufficient to assert that such and such 

 is the case, unless you show how the conclusion has been arrived 

 at. Mr. Goschen, the present Chancellor of the Imperial Ex- 

 chequer, told the Statistical Society of London, of which he was 

 the President, to " beware of totals " ; and we know how seldom 

 totals can be accepted as reliable without some explanation or some 

 qualification. I would also say, that in drawing conclusions from 

 your facts, do not start with preconceived notions, adducing only 



