320 BEPOKT— 1871. 



0)1 Indian Statistics and Official Reports. By Dr. Geoege Smith. 



The eight years' administration of the Marquis of Dalhousie^ which closed in 

 1856, was the beginning of intellectual progress in British India. On the conclu- 

 sion of his splendid series of conquests, and even, to some extent, during their 

 continuance, that distinguished Governor-General set in motion all those reforms 

 which are involved in the railway, the telegraph, the anna or three-halfpenny 

 postage, primary schools supported by a local cess, the Universities and the higher 

 education, sucli scientific and political expeditions as Colonel Yvde's Mission to 

 Ava, the Geological Survey, and such enlightened legislation as the Acts estab- 

 lishing religious and civil toleration, and permitting the maniage of Hindoo 

 widows. During his administration, when reviewing the Charter of the East India 

 Company for the last time, Parliament directed, in 185-3, that Reports of the moral 

 and material progress in India should be submitted to it every year. Each Pro- 

 vince and each Department has since published an annual report, the whole num- 

 bei'ing from eight to twelve. 



Led by professional duties to study these reports, and frequently to criticise them, 

 the author was struck by the absence of uniformity and the meagreness of their 

 statistical and economic information. The discussions caused by the Mutiny of 

 1857 had sho'wn England the need of accurate information regarding India, and 

 the annual Budgets, first introduced \)y the lamented James "Wilson in 1859, had 

 convinced the Government of India of the necessity for statistical information as the 

 basis of financial and political action. Still no reform was attempted till, in 186-3, 

 the author submitted to Mi\ S. Laing, then Indian Finance ^linister, a memorial and a 

 plan on the subject. The author adapted to India the scientific scheme of statistics, 

 published by the International Statistical Congress, which had sat not long before, 

 and recommended the appointment of a permanent committee of officials and non- 

 officials to advise Government on statistical questions. An attempt had previously 

 been made to establish a Statistical Society independently of Government, but that 

 had failed. On Mr. Laing's advice Lord Elgin was pleased to adopt the sugges- 

 tions, and to appoint what has since been known as the Calcutta Statistical Com- 

 mittee to carry them out. 



That Committee, working vigorously at first, divided the whole field among 

 small subcommittees. Mr. Bullen, a well-known merchant of Calcutta, adapted 

 the English Board of Trade tables, so that the Financial Department is now able 

 to publish detailed trade returns from the most distant parts of India everj* month, 

 and only a few weeks after the close of the period to which they refer. An annual 

 volume is also published. The difficult and complicated subject of the statistics 

 of revenue and expenditure was referred to Mr. E. H. Ilollingbers-, Assistant- 

 Secretary of the Financial Department, so that that department now publishes 

 annually an invaluable series ot three folio volumes, showing the past and present 

 statistics of Indian finance in great detail. 



The subject of administrative statistics, other than those of trade and finance, was 

 referred to the Hon. Mr. George Campbell, now the able Lieutenant-Governor of 

 Bengal, and to the author. The committee were pleased to adopt the author's plan, 

 adapted from that of the Statistical Congress, which, however, did not provide for 

 judicial statistics. Mr. Campbell, then a Judge of llie Bengal High Court, prepared 

 an admirable series of tables for that department, but the Government of India was 

 constrained to appoint a special conmiittec to deal with the courts of the other 

 Provinces as well as of Bengal. The result is that nothing satisfactory has yet 

 been done for judicial statistics, and no reliable uniform generalization can be 

 made regarding litigation, crime, and police in India. In all other respects, how- 

 ever, the statistical forms seem to be perfect. The administrative tables were 

 refeiTed to the Provincial Governments, and, after undergoing searching and some- 

 times hostile criticism, because they seemed to interfere with local arrangements 

 and to demand an establishment of clerks, they were finally approved of by the 

 Government of India and the Secretary of State in 1867. That is, each of the ten 

 Provinces which send in annual administration reports, was ordered to report on 

 the basis of these unifomi and scientific tables. Since 1867-68 all have obeyed, 

 except the three most important — Bengal proper, Madras and Bombay. The fii-st, 



