196 REPORT—1905. 
likely to exist among separate foreign countries. In recent years the 
attainment of this object has been materially forwarded by the establish- 
ment of the Australian Federation and the South African Customs 
Union. The question of common statistical practice throughout the 
Empire deserves therefore to be discussed further, and it is important 
that it should receive attention at the colonial conferences, and that there 
should be an interchange of views with the object of reaching common 
methods of classification, of estimation of value, and of recording the 
origin and destination of goods. 
(2) It would be of considerable advantage if an annual report on the 
trade of the Empire were published on a scale sufficiently large to present 
in considerable detail the trade of the several colonies and dependencies. 
The statistical abstract for the British Empire, issued for the first time 
in 1905, is a movement in this direction, but much more detailed informa- 
tion is required than can be given in a report of such small compass. 
Further, it is émportant that in such a report a clear statement should be 
given as to the differences for which allowance must be made when com- 
paring the statistics of the several colonies. It would also be possible 
to indicate the gaps in existing information. Such a report would 
undoubtedly conduce to forwarding the adoption of common statistical 
methods and practice so far as they can be realised. 
(3) It is of great importance that meanwhile local developments 
towards uniformity such as have taken place in Australia should be 
carried forward. Thus in South Africa it will be a step in advance when 
a Year-book showing the trade of the South African Customs Union on 
a scale similar to the Year-book of the Trade of the Australian Common- 
wealth is published. Again, in the case of the West Indies there is 
great need for the establishment of closer Customs relations and for the 
issue of a joint annual report showing in detail the West Indian trade. 
At present in the West Indian returns there is an absence of uniformity 
in classification and a lack of differentiation. Again, a common system 
should be adoptéd in India, the Straits Settlements, and the other Asiatic 
possessions of Great Britain. On the whole, information regarding the 
trade of the Crown Colonies is very imperfect, and inquiry should be 
made by the Imperial authorities as to how far it would be possible to 
establish a system throughout the Crown Colonies and Dependencies 
which would be uniform, and which might also give the detailed informa- 
tion at present lacking. 
(4) [tis important that a prefatory note should be given in the case of 
the statistical returns of each colony, explaining the system of valuation 
and registration of origin and destination, stating whether transhipment 
and transit trade, bullion, specie, and bunker coal, «&c., are included 
or excluded, and affording any other comment which may assist the proper 
interpretation of the statistics. 
(5) Inasmuch as import and export statistics present only one aspect 
of the trade of a nation, and as the proportion which the import and 
export trade bears to the internal trade varies considerably in different 
countries, it is important, both for the purpose of obtaining a more 
reliable criterion of trade and production of each colony, and for the 
establishment of satisfactory comparisons as to the productive power of 
the several States comprised in the Empire, that import and export 
statistics should be supplemented by a system of statistics showing the 
internal trade and production of each colony. Several of the British 
