642 Agricultural Statistics. [Oct., 



Bateman, and their successors at the Board of Trade, and, in 

 the sphere of agricultural statistics, Major Craigie, who have 

 taken opportunities as they arose (the opportunity usually 

 being the advent of a sympathetic and progressive Minister at 

 the head of the Department) to obtain authority for a develop- 

 ment of the statistics for which they were responsible. An 

 enumeration of the population might, one would think, be 

 regarded as an elementary need for the administration of the 

 affairs of a civilised community, but it was not until 1801 that 

 the Government decided to take a Census. A striking excep- 

 tion to the normal apathy of Governments and Parliament 

 towards statistics and the ascertainment of economic facts, 

 was the passing of the Census of Production Act in 1906. 



I have already pointed out that official agricultural statistics 

 were established and developed on the basis of a resolution of 

 the House of Commons carried against the Governmeat, and 

 that it was not until 1917 that they were recognised by Act of 

 Parliament, and then only because the State was incurring 

 certain liabilities which necessitated returns of the acreage of 

 wheat and oats. 



There is, however, oije class of agricultural statistics which 

 has been collected under statutory authority for many years. 

 In 1685, an Act was passed for the half-yearly settle- 

 ment of the average prices of corn, and sixteen enact- 

 ments having similar objects were passed at different 

 periods from 1731 to 1882. Indeed, in connection with 

 the Assize of Bread, there was a system of recording 

 the average price of wheat as early as the thirteenth 

 century. The latest Act under which the official prices of 

 wheat, barley and oats are now ascertained, is the Corn 

 Returns Act, 1882, which has in many respects become 

 antiquated and the amendment of which has long been over- 

 due. Its provisions have been further complicated by the 

 Corn Sales Act recently passed. In Scotland farmers' prices 

 have been fixed under statutory authority for about two 

 hundred years. 



Prices of other agricultural commodities have been for about 

 18 years collected and published weekly in the " Return of 

 Market Prices." The system of collection, broadly, is that of 

 the selection of a number of representative markets and the 

 appointment of an official reporter who makes a return of the 

 prices realised. A special feature of this Return is that the 

 various local weights and measures used in the markets are 



