Agricultural Statistics. 
58t 
taxation. The main difficulty to get over was to satisfy the public that Govern- 
ment had no ulterior view in originating the measure ; that it was neither 
meant for Government purposes with regard to taxation, nor for landlords* 
jjurposes with regard to rental. That had to be demonstrated, otherwise the 
support of the farmers would not have been given." 
" 122. Earl Carnarvon. — I think you have stated that the disinclination ou 
the part of the farmers to afford the information proceeded very much from a 
jealousy of communicating the details to their neighbours ? — I meant to say, 
that in 1853 we found there was, in some instances, such an objection to com- 
municate the details to their neighbours as in 1854 induced zis to let them com- 
municate the details to me. When I found people prejudiced against the mea- 
sure, it was generally on the ground that they should not be interfered with ; 
that it would do them no good, and possibly might do them haim ; that it 
might be a landlords' question, with a view to raise rental, or a Government 
question, Avith a view to increasing the income-tax. The committee will 
appreciate objections such as these ; but where there were such views 
originally taken up through misapprehension, they were very liberally aban- 
doned whenever the matter was explained." 
Here then are the very same grounds of objection experienced 
the next year by Sir John Walsham and some of the other Poor- 
Law Inspectors, to whom the task was consigned in England; 
and this too, under circumstances which render the difficulties 
encountered in Scotland far less to have been anticipated ; since, 
after all, the great difficulty of farm-statistics consists, by admis- 
sion on all hands, in objections which may be summed up in 
the fact that the thing is " new." A man may have farmed in 
England a good many acres for a good many years, and never 
have had his organs of articulation called upon to execute the 
stuttering achievement encountered in the word " Statistics," or 
his brain invited to translate or understand it. If we know any- 
thing of the humour of the English farmer, this troublesome 
preliminary would not quite go for nothing in the enterprise. In 
fact, though farming is old enough in England, statistics are new. 
But the "Statistical Account of Scotland" collected by Sir John 
Sinclair some half century ago familiarised the subject in every 
parish of that part of our island. It is not long since the work 
was undertaken afresh upon a new survey by the managers of the 
Society, for the benefit of the children of the clergy, to whom 
Sir John had generously made over the property in the work. 
There is not a single parish whose individual progress and im- 
provements it does not particularise ; and so striking were these 
that the superintending committee announce in their advertise- 
ment that " they now present not merely a new statistical account, 
but in a great measure the statistical account of a new country.^* 
On the authority of a phrase so remarkable, one might, without 
any violence of antithesis, invert the remark just made regarding 
England, and say that in Scotland, on the other hand, farming 
is new and statistics are old. We proceed with the extracts 
from Mr, Maxwell's evidence : — 
