GENEEAL EEPOET. 
29 
much? Is the balance as largely in our favor as it ought to 
be, or might be ? And if not, just where is the fault, and what 
is the remedy? We have an active and enterprising people, 
and know that everybodj^ is hard at work; but whether to the 
best end and with the most advantageous results—of this we 
know nothing. 
The returns that come to the Secretary of State once in ten 
years are oftener than otherwise pernicious delusions, and a 
large number of the counties make no report at all. This con¬ 
dition of things should not longer be suffered to continue. If 
the present general system is to be perpetuated, the statute 
should at once be so amended as better to meet the necessities 
of the State. 
It is questionable, however, whether really satisfactory re¬ 
sults can be attained without the agency of a well organized 
Bureau of Statistics, such as several of our sister States, in¬ 
cluding Missouri, and even Minnesota and others west of us, 
were long since wise enough to establish, and through the 
practical workings of which they have already derived very 
marked benefits. Such a Bureau or Commission would not 
only regularly gather information covering the whole field of 
industry, but likewise enlighten the State on a thousand ques¬ 
tions of the utmost social concern, in regard to which we are 
now so totally and shamefully in the dark. 
In most of the European states, agencies of this sort have 
come to be a stern social, as well as material, necessity, and 
are fostered with as much solicitude as any department of the 
government. With us it is a question of establishing such an 
agency eventually, as a means of helping the State imperfectly 
to remedy the evils consequent on gross ignorance, or of doing 
it now, and thus rendering an avoidance of them easy, and as¬ 
suring the greater prosperity of the commonwealth. 
As Mansfield has well said, “ Social Science of necessity ex¬ 
tends its enquiries to the physical laws of man as a social being; 
to the resources of the country in which he lives; to the 
growth of society; to its labor and production; to its com¬ 
merce, manufactures and arts; to its property and wealth; to 
