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XXVIII.

TilE IMPORTANCE OF GENERAL STATISTICAL IDEAS)
•
TRUST you will excuse me, on an occasion like
I the present, for returning to a topic which I have
di"scussed more than once-the utility of common sta-
tistics. While we are indebted for much of our statis-
tical knowledge to elaborate special inquiries such as
were made by Mr. Jevons on prices and the currency,
or have lately been made by Mr. Booth into the con-
dition of the London poor, we are indebted for other
knowledge to 'continuous official and unofficial records.
which keep us posted up to date as to certain facts of
current life and business, without which public men and
men of business. in the daily concerns of life. would be
very much at a loss. What seems to me always most
desirable to understand is the importance of some of
the ideas to be derived from the most common statistics
of the latter kind-the regular records of statistical facts
which modern societies have instituted, especiaIJy the
records of the census, which have now existed for a
century in most European countries and among peoples
of European origin. Political ideas and speculation are
necessarily coloured by ideas originating in such re-
cords. and political action, internationally and other-
wise. would be all the wiser if the records were more
carefully observed than they are, and the lessons to be
derived widely appreciated and understood.
I propose now to refer briefly to one or two of these
ideas which were taken up and discussed on former
occasions, and to illustrate the matter farther by a re-
I Address as President of the Economic Science and Statistics
Section or the British Association, beld at GlasgoW', 190'.
II. Z