PUBLIC STATISTICS.*
EXCLUSIVE of some half dozen pages of Votes which are pub- lished daily during the sitting of Parliament, between five and six hundred Papers ale annually printed by order of the Legislature. Their size is folio; their contents embrace a vast variety of sub- jects; they vary-in extent from two pages to twelve hundred ; they form an aegregate of from forty to fifty bulky volumes, and their cost to the public is usually some hundred thousand pounds.t To Members they are distributed gratuitously ; the Papers of the Commons may be procured by private individuals at an annual outlay of from fifteen to twenty pounds. Many of these documents are bewildering frtm their arrangement, or the official phraseo- logy in which they are couched; some are appalling from their bulk. To examine them. on delivery, would break into the morn- ing; to read. them, would occupy the day, and sometimes also the night. In point of bulk, the Papers of a session (indepen- dent-of the Bills) would form a library ; those of a single Parties mentwould occupy. a moderato house; in a mansion, space would be wanting; to arrange . the. accumulations. of a long senatorial career.. Thus, though contaiuing many valuable facts, and all the information which: Government thinks fit. to furnish. to the Peoples most of these documents- have been, comparatively, use- less, A Lord or a Commoner may sometimes refer to one for a facts or quote it as an.authority ; a member of the Fourth Estate will occasionally- put the titles of some of them at the head of an article, and part of their contents into a readable shape; in the ease of a very popular subject, the information contained in a Report may be dressed up and. published; to be made accessible to tl o interested in, the question ; but generally speaking, the seed (we should observe that the chaff frequently predominates)- falls upon the rock, or is choked by rubbish. To speak plainly, some Mem- bers destroy their Sessional Papers; some sell them ; some give them-to:their friends, some to their valets; many order them not to be delivered.; a few—a very few—by the assistance of clerks and secretaries, make an annual selection. In effecting this, much is rejected that is valuable; much that is worthless must be re- tained ; and even this labour is sometimes thrown away. The facts which are required to illustrate a question have often been published—if Government will allow their publication; but to search for them would be tedious—to find them would be difficult, perhaps impossible: a shorter course is therefore adopted : the Member moves-for a Return, and it is granted as a- matter of coin se. Ile procures his facts at the expense of the official clerks, and prints- them at the public cost : the papers serve to turn a pe- Wod; and-are then with their fellows swept away to light the fires of legislators, or sold (by weight) to circulate butter and tobacco
amongst the people. When Mr. POULETT THOMSON was appointed to the Board of Trade, be took measures to lessen the evil so far as his own de- partment was concerned. For this purpose, he established an of- fice to prepare an annual volume that should contain all the sta- tistic:al facts which Government was in the habit of publishing: By this means, the facts that had heretofore been scattered through a number of papers, and presented in discordant forms,
Tables of the Revenue. Population. &c. of the United Kingdom and its Depen- dencies, from 1320 to 1831, both inclusive. Compiled from Officiallteturns. Presented: to both Houses of Parliament by command of his Majesty. Upwards of seven hundred papers have been printed by order of the Honse of Com. two oniyi.disring the-present• session; so that ate session has been productiveof Re- turns if of nothing else. would, be comprised in a single volume, under a uniform arrangta ment, andsuaceptible of .am-easy reference. The first fruitsoftlte new establishment-are a goodly folio of 264 pages; which-h has-been presented—in a blue wrapper—to both Houses. of. Parliament,. by command of his. Majesty; and which is- sold to the public fur,16ta tastefully bound in imitative morocco. The subject-matter of the work is- the Revenue, Population, Prices, Trade, Navigation, Cue- rency, Crime; and (in a very meagre way) the. Expenditure of the United. Kingdom and its Dependencies. It is compiled from-3414 " bulky folio volumes, besides other authentic and official sources of information;" and-embraces a period of twelve years, from 1820, to 1831. The size of the page allows the. facts for the entire: pe- riod to be printed in juxtaposition; so that a glance enables us:-to institute a comparison between any two or more given years.. The Tables (of which the volume principally consists) are. well and clearly printed; and a very full and useful Index is appended to the work.
The chief defect of this compilation—of inevitable deficiencies we shall speak presently—is the absence of all classification, and the superficial way in which " Expenditure" is-performed ; feral- though we are aware of the vague and scattered, and, we suspect, inaccurate information, which Government publishes upon this subject, yet much fuller and much more correct accounts might have been framed than those which are presented. Considering, too, that the work is only a compilation, and that it was confided to a department, we think the size and quality of the bantling scarcely compensates for the length of its gestation. In the case of bygone information, this is merely a matter of passing remark. But the present work is only introductory ; and in the. more ims portant volume, " which is to contain those occurrences in detail for the year 1832, which in this are given in a more concentrated form for the twelve preceding years," delay is a serious fault. The object of the office, as stated by its founder, was to furnish the le= gislator with a Statistical Guide to Legislation, and which—upon the subjects treated of—should also supersede the necessity of Par- liamentary Papers or special Returns. To accomplish these ends, it is indispensable that the Annual should make its appearance early in the session. If this cannot be effected as regards the whole of the work, it should appear in parts. We trust in the-en- suing year this vital defect will be remedied. A Sessional Com- panion, when the session is over, comes a day after the fair.
We hare indicated the very great value of the work. This value, however, is only comparative. • The student or the legis- lator is presented in a brief space with the pith of several hundred volumes, those volumes containing the whole of the facts which Government in the course pf a dozen years has thought fit to publish on the important subjects we have enumerated. These facts, however, are often imperfect, or miserably scanty. The in- formation on Revenue is tolerably full, but still, molly details essential to a financial reformer are omitted. The Imports and Exports, and the number of the different items subjected to the Stamp-laws, can be given with accuracy: but being a matter which concerns-the - people, they are for the most- part presented incompletely, and in many cases are altogether omitted. The preliminary knowledge necessary for scanning and capping verse* should have made our statesmen acquainted with..the meaning.of a census, and of the importance attached to it by-the ancient governments. The modern notion. of it, however, extends no further than population, to the omission of a classification of the people, and the nature, value, extent, and produce. of territory and property. The Statistics of Crime, Currency; and Prices,-are pros cured irregularly, and at haphazard ; more especially the. two latter, which are proportionately incomplete. In.." the art of extracting money from the pockets of the people," our rulers are adepts. They spend perhaps even better than they tax. Yet the information respecting the National Expenditure is the most ins accurate of all. Scarcely any office publishes a correct account-of what it expends; a complete account is nowhere given. The Treasury makes up the Returns not from the money- spe..t, but. from the' money voted. The Exchequer neither gives ih • in ney voted nor the money spent, but the money issued, and blends the. issues of several years together. It will be seen that some ima portant matters,—such as the nature, situation, and- value of the Public Property, the (classified) numbers and dispositions of the Forces both by land and sea, and in short, the Official Statistics,, if we may so speak, are altogether ov.irloo:- e 1 by the present work. They are very incompletely fur..i,hed by the Government: Some of these irregularities and deficiencies are alluded to, in-a courtly manner, by Mr. PORTER, the principal compiler of the work ; and a promise is held out to remedy the former in ensuing years. But official etiquette will prevent any interference in, matters having no connexion with trade; and were it otherwise,: the newly-created office of a subordinate Minister has not power to supply deficiencies. Feeling thankful to Mr. POULETT THOMir sox for what he has done, we should be still more gratified at seeing his plan fully worked out by the establishment of a depart- ment which should have the entire management of the Public- Statistics. The class of facts to be published must of course be de- cided upon by the Executive ; but as regards the extent of the partis c Oars, the form in which-they should appear, and-the changes which. should annually be-made, to meet the changing eircumstances.of, the case, the new department should be supreme, or subject only to the fiat of Parliament. At present, Members.not only move for mate ter which is already published, but where the information required has not-before appeared, they call for partial facts, to meet indis
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