The Organization of Statistics Author(s): R. Henry Rew Source: Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, Vol. 84, No. 1 (Jan., 1921), pp. 1-21 Published by: Wiley for the Royal Statistical Society Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2340588 Accessed: 02-04-2016 05:15 UTC Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at http://about.jstor.org/terms JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Royal Statistical Society, Wiley are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Journal of the Royal Statistical Society This content downloaded from 139.86.7.217 on Sat, 02 Apr 2016 05:15:46 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms Vol. LXXXIV.] FPart I. JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL STATISTICAL SOCIETY. JANUARY, 1921. THE ORGANIZATION OF STAT1STICS. TEE PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS OF SIR R. HENRY REW, K.C.B., FOR THE SEsSIoN 1920-21. DELIVERED TO THE ROYAL STATISTICAL SOCIETY NOVEMBER 16, 1920. IT iS no light responsibilitv-and no small honour-to be called to the Chair of a Society which for eighty-six vears has filled an important place in national life and maintained a high standard of public usefulness. The President of the Royal Statistical Society inherits traditions handed down through a long line of distinglished public men, and at this stage in the Society's history he may well feel some trepidation lest he fail to rise to his high calling and falter in handing on the torch to his successors. It gratifies me to claim that I am in the direct line of Presidential descent from two of my predecessors-Sir James Caird (President, 1880-82) and Majoi Craigie (President, 1902-04). It was on Sir James Caird's motion that the House of Commons in 1864 resolved, against the Government of the day, in favour of the establishment of a system of official agricultural statistics, which at a later date was greatlv developed by Major Craigie. Both Sir James Caird and Major Craigie, like myself, spent a part of their lives in the Civil Service, and both, like myself, were not only concerned with agricultural statistics, but also had charge for a time of the work of the Land Commission which was incorporated in 1889 with the Board of Agriculture. This is, in effect, the first Presidential address to the Society since the war. My inmmediate predecessor, Sir Herbert Samuel, took office in June, 1918, and his Presidential address, although delivered after the armistice (in January, 1919), was still too near VOL. LXXXVI. PART I. B This content downloaded from 139.86.7.217 on Sat, 02 Apr 2016 05:15:46 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 2 REw-The Organrzatwon of Statistics. [Jan. the suspension of the hostilities for a review of the war period. Indeed it is not yet possible to review the war period with any pretension to historical detachment. The fog of war still lingers, and we have as yet only faint glimpses of what we fondly hope is a brighter day. But it is at. least possible, from the point of view of the Society, to take stock of the position in which the war has left us. The Society in the war period. During the war the Society " carried on " with difficulty. At the outbreak of the war its small staff was crippled by the departure of the Assistant Secretary, now Captain Kohan, O.B.E., and a little later by the joining up of the junior clerk (Mr. Smalley). The Librarian, Mr. Mackenzie, was, fortunately for the Society, ineligible for military service, and the honorary secretaries, with the assistance of several members of the Council, were able to keep the Society going. The issue of the Journal was restricted to four instead of eight parts, and in other respects the work of the office was reduced; but it was not until the Society, in 1918, was able to secure the services of Miss Thorburn, the present Assistant Secretary, that the normal routine of the office could be fully resumed. The difficulties were increased by the fact that the demands on the library were increased during the war by the requirements of various Government depart- ments. It may fairly be claimed that the library accumulated by the Society during its long history-which forms, as Fellows of the Society are aware, the most complete collection of statistical returns and publications in the country-was of national service during the war by providing ready access to information urgently required by the Government in relation to questions of trade, population and finance in the belligerent and other countries. To no institution can greater distinction be given than the privilege of having been found useful to the nation during the war, and this distinction the Society may honestly claim. The Society finds itself in very respectable company as regards the effect of the war on its finances. It has certainly not " pro- fiteered," as the following statement of its membership and investments at the end of each year shows:- Number of Amount Number of Amount Fellows on invested on Fellows on invested on December 31. December 31. December 31. December 31. 1913 846 10,092 1917 757 7,656 1914 821 9,528 1918 761 8,282 1915 772 8,182 1919 796 7,672 1916 758 7,702 This content downloaded from 139.86.7.217 on Sat, 02 Apr 2016 05:15:46 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 1921.] REw-The Organization of Statistws. 3 Happily the present year has been marked by an unusually large accession of new Fellows, and there is no doubt that the membership roll on December 31 will show a total not less than that of the year before the war. From financial loss the Society may, and I believe will, recover, but it has suffered other losses which are irreparable. No less than five Fellows of the Society who had filled this Chair have died since 1914-Earl Brassey (President, 1879-80), Mr. Charles Booth (President, 1892-94), Lord Courtney of Penwith (President, 1897-99), Sir Richard Martin (President, 1906-07), and Lord Welby, who died during his Presidency in 1915. Amongst others. whom death has removed from the roll of Fellows during the past six years were Mr. Samuel Whitbread, who joined the Society as long ago as 1859, Mr. Joseph Chamberlain, Lord Jersey, Lord Rhondda, Sir Robert Mowbray, Sir R. Inglis Palgrave, Sir Lesley Probyn, Sir Henry Burdett, Archdeacon Cunningham, Sir Richard Crawford -an old colleague of mine at the Board of Agriculture-and Mrs. Frances Wood, who was the first woman to serve on the Society's Council. The changes in the personnel of the honorary offices have been unusually numerous since 1914. At the outbreak of war the exigencies of the public service compelled my resignation of the position of hon. secretary, which I had been privileged to occupy for thirteen years, though I retained, until called to the Chair, the position of hon. foreign secretary, which was practically a sinecure during the war. The vacancy in the treasurership caused by the death of Sir Richard Martin was happily filled by the accep- tance of the position by Mr. R. Holland-Martin. Mr. Udny Yule, who succeeded me as senior hon. secretary, was compelled by ill-health to resign the position in 1918, and in the present year Dr. Stevenson also found it necessary to resign his position as hon. secretary. The Society, if I may be permitted the somewhat invidious remark, has from its earliest days been fortunate in enlisting the services of Fellows who have devoted themselves zealously as hon. secretaries to its executive work, but I venture to say that it has never been more fortunate than in the present holders of the position-Mr. Flux, Dr. Greenwood and Sir Josiah Stamp. If there was inevitably some slackening in the normal activities of the Society during the war, it has since the armistice, and especially during the Session of 1919-20, demonstrated that its vitality is unimpaired, and its zeal for statistical progress unabated. In December, 1916, the Council revived the question, which B 2 This content downloaded from 139.86.7.217 on Sat, 02 Apr 2016 05:15:46 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 4 REw-The Orqanization of Statistics. [Jan. has from time to time aroused the Society's interest, of a centralized organization of official statistics, and this was followed in 1919 by the appointment of a Committee, under the Chairmanship of Mr. Geoffrey Drage, which promoted a Memorial to the Government on the subject. Following a practice begun in 1840, the Council appoiilted a Committee, under the Chairmanship of Professor Bowley, to make suggestions for the forthcoming Census. This Committee presented a detailed Report, which was forwarded to the Government in December last, and it is understood that effect will be given to some of their recommendations. The Committee reiterated the request which the Society has made on many previous occasioins for a quinquennial census, and it is satisfactory to record that the principle is now embodied in the statute. It may be of interest to note that the demand for a quinquennial census was first made by the Society in 1879.