Abstract
THE establishment in Great Britain of a special statistical council comprised of business men, bankers, economists and, members of the general public charged with the task of instituting a National Statistical Service was recommended by Mr. Roy Glenday in opening a discussion on “The Use and Misuse of Economic Statistics“before the Royal Statistical Society on April 16. This new body would not itself collect statistics, but would devote its energies to co-ordinating the statistical work now being performed by Government departments, private bodies and individuals. Mr. Glenday pointed out that international trade has reached a crisis in its fortunes since the ‘white’ populations are rapidly approaching stagnation-that of Great Britain is actually on the eve of a decline-yet we have no means of measuring the industrial and commercial changes which this entails. No organisation has been evolved to collect the statistics and other information which it is imperative to possess, and instead we are continuing to press forward with reorganisation schemes in housing, education and transport at home and to expand food and raw material supplies overseas as if world populations are destined to go on expanding at the old rate and with their age distribution unchanged. The fundamental statistical facts and trends in regard to our economic life should become as much part of the common stock of ideas on which all act, as are certain of the fundamental facts of physics and chemistry.
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A National Statistical Service. Nature 135, 784–785 (1935). https://doi.org/10.1038/135784c0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/135784c0