The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1880-02-07 00:00:00

THE CENSUS OF 1881.

A Deputation from the Council of the National Associa-
tion for the Promotion of Social Science has had an inter-
view with the President of the Local Government Board, at
Whitehall, to urge upon him, with regard to the Bill for
taking next year's census, which will be introduced by Mr.
Sclater-Booth in the ensuing session :

Ist. That it is essential that all the particulars
given in the Census for each part of the United
Kingdom, 1871, be repeated in the Census, 1881, with
such amendments in detail as may be found desirable.
2. That it is desirable that, as far as practicable, the
census for each part of the United Kingdom
contain similar information, and be the same in
form. 3. That it is desirable that in the Census
of England and Scotland, as in the census of Ireland,
in 1871, the religious profession of each inhabitant
be ascertained, and that this inquiry form part of the
Householders' Schedule. 4. That it is desirable that
in the Household Schedule there be a column for sick-
nes 3 or injury in the following form—" Sickness or In-
jury.'' Sick to include all who require medical advice
or who are disabled from following their usual en,.
ployment. Write the name of disease from which the
patient is suffering. 5. That it is desirable that a re-
turn of the number of rooms in each house be given in
the Census of England and Wales and in that of Ire-
land, as has already been done in Census of Scotland.
6. That it is desirable that houses be distinguished
between those intended for habitation and those not
intended for this purpose. 7. That it is desirable that
there be a return of houses intended for habitation
which are unlet. 8. That the returns under the head
of occupation be amended to show the nature of the
employment with greater precision. 9. That for every
city and town the concentrated population, and the
area which it occupies, should be returned, whether its
boundaries be coincident or not with any legally defined
boundary or boundaries. 10. That in the case of towns
and. other areas of concentrated population, summaries
of the returns be made up and recorded for each enume-
rator's district, and be open for inspection et the
offices of the Superintendent Registrar. 11. That the
Census should be quinquennial, instead of decennial as
now, each census to be complete and to contain full
particulars. 12. That a representation be made to
the Government praying that effect be given to the
above resolutions when the census is taken in future
years."
The Deputation consisted of Mr. F. S. Powell,
Mr. Westlake, Q.C., Mr. F. G. P. Nelson, and Mr.
J. L. Clifford Smith, assistant secretary.
Mr. Sciater-Booth premised to consider the eugges.
time made.

The Times of Tuesday had a leader on the subject
of the forthcoming Census, from which we make the
following extracts :
. . . If the Government, or private members, or any
other persons in the community, can recommend more
efficient machinery for attaining the end at which a Census
aims, the public will not be behind-hand in assenting. We
published yesterday certain conclusions adopted on the
subject by the Council of the Social Science Association.
One is that the interval between one Census and another
should be live in place of ten years. The Austrian
Empire takes a fresh Census every six years, France and
Italy every five, Germany and Spain every three. The United
States, Belgium, and Russia agree with Great Britain in
thinking the decennial period not too long. The first, how-
ever, of these countries contains an active body of advocates
of a quinquennial Census. In the United States political
power goes with population. States in the West and
North-West are impatient at being debarred for ten years
from reaping the additional representation earned by their
faculty of attracting settlers. In England professional
statisticians cannot enlist the aid of such motives. They
woald refuse it were it proterred. Their philosophy le
too magnanimous for the admixture of thoughts of gain
to a politician or a party. But they are at least as
anxious as their American brethren for a curtailment
of the interval between one Census and another. They
sit in Somerset House, like the three Fates, spinning from
the figures of the past the figures of the future. Their
complaint is that the lessons of a decennial Census are
obsolete before they have been collected. At first sight the
English mind recoils in terror from the very suggestion
that the apparatus which, pat in motion though it be only
every ten years, sends a thrill of apprehension through
every household should be set working at half that distance
of time. The mere expense would itself be made an objec-
tion. It does • not approach for the United Kingdom
that of the American Union, which laid out on the
Census of 1870 some £660,000 sterling. In 1871 the
cost in this kingdom did not much exceed £120,000. Yet
even that expenditure, rising as it does by twenty or thirty
thousand pounds on each successive occasion, deserves con-
sideration. Statisticians have, however, their answer to
the argument as well of outlay as of the inconvenience of
reiterating at shortened intervals the popular excitement
which every recurring gensus appears sure to produce.
They hold the length of the present intervals liable both
for cost and for excitement. The more abridged the
intervals the less phenomenal, they urge, would a Census
appear. Were the periods reduced to the proportions
observed in Germany, the call of the enumerator
might in time stir no more astonishment or remark
than the gasman's visit to test the meters. In this,
as in mrst other matters on which statisticians have
set their hearts, they are certain sooner or later '
to have their way. But the more sure they are to have
esta-
blishing they
theirwilithteherubleetotefra thfiveey_yceaanr afforoardthrtoeew-fetar.
CBeenfosurea
will do well so to improve the form of a decennial Census as
to render its public utility a little more self.aPparent than it
is at present. Masses of figures are by themselves of little
profit, except to gratify the same curiosity which is pleased
by reading the pages of a Directory or an almanack. To,be
of manageable use the questions propounded to the various
householders of the kingdom must be so prepared that the
multitude of answers will distribute themselves spon-
taneously 'ruder a few intelligible heads. The volumes of
the Census have since they assumed their recent bulk been a
chaos through which only a few profound experts can pick
their way.

The information embodied in the British Census has been
hitherto either too much or too little. The simplest form
of Census is an enumeration of the numbers of the popula-
tion, male and female, below and above certain ages. For
the purposes of Prince Bismarck and Count Molke such a
computation has its uses. The statesmen of military em-
pires are able to reckon the increase they can decree of
their armies without tighteaug the pressure on the adult
reenneed or the ,t)ktutay boy vutl. wr Lai; Liao ton
years have shown the nation can bear and live. For English
purposes that kind of calculation would be of small benefit.
England wants to knew, not bow much food is has reared for
powder, but what directions the national life is taking, judged
by the evidence of health, habitation, and occupation. These
particulars are the subject-matter on which legislation has
to act. It they be not supplied by a Census, it has to con-
jecture and guess them. The most essential of the recom-
mendations made by the Social Science Association relates
to the returns under the head of occupation. Very properly
the Association urges that the nature of the employment
ought to be shown with greater precision. The specification
is now always much more definite than when the first Census
was taken in 1801. - The population was then ranked simply
under three heads. These were the persons chiefly employed in
agriculture, the persons chiefly employed in trade, manufrve-
tura 8, or hen dicraft, and , lastly, all other persons S till, however,
the Census returns would form but a slender foundation on
which to construct an industrial classification of the British
people. A diffieulty on the surface is that the officials who
have to conduct the stupendous work of reckoning the
whole nation in a single day have no leisure or authority to
cateckize householders on the exactness of the details they
supply. In a majority of cases it might be possible for the
officials to correct the statements on the written form. But
the especial feature of the record ,is that, whatever its im-
perfections, it is founded on primary, and not secondary,
evidence. It the Census Commissioners for 1881 should be
empowered by Parliament to compile a substantial body of
industrial statistics, those statistics would have to take the
form of such a subsidiary industrial Census as was recom-
mended by Mr. Bass when Parliammt was arranging for
the Census of 1871. Another point there is on which a live-
lier, though less practical, controversy may be antic,pated
whenever the Government opens the question of the Census.
The Census Camraissioners of 1851 had originally thought
themselves authorized by the Act which appointed them to
require educational and denominational returns. On re-
flection they doubted their right to enforce those returns,
but they requested voluntary answers. When the next
Census was taken no such returns were asked,
nor again in 1871. Educational returns have happily
now been rendered superfluous by Mr. Forster's
Act. There will, however, be a keen dispute in
Parliament whether, as the Social Science Asso-
ciation advises, the religious profession ot the family should
not be made part of the householder's schedule. Io Ireland
It is part already. But Irishman neither are able, nor do
they wish, to dissemble their faith. Englishmen are
more reticent. Many an Englishman's next-door neigh-
bours have no knowledge whatever of his religion, or of
the fact that he owns one. We are ready to admtt that
in an account such as the Census assumes to furnish of
national statistics there is an incongruity in leaving out
a very material feature in English life. On the other
hand, it may be inquired what can be the practical utility
of a return which, however veracients in respect of Particular
Baptists or IrVingites, tells nothing at all of the real belief
of the great mass of the population. whom the State Church,
in default of any other, necessarily claims. The statistics,
Co far as they can be relied upon, are forthcoming already
from the religious bodies themselves in which no pro forma,
membership is allowed. So tar as they cannot be relied
upon to proye anything, the Census is better Without
them.