Universal Inquest
Statistics are not everybody's cup of sea, and to that extent it is understandable that the Statistics for Trade Bill, which appeared last week, went almost unnoticed. Yet it is still surprising that a Bill which makes it obligatory on persons and firms to provide to the Government whatever information the Government may require gave rise to no outcry. The powers taken in the Bill are deliberately very wide, and the penalties for non-compliance include imprison- ment. Yet nothing worse than a faint, and more or less automatic, murmur about form-filling has been heard. There are, of course, a number of possible reasons for this. The public, and business men in particular, have come to regard official questionnaires and forms as a part of their lives. The White Paper on Employment Policy of May 1944 gave fair warning that a vast extension of official statistics was essential to the working of a full employment policy. The fact that the census of production and distribution, with which this Bill is particularly concerned, would make still further demands, has also been well advertised by the Committees dealing with these matters ; and in any case the Census of Production is not new, though the decision to take it annually instead of every five years is both new and sensible. The danger is that the carelessness with which the Bill has been received will be extended to the filling in of the necessary forms. That would indeed be a disaster, for when measures as sweeping as this are introduced it is at least essential that the results achieved shall be useful. If that is to happen, it is not only necessary for the business community to play its part. The civil servants, who now number more than a million, must play theirs too. A gap of two and a half years separates the Employment Policy White Paper from the present Bill, yet there is little in the Bill to indicate that it could not have been drafted in as many months.
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