The Nelson Evening Mail. SATURDAY, OCTOBER 19, 1867.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume II, Issue 246, 19 October 1867, Page 2

The Nelson Evening Mail. SATURDAY, OCTOBER 19, 1867.

We have already stated in these columns that it has been determined that a census of the population of this colony shall take place in the month of December next; and although this proceediug involves a considerable expenditure we are inclined to believe that the beneficial results of such an enumeration of our present population are such as to outweigh this consideration. Statistics like these constitute the basis of the best legislation, and instruct the wisest statesmanship. By them commerce directs its operations ; and from them, aanitary science deduces most of its laws. The political economist turns to them in order to verify his theories and confirm his principles; and they assist the historiau to interpret the events he records. They furnish the materials out of which modern philosophy has constructed a social science; and they enable those who study them sagaciously to discern those secret causes of a nation's growth or a nation's decay ,of the moral or physical decline of a people, or of the elevatiou or degradation of a class, which would escape detection without such an aid. In political debate statistics are as decisive as heavy artillery upon the field of battle. The musketry of rhetoric may harass and annoy, dazzle, and confound; but a whole battalion of sophisms may be routed and scattered to the winds by the crushing fire of a battery of well-directed statistics. They were mainly efficacious in securing the triumph of free trade principles in. the mother country, and the heretics who were obdurate to argument submitted to tho irresistible pressure of facts and figures. The collection and collation of these indeed have preceded the most beneficial legislative and administrative changes in the mother country; and there is no question of finance or political or moral science which can be satisfactorily studied or efficiently legislated upon otherwise than by a careful and constant reference to the statistics of the subject.

Hence the value of tl^e census which is shortly to be taken, and hence the importance of a correct and complete return being furnished to the enumerators by the head of every household in the colony. No foolish prejudice against the alleged inquisitorial nature of the enquiry should be suffered to obstruct the performance of an act of duty, which it is incumbent upon every good citizen to fulfil cheerfully, conscientiously, and thoroughly. The information thus volunteered cannot and will not be scrutinised to gratify individual curiosity. Such a scrutiny would be impossible, even if it were desired or allowed. Something like a hundred thousand forms will be distributed from houae to house, throughout the colony, before the day which shall be fixed upon as the date of the census, and who would think of overhauling this enormous masa of documents, when filled up and collected, for the purpose of arriving at some one very unimportant fact? Objections on this score may be dismissed therefore as puerile and ridiculous, and the good sense and good feeling of the community appealed to, for the purpose of facilitating an object of really national importance, undertaken at the public charge and for the public benefit.

- The conscientious scruples of those who object to state the particular religious persuasion to which they happen to belong

are sufficiently provided for, and no opposition can, we opine, be reasonably offered to answering every other inquiry that may be comprised, in the schedule, while the general instructions which accompany it are usually so copious and minute as to be intelligible to the meanest capacity. The information thus obtained will, when classified and tabulated, be of the greatest utility, as well to legislators and statists as to the general community. It will enable us to ascertain the rate and the direction

of the progress we are makiug; the distribution of our population; the development or decline of particulai* interests; the intellectual condition of the people, as tested by the education it has received or is acquiring; its social improvement as indicated by the description of dwelling it inhabits; the external sources from which our population is recruited, as well as its natural increment, and the proportion of the sexes. All these data are more valuable in new than in old countries, on account of the greater liability of the former to extreme fluctuations, both with regard to the occupations aud the distribution of the people, and of the necessity which is thus entailed of rectifying whatever ill effects may arise from these fluctuations by giving a new direction to individual enterprise.

la fact, it is not too much to say that there is not an individual in the community, however obscure his position and humble his circumstances, but is vitally interested in securing the accuracy and completeness of the returns authorised to be collected under the Census Act. Such returns are as indispensable to the good government of a people as a barometer and compass are to the successful navigation of a ship. These do not more truly indicate the vessel's course, and presage calm or storm, than does the census of a nation indicate the progress it is making, and the social and industrial conditions which are assisting to promote, or tending to retard, its prosperity. Therefore we strongly urge upon all our readers the imperative duty, when the time arrives, of complying with the request which is sure to be endorsed upon the census-paper, and of contributing as far as in them lies to perfect that poll of the colony which is to take place in a few weeks' time.