STATISTICS AND ADMINISTRATION. 445 
Other Periodical Returns. 
Annual returns are also issued by provincial Governments in 
connection with the Workmen's Compensation Act and the Trade 
Unions Act. These are accompanied by statistics relating to the pay- 
ment of workmen’s compensation and to registered trade unions. The 
former statistics cover the main branches of industry and are summarised 
annually by the Government of India with some comments on the 
working of the Act. We recommend that for the convenience of the 
public a similar summary be published relating to the Trade Unions 
Act. The Government of India also publish statistics of industrial 
disputes. These are supplied by provincial Governments, some of which 
publish the figures for their provinces. The tables, prepared on a 
monthly basis but issued quarterly, give the number of disputes, the 
number of persons involved, the principal causes and the general 
results. 
The Need of Statistical Information. 
The periodical statistics to which we have referred are designed 
mainly for administrative purposes and throw little light on the 
economic position of the worker. Even if they were supplemented in 
respect of wages in the manner we have suggested, they could not take 
the place of regular statistics of earnings and of the worker’s expenditure, 
We have already referred to the limited information available in respect 
of the standard of living of the industrial classes, and we have stressed 
the importance of taking steps to remedy the present deficiency. There 
seems to be an impression in some quarters that the collection of such 
statistics is a luxury in which only rich countries or provinces should 
indulge. This, in our view, is a profound error. It is on facts that 
policy must be built, and so long as there is uncertainty as to the facts, 
there must be confusion and conflict regarding the aim. The absence of 
accurate statistics regarding the life of the workers constitutes a serious 
handicap to intelligent efforts to better their condition. 
Wages. 
The three main subjects on which information is most urgently 
needed are wages, earnings and the expenditure of the workers. So far 
as wages are concerned, practically nothing has hitherto been achieved 
with the exception of the enquiries made by the Bombay Labour Office 
into wages in the cotton mill industry of that Presidency. An attempt 
was made by the Government of India to institute a wages census in 1921, 
but retrenchment led to its abandonment. Satisfactory statistics regard- 
ing wages can only be obtained from employers and must be collected on a 
fairly extensive scale on the basis of individual industries. The pos- 
sibilities of working on samples are very limited ; in its last and most 
slaborate enquiry the Bombay Labour Office depended on sampling, but 
the sample taken was a very large one. In most Indian industries there 
would seem to be wide variations in wages, and even in their methods 
of calculation and payment, from establishment to establishment in the