STATISTICAL DATA REQUESTS

Press, Volume LXXXII, Issue 24985, 20 September 1946, Page 5

STATISTICAL DATA REQUESTS

LACK OF CLARITY SEEN A recommendation to ask the Government Statistician to appoint a committee to confer with various national trade groups on the information he wants, so that precise data could be sought from, and given by, manufacturers and others, will be sent to the New Zealand Manufacturers’ Federation by the Canterbury Association. The council of the association on Wednesday received a letter from the .federation stating that representatives of the New Zealand Manufacturing Engineers and Metal Trade Federation had recently brought to the notice of officers of the Census and Statistics Department the desirability of co-ordi-nating* the statistical content of Government forms, and urged a reduction in* their number. The Government Statistician had written that he would be pleased to receive cases of duplication of effort.

Mr A. M. Hollander, commenting on an “excellent article in ‘The Press’ this (Wednesday) morning dealing with words,” asked why it was that the Government Statistician did not say what he meant, and had not Seen that because of the way statistics were asked for certain industries could not possibly give actual figures for the Government Year Book. He suggested the appointment of a committee to bring up tq date the statistical questions asked yearly of manufacturers “so that something can be collated which will make sense, sb that the Year Book can thbn make sense, too/*