THE OFFICIAL YEAR BOOK

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23436, 26 February 1938, Page 12

THE OFFICIAL YEAR BOOK

Of Prester John it is recorded that in his palace was a wondrous mirror, in which he could see all the parts of his dominions. With television yet of limited range and application, the modern ruler is still far from obtaining a like grand panoramic view of his kingdom. But the genius of modern man—if we accept Carlyle’s definition of genius as an unlimited capacity for taking pains—has evolved a very workmanlike substitute for the ancient’s magic looking-glass. Dry as they may appear, facts and figures are the bone and sinew of history. Statistics are not lively currency, but they indicate the courses in the life of a community. The, careful, unromanticallygrounded data in such compilations as the New Zealand Official Year Book have a place in the economy of a country of vital importance to those who live in it. The Year Book is, of course, indispensable to any who wish to engage themselves in informal peroration or debate upon the state of the nation. In the months directly ahead,, when the hustings echo the declamations and interjections associated with political campaigning, the 1938 edition of this embracing work will be to the intelligent man as the Bible is to the manse. And in its close-packed, ad-mirably-edited pages he may discover a truer reflection of the position of the country than is to be obtained in inspired, if not always inspiring, platform .expositions upon that subject. Certain relevant commentaries may be obtained, for example, and without, any urgent research, upon taxation, which has increased in a decade on a sharply rising scale from less than £l2 to nearly £2O per head, that imposed for the past three years eclipsing any previous rate. Or he may observe, with such fortitude as he can muster, the dimensions of the public debt, which is at the grand total of £287,670,200, or £lßl odd against every man, woman and child in the Dominion, including the members of the Native race. It is in such figures that a year book may serve more eloquently than orators to bring the public to a recognition not only of what their country is in man-power and resources, but where their country stands and whither it is going. From such a compilation they may obtain a conspectus'more accurate in detail, and more significant of the future, if of less grandeur, than that vision which met the eyes of Prester John upon his palace wall.