§ MR. O'MARA (Kilkenny, S.)To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, as President of the Department of Agriculture and Technical: Instruction, if he will state when the; trade statistics of exports and imports for the years 1902 and 1903, already collected by the Department, will be published; and if he will recommend the Department to publish these statistics monthly in future.
(Answered by Mr. Wyndham.) The Department attempted to collect these statistics in respect of 1902, but the work of tabulating the information, so far as received, has been attended with very considerable difficulty. The Returns received for that year from Belfast and Cork show the total quantities of each commodity without distinguishing the country or port from or to which the goods were shipped. The Department failed to obtain Returns from Wexford, Drogheda, or Greenore, and the Return for Dublin for the same year contained no particulars of such important items as eggs, butter, and bacon. From other ports the descriptions of the articles mentioned were most unsatisfactory, two or more commodities being frequently bulked together. The manner in which quantities were expressed varied even at the same port; the gross or net weight was seldom stated, the only figures given having reference to the number of barrels, boxes, etc., and it was found impossible to discover what commodities were included, or to reduce the quantities to a common denomination of weight, or to estimate their monetary values. For these reasons it would be useless to give publicity to the statistical information in its present form for 1902, the Returns for which can only be regarded as a foundation on which the attempt to build up a system of accurate statistics can be made. It is hoped that the figures for 1903 will be received by the end of May. So far, the Returns for that year show a distinct improvement over those made for 1902, 487 but the Department is not yet in a position to say whether they will be of such a character as to justify their publication.