§ 62. Mr. COOPERasked the President of the Board of Trade if it is proposed to issue any summary or digest of the Return on Railway Companies (Staff and Wages), No. 116, of this Session, issued recently; and whether it is customary for his Department to supply to Members of the House of Commons a mass of undigested statistics such as that Return undoubtedly is?
Mr. BUXTONThe form of this Return was determined by the fact that it was 782 drawn up to take the place of certain entries originally inserted in Committee in the Bill which became the Railway Companies (Accounts and Returns) Act, 1911. The Return is not designed for statistical purposes. It is intended to give certain facts relating to each company, and any general summary might be quite misleading. The actual form of the Return was adopted at the instance of the Stationery Office, in order to save expense.