§ Mr. PENNEFATHERasked the Minister of Transport if his attention has been drawn to a published statement to the effect that some 3,000 employés of one railway company alone are engaged in collecting statistics for his Department; and will he make a statement upon the subject?
§ Sir E. GEDDESI have observed a statement to this effect in a letter published in the Press. It is obvious that the 881W figure is a gross exaggeration if it is put forward as the number of persons employed for any appreciable portion of their time on the compilation of statistics required by the Ministry. If every railway employe who furnishes figures relating to his work which are subsequently included in some statistical return were counted, it might be said—quite apart from any requirements of the Ministry— that a large section of the staff of every railway company is partly engaged in collecting statistics of one sort or another. The real test of the amount of work involved in the preparation of statistics is not the number of engine drivers, for example, who fill up tickets at the end of their shift in accordance with long-established practice. The statistics are less voluminous than those kept in most great countries—they are comparable with those kept by every great country in the world, are the only index of comparable operating efficiency available—have the support of the largest trading interests in the country. They are, in fact, the costing figures in the manufacture of transportation and are essential to any survey of the efficiency of our railway working.