7. (i) It may perhaps cause surprise to some that the information for which we ask is mainly such as can be expressed in a statistical form. But the fact remains that all statesmanship (and foreign missions involve large elements of statesmanship), and all organised effort (and foreign missions are highly organised), is in the world always based either upon carefully compiled statistics, or upon guess work; and that the business which is directed by guess work does not enjoy the same confidence as the business which is directed by knowledge derived from carefully compiled statistics.
Take, for example, this extract from a letter written by a firm in the
United States of America which deals with candy securities:—
The candy business, the history of which shows a remarkable record of freedom from failure, is to-day enjoying unparalleled prosperity, and there is every reason to believe that the present high earnings of all the large candy concerns in the United States will continue indefinitely. Those fortunate enough to hold shares in well-established candy manufacturing concerns may expect, therefore, to enjoy larger earnings than could reasonably be expected from funds placed in most other enterprises. Prohibition is proving a tremendous factor in increasing candy sales. Best estimates show that the American public is now spending between $800,000,000 and $1,000,000,000 annually for candy. —— & Co. are specialists in the candy and sugar securities. We maintain a statistical department, and endeavour to furnish information concerning all of the prominent issues based on these industries. You are invited to avail yourself of this service, and if you are interested in any candy or sugar stock, we will be pleased to have you confer with us. This department now has in preparation an analysis of the candy and sugar situation as it exists to-day in the United States. Interesting data is also being collected from most reliable sources, giving figures and statistics for the world. The number of copies which we are preparing for general distribution is limited. If you will sign the enclosed card, and return it to us, we will take pleasure in extending to you the courtesy of a copy of this analysis free of charge.
When individuals work individually, for themselves, as they please, statistics are only necessary for the onlooker who wants to compare individual effort with individual effort; the individuals who want to make no comparison of their own work with that of others, nor to keep any record of the progress of their work, need keep no statistics; but societies always want to keep a record of their work, and that record must be largely statistical.
It is vain to attack statistics to-day. Every society publishes statistical sheets. Every society by publishing them shows that it recognises the value of statistics. The difficulty to-day is not that the societies do not publish statistics, but that the statistics which they publish are not related to any aim or purpose, and do not include factors or standards which enable us to measure progress.
(ii) It may also cause surprise that we ask for estimates in some cases where exact information is not immediately accessible. It may be said that statistics are misleading, but estimates are hopelessly misleading: let us have correct figures or none. That attitude is easily understood, but under the circumstances it is vain. "Correct figures," that is, meticulously exact figures, are unattainable. An estimate is in nearly all matters of daily life and business the basis, and rightly the basis, of our action. It will be noticed that in that letter which we quoted above concerning the statistics of the candy trade in the United States of America, estimates had a place, and foreign missions involve matters about which "correct figures" are more difficult to obtain than the candy business. An estimate carefully made and understood, a deliberate statement expressed in round numbers, is not unscientific: it is only unscientific to mistake such figures for what they do not profess to be. When men object that the figures are not exact, if the figures do not profess to be exact, it is the objector who is unscientific, not the statistics.
Nevertheless, we must acknowledge that the admission of estimates and round figures does open the door to serious error. Men will be tempted to mistake an estimate for a guess. An estimate is a statement for which reasons can be given, a guess is—a mere guess. The great safeguard against guesses, as against all slipshod statistical entries, is the assurance that the statements made will be used. At present missionary statistics are untrustworthy mainly because so few people use them, and consequently those who supply them do not feel the need of revising them carefully.
Furthermore, it is important to bear in mind that the field for estimate in statistics of the kind proposed is limited; it only embraces figures for which exact totals are unobtainable, for instance, area, population, and figures of societies which refuse to give statistics, etc., and in every case precision in these statistics is not of vital importance.
(iii) The main difference between our tables and those of others is that we make them very small and express in each a relation. The figures supplied by the societies in their reports are seldom related to anything; they are mere bundles of sticks; we suggest the introduction of a relation into every table which gives to each figure a significance which by itself it does not possess. In our tables every figure is set to work. Our idea of missionary statistics demands that they should be a basis for action. We think that it is waste of time to collect statistics from which no conclusion can be certainly drawn both by the compiler and the reader—a conclusion which ought to be suggestive when taken alone by itself, and, when considered in relation to the conclusions suggested by similar tables, compelling.
But it may be said that we are adding to the already overwhelming burden of accounts and reports over which missionaries toil to the great detriment of their proper work. The tables in this book are arranged apparently for the worker on the spot as well as for the intelligent supporter and director at home; why multiply tables and trouble the missionary with the sums of proportion? Why not ask the man there simply to give the necessary facts and then let the man at home work out for special purposes the various relations? The answer is simple: we ourselves have been asked to fill up long schedules of unrelated facts; and we know that the labour is intolerable. The supply of unrelated, meaningless facts dulls and wearies the brain. Few men can do the work with pleasure or profit, and consequently the schedules are often filled up, not indeed with deliberate carelessness, but with that heavy painfulness which, taking no interest in the work, often produces as pitiful a result as downright carelessness. "Thou shalt not muzzle the ox that treadeth out the corn" is a maxim which has a great application here. The man who provides the information should be the first to profit by it and to be interested in it. The first man to criticise these tables should be the missionary who fills them up on the spot; and his most valuable criticism might be a demonstration that the last column in a table was futile; that the table led him to no conclusions and suggested no remarks. That column of conclusions and remarks we hold to be the most precious of them all. We would have no man supply meaningless information. Only, we believe, when the information is of vital importance and interest to the man who supplies it will it be supplied carefully, correctly, willingly, and above all, intelligently. We venture to hope that our tables may be one step towards the day when the supply of statistical information by the missionary will cease to be mere drudgery.