Page:A Statistical Account of Bengal Vol 1 GoogleBooksID 9WEOAAAAQAAJ.pdf/16

Rh in the first place, to provide that the materials collected by each of the Local Governments should afford a common basis for the comparative statistics of the country, when eventually consolidated into the one final work for all India. In the second place, to devise measures for ensuring the compilation of the materials thus obtained within a reasonable time, and on a uniform plan. The District forms the administrative unit in India, and I took it as the unit of the Statistical Survey in the work of collecting the materials; the Province forms a large administrative entity, and was taken as the basis of the organization for compiling the materials when obtained. With a view to securing uniformity in the materials, I drew up, under the orders of Government, six series of leading questions, illustrating the topographical, ethnical, agricultural, industrial, administrative, medical, and other aspects of an Indian District, which might serve as a basis for the investigations throughout all India. With a view to securing certainty of execution, provincial editors were appointed, each of whom was made responsible for getting in the returns from the District officers within the territory assigned to him, supplementing them by information from the Heads of Departments and local sources, and working them up into the Statistical Account or Gazetteer of the Province. In this way the unpaid of the whole body of officers throughout the two hundred and  Districts of India was enlisted, the best local knowledge was brought to bear, and in each Province there was an editor directly responsible for the completion of the Provincial Account on a uniform plan and within a reasonable time. The supervision of the whole rested with me, as of Statistics to the Government of India.