In an age so overwhelmingly dominated by the planner, statistics and statisticians have come to assume a crucial importance; and so seriously have the latter taken their new responsibility that, in recent times, a veritable flood of data on every conceivable aspect of socio-economic behaviour has engulfed us. In the newly emergent nations this task of collecting and collating information, spurred on no doubt by the knowledge that much remains to be done, has proceeded with a rare enthusiasm, and in all of them the periodic ‘Digest of Statistics’ has become a familiar document.