Page 3 - Annuaire Statistique Québec - 1949

PREFACE

A quantity of new mate!rial and several modifications chamcterize the
1953 edition o[ the Statisti(;nl Year Book, the thirty-seven th issued by the
Quebec Bureau of Stntistics.
To commemorn.te the fortieth lwniverRary of the founding of the Quebec
Bureau of Statistic::i, the prcceding edition of the Ye[1l' Book eontained a special
article descl'ibing the main circumstances which le[1d ta the establishment of
the Bureau in 1912. In the pl'p~l!nt cd.ition, the article has been l'eplaced by
a short hi~l,orical account of the Dominion-Provincial conference:> on statisties.
The two articles form the ba:;i" of [1 memoi!' submitted to the Royal Commis-
sion of inquiry on eonstltutiona\ problems, which memoir considers the task of
the provincial statistician [rom t}w eonstltutional aspect and endeavours to
place ..tatistic" in their proper hiRtorical pel·spective.
The list of members of thl; Provincial Legislature, f~ccording to electoral
divisions, from IHm on\\ul'ds, Wlkl given in the 1914 cdition but had not b88n
includcd "illce then. It has becn brought up to date and is printed in this volume.
In th(: chapter on Public I~inan(;e, the sectioM devoted to the finance:; of
municipal and school corporations huve been given :;pecial attention. StatisticB
of both have been gl'ouped and pl'l.l:iented in the same way,so that they can now
be synt.hesi7;p.d, ~\ matter of importance if compariBons are to be made with the
other provinc~~s. Several graphs complete the two sections and highlight the
pl'oportional distribution of the corporations' revenue and expenditul'e.
For some years now, economi~t~, ~ociologists) geographors and statisticians
have knded to considor eronomiL: l'f'g:iol1s rather than electoral divisions or
municipal oounties. In thi::; connection, it is imperative that unanimity be,
reached as saon fI,:'l possible as to the Jimits of thoso rcgions; in faet, whenever
a pal'ticlilar region is mentioned, it is e '~e!ntial that identical territory be referred
to. A plan is at pl'el'cnt llnder consideration which, in the main, seems to meet
with J,l;eneral approval. The plan propos(!d is described in nn Appendix. How-
evel', jl, should be noted, it is not the one usod in the presont Yem Book; as the
agricultlll'al regions JI:ui all·p:vly \ll'lm usod it was thought he~t to continue to
do sa until :-;uch tl tinll; al' lt defillite d(~(~ision has bocn reached. A certain amount
of data has bcen distributed aCl'.ordinJ,l; tu region~: the population of the Province
in 1952; production and employees in manufaduring industries as weil as salaries
and wage' paid out j the l1umber of farms, area under Crops, live stock, field
erops and frmnirlg machinery and, finally, l'etail trade. Evenl;ual1y ail the
information will be redistributod to confol'm to Ho plan of economic Y'I~gions when
sueh a plan hu..., been given npPl'oval by everYQno concl'l'l1nd.
Tho fOI'f-,going nj'(~ the major changes. A number of others of v90l'ying
d~:gl'c(~~ 0f importance hit\o'e also \If'(~n made and al'e oul;lined aCI;ul'ding to ehapter
seqll<'ncc.
FOl'merly therp. were fourtecn meLI~orologic[11 n~;.!;ions wherrili:l thére me! HOW
only eleven Ui:l n. result of a regl'ouping of observation statiunK. The new l'egions
~c0.m to be l "tter Buiter! 1.0 rnel·eorologicall'oqnil'omrnt:". Howevel', the ch:mge
made it necoBsury to rr,c,alculate the rcgionnl fLverages.