Karl Theodor von Inama-Sternegg and Heinrich Rauchberg · 1892
This 1892 Viennese offprint from the Statistische Monatschrift is a programmatic official-statistical dossier. Karl Theodor v. Inama-Sternegg’s “Einbegleitung” frames the diplomatic background and the Vienna resolution of the International Statistical Institute; Heinrich Rauchberg’s “Denkschrift” develops the methodological and technical program for exchanging census-derived individual data on foreign nationals.
Der Zweck, welcher hierbei verfolgt wurde, ist ein rein statistischer.
English translation: The purpose pursued in this matter is a purely statistical one.
Inama’s point is that bilateral agreements made in 1890–1891 should not remain merely diplomatic acts. They must become a uniform statistical practice enabling more exact calculation of “rechtliche Bevölkerung” and a firmer grasp of international migration. Hence the work’s first conceptual move is to define the problem as administrative technique: the value of the exchange depends on comparable forms, prompt transmission, territorial ordering, and the absence of incompatible national procedures.
Die glückliche Lösung der mit diesen internationalen Uebereinkommen in Angriff genommenen Aufgabe ist also wesentlich ein statistisch-technisches Problem und muss daher auch im vollsten Einvernehmen der statistischen Bureaux in Angriff genommen werden.
English translation: The successful solution of the task undertaken through these international agreements is therefore essentially a statistical-technical problem, and must accordingly be undertaken in fullest concert among the statistical bureaus.
Rauchberg then gives the project its theoretical rationale. Older population statistics, he argues, had abandoned the fiction of temporal immobility but not fully that of spatial fixity. Migration is now a structural social fact, intensified by free movement and labor markets, yet ordinary official statistics stops at the border. International exchange therefore becomes the necessary supplement to national enumeration.
Eine der Ursachen dieses unleugbaren Mangels ist die, dass die Wanderbewegung keine politische Grenze kennt und eben dadurch auch zu einem politisch wichtigen Factor wird, während die amtliche Statistik an den Staatsgrenzen Halt machen muss und dieselben nicht überschreiten darf.
English translation: One of the causes of this undeniable deficiency is that migration knows no political frontier and precisely for this reason becomes a politically significant factor, whereas official statistics must halt at the state borders and may not cross them.
The memorandum rejects counting absentees as an archaic source of omissions and double counts, and instead builds migration analysis from persons actually present on census day. Birthplace offers the broadest measure of life-course movement, but political nationality or legal domicile supplies the operative basis for interstate exchange, because governments have a direct interest in their own nationals abroad. Where nationality is not collected, birthplace may serve only as a substitute.
Rauchberg’s second major move is to insist that aggregate tables are inadequate. The home-state bureau must receive individual records so that emigrant populations can be classified analogously to the domestic census by sex, age, family status, occupation, social position, birthplace, domicile, and territorial origin. This is why the exchange must be made through cards rather than summary returns.
Der Austausch der Zählungsergebnisse geschieht am zweckmäßigsten durch Individualzählblätter.
English translation: The exchange of enumeration results is most expediently effected by means of individual census sheets.
The practical sections specify the conditions of usability: approximate synchrony of census dates, inclusion of all persons present, clear notation of residence, nationality, domicile and birthplace, and territorial details beyond the commune, especially district and province. Rauchberg is pragmatic about differing census dates around 1890, but strict about form: common card formats, legible scripts, packets by administrative district, early dispatch before full national tabulation, and reciprocal bearing of costs.
The work also draws a juridical boundary around the exchange. It anticipates a privacy principle: these data are for statistics, not police inquiry, consular tracing, or legal prejudice. The omission of names is treated as both scientifically sufficient and politically necessary.
Jede Ausbeutung derselben zum Zwecke der Ermittlung gewisser Individuen soll grundsätzlich ausgeschlossen sein.
English translation: Any exploitation of these data for the purpose of identifying particular individuals shall in principle be excluded.
The closing survey maps the state of negotiations. Austria-Hungary had concluded agreements with numerous European states, while France, Britain, Denmark, and the United States raised difficulties over individual data or the non-collection of nationality. Austria nevertheless prepared cards for all foreigners enumerated in its census and intended to offer them broadly, using regular practice to encourage future reciprocity. The work’s lasting relevance lies in its fusion of migration theory, census standardization, international administrative cooperation, and restrained data use: it makes mobile populations statistically visible without reducing individual records to named surveillance.
This work was divided into 6 sections when it entered the library's research corpus—an apparatus for search and citation, not necessarily the author's own table of contents. Each title opens its summary.
Put a question to this work; the Librarian answers from its 6 sections and cites the passage.
Ask the Librarian