Hermann von Schullern zu Schrattenhofen · 1892
Schullern’s German review evaluates the Italian statistical yearbook as an instrument for understanding national economic and social development. His praise rests on its combination of administrative organization, methodological explanation, detailed enumeration, and historical comparison. Moving from Luigi Bodio’s leadership through selected statistical fields, he assesses statistics both as scientific practice and as evidence about material conditions.
The opening situates Bodio’s achievement within the scientific ambitions of recently unified Italy. Individual leadership matters, but so does the national commitment that sustains it. Political economy provides an important intellectual foundation:
Insbesondere die Volkswirtschaftslehre hat unter Luigi Cossas Führung in den letzten Jahrzehnten rapide Fortschritte gemacht und in vieler Hinsicht der Statistik die Wege geebnet.
English translation: Political economy in particular has, under Luigi Cossa's leadership, made rapid progress in the last decades and has in many respects smoothed the way for statistics.
The parallel between Cossa and Bodio makes the yearbook an expression of connected advances in economic knowledge and statistical administration. Bodio’s achievement includes mobilizing public officials to render diverse aspects of national life measurable.
Schullern endorses the yearbook’s ambition to present Italy in figures, covering the kingdom and, where possible, its new protectorates. Comprehensiveness alone, however, does not explain its value. The explanatory apparatus connects numerical results to their production and interpretation:
Die Einleitungen zu den einzelnen Capiteln bieten uns vielfach erschöpfende Darstellungen der Erhebungsmethoden, erläutern uns die Tabellen, charakterisieren ihre Bedeutung und heben die wichtigsten Thatsachen, welche sich aus den ersteren ergeben, hervor.
English translation: The introductions to the individual chapters frequently offer us exhaustive accounts of the methods of collection, explain the tables to us, characterize their significance, and bring out the most important facts which emerge from the latter.
For Schullern, methodological transparency makes statistical information usable. The organization of the tables likewise mediates between exhaustive observation and intelligible synthesis:
Die Tabellen selbst sind fast immer überaus eingehend, weisen die Erscheinungen vielfach bis ins Detail nach und reassumieren dann in Summen oder Durchschnitten die Einzelheiten.
English translation: The tables themselves are almost always exceedingly detailed, exhibit the phenomena frequently down to the last particular, and then resume the particulars in sums or averages.
Retrospective series complement this movement from detail to summary by showing historical change without repeating every observation. Accessibility and scientific rigor thus reinforce one another.
The substantive survey demonstrates the importance of categories suited to the phenomena being measured. Migration statistics distinguish permanent departure, temporary migration, and return, capturing the economic rhythms of regions whose men work abroad before returning with savings and experience. Health statistics reveal the institutional basis of reliable observation: legally enforced reporting by municipal physicians supports accounts of mortality and living conditions. Falling pellagra mortality indicates improvement, while the continued toll of the disease exposes persistent poverty. Educational statistics similarly combine evidence of declining illiteracy with information about technical schooling and the expense of maintaining universities in small towns.
Agricultural and industrial data extend this account of material transformation. Schullern attends to collection methods as well as drainage, irrigation, forestry, and growing cattle stocks. Industrial statistics draw strength from monographic investigations published in the Italian Annali. Electrical lighting registers technological expansion, whereas silk production has particular importance for agricultural households because it supplies cash income. Output and export figures consequently bear on the consumption possibilities of poorer rural groups, not merely on aggregate production.
The treatment of wages qualifies the review’s enthusiasm. Comparing earnings with wheat prices makes changes in purchasing power visible, and Schullern values the attempt to measure real wages. Factory-level daily averages, however, fall short of his ideal of wage statistics. He acknowledges the practical obstacles to better measurement without treating the available results as methodologically sufficient. Price series, international trade, and public finance further demonstrate the yearbook’s breadth.
The closing discussion recommends Bodio’s related Di alcuni indici misuratori del movimento economico in Italia for its accessible interpretation, international comparisons, and treatment of savings and private wealth. It also facilitates comparison between Italian statistical methods and those of other states. Schullern’s broader judgment is that the yearbook offers more than abundant information: it exemplifies the productive connection between collection procedures, explanatory presentation, historical analysis, and inquiry into social welfare.
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