Our bureau of statistics is without question the most valuable department of our government. It has been brought to its perfected condition by centuries of practice and improvement, and upon it rests, in a great measure, the prosperity and happiness of our people. By it, mainly, we are enabled to save our population from the distresses of over-production, and the chance occurrences of uneven labor demand. Your experience has shown you that in times of depression the causes were plainly apparent. We have merely arranged to anticipate these causes, to sound the general alarm, and to forestall them. Outside of the defects of your currency, and your speculation, which are most prolific sources of industrial disaster, comes that blind over-production, entirely undirected by any reliable or authoritative knowledge of the existing capacity to consume. You are having at times a large amount of misdirected labor in the form of products slow of sale; and for the time being a supply, so much in excess of demand, does not return a full equivalent for the labor invested. These frequent errors of production depress wages, and are altogether more calamitous to labor than to capital; because labor is variously skilled, and cannot readily transplant itself from one department of production to another, and is obliged, under the conditions, either to accept reduced wages or to remain idle. Capital does not suffer as labor does in these constantly occurring over-supplies. On the other hand, it finds its opportunity, either by waiting from a low to a high market for its returns, or by changing its field of investment. In these frequent partial or complete suspensions in the production of over-supplied commodities, labor is therefore the chief sufferer. We have nearly a complete remedy for this in our system of statistics. Our planet in all its habitable parts is divided into districts, in each of which is kept an accurate and systematic record of all available labor, as well as an account of its different classes, with the separate capacity of each for production. In connection therewith is also kept an account of all products turned out. The information furnished in this way determines the surplus or deficiency of all commodities produced.