'Laboratories of Applied Statistics, that is statistics applied to the investigation of racial welfare, have come to stay. Our institute of Applied Statistics was the first in the field, and the importance of such institutes when they are firmly established has been well expressed by Signor Mussolini in the opening of the Statistical Institute in Rome: “All nations are at this work. I do not exaggerate when I say that statistics at this moment are of the order of the day throughout the world. They occupy themselves with the enormous complexity of modern society, and with that thirst for inquiry and control which torments mankind. The science of statistics has extended its control over all the phenomena of life, over the demographic, the economic and the cultural. With regard to the demographic data, I never weary myself by repeating that the study of their changes permits us to forecast the fate of nations.”'