for the compilation) can, therefore, be helpful and even essential in evaluating the statistics for comparative purposes. Furthermore it is felt that it might be helpful to governments to learn how others organise the collection of information in this field.
It is for these reasons that questions are asked throughout the questionnaire not only in the methods of compilation but also on the departments responsible for it. It is not, however, the Secretariat's intention to make direct contact with departments identified in the replies to the questions unless a government specifically authorise this direct contact to be established.
In order to simplify the questions themselves and the task of answering them they have been designed as far as possible to be capable of yes/no answers, together with some brief explanatory comment. Each question or sub-question is, therefore, as precise and narrow in scope as possible. At the same time an attempt has been made to cover the differing circumstan- ces of the Commonwealth countries. This approach inevitably involves rather more questions than would the "broad sweep" approach, but it will be seen that many of them overlap or so closely abut each other - that the answer to one may virtually automatically produce the answer to several others. In addition some of the questions may not be relevant to a particular
country.
It will also be seen that in a number of cases lists have been given of all the known ways of (for example) categorising travellers.
The purpose of this is to reduce the work required by governments, in indicating which methods they use; it is recognised that only a few of the variants of these lists may apply to any one government.
Where a question is not applicable to a particular country it would be helpful if this could be shown (by N/A). Similarly, if the answer to a question is "NIL" or if the information is not available this should also be
shown rather than leaving the reply blank.
So far as possible the questionnaire specifically provides for indica- tions to be given where any special treatment or status is accorded to citizens from other Commonwealth countries. Where this is not provided for in a
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