 He edited and wrote most of a "Precis of Information on the Colony of Victoria, and its Capabilities for Defence" for the Intelligence Department of the War Office in 1877.In 1879 Hayter visited England as secretary to the Graham Berry and Charles Henry Pearson mission to London, and twice gave evidence to a committee of the British House of Commons which was considering how the system of collecting British statistics should be organised.In 1888 Hayter was president of the section dealing with economic and social science and statistics at the first meeting of the Australasian Association for the Advancement of Science, and in his presidential address pointed out the need for the methods in the different colonies to be completely uniform.