Ashburton Guardian Magna est Veritas et Prævalebit. THURSDAY, OCTOBER 2, 1913. POPULATION RETURNS.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume XXXIII, Issue 8678, 2 October 1913, Page 4

Ashburton Guardian Magna est Veritas et Prævalebit. THURSDAY, OCTOBER 2, 1913. POPULATION RETURNS.

The advance sheets of the 3NTew Zealand Year Book dealing with statistics include illuminating records regarding the population of the Dominion, and no matter h©w these are regarded they convey an uncomfortable feeling that the increase is no,t as rapid as it should be. The Registrar explain? that the estimates of population are made from the records of births and deaths and the immigration returns, and evidence of the approximate accuracy of the estimate is given in a table showing the difference, over a period of years, between the estimated population and the actual numbers revealed by the census. In 1911 there was a difference of only 1707 in a total population of 1,006,761. The figures, therefore, can be taken as being a reliable index, and they tell the following tale during the past decade:— .

1903 ... 24,500 1908 ... 31,000 1904' ■ ... 25,000 1909 ... 22,000 1905' ... 25,000 1910 ... 20,000 1906 ... 28,500 1911 ... 21,000 1907 ... 20,500 1912. ... 27,000 The natural increase during the same period makes much better reading, showing 1 the high average rate of 17.22 per 1000, the total increase of births over deaths in 1912, compared with the previous year, being 1474. There is evidence here that the Dominion must rely almost wholly on a vigorous immigration policy if the millions of acres of idle lands are to be made productive. This fact will be grasped more readily by contrasting the decline in the growth of population from 3.26 per cent, in 1906 to 2.65 per cent, in 1912. These six years were the most prosperous in the history of the Dominion, and the steady decline is accountable only by the lack of facilities offered for the people to take up land. The immigration returns prove that there is something >■ of this ' kind retarding natural progress. The figures for the decade are as follow:—

1903 ... 11,000 1908 ... 14,000 1904 ... 10,000 1909 ... 4,500 1905 ... 9,000 1910 ... 3.500 1906 ... 13,000 1911 ... 4.U00 1907 ... 5,500 1912 ... 9,000 But these are discounted by the remarkable increase of departures over arrivals. In the first year of the decade the arrivals were 30,€00 and the departures 19,000; last they were-44,000 and 35,ObOL—an increas^of 37 per cent, in departures. A further analysis of these figures reveals the astonishing fact '■■ that while for the years 1910-11^2 the arrivals' ofmales aggregated 67,000, the departures of males were no less than 61,000. v It may be merely a statistical coincidence, but it is certainly strange, that the number of assisted immigrants during those three yearsj tallies exactly with the excess in arrivals; .and as these 6000 peoplecost th,e .Government just £38,0.0.0 to bring tto the Dominion there would seem to be a serious defect in the immigration system or in' the methods .employed to keep .the immigrants here when we get them. These valuable statistics are useless unless the lessons they teach are heeded.. They provide the clearest indication «that .our population is scarcely one-tenth of what it should be and can be;; that we are losing immigrants ali most as fast as we get them; and that an excessively large proportion of males is forced to seek for homes in other lands. An immigration policy that shows such results, as these, and an. internal,

policy that <' is' incompetent to •rectify"them, surely need drastic o-evision. It is' a mere platitude to say that population is the handmaiden of prosperity. In a young- country it is the ; first necessity. Yet we are practically turning 1 our <backs upon it..