TAKING CENSUS

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 56, Issue 129, 13 March 1936, Page 2

TAKING CENSUS

THE ROLE OF THE POST OFFICE BIG COLLECTION TASK. New Zealand’s large postal staff, with its unique knowledge of the streets and the dwelling places of the Dominion, will play an important part in the Census to be taken on the night of March. 24. It is the task of the Post Office to distribute the census schedules to every householder by means of a carefully devised system which provides for entry in a field hook of the destination of every form, and the final writing in of the fact that the completed form fias been handed to the sub-enumerator ior dispatch to the Government Statistician, Wellington. It is anticipated that six days will bo needed for delivery of the census schedules to householders. Some of them may not get the form until the afternoon of the census night. The Dominion has been divided into S2 census districts, each with a Postmaster as enumerator, with the duty of dividing its district into workable areas each of which can be covered by one sub-enumerator who will deliver and ultimately collect the census schedules. Every part of the Dominion where people live is to he subject. to simultaneous enumeration on the night . of March 24. Points will arise regarding the method of answering the seventeen questions in the schedule, and sub-enumerators will be round ready to assist householders in that respect. They are in fact responsible to their directing officer for complete and accurate ans.wers. I As there are some questions which many individuals would like to regard as purely! their own affair, the importance of securing this class of information in the national respect should he pointed out. What is needed by the Government Statistician is information regarding groups and classes not particular individuals, although individuals have to be approached to make possible the collection of statistics which in their public use become absolutely impersonal. The handling of schedules by employees under the control of the Post Office should give reassurance on this point, for secrecy in respect to their work is so much ingrained into the minds of postal employees that reticence becomes instinctive, and there is the further assurance of the Government Statistician to be found on the census schedule; “All answers given will i be treated as strictly confidential. They will be used solely for statistical purposes and no individual information will be given to any other State Department or to any person or body.”.