Population Statistics.

Press, Volume LIX, Issue 17941, 8 December 1923, Page 14

Population Statistics.

The latest report from the Cenfius and Statistics Office shorts that tho South Island has been very inconsiderate to the North at some time since 1921. For a long period of years the drift,of population has been so steadily northwards that any other set of the tide has seemed to • the North Island impossible. But the Government Statistician tells us that the tidtf has definitely turned. Under the section headed "Local Movements of "Population," he says that the "out- " standing fact of the population move- '' liient in 1922 was the net loss by "the North Island of several thousand " persons who migrated, temporarily "or otherwise, to the South Island." The actual number we cannot of course know, nor is it clear by what calculations precisely the Census Office has arrived at some of its figures. But there can be no question of the ao. curacy ,of its statement that the drift to the North has ceased. Between 1911 and 1921 the population of the North Island increased 31.5 per- cent., the South Island during the same period increasing only 7.4 per cent. But during the last two years—or almost two —the North Island has gained only 31,039 people, or 4.2 per cent., while the South Island has gained 21,789, or 4.5 per cent. It is inconceivable that this suaden difference can be wholly accounted for by any other cause than that assighed to it by the Government Statistician^—a change in the drift of population. And it is worth noting that no other province shows such a healthy increase as Canterbury. While Auckland during the period under review— April 17th, 1921, to March 31st, 1953 has gained 19.578 people, or 5.3 per cent., Wellington 8153 or 3.3 per cent., Otago (excluding SouthlanS) 4301 or 3.2 per cent., Canterbury has gained 11,976, or mors than 6 per cent. Nor can there be any doubt that the chief, if not the only, cause of this return to Cantrebnry ia the fact that, Canterbury ia in a more healthy condition now than any other province. The Government Statistician says that the general drift to the South Island "indicates that the

"post-war depression of 1921 and 1922 " was less felt in the South than in "the North/' and that can be true only because there has always been a more solid foundation of values here i-i the South. Our boom was never a paper boom. But it is, unfortunately, not the case that the Statistie fairs figures are as comforting to the Dominion as a whole as they are to the South Island, The total increase'in population is found to be -'definitely subnormal"; and although the figures do not show it to be alarmingly or even markedly subnormal, the fact is that our increase is slowing down, not only as compared with our own earlier standards, but in comparison also with the present standards of ho other Dominions. "Anesti- " mate based on the experience of the "last four decades'' promises a European population of 2,000,000 in 1943; but those two millions will be here only if the recent decline is checked. We must, oi course, recognise that New Zealand has less unoccupied territory —relatively as well as actually—than Australia and Canada, and that it has already passed out of the era in which population comes in armies. So also there is disappointment, but no cause for depression or alarm, in the further discovery that there has been a " clearly-marked urban drift" since about 1906. Though the drift continues, it is very slight, our total urban population having increased in seven Years only from 55.25 to 56.12.