The Press Friday, November 27, 1925. The Population.

Press, Volume LXI, Issue 18550, 27 November 1925, Page 8

The Press Friday, November 27, 1925. The Population.

The Dominion is now at a stage in its growth at which the statistics of population are important and interesting. One interesting fact appears almost at the beginning of the annual report of the Statistical Department which has been issued from the Printing Office. We have all been accustomed to suppose that the rate of growth of population has been pretty rapid for a small nation isolated by thousands of leagues from the older countries and reluctant to allow any admixture of alien races in its Anglo-Saxon stock. It is also commonly believed that the rate of growth is regular and increasing. The second of these ideas is not supported by the facts. The centesimal increase in population during the year 1925 was 2.09 per cent., and tiiis is below the average (2.25 per cent.) for the five post-war years 3920-21, which in its turn was less than the average (2.66 per cent.) for the five pre-war years .1909-13. The gain of 2.09 per cent, docs not indicate a downward movement, for in 1924 and in 1923 it was lower even than that. The fact_ is, that the yearly increase fluctuates a good deal. In 190G, for instance, the population increased by 26,264; in 1907 the increase was only 20.755; in 1908 it had risen again, to 31,158; and in 1910 it was down again to below 20,000. Nevertheless the increase is less than we should like to see it, even though the gain of 20.87 per cent, between 1911 and 1921 was very little less than the gain (21.95 per cent.) made by Canada, which obviously ought to be growing very rapidly. Despite the fluctuations, however, the general movement is good, and the 50 per cent, increase upon the present total which will bring us up to 2,000,000 should be achieved by 1943. Apparently a majority of- those 2,000,000 people will be females, because the country has moved so far away from the stage of "pronounced "masculine predominance" that "the males now predominate only in the proportion of 1000 to 95G. The ' most striking feature of the statistics continues to be the comparison between the two Islands. The North Island not only contains (March 31st, estimate) more than half as many more people than the South Island, but the rate of growth is higher. Thus in the Auckland province during the last four years the gain has been 11.4 per cent., and in the North Island as a whole 9.9 per cent», while the gain in the South Island was but 6.9 per cent. Canterbury, however, has no need to feel sorry for itself, because its gain was greater (centesimally) than that of any other province but Auckland, and this is proof enough that our province is going ahead very well indeed. The report points out that for the year ended March 31st last, the increase in population in the North Island w'as 24,593, and in the South Island 6543.. Excess of births over deaths accounted for 11,201 souls in the North, and 59SC in the South, so that the gain over and' above the natural increase was 13,330 for the North, and only 557 for the South, " thus affording evidence," the report says, " of either a continuance of the " northward drift or an almost unani- " mous preference for the North Island "by new arrivals." Although some people, who would seek to make political capital out of the rainfall returns if they could, have been crying out that the more rapid growth of the North Island is the result of the Reform Government's policy, it need hardly be said that it is the result of factors over which the Government has no control. In any case the figures show that "the drift to the North" is not taking place at Canterbury's expense.