THE BIG TALLY.

Press, Volume LXII, Issue 18669, 19 April 1926, Page 8

THE BIG TALLY.

~4 rDOMINION CENSUS. TO-MORROW NIGHT'S QRDEAL, To-morrow night householders and others affected will be required to fill up the census schedules, and enumerate the many items of information required by the Department. The interrogatives contained in tho'schedule embrace a wider scope this*year. In addition to other new information sought, householders aro required to state what geese and turkeys they keep, "While the schedules in the aggregate appear formidable," remarked Mr Malcolm Eraser, Government Statistician, to a reporter on Saturday evening, "if each individual will answer one question at a time in a commonsense way, the whole thing will bo a simplo affair," Secrecy Guaranteed. "No one need have any fear as to confidential information supplied. bwnj| used for other than statistical purposes," Mr Fraser said. The Census Office is not interested in the individual as an individual, but simply <as a unit of the mass.. By the modem methods of compilation by machinery, the name and identity oi the ino> vidua! were completely lost, Immediately the data is transferred to the cards, the papers are burned under superb process that takes two or three days, Nothing is preserved of the census, except each sub-enumerator's map, which indicates the population of each small mesh block area. Social Conditions. An ejtpla«atory note on the householder's Schedule states that the' Guv* ernmeat is investigating the practieability of providing assistance for householders with families, and that statistics of the social conditions as they exist throughout New Zealand are required to enable the problem to be pro* perly studied, and estimates made of the -cost. Hence there are, questions with regard to incomes. Owing to the very high standard of general intelligence of the New Zealand people, ia» formation' has hitherto been obtained throwing light on several aspects of social problems not readily obtainable in many countries, and the Government on this occasion confidently appeals' to the-people to supply accurately the information required. .