Census At Christmas Decided Birthplace

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30939, 21 December 1965, Page 18

Census At Christmas Decided Birthplace

The recent announcement that the twenty«fourth New Zealand census of population and dwellings will be taken on March 22 next year seems to have little to do with Christmas; but the census as an institution had a lot to do with the first Christmas.

It was because of the holding of a Roman census that Christ’s birthplace was the stable of an inn in Bethlehem instead of the home of Mary and Joseph in Nazareth. Several censuses are mentioned in the Bible but this is easily the best-known. According to St Luke, “there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be taxed,” and every man had to return with his family to the place of his birth to be registered. Joseph returned with Mary to Bethlehem, and there they found “no room for them in the inn.” This census was probably taken in the Roman province of Syria and tl\e tributary kingdom of Judea.'

The first of the several censuses mentioned in the Bible was taken about 1490 B.C. by Moses and Aaron and is described in the Book of Numbers. This census of potential fighting men, made at the beginning of the journey from Sinai through the wilderness and into the hostile country beyond, may have been based on memories of previous censuses in Egypt. It is known that about 1400 B.C. the Pharaoh Rameses IT of Egypt had the country divided into administrative districts and instituted census registration under which the heads of households were counted, together with the members of their households. Probably there were earlier censuses in Egypt, before the building of the pyramids. 6000 Years Ago The earliest known census was taken in the Babylonian Empire about 6000 years ago, and it appears to have been one of a series. Censuses were also taken in very early days tn the Chinese and Persian Empires, as well as in Ancient Egypt.

A census, the Biblical description of which had farreaching consequences for statistics, was that taken by King David about 1017 B.C. The king’s unpopular census of the warriors of Israel and Judah, taken against the advice of his captains, was con-

sidered to have brought down the Divine wrath upon David, probably because the numbering of the people was a symbol of the king's pride and a possible prelude to oppression and aggressive war. Throughout the Dark Ages and the medieval period memories of the Divine anger said to have been provoked by King David's census hindered the collection of accurate statistics. As late as 1753, when a private census bill was introduced in the British House of Commons, the disasters incurred by David were quoted as a warning against the taking of censuses. The proposed census was denounced on two counts. On the one hand, it was said to be ’’sacrilegious'* and “likely to result in some public misfortune or epidemical distemper,” while on the other hand, it was denounced as “subversive of liberty” and the probable forerunner of military and fiscal levies. The publication of the results, it was uid, would reveal Britain’s numerical weaknessea to enemy powers. However, a growing interest in a systematic survey of population was quickened by the work of Sir John Sinclair, who compiled a census by means of questionnaires sent to local clergy, and even more so by the obvious growth of population in Britain during the century and the claims of Malthus that it was outstripping resources. Finally, a census office was established by Parliament in 1800, and the first English census was taken by the Overseers of the Poor in 1801. In New Zealand, counts of the population in the individual settlements were taken by the resident magistrates from 1840, but what is usually regarded as the first general census was taken in 1851. This did not include the Maori population, a census of which was not taken until 1857-58. The next general census of the Europeon population was taken in 1858, although there were censuses in individual provinces during the intervening years. The Maori census was

delayed until 1874 by the upheaval of the Maori Wars. A Census Act passed in 1877 provided for censuses in 1878, 1881, and in every fifth year from then on. This five-year sequence has been broken only twice since 1881—In 1931 during the economic depression and in 1941 during the Second World War.