NATIONAL CENSUS

Dominion, Volume 29, Issue 149, 19 March 1936, Page 11

NATIONAL CENSUS

Safeguard of Private

Details SENDING OUT SCHEDULES With the census to be taken next Tuesday night, preparations are now well advanced for tbe national stocktaking. The schedules with their diverse questions are going out through the Post Office authorities, and many of them are already in tbe hands of tbe public. It was mentioned at the Census Office yesterday that some people possibly were concerned that others in the " same house would get to know details of personal ages, incomes and so on. Some women, and no doubt many men, had no desire lo allow persons in charge of a lodginghouse to have possession of such information. To meet such an event, private schedules could be had on application at the post office to the census enumeration for the district. Alternatively, boarders or others similarly placed could request the proprietor of the establishment to secure a supp’y of private schedules from tbe officer referred to.

Infinite pains are taken by the census authorities to see that schedules go into tbe hands of everybody. Experience over many years shows that very few persons indeed are overlooked. The vast information available to the Post Office as to the whereabouts of people is of great value to the census takers. Only lone dwellers in some remote backblocks district present difficulties. but even these are supplied with schedules in due time. If the member of some household is away, say, trapping, tramping, fishing, hunting, or otherwise removed from the outposts of civilisation, his family generally knows his whereabouts and sup-plies-the information. When the schedules are all returned they give very exact information about tbe population, aud a dozen and one particulars concerning the people. Periodically tbe Government Statistician issues estimates of tho population. If to the figures of the last census are added the figures of births and overseas arrivals, and the statistics of departures for other lands and deaths are deducted, there is always found to be a close approximation to the figures revealed by the next census. Several weeks must necessarily elapse before the Government Statistician can publish information derivet, from the census papers as to the population of the Dominion as a whole au.. of iudividual cities, towns, boroughs aud counties, and it will be ninnj months before he can make available the mass of other facts such as religions, incomes, ages aud the like.