TASK NOT ALWAYS AN EASY ONE

Dominion, Volume 29, Issue 150, 20 March 1936, Page 10

TASK NOT ALWAYS AN EASY ONE

Census Sub-Enumerators PITFALLS IN DISTRIBUTION OF SCHEDULES By Saturday evening the census enumerator for Wellington expects to have the schedules in the bands of nearly all residents of the city. Good progress has already been made with the distribution of the forms, which was begun on Monday and lias been actively continued ever since. Fortythree men are covering Wellington. They are sub-enumerators and comprise principally unemployed men, with a small proportion of the post office staff who have had previous experience of this class of work.

The way of the sub-enumerator is not always easy, it was stated yesterday by the enumerator, whose headquarters are at the general post office. Some residents, evidently taking the distributors for hawkers, have been slow to answer the door-bell, thus wasting the Government’s time, or have plied the callers with questions as to the object of the census or concerning what is required of the householder 1 in filling in the schedules—queries which the documents themselves answer. One sub-enumerator distributing in a suburb discovered that he was following a religious organisation from door to door, and his task was not made the easier.

It was pointed out by the census enumerator that there is no need to make application to him for private schedules unless these have not been arranged for at the lodgings of the resident desiring one. The whole of the city bad not yet been supplied with schedules and residents were asked to wait until this has been done before applying to the chief enumerator.

Schedules are being sent to settlers in regions difficult of access by registered mail, but there are very few people in the Wellington district requiring to be reached in this way. An advertisement of the Rationalist Association appears elsewhere requesting people to aid in the obtaining of a true record of the religious and philosophic opinions of the population.