THE GREAT COUNT. COMPILING THE CENSUS.

Evening Post, Volume LXXXI, Issue 103, 3 May 1911, Page 9

THE GREAT COUNT. COMPILING THE CENSUS.

A GLANCE AT THE TOILERS IN WELLINGTON. ,- When the people filled in the census schedules on the night of 2nd April (or thereabouta) they made only the first page of a large book, though they supplied the raw materials for the huge volume. The laborious counting, checking, and tabulating, in all manner of ways wonderful, is now progressing in Wellington with the aid of thirteen, pages of "regulations and instructions for the guidance of persons employed •on the compilation of the census of New Zealand, 1911." This guide-book is supplemented with other literature to help the staff to go through the long task accurately and expeditiously. The tallies for cities, boroughs, and counties so far published aro the rough drafts of ' the district enumerators, and the-sched-ules have all to be carefully checked here. The Chief .Statistician and his assistants have a great floor for their work in tho Wairarapa farmers' buildsng, and every - foot of this flat will be soon in full use. About futeen men are sufficient for the present, because %h& bulk of the census material has yet to be received. When the precious bundles aro all in the building an army of seventy men will be needed for some time, and some will have employment far a year or fifteen months—the period i estimated for the last of tho many table*. .The chief concern now w aU

possible haste with the straight-out population figures, to enable the Parliamentary Representation Commissioners to make readjustments in good time for the next general elections. SYSTEM, SYSTEM, SYSTEM. Tho counting has to be done with a systematic precision which would be appalling or paralysing for any unsystematic person to contemplate. Even after escaping to tho unsystematic locality of Lambton-quay one's head buzzes with the counting, the checking, the tabulation of it all, and the outside world seems a pleasantly or insufferably disorderly place, according to temperament. Topsy-turviness is tolerated— but only for oue moment— in that place of cold, calculating system. This one moment is when the big bags, bulged with brownpaper parcels of schedules, are tipped up on a table. One assumes that tho man who empties the bag in that summary way feels sufficiently ashamed of himself. However, tho officials put up with it, and at once tho straightening begins. The ohiefs have their headquarters on a platform commanding an immense expanse of tables. The wall on one side is a rampart of compartments, tagged with tho names of tho counties from north to south, and the boroughs have a_ similar arrangement on the opposite side. Each parcel of papers is scrupulously recorded in a work-book, and the "laying-out" begins. The building-up goes on an elaborate plan to show the population of small localities (ridings or wards),, then counties or boroughs, electoral districts, and so on. After the papers are properly arranged they are tabulated, then checked, then summarised, all distinct operations by special men. Groups of population are shown on the large-scale district maps for the convenience of tho Representation Commissioners. Quite respectably, the people are like pawns in a game of chess. One group can be readily moved fronton© electorate into another. These district • maps are cent as soon as possible tothe Survey Department, to form tho basis of new electoral mai>s. DWELLINGS AND RENT. After the plain population business is done, the people's houses will command practically the full strength of the staff. The compilation form was designed to get full information about houses, finished or unfinished, inhabited or empty, and the rent. This will be tho first comprehensive effort to gefc reliable figures about rent for all parts of New Zealand. It has been complained that comparisons in the past have been very misleading. FJaws have been picked in the vague tables published periodically. The census, however, should put this very important matter on a tetter basis. The people have been required to state the materials of the houses as , well as the rent. THE INDUSTRIAL COUNT. _ The complicated industrial computation will be made in a special room, secluded from the main room. A special staff will also , be engaged on this work, which is of a confidential nature. Another separate room is reserved for women workers, who will presently be helping in the assessment. ■ A SERIOUS GAME OF CARDS. After population, and houses will come a very serious game of curds, red and black. The text is the same for each; the colour merely separates tho sexes (red, female,- black, male). Each inhabitant of New Zealand will be entered up on an individual card, which will^ show all the personal details set out in the schedules. The card is covered with terse abbreviated print to reduce the clerk's writing to a minimum. The plan is to enable the comtiiler to indicate birthplace, conjugal condition, Teligion, and other things by -running a pencil through certain spaces. Thus, with very little writing and a few straight strokes the bravest and the prettiest, the tallest and the wittiest, will be condensed on to a little card. The tables of ,ages, religions/ occupations, education, marriage, and so on are worked out from these cards, one by one. The compiler works ovt>r a frame of pigeon-holes, flat before him, and groups his cards for, say, ages. When this tally is taken he arranges them for religions, and thus the merry gamo goes on through many long days. The grim spectacle of a solitary man playing patience is nothing to the prospective spectacle of the national cardplayer shuffling the people in and out of those pigeon-holes. There will be enough of it to make the player "see red" and be obsessed by black specks before the eyes. When the time comes to shuffle occupations from the cards the counters will perhaps be thankful that a census comes only once in five year% The puzzling character of many of the entries supplies plenty of incitement for a loss of hair. To help the staff to classify some of the conundrums the department issues a schedule of grouped occupations, in alphabetical order. This table is designed to meet every vagary of the human intellect. Experience has taught the census experts to be useful, imaginative in anticipating difficulties. A New Zealander has to be very stupid to beat these men all alert to pin him down on a card and toss him .through the endless tables of statistics. Is it not splendid to feel so important?