THE CENSUS RETURNS.

Evening Star, Issue 12881, 2 August 1906, Page 6

THE CENSUS RETURNS.

AS NEARLY RIGHT AS MAY BE. After having made careful inquiries extending over some days, a representative of this paper has been forced to the conclusion that the last census returns for Dunedin and suburbs are as near to being accurate as census returns can be expected to

What wo hear from those that dispute the correctness of the census is that, to an extent sufficient to account for most of the differences between Dunedin’s population increase and that of the other cities, the sub-enumerators who canvassed the town passed over occupied houses and otherwise made mistakes. No assumption of this •*>rt seems to be justified. No doubt the sub-enumerators did make mistakes; 1,0 doubt they did skip an occupied bouse here and there. But these things will not account for the doth of Dunedin’s increase. This is the opinion of people who may be called experts because they have to do daily with bouses and the inhabitants of houses. But there is this to be said; that when the Government valuer had his last round for taxation purposes he estimated that there were only about sixty empty dwellings in Dunedin, whereas the census figures show 344. Assuming that the difference between these two estimates is duo to errors on the part of the enumerators, and reckoning the customary average of five persons to a dwelling—which, by the way, is too high an average*—it seems that the population total of the census must be wrong to the extent of 1,420. But the Government valuer himself has not come to this conclusion. He points out that the number of unoccupied houses in a city must fluctuate from day to day, and probably the extent of that fluctuation would be eurtim*3 if it could be ascertained. When the census returns were first published this gentleman believed that they must be wrong, and he set about inquiring into the matter. Now he is convinced that the returns are correct (reasonably correct that is), and that the cause of the seeming lull m Dunedin’s growth must be sought tor otherwhere than in enumerator’s blunders. Five years, ago, when the previous renusus was taken, the Otago dredging boom was at ite height and there was a great influx of people to the City. There were hundreds of extra foundry hands, for instance, and there were inquiring visitors from many different parts of the world. These strangers and their families swelled the official figures of that k™*’ an ,d gave to the population of Dunedin an appearance of that was not stable, but only temporary that is the view tliat Mr John Wright takes of the matter, and he is probably as competent to form opinions about it as is any man in Otago. Also, he points put that as far as the City proper is concerned it is being steadily drained of its people by the suburbs in the following present wder of quantity; —Sti Kilda, North-east Valley, Roslyn, Maori Hill, Anderson Bay Morning to a, Caversham, South Dunedin! Since the last census three new townships have been formed in the Valley borough Glenaven, Glenroy, and Dalmore— ana already the first two of these are comfortably populated. Therefore even an actual shrinkage in the main centre would not be surprising. In the boroughs we have seen most of the town clerks or their deputies, and the consensus of opinion among them is that the official figures, so far as they relate to the suburbs, are materiallv correct. The town clerk of St, Kilda said: “ I have no hesitation in saying that the figures arc right in this borough, though I was surprised at the number of empty houses that the census man gave us. If he took houses just completed as. being empty, that would account for it. Probably be did.” Here on an estimate of a little over four persons to a House the official figures fit reasonably. The town clerk of Roslyn thinks that the figures for his borough are pretty right And so it is all round—it would be only ■weariness to go into details for every borough. Annually each town clerk sends up to the Registrar-General, on a form prescribed, an estimate of population, inter alia. In that estimate they calculate on a basis of five persons per Isonse, which they readily admit is too high an average, for Otago, at any rate. As a matter of fact the nearest reckoning is four and a decimal. These returns help to give people an exaggerated notion of the growth of the town. Wherefore it cannot be shown by ordinary means that the census is wrong. To say how far it is from exactitude it would be necessary to make another canvass. Meantime most people who have been asked about the matter by our reporter blame the dredging boom and the harbor for the present state of affairs