THE NATIONAL REGISTER

Otago Daily Times, Issue 16545, 19 November 1915, Page 5

THE NATIONAL REGISTER

A BIG UNDERTAKING. (Fbom Ocn Own Correspondent.) WELLINGTON, November 18. Work on the national register is in full swing now. The Government statistician has a huge staff working at sorting, classifying, and summarising the schedules every day and evening, but the task is a very big one, and it will bo three or four weeks before he will have his statistics compiled. There was some doubt weeks ago whether the thing had been done carofufly enough, and whether enough care had been taken to see that every man required by law to do so had returned a schedule. Mr Fraser estimates that he has received 280,000 cards, which is not far short of the maximum number expected. The success obtained by the post office in connection with the register is highly meritorious. The Government statistician estimates that lees than 2 per cent, of the schedules are deficient in essential particulars. Some of these will be correoted by reference to the sender, and even the 2 per cent, aro not quite valueless. Most of the mistakes aro mistakes of careless, stupid, or illiterate people. The person who filled in his schedule with the nameA'*von Hinderbnrg," or filled in descriptions of appallingly largo families'of dependent invalids, or wrote in an open letter to " Square Deal Baton Bill " in carefully clisguised > mis-snelled writin- Ls so rare that ho is inconsiderable in the big total. These persons may yet be discovered and called to account for their joke. The stops taken to trace schedules

BERNE, November 17.