CENSUS RETURNS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26040, 2 January 1946, Page 4

CENSUS RETURNS

The latest issue of the Abstract of Statistics contains the preliminary totals for the census that was recently taken. The figures are given in a detail which suggests that they may be accepted as a close approximation to a complete determination of such population as was recorded at the census date. That it was an imperfect and unreliable census is generally recognised. There were, for example, 44,096 members of the armed forces overseas at the time, and an indefinite but probably not inconsiderable number of people were, under direction of the National Service Department, absent from their homes. The results of the census do nothing to remove the causes for concern which the population trends have excited in recent years. They show that, inclusive of Maoris, as any return of the population should be, there were 1,702,223 persons resident in New Zealand on the night on which the census was taken. This number was 128,413 in excess of the population in 1936—an increase of 8.2 per cent. If the Maori population had not been included, the increase would have been only 7.6 per cent. The inclusion of the absentee members of the armed services would make the intercensal gain equal to 11 per cent. But allowance for the fact that there was an interval of nine years between the most recent census and the previous one must be made when the figures are considered. The rate of growth that is indicated is very similar to that revealed at the census in 1936, which was ten years later than the preceding one, the increase having then been 10.93 per cent. A disturbing feature of the census, confirming a prevalent impression, is the extent of the drift to the north that is shown by it. No less than 99.8 per cent, of the total increase of population is represented by the increase in the North Island. More than two-thirds of the inhabitants of the Dominion—67.3 per cent., to be precise—are now resident north of Cook Strait. Another trend that is strongly marked is that of the drift from rural areas to the larger towns, and this has been particularly noticeable in the North Island. Where the population in counties has increased it has been in those bordering on the larger centres that the movement has been chiefly recorded. The Abstract of Statistics contains a striking paragraph that illustrates the degree to which the smaller counties have declined in population. Of a total of 41 counties with populations of under 5000 in the South Island, there are not more than seven that recorded any increase at all, and in only four of these was there an increase of more than 100 persons. Similarly, in the North Island, out of a total of 44 counties with populations of under 5000. only seven have recorded I !