The Waipa Post. Printed on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. TUESDAY, JULY 6, 1926. CENSUS RETURNS.

Waipa Post, Volume 32, Issue 1779, 6 July 1926, Page 4

The Waipa Post. Printed on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. TUESDAY, JULY 6, 1926. CENSUS RETURNS.

THE figures relative to urban population within the Dominion, calculated from the returns furnished in 'the census taken in April, will be scanned with a good deal of interest. Growth of population is rightly construed as a sign of progress, and among the various centres there is always a certain amount of healthy rivalry in this connection. For statistical purposes an urban -area connotes a centre with a minimum population of 10,000. There are fourteen towns coming within this category in New Zealand,, and, ranging as they do from relatively large to relatively small, they account between them for about half the population of the Dominion. Viewed at periodic intervals, the growth of the urban areas as compared with one another is always interesting. Attention is immediately attracted by 'the impressive advance made by Auckland’s numerical lead! over the other centres is now a commanding one ,and there is every prospect of its becoming more so if her growth is maintained at anything like the rate of the 22 per cent, increase obtaining during the last quinquennial period. Already the city on the Waitemata is assuming dimensions that give it no mean place within the Empire. Within the past ten years the population of Christchurch has been steadily increasing, and Canterbury’s chief centre now runs almost neck and neck with Wellington in the race for second, place in point of population. Dunedin makes, all things considered, a very good showing, with an urban population of 85,103, which, is the more satisfactory because it denotes an increase of 17 per cent. —

higher than that recorded for either I Christchurch or Wellington—during ' the past five years, which compares very happily with the small increase of 5.15 per cent .shown during the previous quinquennial periodf, and the almost negligible increase of 12.9 per cent, shown between 1911 and 1916. The disclosures of the census in regard to the distribution of the increase of population are not such as can be described as gratifying. The bulk of that increase, over 70 per cent, in-

deed, has gone to the urban areas, the four main centres alone claiming between them 60 per cent, of it. This “urban drift,” making for the aggiand,isement of the towns at the expense of the rural districts, is not one that can he considered beneficial to the country as a whole. It represents a tendency that is to be combated as far as possible, and the desired counteracting

influences can only be exerted through the stimulation of rural industries, in conjunction with the closer settlement of the land. There is at least a modicum of satisfaction in knowing that, in the matter of the centralisation of population, New Zealand is in a better position than is Australia. It is an instructive comparison which the 'Statistician furnishes showing that if the

population of the four main centres in this country be grouped, to represent that of one large city, it will be found to comprise a smaller percentage of the whole population of the 'Dominion than the percentage, of the whole population of any of the Australian States —save Queensland and Tasmania which is claimed by their respective capitals.