A LESSON IN THE CENSUS.

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Volume XIX, Issue 1101, 18 May 1911, Page 20

A LESSON IN THE CENSUS.

WHAT WAS REVEALED AT MASTERTON. What is wrong? asks the Wairarapa “Times.” Some little time ago (says our contemporary), we ventured to suggest that there „ was something wrong with Masterton.; and, quite unintentionally, contrived thereby to irritate a few good people, who, for no reason at all, believed we meant to suggest that No-License was doing the town harm. We said then, and still say, that, while the town shows signs of recovery from a period of severe depression, there is not evident that keenness and buoyancy in business and that spirit of enterprise that one naturally expects to see in a young town situated in the midst of a rich district. We were able to show then, by such data as we had at hand that lack of Closer settlement throughout the Wairarapa was imposing a handicap on progress in the Valley; but as a belief, fostered for their own ends by certain persons, was gaining some currency, that

we were attempting to damage the cause of No-License, we thought it as well to leave the matter alone until the census returns were available. These, published in Saturday’s issue,, must have conveyed their own lesson to every reader. The figures show that, six years ago, the total population of Wairarapa was 2 9,054, and that to-day the total population is 2 9,4 77. Between Eketahuna and Cross Creek the population has increased by 916; between Mauriceville and Woodville there has been a decrease of 408. Is any further comment needed? Surely even he who' runs may read, and know what is wrong not only with Masterton, but with the whole of the Wairarapa. The total natural increase of the 29 00(1 people who were in the Wairarapa should in six years have been considerably more than 508, which represents both the actual natural increase and the influx of settlers brought about by closer settlement. In other words, assuming that the natural increase in families has during the past six years, in the Wairarapa, been normal, more adult persons have left the Wairarapa during the last six years than have come into it. Everyone seems to assume that closer settlement is steadily going on —slowly, maybe, but inevitably. Instead of that, it is safe to assume that, over a great part of the Wairarapa at any rate, the process is actually

being reversed, that aggregation of area is going on, and that in many places small farms are becoming big farms and the property of one man instead of two or three. In fact, people in Eketahuna district can point to a number of localities where this has taken, and is now taking, place; and the tendency is even more marked further north, in Pahiatua County, where a net decrease of nearly three hundred has taken place in the population. But we need not labour the point; it is obvious to anyone. How can Masterton hope to progress and recover from the effects of overbooming while the population remains stationary—if it has not actually decreased?