A "CARD INDEX" OF THE NATION

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 219, 10 June 1919, Page 5

A "CARD INDEX" OF THE NATION

KEEPING TAB ON THE PEOPLE NEW SCHEME FOR VITAL STATISTICS I • j. At a meeting of tlio Birth-rato Commission recently Dr. T. IL C. Stevenson. Superintendent of Statistics for tho Registrar-General, pleaded for tho .registration of tlio population. Tlio proposal favoured by the Registrar-General, 6aid Dr. Stovenson, was that this should now bo done by tho establishment of a< singlo master register, which would bo complete in the sense of including overy man, woman, and child in tlio country. This register .would contain cortain particulars of genorol interest about eaoh, such as address,' name, sex, date, and place of birth, and occupation, with information as to marriage and children. But no single register could possibly contain all the information that might be wanted for its own special purposes by any one of th? multifarious records referred to. The proposal was therefore 'to link each of those up with the general register as part of a singlo coordinate systom, providing .for tho communication to each of the special registers' of the- information of common .interest collected by the general register and leaving each of them to simplify that as their own retirements might indicate. • The general register would nlso provide for the 'first time satisfactory data of Donulation in each area a.s it fluctuated 1 , from year to year. "Pedigree Records," As the register would deal with many millions of names, it would have to be maintained, like tho present national register, in local* sections through the country. To' prevent the risk of any person being borne upon moro tlv.n one local register at one time it would bo' necessary to maintain a singlo central index to all the local registers, containing a-slip for each inhabitant. Births, deaths, and removals would all be reported to this index, a slip being added for each birth, eto. As' the register would necesarily l be oomiected with tho registration of births, deaths, and marriages, each, of these events could bo reoorded upon the index slips, thus providing means at present almost entirely laoking, of linking up tho information obtained under- these heads. A man's slip might Record the date and place of his birth, with the names and dates of birth and marriage of his parents, all derived from an improved birth certificate. Then the date and place of his marriage, with name and date of birth of his wife, would be added from the marriage certificate, and later, as occasion arose, tho sex, name, and date of birth of each child. Nearly all this information was at present being recorded, but no" machinery filiated for its collation.

Uhder the scheme eugenists would in courae of time be provided with pedigree reoords of the population comparable in accuracy with those already provided for prize live 6took, and the field for research could be indefinitely exuded by traoing the reoords of the progeny of various unions, from central index to general register, with its fuller information. and from that to any of the special registers concerned.

The End,of Privacy? Sir Edward 1 Brabrook asked if there was to be nothing which a man or woman or child might keep private. Was there to be no secret of his life 'which he was not to reveal to 6ome Government official? Were 'they really prepared to ask everyone to tell everything? The chairman (the Bishop of Birmingham): I am not going to tell them, at anv rate. (Laughter.) Dr. Stevenson said That the new proposal did not increase in any way the information hitherto required from tho publio; it only varied the form of requiring it.

The Commission rosolved that "there is immediate need for the improvement of the vital, statistics, upon which all its conclusions must, be. based, by tho formation''of a general'register on the lines advocated by the Registrar-General.