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Hokitika Guardian, 30 September 1931, Page 4

During the year end d March 31, 1931, the population of New Zealand increased by 22,345, equal to 1.50 per cent.'of the population at the beginning of the fiscal year, . states the annual statistical report on population issued on Saturday. Tho rate of increase during the past four years is virtually the lowest since, and is comparably only with, the level recorded in the late eighties and early nineties, at which period the Dominion passed through perhaps the most severe depression of its history. Since 1875, 72 per cent, of the population increase has been derived from excess of births over deaths. By virtue chiefly of an exceptionally favourable death rate, the natural Increase ratio in former, years was unusually high, Now, however, the .steady decline, of the birth-rate which could not be compensated for by an equivalent fall in the already W death rate, has brought the natural increase ratio to less than half that existing in the seventies, although it is still slightly above the average of most countries. The birth-rate, 18.80 per thousand of mean population, in 1930 is lower than ever previously experienced and the natural increase rate, 10.24 per thousand, exceeds only that for 1918 when the influenza pandemic swelled the death rate. During the ye<i>,T 1930-31 the expess of arrivals over departures was 6660, exclusive of Maoris, and for the calendar year it was 4727. Assisted immigrants arrived in 1930 to the number of 1405, compared with 1878 in 1929 and 10,766 in 1926, the peak year since the war. Since about May, 1927, the scheme has been temporarily suspended, except in regard to single women under forty years of age, juveniles and wives °t immigrants already domiciled in New Zealand. The estimated progress of population in the four main centres of New Zealand amounted to 10,500,, or 1500 more than in the previous year. The Wellington urban area accounted for 4500 of the increase, the growth being most marked in the city and the suburban borough of Lower Hiitt, the. latter having increased its population. . ; by, .pvci* 100 per tent, lit the last six "years,' ’ Hie"Wiicklahcl ’ ll ui-baii area, the greatest population. aggregation in the Dominion, Is credited with considerable growth which Is divided between the city and its numerous suburbs. Two of the boroughs, suburban to Auckland, are estimated to have reached the minimum population prescribed for the status of "a city. In Christ church and Dunedin the growth, which was much smaller than in the two North Island urban areas, has been credited in a greater degree to the city than to the suburban boroughs.