THE CENSUS IN AUSTRALIA.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXIII, Issue 977, 8 April 1911, Page 4

THE CENSUS IN AUSTRALIA.

Taking Ike census in Australia is no small task. An official estimate says it will cost ,£150,000, but such figures give but a poor impression 01 the labours and the difficulties involved. From the Census Bureau in Melbourne, some yoco census maps—that is to say maps of districts which the collectors who receive them are required to cover —have been sent out. The Commonwealth is divided into 35 areas, which are subdivided into 200 smaller ones, making 7000 districts, with one collector for each, the main divisions being controlled by enumerators, to whom the collectors are responsible. That is bow it looks on paper, but many of the districts include remote , islands inhabited by a solitary hermit or two. All these will receive their papers, though the collector will often have to make a perilous journey to reach them, liven the pearlers have to be counted ; one does not envy the census official his task of chasing elusive pearl fishes, eve lin the calmest of weather. Sailing boats only are to be u.wd the Government finding pre. numbly that the extra expenses of providing a team launch or two is not waranted. Papers for t.e Chinese a e to be printed in their own iguage. Those people who ~.11 not be in houses — ,be park “dossers,” the “ sun- .: uv tiers'’ in the great inland . prces, even the travellers on the . ,ght trains will not escape the papers, if the ingenuity of the collectors can prevent them. The inherent dislike of some women ,0 divulge their correct age, even to the discreet census authorities, is a question which the taking of ‘ the census always raises. There is, ol course, a penalty, but according to the Melbourne Age, the actu uies, the scientific name for the gentlemen who make calculations 1 irom the census figures, regard 1 this to a certain extent as a dead ’ letter. It is an actual fact that in 1 calculations of female ages they allow a wide margin for inaccura- ' cles. Australian States have a

pecuniary interest in their census returns ; under the new per capita system the amount received by a Stale from the Commonwealth is fixed according to its population.