OUR POPULATION.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 26, 24 February 1909, Page 2

OUR POPULATION.

The Registrar-General has issued a quinquennial return of the population of the Dominion for the year 1904-8. An analysis of the figures shows that the population increased last year at a greater ratio than any period during the past live years. The net increase for 1908 was 31.168 j for 11)07, 20,703; 11)00, 28,701 ; 1905, 24,923 ; and 1904, 25,034. In the latter year the net increase from I abroad, after deducting the number of persons who left New Zealand, was I 10,355, and in 1005, 9302. In 1900 the excess of arrivals over departures rose to 12,848. The exhibition contributed to this result. 11l 1907 the net gain from outside the Dominion was the smallest for five years (5730), mainly on account of a more equal interchange of peopla with Australia and departure of persons who had visited the Exhibition. The I largest gain overseas during the quinquennium was in l'.KW —14,201 persona. New Zealand gained in the period 1904-8 according to returns, 52,450 persons from abroad, after deducting those who departed. Tile natural, increase of birtht over deaths show a rise over IHe lirsl three years of those dealt within t.l» table, "ft was, however, smaller for 190 than for 1901!, on account of an excep tionallv heavy mortality in the late year. The total excess of births i 78.143 for the quinquennium under observation, and for the year 1908 the figures are 10,879; but the dea tii-rate for 1908 was 9.57 in 1907. The two sources of increasing population each yielded a larger number of people in the year 1908 than in 1907, the result being the population increased at the rate of 3.36 per cent, in 1908, while the rate was only 2.28 in 1907. ON THE FOURTH PAGE. Commercial. General News. District News. Build for Time. Farm mid Dairy. Need for CuuTToti. The Italian Earthquake. 3inaziiig ilarriiige and Suicide.