NEXT MONTH’S CENSUS.

Taranaki Daily News, 29 March 1921, Page 7

NEXT MONTH’S CENSUS.

OFFICIAL ARRANGEMENTS. SECRECY’ OF INFORMATION. For the purposes of the census to be taken on Sunday, April 17, the Dominion has been divided into 90 districts, for each of which an enumerator has been appointed. These officials, who are really organisers of the work, have selected or are selecting sub-enumerat-ors, of whom there will be about 1200, and will distribute the blank schedules among them. The sub-enumerators are, wherever possible, postal officials. Where these are not available, the police will assist, and a comparatively small number of other people will be appointed. The sub-enumerators will leave a schedule at each house in their districts, and will call for them after the date of the census, and see that they have been correctly filled in. In the urban districts each sub-enumerator will be responsible for from 800 to 1200 schedules; but in the country, where the distances are great, the numbers will be much smaller. In a few instances it would cost so much to send an officer to an isolated household that other means will be taken for collecting the papers—that is, the, head of the household will be the sub-enumerator.

As many people are inclined to feel that the questions of the Census Office are “too personal,” it is pointed out that the department has no idle curiosity about any individual, and no mission to pry into anyone’s affairs. Its business is to analyse the condition of the community, and it cares nothing for individuals. The schedules are a personal record, but they are not kept. As the Census Officer receives the filled papers, the particulars are taken off and entered on cards: but on these cards no names appear, and there is no means of identifying the cards with the people to whom they refer. The original schedules are taken to the destructor and burnt under official supervision. These schedules will, of course, have to be read by the people who make tip the cards: but the staff are not likely to- retain much out of the enormous number of details they will see, and in any case they are bound to secrecy. An interesting departure in the method of analysing the data, when they are all recorded on the cards, will be made for this census. There will be no laborious scrutiny and counting by a big staff. The cards' will be punched instead lof being marked, and all the desired ■ statistical information will be extracted speed by a machine.