THE CENSUS.

Taranaki Daily News, 1 June 1921, Page 2

THE CENSUS.

PRELIMINARY COUNT NEARLY COMPLETE. PREPARING THE CARDS. The preliminary census returns that have been published already cover nearly all tiie districts of the Dominion. These returns have been issued on the authority of telegraphed reports from the cen, sus collectors, and are subject to correction of errors made in transmission. Each census enumerator, as he collected his schedules, entered, in a book the numbers of people in the houses visited, and certain other particulars, and oft completion of his collection made up the totals. A few of these totals have yet to come to hand, but the last of them ought to i’each the Government Statistician within a few days. The books will then be made the basis of a count of the total population of the Dominion. Attached to each enumerator’s book a large-scale map of his district, showing the exact boundaries of the “meshblocks” into which it is sub-divided. The number of people in each of these little areas will be entered in a schedule attached to the map; and after the census all the maps will be collected and bound. They will be used afterwards for the purpose of fixing electoral boundaries when alterations are required. Changes are made in the sizes of the existing electorates by adding or subtracting mesh-blocks.

No great amount of information will be available promptly from the census in addition to the general count of population, subdivided into males and females. There will, however, be an early statement of considerable'interest, regarding the number of houses, occupied and unoccupied, in the Dominion. The other statistics drawn from the census papers are to be compiled by the machines. This work will take several months. Many of the details on the census schedules are already in figures. As the cards deal in numbers only, the other particulars, as to nationality, religion, occupation, place of residence, must be converted into numbers by means of a code; and this will be done by a staff which will handle the original schedules. The papers will then be passed to operators. who will transfer the details to small cards by means of machines which will punch holes in the cards to correspond with the various numbers. There will be a card for every person mention, ed in the schedules, and another for every house. When the cards are all punched and checked, the original schedules will have finished their purpose, and will be destroyed; and from that moment the Census Office will have no identifiable record of any individual in the country. It will merely possess a mass of details relative to persons unknown, in a shape which permits of prompt classification.