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5
PART I.
A. Population.
At the census in 1901 the resident population of the City of Westminster
was 183,011; for the year 1910 it is taken by the RegistrarGeneral
at 167,233. This is arrived at by a calculation based on
the assumption that the rate of decrease ascertained at the census
taken in 1901 as having taken place since the census taken in 1891
is still continuing; it is obvious that the risk of error may be
considerable. The Registrar-General has to estimate the population
under the Equalisation of Rates Act, and for this purpose adopts
a different method, which, so far as Westminster is concerned, yields
a different result. According to one method the population of
Westminster has declined, as stated above, by 15,778 in the ten years ;
according to the other method a decline is also shown up to 1907,
though at different rates each year, but in April, 1908, instead of
a decline there was an increase. This year the equalisation population
is 174,491, which is 7,258 above the estimate of the Registrar-General
on which he calculates his birth and death rates. Consequently if the
equalisation of rates method be the more correct, rates calculated on
the other estimate will be too high. The figure 171,790, as estimated
by me, lies between the Registrar-General's two estimates, and it is on
this that the various rates in this report are calculated. The Census
will be taken in 1911, and when the figures are available the rates for
the years which have elapsed since the previous Census can be
recalculated.
A point to be noticed is the increase (shown in column two) in
houses comprising two or more tenements; these have increased from
231 in 1902 to 421 in 1910, and the number of separate occupiers in
them from 8,926 to 11,818.