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1918
4
Ration Cards sent to the Ministry of Food last July. The
figures on the returns were incomplete as the returns were sent
out soon after the issue of the ration books and did not include
the ration books issued to those who had omitted in the first
instance to fill in their addresses, &c. I pointed out this
discrepancy to the Registrar General, and though it is obvious
that an under estimate had been made, it was too late to
remedy it in time for the Registrar General's report. It is
evident that if the same procedure has been adopted throughout
the kingdom a considerable error has occurred in the
estimates of the population.
In order to ascertain to what extent the population has
been underestimated by the Registrar General I examined the
ration book applications corrected for October. The figures
would possibly be slightly different to those of July as corrections
were made for removals into and out of the district and
also the corrections made for births and deaths. These
corrections would not be sufficient though to alter the figures
of July very appreciably. There were no houses tr» let in July
or October and the births did not greatly exceed the deaths.
I have received the permission of the Ministry of Food to use
these figures. The number of ration books in use in the
district last October was 58,957. In addition, there are two
public institutions in the district, for the staffs of which no
ration books were issued.
I estimate the civil population at 59,000, and the total
population at 60,000.
The civil population was divided as follows :—
Under 1-2 2-5 5-10 10-15 Over 15 years.
1 year . years . years. years. years. Males. Females.
872 1,031 3,487 6,057 6,050 14,881 26,579
Possibly, the figures for males and females over 15 years
of age may appear abnormal, having in view the fact that the
number on military service was about 7,000, but they are quite
consistent with the Census figures. The figures at the Census
were:—
Over 15 years
.Under 5 years. 5-10 years. 10-15 years. Males. Female.
6,423 5,722 5,008 17,747 22,197