View report page

13
The Registrar-General's estimate of the population to Midsummer,
1910, exceeds my own by nearly 13,000. It is not improbable that in
the trite phrase truth lies between the two estimates which, by different
methods, are based upon data which perforce are assumed to remain
constant, though known to fluctuate. So great an error in a datum of
such primal statistical importance as the estimated population is a
reproach, not to the methods employed, but to the prolonged period
during which it is nccessary to assume constants as a substitute for
facts more frequently verified.
That a census of the population should be taken only decennially
at a time when the most active changes in the distribution of population
are features of a great social transformation shows the national indifference
to accurate and scientific methods in investigating the
problems of highest importance to the public welfare.
It is highly probable that the census of 1911 will reveal wide
discrepancies between the estimated and the ascertained data which
form the basis of hygienic and social science, and it is to be hoped that
the recognition of this fact will lead to the adoption of a quinquennial
census.