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2
Statistical Department of the Local Government Board during
the preparation of the annual estimates, the most careful consideration
is given to every incident which may be regarded as
having a bearing on the fluctuation in the growth of population.
Yet, in spite of all precautions, the estimated returns made for
1890 and the several years preceding it have been largely in
excess of the actual population. And the rates of birth, sickness,
and mortality based on those figures must be accepted as subject
to revision.
Official estimates of population are founded on the assumption
that the grow th which has taken place since the latest census year
maintains the same ratio as that ruling in the intcrcensal period
immediately preceding it. Growth is determine 1 by two factors.
The one makes for expansion the other for contraction. The
balance on England's birth and death account, usually called the
natural increment, is uniformly in favour of the former; that on
immigration and emigration of the latter. The contraction in the
ratios of growth observed during the last ten years results from a
shrinkage in the natural increment and from an unusual excess
in emigration over immigration. Under these two headings the
population in 1890 has been overestimated in a degree represented
by the figures 703.350.
In the estimates of the population of the Parish of Lambeth the
same error has crept into the calculations. It was reasoned that
the standard of growth obtaining in the last decennium would
have been applicable to this. Sufficient margin was not allowed
for the larger balance in favour of emigration. Too much reliance
was placed on conclusions drawn from a consideration of the
increase in the number of inhabited houses indicated on the pages
of the rate books. The estimate of the population of Lambeth, as
that of London, has been exaggerated.
That the growth has not been so rapid as might have been
anticipated by a contemplation of the progress of former years is
evident on a comparison of the returns of the latest with former