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25
Statistical Tables.
The Tables appended to this Report are those now required by
the Local Government Board, and differ from those employed in
previous years. It will be noticed that the population of the
district as enumerated at the census of 1901, is less than the
population as estimated for 1899 and 1900. The calculated birth
and death rates, therefore, for the last few years have been, so far
as they depend on the estimated population, too low.
That the birth rate for 1901 happens to be exactly the
same as the average of the birth rates as calculated for a series
of years, during which the population was over-estimated, tends
to prove that the real birth rate is lower than in past years.
The cause for the lower birth rate in this district, is
probably the same as elsewhere:—a well-understood matter of
national importance, the effects of which can only be counteracted
by efforts to diminish infantile mortality.
From Table I. Cols. 5 and 6, it will be gathered that the
heavy mortality amongst children of less than one year does not
in this district appreciably decrease, and it is in this fact, coupled
with the slightly lowered birth rate, that we must seek some
explanation of the disappointing census return, one meaning of
which is that the natural increase of the population, as opposed
to increase by immigration, is less than formerly.
1 n calculating the death rates for 1901, it has been necessary,
from the arrangement of the new Tables, to take account of all