Counting Heads in Fiji and

1956 Census

Counting Heads in Fiji and Samoa

FJI and Samoa were in the throes of census-taking in September—a very big task when the majority of the people are not literate in English.

The marathon task in Fiji started on September 17, and between that date and September 26, enumerators left schedules at every household in the Group. On September 27, or as soon as possible after, enumerators were to return to households, check the completed schedules, and make necessary amendments if there had been visitors, births, deaths, etc.

Ratu K. K. T. Mara, District Officer Maritime, delivered schedules over a wide area —from Kadavu to Lau. Then he had to cover his tracks again to pick-up the forms.

Tabulation of the census data will be done in Australia by the Commonwealth Bureau of Census and Statistics, with modern tabulating equipment. Thus all schedules had to be completed in English so that they could be dealt with by the Australian staff.

The Western Samoa census was taken on September 25. An army of 370 enumerators, most of them school-teachers, delivered the schedules and picked them up later.

The Commissioner for Census, Miss K. Jupp, forecast before the

census was taken that the pop* tion would exceed 100,000. t The budget of Tahiti for 1956 i been balanced at 388 million Pa* francs (more than £A2 millicD This is about half the budget; New Caledonia.