D—Xo. 9

Registrar-General's Office, Auckland, June 19th, 1862. Sir,— I have the honour to present herewith a series of Tables, containing certain principal results of the Census of New Zealand, taken on the 16th of December last. They have been prepared with the greatest practicable dispatch after the receipt of the necessary information, and comprise those branches of the Census Statistics on which there is the most general desire that the results should be officially made known without the delay which must necessarily attend a sufficiently careful compilation of other portions (such as those relating to Education, Religious Denominations, Occupations, Places of Birth, &c.,) throughout the Colony; all of which, as well as fuller details of information herewith presented in a condensed form, will be included in the Volume of Statistics for 1861 now in course of preparation. The late Census was taken under arrangements designed to collect the required information not only for the Colony as a whole and for the several Provinces, but also for each of the Electoral Districts established and defined by " The Representation Act, 1860," of the General Assembly. The following Tables have been constructed in pursuance of this plan. Thus, Table I. shows the Population of the Colony according to the division into Provinces, distinguishing the Sexes and the Ages as given in the Census Schedules; together with the Numbers and Descriptions of the Houses, and (in Notes) the Condition (Conjugal) of the People, the Population of the Chief Cities or Towns of the Provinces, and the Number-s of Half-Castes in each Province. Table 11. contains similar information respecting the Houses and the Numbers of the People in each of the Electoral Districts, but in this Tablo a different classification of Ages has been adopted,—viz., under twenty-one years, ?ind twenty-one and upwards. Tables 111. and V. respectively show the Live Stock in the possession of Europeans in each of the Provinces, and in each of the Electoral Districts. An enumeration of " Poultry," now for the first time introduced, has been added after the mode adopted in the Censuses of the Australian Colonies. Tables IV. and VI. relate to Cultivation and Crops, showing respectively for each Province and each Electoral District the Quantity of Land Fenced and the Number of Acres under each of the Principal Crops. The correctness of the figures given in these several Tables may, I am satisfied, be safely relied on for all practical purposes. It is right, however, to observe that fuller information on certain points is still expected from some of the Districts, and that the whole has to undergo a final revision on a comparison of the Returns of the different branches of the Census information with each other, the result of which will probably be that all the figures which will appear in the Statistical Volume will not precisely agree with all those now presented. But such corrections as may be thus required,—though not unimportant with reference to the object of exact statistical accuracy—are not likely to involve any alteration affecting any political, financial, or social question which may be influenced by the results of the Census. Stewart's Island and the Chatham Islands are not included, the Census Returns not Baying been yet received at this office. The Aggregate European Population of these Islands, however, would probably little, if at all, exceed 100 souls. With a view of showing, in a convenient form, statistical evidence of the rapid progress of the Colony, Comparative Tables are added (Tables VII., VIII.,) showing the Numerical and Centesimal Increase of the Population in the three years since the last Census was taken, and also in the ten years since the General Census in 1851. The Numbers for 1851 are from Abstracts of the Census published in the Government Gazette of May 31st, 1853. Some qualification with regard to the comparison of the results of that Census with those more recently taken may perhaps be deemed necessary from the circumstance that it (the Census of 1851) applied to the "Settlements" of New Zealand, while in 1858 and 1861 the more recent divisions into "Provinces" have been adopted. But although the geographical boundaries of the latter extend beyond the less defined limits of the former, yet, in a comparison restricted to the European Population, the difference is not so great as materially to affect the general value of the comparison.

CENSUS OF NEW ZEALAND-1861.