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REVIEW
Pun and Mong Kok. To take a census it is necessary to first know roughly how many people there are in each section of the town or country so that the right number of enumerators may be assigned to the job. There was once a time in Hong Kong when this could be done by counting the huts and the cubicles and multiplying by five; but by 1959, when the temporary Census Department was established to start planning for 'the big count', it was already known that many huts and cubicles housed more than one family, and that in some places families were living on the shift system, in and out like Box and Cox . . . . and when the time came the enumerators often found not two but three shifts, three families to whom the same cubicle or bedspace was home for eight hours in every twenty four, turn and turn about.
Fears were expressed about the refugees. Would they take fright, lest the census should be a device to winkle them out and send them away, and would they as a result try to dodge the enumera- tors? In the last census but one, in 1921, because of a stupid rumour, thousands of children were deliberately hidden: would some ancient superstition be revived to defeat this census also?
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A census requires the full, willing and well-informed co-operation of the public. In any community, particularly one unaccustomed to census taking, publicity is essential. Every member of the public must have been persuaded by census day that the census is of value to him.
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This applies to all censuses and all territories, but the techniques required to meet them are bound to vary with the exact circum- stances of each territory. How far could Hong Kong afford to rely on the methods used up to 1931 and how far should she adopt or adapt newer techniques worked out since 1931 in other territories?
In the thirty years since the last census was taken in Hong Kong, the international technique of census taking has advanced and there is no lack of expert advice on every aspect of a census except those peculiar to a particular place. The United Nations and its special organs are now available to see that no territory is starved of documentary assistance.