the colony, as it was then constituted,
took place in 1865, on a fairly comprehensive schedule. Ten years later
the inquiry was extended to religion and civil condition, and for the
census of 1891, again, a rather more elaborate schedule was used. The
next census was deferred till 1904, in consequence of the
disorganization produced by the Boer war. The inquiry was on the same
lines as its predecessors, with a little more detail as to industries
and religious denomination. Speaking generally, the administration of
the operations is conducted upon the Australian plan, with special
attention to allaying the distrust of the native and more ignorant
classes, for which purpose the influence of the clergy was enlisted. In
some tracts it was found advisable to substitute a less elaborate
schedule for that generally prescribed. In Natal, indeed, where the
first independent census was taken in 1891, the Kaffir population was
not on that occasion enumerated at all. In 1904, however, they were
counted on a very simple schedule, by sex and by large age-groups up to
40 years old, with a return of birthplace, in a form affording a fair
indication of race. Natives of India, an element of considerable extent
and importance in this colony, are enumerated apart from the white
population, but in full detail, recognizing the remarkable difference
between the European and the Oriental in the matter of age distribution
and civil condition. The Transvaal and the Orange River colonies were
enumerated in 1904. In the latter, a census had been taken in 1890, in
considerable detail, but that of the Transvaal, in 1896, seems to have
been far from complete or accurate even in regard to the white
population. In Southern Rhodesia the white residents were enumerated in
1891, but it was not until 1904 that the whole population was included
in the census. The difficulty in all these cases is that of procuring a
sufficient quantity of efficient agency, especially where a large and
illiterate native population has to be taken into account. For this
reason, amongst others, no census had been taken up to 1906 of Northern
Rhodesia, the British possessions and protectorates of eastern Africa,
or, again, of Nigeria and the protectorates attached to the West African
colonies of Gambia, Sierra Leone and Lagos.

_The West Indies._--Each of the small administrative groups here
included takes its census independently of the rest, though since 1871
all take it about