Birth-rate.

The children born alive and registered in 1884 amounted to 19,846, or at the rate of 35 91 per 1,000 of the population. This is page 72 the lowest rate for the whole colony yet recorded. The average birth-rate in England for the ten years 1868—77 was 357 per 1,000, and in 1882 it was 33.7 per 1,000. As in the English population the females are more numerous than the males, while in New Zealand the males are largely in excess of the females; to compare the birth-rate in the colony with the birth-rate in England the rate should rather be estimated on a total population of which the males do not exceed the females. Deducting from the population the surplus males, the birth-rate in New Zealand would have been at the rate of 38-5 per 1,000 of equal males and females.