Annual report on North Borneo / Colonial Office.

  • Great Britain. Colonial Office.
Date:
[1952]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Annual report on North Borneo / Colonial Office. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    98/202 (page 74)
    been registered under an Ordinance of 1884 which provided for approximately 24 Registrars and Deputies only over an area of 29,184 square miles with very poor communications. Reports made at first hand from towns and villages near to a Registrar were fairly accurate, but from the remoter districts reports were brought by a Native Chief or Headman when visiting District Headquarters, which might be at infrequent intervals so that accuracy was extremely doubtful and could not be properly checked. The new Ordinance provides for the appointment of Native Chiefs, school-masters and other suitably literate persons as Assistant Registrars in a ratio of one such officer to approxi¬ mately 2,000 of the population. Forms are distributed to village headmen, who are instructed to take a form to the nearest Assistant Registrar promptly when a birth or death occurs. The new Ordinance has proved in operation to be a considerable improvement on the old. However, the difficulties of remote, scattered villages, poor communications, ignorance and illiteracy cannot be overcome in a day. Causes of death are still unavoid¬ ably entered, in the majority of up-country cases, by unqualified persons. In urban areas registration returns are more accurate on account of the greater proportion of educated persons to be found there. The relative ease of registration and the preponder¬ ance of Chinese who now have a keen appreciation of the legal value of birth and death certificates are also contributory factors. It is again necessary to emphasise that figures should be treated with reserve, the following being of sufficient accuracy, however, to indicate trends: — Year 1947 1948 1949 1950 1951 1952 Births Registered 6,630 6,716 8,037 9,064 10,453 11,486 Deaths Registered 5,136 4,552 4,298 4,320 4,503 4,530 Excess over of Births Deaths ... 1,494 2,164 3,739 4,744 5,950 6,956 The main causes of deaths recorded were fever (unclassified), malaria, pneumonia, tuberculosis and diarrheal disease. The full report of the Census held in the Colony in 1951 will be published in 1953. In the meantime it can be said that some significant facts have been disclosed concerning the fertility and