AUSTRALASIAN CONFERENCES.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXIII, Issue 5, 7 January 1902, Page 5

AUSTRALASIAN CONFERENCES.

NEW

-ALAND

DELEGATES

(Special to the "Star.")

INVERCAKGILL, Monday.

Among the passengers by the s.s. Talune, which left the Bluff for Hobart to-day, was the Hon. G. F. Richardson and Mr Yon Dadelszen. The former will represent the colony at a conference of the Surveyors Examination Board for Australasia, which meets at Melbourne on the 17th inst., and also (in place of Sir James Hector, who was unable to get away) at the Australasian Association of Science. This latter cpnference meets every two years, this year in Melbourne, and the next conference will be held in Dunedin.

Mr Yon Dadelssen represents New Zealand at a conference of statisticians, one of the - principal duties of which is to see that the statistical books of each of the federal states and of New Zealand are drawn up on similar lines so as to facilitate comparison for commercial and other purposes. The statistical books of Australian States and of New Zealand have hitherto been kept in different ways, and it has been found difficult to institute reliable comparisons.

Among the matters which the Hon. Richardson will lay before the Australasian Conference of Surveyors is Lord Milner's reply to an application of the Government here to permit surveyors licenses granted in New Zealand to operate in the Orange River and Transvaal polonies. This is part of a scheme to make the licenses granted to surveyors in Australia and New Zealand good wherever the British flag flies. Lord Milner's reply is as follows: —"The Imperial Government will take into consideration the advisability of extending the principle of admission granted to Cape surveyors to only qualified survej'ors from New Zealand and other parts of His Majesty's dominion, upon the same terms."

The New Zealand Government approached the Canadian Government on the same subject. In reply Mr Deville, Surveyor-General of the Dominion, writes explaining the difficulties and differences that exist within their own States, but adds that if any means can be devised by which the scheme can be worked it will have his hearty sympathy. Personally, he says he does not see any difficulties in the way that cannot be overcome. The Hon. Richardson informed me that the annual meeting of the New Zealand Institute of Surveyors will be held at Auckland on the 27th of the current month. He is president of that body, and will lay before the meeting in Auckland the results of the Australian Conference. He attaches much importance to the scheme of extending New Zealand licenses to South Africa, where it is expected there will be a very great deal of work for surveyors in the near future.