LAND TRANSFER SURVEY WORK.

Auckland Star, Volume XLIX, Issue 10, 11 January 1918, Page 7

LAND TRANSFER SURVEY WORK.

' SURVEYORS WANT IT CONTROLLED B Y DISTRICT LAND REGISTRAR. \ criticism of the administration as regards the regulations for tbe conduct o f land transfer surveys was made by Mr C. Hastings Bridge, of Christchurch, the president of the X.Z. Institute of Surveyors, in his presidential address before that body at its annual uieetji,cr in Auckland. He spoke of the n e°v survey regulations which the SurTe yor 1 -General intends to issue, saying that there were two principles to be kept jn sight. The regulations should be compete in themselves and quite separate from regulations -overing Crown or native lands or any <.' overnnient department work. A lso, that they should contain nothing but what was necessary to ensure the accuracy of those plans and surveys intended for the issue of titles under the Land Transfer Act.

Regulations for the survey of Crown lands and those under the Land Transfer Act were so mixed that it was almost impossible to say which applied to any purpose and which did not, and this gave rise to many differences between private and Government Surveyors. The proposed new regulations were evidently intended to give information that would be of use to the Lands and Survey Department, but much of this was unnecessary for the issuing of titles. It had been pointed out as far back as 1596 that the great obstacle to the general adoption of the system of Land Transfer Act was the cost and trouble to which persons seeking to bripg land under the Act were often subjected in the matter of surveys. If this was true in 1596 it was doubly true at the present time, when the requirements of the Survey liepartment in regard to surveys and plans had increased by at least 100 per cent. Many of these requirements were purely technical and of no value as far Bs the Land Transfer Act was concerned.

In the opinion of the speaker the Survey .Department should have nothing to do with the laud transfer surveys, which should be directly under the control of the District Lanil Registrar. This meant that in every land transfer office a survey branch would be under the control of a land transfer draughtsman, who should be a fully qualified surveyor with field experience and a knowledge of the legal aspect of survey work. He was sure that with such a land transfer draughtsman the Surveyor General would be able to make a new wt of regulations that would suit the public and the surveyor very much better than any that had Geen in force.

■ " The proper function of the Lands and Survey Department," he saul, "is to deal only with Crown and Native Lands. Enough has come under mv notice to show that the Government staff lavvc.vot3 have little or no knowledge of how to make land transfer surveys in which the question of title is involved. Their training has not been in that direction. There is no question that in some instances the relations between tho Survey Department and the T-and Transfer Department have been strained, and both tho public and the surveyors have suffered in eonse'fuence. Under the first Land Transfer the RegSftrar-Qeneral licensed the sirveyors under the Act, and all the ' lans were approved by the District Land Registrar, and it was not until the work of the Survey Office began to fall

'iff that there was any thought of that office taking over the land transfer surveys."

It should be noted that at the present time the land transfer draughtsmen in --\iic-fclsad are practically under the control *«1 supervision of the District Land and the arrangement is found to ivctfl. well.