MAJOR PALMER'S REPORT.

Daily Southern Cross, Volume XXXI, Issue 5602, 31 August 1875, Page 2 (Supplement)

MAJOR PALMER'S REPORT.

To the Editor : Sir, — As an old surveyor of twenty five years' experience, 1 must §ay I feel somewhat hurt and indignant at tho general touo of the report submitted to the Oovcrinuuiit by Major Palmer. On tlie subject of theaurxoy of confiscated lauds, the report says : "Nunoot them are good, and those in the Waik.ito are as bail as bad can be, done mostly by contract several years a.<o, plotted to all kinds of compass meridians, unchecked and unconnected." Now if Major Palmer had only studied tho matter sufficiently, and added "surveyed ■under such exceptional difficulties that nothing else could bo expected," Homo palliation might be offered for so offensive and ox iggerated a passage ; but Major Palmer is evidently too theorotical to appreciate the practical difficulties that beset the colonial surveyor. I should like to see a "cadestral" surveyor (ho is evidently very fond of that word), with a little rickety old instrument, perlmpd in a gale of wind or a snow storm, trying to run a lino straight across a bush gully, in which ho expected hostile natives wore secreted, with, may be, 1 heiim itism in -liis bouos, from lying out, and a letter in his pocket from the Chief, urging expeditition. Ho would not then perhaps attribute occasional errors and blunders to " ignorance of the commonest rudiments of sound scientific surveying." A surveyor may bo as full of science as Major Palmer himself, and still not make so good a show of work as we did in olden days, and all old colonial surveyors know how easy it iu to blunder through the possession of too much science. Of course, the " incompetent set " did oxist ; but on the part of all my qualified brethren of the thoedolito and chain, /protest against such sweeping denunciations of all that was done betora the present occupants of the chief surveyorships took office. The great bulk of the surveyors knew quite as well as Major Palmer how to make a, survey ; but the difficulty was in putting their knowledge into practice. Most of the errors and di-jircpancieu have arisen from the use of indifferent instruments wheu no otheis were to I jo obtained, from the financial exigencies of the provinces and from absolute obstruction by natives, — difficulties which Major Palmer partially acknowledges, but seems able only imperfectly to realise. I think Mr. Macandrew in his reply to tho Colonial Secretary, lias stilted in few words the opinion of cxptri«QC«d surreyors when he says that "if %h*f is jray reason to doubt the practical

accuracy of the surveys, a revision should be Undertaken by a colonial suivcvor of reputation and experience, or at least ho should be associated with the investigation. It is unnecessary to say more than that Major • Palmer's proposal to spend one hundred thousand pounds, spread over eight or ten years, on his proposed revision is out of the question, and that the result could in no way compensate for such outlay— a revision would iu many parts of New Zealand bo desirable, but not at such a cost aa proposed — and an immigration of scientific astronomers is not necessary for the requirements of the case. — I am, &C,