THE SURVEYS REPORT.

Evening Star, Issue 7412, 6 January 1888, Page 1

THE SURVEYS REPORT.

If all the departments of the Government Service were as efficiently and economically managed as those under the especial charge of Mr James M'Kerbow, there would be good cause for congratulation, and the way of the retrenchment reformer would be comparatively easy. The amount of work which, as Surveyor-General, he contrives to get done for the money at his disposal, is indeed surprising; and the result must evidently be due to a well-devised system, skilfully worked out in all its branches. The annual report on the surveys is always interesting, containing as it does information which enables a judgment to be formed as to the real progress and the prospect of settlement. Bead with the Crown Lands Report, it is absolutely exhaustive in respect to what has been done and is being done in the occupation and the preparing for occupation of the country. The total expenditure on the field.and office work for the twelve months ended June 30 last was £94,404 16s lOd, of which a sum of £25,29S 16s 9d was refunded for services rendered to other departments of the Government, and for fees recovered for mining and other surveys, leaving £69,1C6 chargeable to Crown lands surveys. This is less by £9,505 than the expenditure of the year ended June 30, 1886, and less by £35,175 on the average of the previous nine years. This decrease, it is explained, is due mainly to the fact that the triangulation and other standard works are now so well advanced that operations in these classes of survey have been much curtailed. In the actual settlement surveys, however, there has been no curtailment; since both the areas and numbers of sections surveyed are considerably in excess of the two preceding years. There are still, it appears, a considerable number of old land claims imperfectly surveyed, which require revision before the Crown granta can be issued, and there are road rights to be exercised before the right lapses. But, notwithstanding these arrears, Mr M'Kerr.ow is able to state that in future the main

strength of the survey staff can be devoted to settlement surveys. This class of survey comprises the selection and occupation of the district road lines, and the marking-off on the ground of the farms or sections for settlement. The areas of land so treated during the period covered by the report aggregate to a total of 343,590 acres, subdivided into 3,704 sections, at an average cost of 2s Id an acre. This, it may be noted, is 3d an acre higher than in the previous year, the extra cost being mainly due to the average size of sections being less than ever before, on account of the number under fifty acres each laid off for village settlement?. The Surveyor-General remarks that as the settlement surveys are almost entirely in bush and hilly districts, the tendency will necessarily be towards a greater cost per acre, for many of the road-lines have to be graded; and in bush sections where back corner pegs are now put in " on a less careful "and complete system, the surveys might be " executed at a less initial cost, but the few " pence per acre saved would be a sorry " compensation for badly selected road- " lines and vaguely marked boundaries." A very important branch of the work of the Department is the laying off and the constructing of roads to open up Crown lands, and it is suJHciently evident that unless provision be continued for opening pioneer roads into the bush very little increase of settlement can take place. During the year, the report states, a great deal of road work has been done, with a corresponding impetus to settlement, for so soon as the timber on the road-line is felled and cleared, and the merest track formed, the settlers follow up and occupy the land. Mr M'Kkhkow asserts that notwithstanding the depression in prices of stock and crops during the past few years, there has been a very great extension of settlement in the districts opened out and surveyed. " Hun"dreds of farm homesteads, with villages

"and townships interspersed, now enliven " the landscape, where but a year or two "ago solitude reigned supreme." All tho roads are carefully selected before any works on theai are undertaken, and are cither surveyed and graded throughout as a first step, or, as is often done, lined out on the topographical maps, aud the work of locating and grading on the ground is done simultaneously with the settlement survey. In this way a complete network of roads for the future use and occupation of the country is provided, which takes cognisance of the best bridge sites, the lowest saddles c a tlie ridges and watersheds, the best ground for sidings ; in short, endeavors are made to take advantage of the most of the natural conditions favorable to good, easy road-lines. During the year ended June 30th, 171£ miles of road were graded ready for construction ; 68 i miles felled and cleared for formation; S9| miles of bridle-road made; 9£ miles widened into cart-roads, and IGO| miles of cart-road constructed or improved; the total cost having been £64,964 5s 3d—money, beyond question, exceedingly well laid out. The amount expended in the Land Districts of Ofcago and Southland, it may be mentioned, was £12,253 13s 4d; and 218,200 acres of Crown lands are considered to havo been thus developed.

In an interesting report, with maps in the appendix, Mr Mueller gives the result of his exploration during the months of January and February, 1887, of the Clarke and Landsborough, the two principal branches of the Haast River, West Coast, Middle Island. From the mountainous nature of the country no expectation was, it appears, entertained of discovering any great extent of land suitable for settlement along the courses of these rivers. It was, however, thought well to have certainty in the matter, and Mr Mueller's reconnaissance survey has set it at rest. There are, taking all the patches of flat open valley, several thousand acres of grass land, which may after a time be utilised as a cattle run, although the experience gained in the occupation of similar alpine valleys, Mr M'Kerbow affirms, has not been encouraging. " There is more here," he says, "to attract the adventurous "traveller in quest of the grand and "sublime in nature thaa the settler in " quest of a home; for it is the region of "glaciers and snowfiolds, of avalanches, of

" precipices, of waste and disintegration, cf "mountain masses on a a scale whick "appals with its magnitude." The principal triangulatious executed during the year were of the interior of the North Island, on the border of the Auckland and Wellington provincial districts. In the Middle Island about 200 square miles of triangulation and topography were completed on the high back run country of the Anuuri and the scattered surveys in the districts along the coast-line from Wangamoa to the French Pass were connected by a Ray trace triangulation. In WestJand the triangulation which, for several years past, has been gradually extending southwards from Hokitika is now completed, the whole of the intervening coast districts to Martin's Bay being now trigonometrically and topographically surveyed. "This is a great work," the Surveyor-General states, "ex- *' cellcntly performed, directed throughoutby " Mr Mueller, and executed under great " hardships and privation " by members of his staff.