OFFICIAL MAPS AND OFFICIAL BLUNDERING.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume II, Issue 132, 20 July 1881, Page 4

OFFICIAL MAPS AND OFFICIAL BLUNDERING.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE STAR.

Sib,: — My attention has been called to a .letter which appeared in your issue of last week, and which was signed " Spectator." The writer must have "been consumed by a burning desire to rush into print, if he could find no other way of bringing himself into public notice than by thus exposing himself in attacking a subject of which he knew little and that little wrongly. The real object of his effusion is the removal of the Survey Offices from" New Plymouth to Hawera, an exceedingly likely project; but his alleged reason is the assumed ignorance of the Chief Surveyor of this Province as to the localities in his district; all this based upon the fact that some of the names of places in a small " locality map," printed in a corner of the late lithographed sale plans were not quite correct. Although not connected with the Chief Surveyor or his department, I have perfect knowledge of the particulars in this case, and I affirm that the small " locality .maps " were affixed in Wellington, after the working plans of the sections had left Taranaki; and to prove my assertion, I will refer your readers to any of the "Counties Maps," or " Land Tenure Maps, 1879." It will then be seen that these locality maps are mere reprints of the older ones, faithful in every way to those issued in Wellington, and alien to Taranaki. It is true that the General Survey Department are to blame, if there is any," even the very slightest, in these small locality maps (at which not one purchaser in a hundred ever looks) ; But to make this a cause of attack on the Taranaki Chief Surveyor, knowing that by his position as a Government officer, he must refrain from answering a^ain through the Press, is as wanton and cowardly as it is frivolous and useless. We all laugh at Don Quixote attacking the windmill, when he thought it was a giant ; ,but the chivalrous old Don did really 'think it was a giant, who could hit back hard ; he did not ride a tilt at a giant who, like the Chief Surveyor, has his hands tied by his position. As to the ignorance of the Chief Surveyor being proved by the error in ithatsmall locality map — if " Spectator " had expended half as much time and brains in learning a few facts as the Chief Surveyor has done in learning his district properly, then " Spectator's " estimate of himself would be imuch nearer the estimate formed of !him by his friends and neighbors. — (I am, <fee,

July 14.

Taniwha.