NATIVE LANDS SURVEYS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLV, Issue 13870, 2 October 1908, Page 6

NATIVE LANDS SURVEYS.

GOVERNMENT METHODS EXPOSED. A correspondent writes: — Re your subleader in this morning's Herald on the subject of native surveys and alleged scarcity of surveyors, ■ there is no such scarcity of surveyors; on the contrary, there are any number of surveyors of energy and ability in the Auckland province, who would survey all the native 'ands in the district. , The real reason is the obstacles the Government have put in the way of baring the work. done. This work, of course, lies quite outside the duty of staff , surveyors, whose time is devoted to Crown; lands surveys, but private surveyors who wish to undertake native surveys must get an application signed by the owners, and then wait/for-the Surveyor-General's authority, which, owing to no fault of the local survey office, but purely to Departmental delays in the Native Office in Wellington, is sometimes three, six, or 12 months;behind time. Then there is no security of payment for surveys, except to get a lien on the land, which might take a year to do, and the Native Land Court might cut off a bit of land and award.it to the surveyor in payment, whether he wanted it or not. Then the rates of pay for native surveys are fixed by the Sur-veyor-General's regulations at exactly what they were 30 years ago, although the cost of living and labour has more than doubled since then, .and the Survey Department, who check the plans and field work, now demand an accuracy and care unheard of at the time those rates were fixed. Is it any wonder that surveyors, who have plenty of work in other directions, turn their backs on native surveys, and so allow all those vast areas to remain untouched by the surveyor, who must in all cases be the pioneer of settlement. " Much more might be said, and has been said, by the local branch of the New Zealand Institute of Surveyors, but the above short summary is sufficient to show the real cause of delay. The ' Government ought to pay cash for such work, and protect themselves by mortgage, and they should pay the increased rates adopted by the Surveyors' Institute throughout- ail Now Zealand."