246 Auckland Provincial Government Gazette.

Superintendent’s Office,
Auckland, 6th March, 1875.

SIR,—

At the request of the Honourable the Colonial Secretary, I have the honour to transmit herewith for your information a Report by the Waste Lands Commissioner (with accompanying Plans) upon the Survey System within the Province of Auckland.

I have to add that the Provincial Government will be glad to afford you any further information that can be given, to assist you in your inspection.

I have, &c.,

G. MAURICE O’RORKE,
Deputy-Superintendent.

Major Palmer, R.E.,
Northern Club, Auckland.

REPORT.

Crown Lands Office,
Auckland, 25th January, 1875.

SIR,—

I have the honour, in compliance with the instructions conveyed to me as “Waste Lands Commissioner,” in your Honour’s minute of the 7th instant, to submit to you for the perusal of Major Palmer, R.E., the following information, with accompanying plans and diagrams, relating to the conduct of Provincial Surveys in this Province. I say as Waste Lands Commissioner, because the Honourable the Colonial Secretary in his circular of December 30th, 1874, expressly directs the requirement of the information therein sought from the Chief Surveyor of the Province. At present, however, as your Honour is aware, there is no such officer; yet having recently held the appointment of Provincial Surveyor for a short period, and thus, from matters coming under my official observation, in a position to speak of the history of the Auckland Province Surveys, I may therefore, on this account, be regarded as the proper person to whom to refer the circular. But at the same time I should observe that whilst most anxious and willing to afford Major Palmer every information in my power, and whilst also, I have no doubt, the information hereinafter supplied will be found adequate to his purposes, I regret that, from the pressure of numerous other duties devolving upon me, I have been unable to deal with the subject as extensively as its importance commands.

In introducing the subject, and before proceeding to the treatment of its leading features, I may state that the surveys recently undertaken by the Provincial Government have been solely of a fragmentary character, dependent entirely in their execution upon the data furnished by former surveys. Such being the case, it appears to me advisable that I should give a brief sketch of the survey system which has obtained in this Province, and at the same time shortly allude to the successive causes which led to its introduction and adoption.

In doing so I purpose to refer to the various points in the same numerical order as indicated in the Honourable the Colonial Secretary’s circular.

No. 1.—SURVEYS.

In the early land operations of the Province the system of “free selection” appears to have found favour, and prevailed to a considerable extent. Under that system purchasers or selectors were permitted to take up small sections in any of the blocks of Crown land, then from time to time proclaimed open for sale and selection, and also (subject to the right of disapproval by the Chief Surveyor—a right which was doubtless but sparingly exercised) to appoint their own surveyors.

In these blocks—usually of large extent, distant and remote, their external boundaries often but imperfectly surveyed, their position wholly undetermined, and containing no trigonometrical or other fixed point to which minor surveys, executed within their limits, might be referred. There were allowed to be made detached and widely-scattered sectional surveys, the position of each of which in itself or in relation to each other, or to any one boundary line of the block, generally remained unascertained until by process of selection the intervals between them became gradually filled up and a connection formed. Of these surveys, consisting chiefly of rectangular figures, the length and inclination or direction of whose boundaries were, for the most part, respectively determined by chain measurements, and bearings from the magnetic meridian, a very large number appear to have been executed about this time.

This description of survey was then altered by succeeding legislation, which (added at the same time to the other ordinary methods of purchase permitted by law) initiated an immigration scheme of selection popularly known as the “40-acre system,” by which every adult immigrant arriving in the Province became, under certain conditions, entitled to 40 acres, or, in the case of a family, to a larger quantity in proportion to its number. As by a special requirement of this new land law, survey was to be insisted upon as a condition precedent to sale or selection, it was thought that there was thus presented an opportunity of introducing amendment in the method of survey hitherto pursued, of which advantage should at once be taken.

With that object in view, it became an instruction to each surveyor entrusted with settlement surveys to select conspicuous objects, or in the event of any such not being available, to erect temporary stations on the summits of hills, or other commanding places, within or adjacent to the block of land to be operated on, and to require that his survey should, from time to time as the work progressed, be tested and connected by measurements or angles with such prominent points; and upon this principle many surveys were executed.

This plan, though still falling short of desired accuracy, was nevertheless regarded as an improvement upon that previously adopted. Its continuance in practice, however, was not of long duration, the demands in the interests of settlement becoming so great and urgent that the old and somewhat perfunctory method was again had recourse to, in order to keep pace with the rapidly growing requirements of the period.

But to this another disturbing cause was added. The law requiring survey before sale, all lines of road and section surveys had to be cut and marked on the ground, entailing an expenditure of money for which, after a time, it was found impossible, with the means at disposal, to continue to make provision. Besides, it soon became apparent that from the fact of selectors taking up in some instances less, and in other cases more than the acreage surveyed in any one allotment, the divisional lines, as at first laid out had often to be abandoned, and new boundaries at a cost not unfrequently exceeding the outlay on the old ones substituted in their stead.