LANDS DEPARTMENT.

Dominion, Volume 7, Issue 1936, 19 December 1913, Page 7

LANDS DEPARTMENT.

UNDER-SECRETARY RETIRING.

Mr. J. Strauclion, Under-Secretary for Lands, is to retire from tho Public Service on March 31, 101-1. Ho will continue. tho administration of his Department right up to that date, instead of following. the usual custom by la,yins> down his duties threo months before tho end of the financial year. Tho new Under-,'Secrenry for Lands will bo Mr. Jas. Mackenzie, at present Surveyor-General.

Tho. _ retiring Under-Secretary for Lands is v an old servant of the Government. He was born in Berwick, Scotland, on March 29, 1848. After .coming to Now .Zealand he entered tho Provincial Engineer's Department of Otago as a lad of 14. Mr. Strauciion transferred to the Survcv Department in 1865, and became district, surveyor at Mataura in 1871., Save for a brief period spent at Nelson in 1877, lie retained this position until 1891, when lie was made Commissioner of Crown. Lands and' Chief Surveyor for. Westland. Two years later lie was promoted to a similar position in Taranaki, wliero lie remained until 1901, at the end. of which yean ho was appointed Commissioner of Crow n Lands for the' Wellington district. .Ho succeeded Mr T. Humphries as ! SurveyorGeneral in 1907, and Mr. W. C. Kensington as Undor-Sceretary for Lands in the early part of last year Mr. Jas. Mackenzio also came out of the Otago Provincial Service. Ho was born in Edinburgh in 1819, and was-edu-cated at the Otago B»V3' High School. Ho entered tho Otago .Provincial Survey District Department in 1867, and qualified as Assistant Surveyor for tho Wellington district in 1872. Ho bccame District Surveyor in 1874 Five years later he became Chief Draughtsman for the A\ T ellii\gtan.^i^r,i9j; ;t in. 1902 was promoted -.to., be,, Commissioner, 'of Crown Lands and Chief Surveyor in the Auckland district. In 1907 lie took up similar duties .at Wellington, and at'the cncl of -March-/ - -1912, ,ho succeeded Mr. -Strauchon' : as Surveyor-General. ' ;••• ';