MAJOR PALMER’S APPOINTMENT.

Evening Star, Issue 3730, 5 February 1875, Page 3

MAJOR PALMER’S APPOINTMENT.

To the Editor. Sib,—The ‘ Guardian ’ of the 30tli ult., and the ‘ Daily Times ’ of the 4th February, in apologetic aud deprecatory tones, condemn the action of the General Government in appointing Major Palmer to investigate the surveys of the different Provinces. To all intents and purposes they say that what has been done in this department in New Zealand is good enough, but if not, excellence must be of spontaneous growth, to be appreciated or accepted, and they would discountenance the importation from England of men of known standing in the professions. This is certainly carrying the doctrine of protection to the extreme limits of its application, and would, no doubt, be highly beneficial and pleasing to the protected. If these articles had been written at the suggestion of a surveyor who wanted a choice billet and feared competition, one could understand their meaning, but, placed in the editorial of a newspaper which ought to guide the public to higher things, they seem, as the saying is, to “ go back of their mission.” ,Not only is it well known that the surveys of New Zealand are not in the condition they might be, hut the present articles fully avow the fact, and the Government has the case brought home to it by having to pay money | claims for the inaccuracies -- in one case, in the , North, amounting to about Id),COO. Now. notwithstanding the unqualified praise awarded by the ‘Guardian’ and ‘Daily Tinus 1 to intuitive native talent, it is incoutestible that in the professions of surveying and engineering in New Zealand th-av are many stray sheep, who have not enteveil in at the straight gate of profesGaining. It may be a matter of opinion whether these professions are to be commended tor their absolute want of anything like trades unionism. lake the ancient temple of Janus, the professional .inor stands continually open, and there is no portertochallengeanyone who wishes to enter. Other professions are very jealous of whom they admit, and even invoke'the civil authorities to keep out the quacks ; but in the professions m question nothing of this is done and consequently m the Colonies one finds in the ranks of engineering ami surveying men who have bad no technical training or apprenticeship. “ Intelligent chainmeu ’’"form a large portion of the corps, and besides them are found coal viewers, carpenters, masons, machinists, ship captains, and squads of raw’ uneducated youths. Any person out of employment, and who cannot prove his capacity for anything else, puts C.E. to his name or calls himself a

surveyor, and has secured a new and favorable start m life—the pay and profit they pocket, their mistakes and blunder have to be put right by men of real knowledge. Under these circumstances it must be evident that frequent sifting and purging of tbe professions is necessary, and this can only be done by employing men of known professional standing, who are best found in Europe, because there it is not so easy to steal into professions by the back door ; and in the present case the profession must have fallen into the deep ruts of error and prejudice, if, as the ‘ Guardian ’ puts it, the advice or opinion of a man of the highest professional standing is not required and will not be listened to. It would appear that the mover of the present pitiful apology for Colonial mediocrity is trying to hedge round a precarious position against the invasion of real professional acquirements ; he insists upon the Colony keeping its “ ain fish guts for its ain sea maws.” He would recommend a Wise caution before letting the foreign mollemawks descend on the garbage; and if the fear of exposure is the beginning of professional wisdom, then no doubt it is not politic or wise to pass over the gentlemen who “have given the best part of their lives” to bringing the surveys of the Colony into such a state that “ every chief surveyor,” several Re-gistrars-General, and even the conference of surveyors themselves had declared them to be “very bad and not to be endured.” How often shall our surveyors and engineers offend against professional requirements and the Colony forgive them —until seven times ? Shall they go on until seventy times seven times, or shall a man of real professional attainments put matters right ? No doubt it is discpuraging to Colonial talent, of whose reputation and competence our apologist has no doubt that untried strangers should be preferred to it, but its reputation and competence is the very matter in question, and if there had been no doubt of it in other minds than their own, the present rumored appointment would never have been thought about. The surveyors of New Zealand may be the best in the world, and their works the most perfect, but if so, a searching investigation into their hands can only remit in polishing up 1 the dazzling mirror of their praise.—I am, kc., _ Agkimensor. Dunedin, February 4.