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Evening Star, Issue 3848, 24 June 1875, Page 2

Mji Thomson, late head of the Survey Department in Otago, has just published a pamphlet, in which he brings before the public the advantages which he conceives to have been derived from the surrey system adopted in Otago. It is not to be expected that a publication of this sort should be of very great interest to the general public, but there are, nevertheless, many things in it which require to be known. It is a matter of the greatest importance that we should not be burdened too soon with mere fancy governmental departments. We are not in the same position as countries like England, which can either afford to spend a few hundreds of thousands of pounds on purely scientific objects, or which, if they did not thus spend their money, would probably find a worse use for it. We have railroads to make, country to open up and settle, industiifa to develep, and cannot yet afford to go in for major triangulation a?'* expensive luxuries of that kind. Mr Thomson shows very clearly, we thinki that the survey system adopted in Otago has hitherto been found quite adequate to the needs of the people of the Province, and that no other system could have answered the purpose so well. Professor Gillespie, of l Union College, U.S., says that the survey of lands for the purposes of settlers, having to be earned on on a largo scale, must be precise, rapid, and cheap. That onr system has been sufficiently precise for all practical purposes seems to be clearly proved in this pamphlet, but we have, besides, the valuable testimony of Major Palmer to the game effect—valuable for this reason amongst others Nearly every professional man who comes here seems to hold Colonial people and their efforts exceedingly cheap Such men, perhaps naturally, think that wo are m a sort of outer darkness, and that what is done here can in no way be equal to what is done at Home. A short time suffices to dispel this illusion ; but while it lasts it certainly doss cause those who are subject to its influence to under-rate Colonial effort, of whatever kind it may be. It is very plain that Major Palmer has not been altogether free from this sort ef feeline. His f r <f B . h u° W “ that he , ha “ a Btron g suspicion that if the survey of the Colony had been done under the Home system, it would have been far better than it is ; and undoubtedly in one sense, he is right. But it is very plain that a system which would take years oven to bring it into good working order is not the system for New Zealand. It appears from Mr Thomson’s account that the weential portions of the survey of the Province were completed in a considerably less time than three years. If the British system were adopted, this number would have to be multiplied by ten j and it is very doubtful if, even at the expiration of thirty years, a new survey on Home principles would be as complete as the one which has been adopted here. W jth regard to Professor Gjllbspis’s third requisite ef a Colonial system of survey there can be little doubt that a cost of less than a shilling an acre should satisfy the most exigent, and it appears that the Otano system has cost no more. On the whole we cannot help thinking that we ought to n s.ta © before adopting an expensive system ox survey, which could not serve onr purpose better than our present one, and which might, on trial, be found to answer a great deal Morse. ®