H. —17A

39

APPENDIX V. Extract from Letter of Chief Surveyor of Canterbury to Surveyor-General, dated 24th July, 1877. " Surveys on Banks Peninsula." " The inaccuracies of the former sectional surveys can hardly be exaggerated. The sections overlap one another many chains. "In Wainui, opposite Akaroa, some points, by recent surveys, are found to be thirty chains out of the position shown on the present ten-chain map, and iv another case, on the eastward side of the hills behind Akaroa, one section is proved to be over fifty chains from the position shown in the survey. " The roads in many cases are not where they are shown to bo, and, in numberless cases, have not been made where they were originally laid out, but are on private property. " The arrears of survey on the Peninsula on the 80th June last, were 873 sections, containing 60,540 acres ; but the rough, mountainous nature of the country, the heavy bush cutting, and the difficulty of establishing any of the old survey lines or pegs, which in many cases have been destroyed by bush fires, will render these arrears most tedious and costly surveys to complete. "Any revision of the old surveys, and the issue of corrected titles must, from the very heavy arrears of surveys to be done in the Canterbury District, remain in abeyance for at least two years. Individual cases of very great hardship are almost daily pointed out to me of people who have not been put in possession of their land, purchased, in some cases, five or seven years ago ; but as they occur in twenty different bays or valleys, I cannot send surveyors to all of them, but I purpose having at least six surveyors stationed on the Peninsula so soon as I can obtain suitable officers. In the present state of these surveys it would be quite useless to attempt to get the work done by contract, as the loss of time and delays in establishing old boundaries would make the contractors ask a price higher than that for which the work could be done by staff officers."