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Session 11. 1918. NEW ZEALAND.

DEPARTMENT OF LANDS AND SURVEY: SURVEYS (ANNUAL REPORT ON).

Presented to both Houses of the. General Assembly by Command of His Excellency.

The Survetob-Ghnbbal to the Hon. Minister of Lands. Sir,— Wellington, Ist June, 1918. 1 have the honour to present herewith the report on survey operations for the year ended 31st March, 1918. I have, &c., E. H. Wit-mot, Surveyor-General. The Hon. D. 11. Guthrie, Minister of Lands.

EEPORT. Following the lines adopted for the last two years, this report will deal with survey operations for the year in a general way only, leaving details to be found in the tables attached, and in the reports supplied by the Chief Surveyors and filed as departmental records. This year, under the heading " Rural Surveys," in Table B, an acreage of only 343,525 acres is shown as completed work, against 079,093 acres for last year. The decrease is chiefly in Auckland and Otago Districts, and is accounted for mainly by the surveyors having- at the end of the year an unusually large acreage on hand of work only partially completed. Various causes have contributed to this. In Auckland surveyors have had to be taken off their blocks to attend to the urgent wants of soldiers' settlements; other surveyors have been employed on inspection work and in clearing up old unsatisfactory work. The returned acreage, moreover, includes a large number of isolated surveys, for want of which titles have been blocked for years past. These were urgently wanted, but the areas were small and the work correspondingly expensive. The two other factors mentioned in last year's report—viz., the depletion of the field staff by enlistments, and the difficulty in getting good field hands —have also operated,

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