Harya
560
(2)
GOVERNMENT ORDER FOR THE SURVEYOR GENERAL.
Referred to Mr. Moorsom who will observe that the Government Gardens and the Planting of trees now placed under the sole control of Mr. FORD, who will for the future render all accounts of Department.
By Command,
J. GARDINER AUSTIN,
Colonial Secretary.
10th January, 1872.
Noted and returned,
L. H. MOORSOM,
Surveyor General.
10th January, 1872.
THE SURVEYOR GENERAL TO THE COLONIAL SECRETARY.
SURVEYOR GENERAL'S OFFICE, 21st November, 1876.
SIR,-In reference to Mr. FORD's letter recommending Mr. W. H. POATE as his locum-tenens, I beg to point out that Mr. FORD's departure for sixteen months presents a suitable opportunity to again bring the Gardens and Plantations of the Colony under the general supervision of the Public Works Department in the same manner that they always were for fifteen years previous to the difference which arose between His Excellency Governor MACDONNELL and Mr. MOORSOM.
2. To this difference is due the imperium in imperio which gave the Government Gardener a subordinate Officer, the authority to act independently of the Surveyor General, the head of his department, and even to call that head to account for his actions, an authority which has not failed to be freely availed of.
3. Though I have respectfully bowed to the decision of Government in this arrangement with regard to Mr. FORD personally, I deem it only fair to myself to request that I should be relieved from the same painfully false position with regard to any person that may be appointed to succeed him and I have therefore the honour to prefer the request contained in paragraph 1 of this letter.
4. As the affairs of the Gardens have been administered for the last three years in a manner that were not contemplated in the regulations issued for their government and as these regulations have become, from circumstances that could not be helped, a dead letter, I would respectfully point out that there is the greater necessity to revert to the former system which worked successfully for fifteen years, and by which the Government Gardener as a member of the Public Works Department Staff carried out his practical duties all over the Colony under the general supervision and advice of the Surveyor General the natural head of the office.
5. The Committee appointed by His Excellency the Governor to look after Gardens and Plantations has only met three or four times a year principally to discuss Flower Show details and has taken absolutely no part whatsoever in the administration of the Gardens nor was it intended by the spirit of the regulations that these gentlemen should form anything but a Committee of Taste--hence they have never concerned themselves in Garden official matters.
These matters have been left exclusively in Mr. FORD's hands. At first I attempted to take some interest in the Government Gardens and in Plantations generally but having been reminded in writing by Mr. FORD of that clause of the regulations which relegates to him the management of all matters arboricultural I was fain to bow to its decision, and if at any time subsequently I have concerned myself about trees it has been purely as a private individual. Having reluctantly relinquished the initiative in Garden matters as the only escape from the equivocal position in which I found myself placed towards a subordinate officer. Mr. FORD after my withdrawal assumed the style of Superintendent of the Government Gardens Department and as you are aware has retained this title calling his office a department in all official communications with Government.
6. I trust I may not be here misunderstood to prefer charges of any sort or description against Mr. FORD for whose abilities as a gardener I have much respect. My object in addressing you on the subject is entirely directed against the system which has brought about this state of things. That system after proceeding to the extreme measure of dismembering the department over which I have the honour to preside and destroying its integrity, has failed to meet with the success which was anticipated. It can never work harmoniously because it establishes the subordinate in authority over his